Chapter Seventy-Three: Sun-Slaying Ghost Sword

At the same time, Wang True Spirit could feel his true qi draining away at a prodigious rate. He was not yet spent, but he knew he could not hold out for long.

A human body, after all, is finite. The true qi within it can never be inexhaustible.

It could not compare with the mandate of official power. Even the fortune of a single township encompassed dozens of miles, more than ten hamlets and shrines, ghosts and gods, earth veins, and the fate of several thousand people, all gathered and condensed by law and order.

Such force was naturally far beyond anything a lone cultivator could refine through his own practice.

By now, although he was no longer in Guangyang Township and had already left Danling County, he was not on his own ground, so by rights he should have been unable to borrow such official power. Not to mention that Wang True Spirit had resigned his post and no longer held any office.

Yet he still bore the military rank of Acting Captain, and thus could draw upon the fortune-force of the two-hundred-man detachment under his command.

And once that force was assembled into an army, it was no longer ordinary fortune, but military qi, fierce as fire in its advance.

In an instant, that fiery military qi poured down and shielded Wang True Spirit’s body.

He charged straight through, and the long blade at his waist snapped free, driving into the depths of the dense fog.

Several ghosts blocked his path. Wang True Spirit struck out with a blade from afar; though separated by five or six zhang, those ghosts were already cleaved apart and burst open into mist.

And yet, just as those wisps of ghostly qi were about to gather again, a point of white light suddenly burst forth like flame and swallowed them whole.

The instant those ghosts seemed about to reform, they let out piercing screams and were ignited by a blaze, burned into towering torches.

For men in the prime of their strength, full of vigorous blood and yang energy, when they gather together to form an army, the force they create is like raging fire, the purest kind of yang. Even the slightest trace of it is fatal to any ghost.

While those wandering ghosts were being burned to ashes, Wang True Spirit had already surged another several dozen zhang ahead.

With the thick fog concealing everything, Wang True Spirit could unleash his full abilities without restraint, cutting down gods and slaughtering Buddhas if they stood in his way. There was no one who could withstand a single exchange.

Whether resentful ghosts or fierce revenants capable of becoming official ghost soldiers, all were as fragile as paper before him. One stroke of his blade was enough to kill, and there was no chance for them to recover.

Though both were forms of qi released outward into astral force, Wang True Spirit’s qi differed from that of other cultivators. It carried the military force of an army within it, which meant his true qi possessed an extra attribute, and its killing power was multiplied many times over.

A master at the same level of qi refinement, when releasing true qi outward, could often only blast ghosts apart, not destroy them outright.

Ghosts were formless, born from resentment. They were easy enough to scatter, but very hard to prevent from gathering again. Often they had to be broken apart three or five times before their souls finally scattered to the wind.

Take Chen Three, for example: although he was an expert, he was still merely a servant of the Chen household and held no military rank, so the killing power of his astral force against such ghosts was limited.

But Wang True Spirit was different. With each strike, even a sliver of that searing military qi was enough to destroy a ghost’s soul and disperse it completely.

"That is only a hastily assembled county militia. One can only imagine how terrifying the military qi of the true imperial elite must be."

As the thought flashed through his mind, Wang True Spirit had already plunged into the thickest part of the fog, where he saw Chen Three trapped in a tight encirclement, several cultivators attacking him together.

There were five or six of them in all, and each was at least a tier above the qi stage. They were commanding swarms of ghosts to keep Chen Three firmly hemmed in, launching one fierce assault after another.

And yet, though Chen Three was surrounded, he did not panic, for beside him stood a dozen or twenty fully armed ghost soldiers guarding his flank.

It was no exaggeration to say that he was surrounded. It was more like he was locked in a deadlocked struggle with those cultivators.

"No wonder County Lieutenant Chen was not worried about Chen Three. So he had brought so many ghost soldiers with him."

These ghost soldiers were regular troops maintained by the authorities: all fierce revenants, each equipped with armor and weapons forged in the underworld, and all rigorously trained.

One of them, fighting alone, could already handle two or three fierce revenants of the same level. Formed into an array, they could even take on enemies ten times their number without difficulty.

The reason those enemies had managed to hold Chen Three in place was that several even more powerful ghosts seemed to be besieging him as well.

Now, seeing Wang True Spirit come to the rescue, the cultivators immediately fell into panic.

One of the qi refiners let out a strange howl, and at once a burst of sinister wind rose, sweeping toward Wang True Spirit.

"A ferocious ghost!"

Wang True Spirit’s expression turned grave. Ferocious ghosts were even more powerful than fierce revenants.

A resentful ghost could only lure the unlucky and the weak of blood and spirit into suicide.

A fierce revenant, however, could kill directly, reveal itself, wield objects, and take lives. As for a ferocious ghost, its ghostly qi and sinister wind were of a different order altogether; its power far surpassed that of a fierce revenant, and it was nearly the equal of a master at the spirit-manifestation stage.

The moment that ghostly wind wrapped around him and swept in, before it even drew near, Wang True Spirit felt a bone-piercing chill, as though it might pour directly into every pore in his body.

Were an ordinary person struck by such ghostly wind, they would likely not die on the spot, but they would certainly fall gravely ill.

Fortunately, Wang True Spirit’s true qi had become astral force, and with the power of the official seal guarding his body, the sinister energy could not invade him.

Even so, darkness closed in before his eyes, his vision was blocked, and with the changing wind came countless shrill screams that pierced straight into his ears and hammered into his heart.

Illusions churned before him, and almost every sense seemed stripped away.

Yet at that moment, the official seal in Wang True Spirit’s hand moved again, and he held it straight before him.

With a crack, light flashed like thunder and lightning, shattering the darkness and the screams alike, and Wang True Spirit’s senses were restored.

He could then see a pillar of brilliant light strike straight into the swirling vortex formed by the ferocious ghost.

With a miserable shriek, the vortex and the ferocious ghost within it shattered at once. Before they could gather again, a Sun-Slaying Ghost Sword had already come down upon them.

A hiss, and a trace of solar sword qi pierced the dense ghostly miasma, instantly disrupting the balance of that soul. The ferocious ghost could no longer gather itself together.

It sounded like a long struggle, but in truth it had all happened in the blink of an eye. Wang True Spirit had already slain one ferocious ghost and was charging onward.

The qi refiners were immediately thrown into greater panic, flustered and disordered.

If they drew people away to deal with Wang True Spirit, they would no longer be able to keep Chen Three surrounded.

But if they ignored Wang True Spirit and allowed him to break through the encirclement, that would be even worse.

In their frantic confusion, a shout to withdraw came from somewhere.

At once, those qi refiners fled in haste.

They left the ferocious ghosts behind to block Wang True Spirit and Chen Three from pursuing them.