160 - Divine Mastering Dragon System

Chapter 150: Ruthless (Part Eight) Though Yu Zi Ming was not born with the best spiritual roots, her innate intelligence allowed her to master the secret arts of ghost cultivation in just over a century, absorbing all her master's skills. After being expelled from her sect, she turned to studying bizarre and unconventional techniques even among ghost cultivators, a pursuit she has followed for hundreds of years now. The core philosophy of ghost cultivation is to transcend tribulations—at the path’s end, ghosts' evil thoughts and obsessions disperse, and they rise to immortality, freed from karma. However, not all cultivators pursue this path earnestly. Yu Zi Ming is exceptionally clever, outwardly kind but devoid of compassion. She is ruthless with her ghost servants, demanding maximum efficiency. Ghosts she captures are either turned into medicine, crafted into magic tools, or consumed by her insatiable ghost fetus. Yet, with just a single ghost warrior at her command, she managed to defeat Xiang Shi Yan and Yu Qi, forcing them into a steady retreat. To avoid attracting Xiang Shi Yan's attention, Yu Zi Ming merged captured ghosts with her own body, enduring excruciating pain to set up this ambush. To ensure a decisive victory, she ground down the already fragile essence of these spirits, fusing them into an inseparable mist that she could control. Having such a handy "magic tool" was ideal for her, and there’s no other place in Shenzhou where one could find millennia-old spirits so powerful and obedient. Whether these ghosts could ever reincarnate was not her concern. It's poignant to consider: those cultivators, turning into resentful spirits due to violent deaths, were eroded underground for thousands of years, only to be freed briefly before falling into her ghost-cultivating hands. A swirling mass of ghostly mist enveloped Xiang Shi Yan, as if plunging her head into water. Eerie whispers surrounded her, drilling into her mind with relentless accusations. Previously caught off guard, she had been dragged into Xuan Jiu’s mind realm, unable to control her physical body—a first encounter with her own subconscious. Many times in her seclusion, Xiang Shi Yan had tried, unsuccessfully, to expel the specter of a black dragon from her mind, feeling them inseparably entwined. This experience, however, had honed her mental fortitude and skills in mental battles. Even if these spirits retained some personality and consciousness upon becoming ghosts, thousands of years of imprisonment had worn them down. With her spirit shielding her mind, the whispers became clearer, revealing that most utterances were nonsensical, with only occasional clear phrases. She felt her mind being squeezed by an unseen hand, initially able to resist but soon reduced to protecting her consciousness while silently enduring the dull pain, buying time for rescue. It was unclear how long this lasted, but as the pounding morphed into a sharp sting, Xiang Shi Yan's consciousness was suddenly pulled downward. She felt herself plummeting for what seemed an eternity, time flowing like the shadows of trees. Suddenly, she opened her eyes to find herself standing on a sand dune. The breeze gently lifted the sand at her feet, creating a veil of pale yellow gauze in the air. Looking back towards her origins, there once were lush trees where she matured. However, spiritual depletion had wrought a profound upheaval, erasing everything she once knew from the land, leaving only desolation. A major sect had drained the land’s spiritual veins into a separate space, attempting to isolate itself from the world and avoid catastrophe, but this only entangled them in skirmishes. To this day, there was no news of success by any faction. For mortal cultivators, this heavenly change was an unforeseen disaster, rooted in the greed of the mystical beasts. These powerful beasts rivaled even ascended immortals but found spiritual energy scarce for heavenly ascent, so they seized it recklessly, plunging the cultivation world into endless suffering. Suddenly, she appeared on a battlefield soaked in blood, where the yellow sand was stained red. Hard-earned golden bodies and jade bones of fellow cultivators lay discarded on a desolate field of death. In the distance, a colossal beast roared skyward, its formidable form towering over anything she had ever seen—a visage of majesty, with a gray-white, rugged body akin to rocky outcroppings or jagged wood. Fine sand swirled upwards, veiling the sky, as strands of sunlight fell upon it, glinting with a sacred, solemn luminescence. The White Dragon, draped in strange-scaled armor, boasted verdant whiskers and a tail, where dorsal fins mingled with hair, the wind making them appear wreathed in an eerie green fire. It slaughtered the desperate humans rushing towards it as if mowing grass. In this race, most were as fragile as insects to the dragon, yet bothersome nonetheless. Only a few posed any real challenge. As the elite of mankind fought the White Dragon, the aftermath of their magic carved out swaths of land, each casual strike surpassing those of later cultivators. Yet, fighting the strongest beast still seemed overly ambitious. Ke Min, the Dragon King, roared something, but the cultivators, sold on the disaster the beasts brought, attacked even more fiercely. This mighty beast, encircled by desperate humans, seemed no different from those it crushed with a mere tail swipe, destined to die here. If Ke Min’s death restored the stolen spiritual energy, then the loss of cultivators—human or demonic—was a small price to pay. Ke Min’s blood coursed down its rugged, ashen form. The White Dragon, entwined in a web of blood, let its scarlet ichor drip onto the barren soil; a few verdant spirit plants sprouted from the blood-soaked sand, greedily absorbing the cultivators' essence. After the cataclysm, the cultivation world all but collapsed. Preserving tradition demanded sacrifice. While some cultivators knew the heavenly change affected beasts more than them, at a dead end, desperation drove them to irrational wagers. Partially cloaked by sand, the dragon's form, even to her, boasted extraordinary splendor despite having ravaged so many kin. That wondrously crafted creature emitted a pained cry skywards—its elongated body severed by someone's sacrificial strike, leaving a canyon hundreds of meters long, its depths unknown. Bloodstained scenes flashed before Xiang Shi Yan's eyes; her consciousness slowly descended. Silence fell over the battleground. Ke Min’s White Dragon survived the perilous skirmish, yet its days were numbered. Within miles, the killing formation razed everything, sparing only the barely surviving Dragon King. Blood spurted from its severed torso, filling the gorge below. Amidst mountains of carcasses, the White Dragon’s lament echoed, but no response came. Ke Min suddenly raised its head, opening its mouth, releasing a massive azure pearl. The dragon orb, engraved with deep and shallow patterns matching the dragon's eyes, mirrored the tranquil mood in its vertical pupils. With uncanny compassion in its impending demise, the Dragon King placed the dragon orb gently into the gorge, unleashing a surge of verdant light. Green flora sprouted from the chasm, spreading rapidly to blanket the basin with life. Spirits of fallen cultivators, drawn into the abyss, remained trapped, their souls condemned to eternal unrest as part of the Dragon King’s vengeance. The White Dragon bowed its head in death, sprouting a forest along its crescent-shaped embrace of the canyon. Starting from the gorge harboring the dragon orb, the White Dragon's body turned into gray stone and dead wood, yet spiritual veins spanned the ground and sky, reaching afar. Suddenly, the sand settled, revealing an unusually clear firmament, which cracked with a radiant fissure. Beams of light streamed through, illuminating the blossoms upon gray rock. Ascension nearing completion, heaven's gate unfurled, welcoming the celestial. Yet within this newborn forest, none remained to respond. The epithet of Resentful Soul Gorge as an imprisoned haunt for wraiths masks the truth: an ancient dragon king’s revenge upon its slayers led to those souls slowly deranging, ultimately steeped in resentment during a prolonged, conscious confinement. But in another sense, tales sung by humans and demons alike carry a vestige of truth. Thousands of mighty cultivators perished like insignificant blades of grass in this land, yet even the seemingly dominant mystical beasts were buried alongside these weak ants. Regardless of who won or lost, all were wiped out by the sands of time, and no matter how glorious the deeds, they remained unknown. During its massacre of enemy forces, the White Dragon's blood painted the earth for miles, forming mountains of bones. Yellow sands, stained and coagulated with blood, bore no trace of hesitation in battle. As it howled into its final moments, no kin responded. The actions of those weaker beings, once submissive before it, spoke volumes without words. The annihilation of its race rendered the catastrophe’s aftermath meaningless to the dragons. Dissolved into nothingness, they left humans and demons to continue their internal strife, finding contentment in this chaos. Xiang Shi Yan pondered that the supposed relaxation of dwindling spiritual energy might only be because ancient beasts willingly sacrificed themselves, opening new realms for future generations. The tales of the Celestial Realm’s fall perhaps stemmed from bloody reprisals against these beasts. Slaying beasts to end the heavenly changes was a selfish act of stone-hearted self-preservation. But sacrificing oneself and disregarding life for the benefit of future generations could also be seen as a heroic deed. Faced with the extinction of their race, what prompted the afflicted kin to convert their hatred into compassion and transform their flesh into spiritual veins in the end? These intricate contradictions highlight the enigmatic complexity of emotions. Xiang Shi Yan unexpectedly glimpsed long-hidden secrets of the cultivation world, leaving her unsettled yet enlightened, as if a long-standing bottleneck had quietly dissolved. Dark clouds gathered, unleashing heavenly thunder. The thick blue-white lightning effortlessly pierced through Lian Zhao’s defensive barrier, striking hard at the ghostly mist that sought to consume Xiang Shi Yan's consciousness and trap her. Ghosts feared heavenly thunder most. The gray mist shuddered and retreated, but unbeknownst, a tinge of icy white mist had mingled within its folds. This white mist encircled and snarled with the gray, pulling it back forcefully. Freed from the ghost mist, Xiang Shi Yan used her sword to rise, still shaken by the ethereal sensation of consciousness detaching from her body. Having just withstood a heavenly strike, the figure in white staggered, coughing up blood, yet she still managed a smile at Yu Zi Ming, who watched from afar in fear. Yu Qi, entangled with a ghost general, saw this and couldn't help but laugh. The ghost cultivator desperately commanded the shadow to retreat, only to meet the incoming silver spear, letting it pierce through her chest but anchoring the ghost general in place. Lightning danced again, and another thunderbolt struck down as Yu Qi kicked the ghost shadow directly beneath it.