Chapter 142: Undercurrent

Within a pure white grand hall of chilling ice, the swordmaster’s pristine figure sat upright, resembling a lifelike ice sculpture, save for the fierce, freezing light surging within his narrowed eyes that shattered the frost like a fracturing glacier.

“Swordmaster, Sword Nine is the most suitable candidate.”

A shadowy figure, with both eyes and ears tightly bound in darkness, stood below the dais, bowing slightly.

“He is not only one of the sharpest swords, but also entirely disposable once used.”

“No!”

Suppressing his anger, yet maintaining a steady and resolute tone, the swordmaster’s voice echoed through the hall.

“He is not the most suitable one.”

Having uttered only this sentence without offering any explanation, he continued.

“What of the ghost under your command? Has he returned?”

The dark figure remained silent for a moment. The vast, snowy hall instantly plunged into an abyss of chilling stillness, the silence hanging like a stray fish suddenly dropped into clear water.

“He… has returned.”

The dark figure’s voice was measured, yet calm.

“On this journey, he destroyed two lesser states in the turbulent waters of the East China Sea, and harvested twenty-three skulls of core disciples from Mount Fangzhang and Mount Yingzhou.”

“Hmph, considerable skill. What a pity.”

The swordmaster let out a faint, flat scoff. His handsome face remained glacial, devoid of a trace of amusement.

“Yet, the higher the merit, the greater the slaughter, the deeper the karmic retribution, and the more severe the erosion of the sect’s destiny. A ghost is merely a ghost; this is something you, as the master of the Ghost Department, must bear in mind.”

The dark figure fell silent once more, then slowly knelt in submission, offering a kowtow of repentance.

The swordmaster raised his narrowed eyes, now swirling with frigid light, and gazed directly at the shadow below.

“Although his cultivation is inferior to Sword Nine’s, his proficiency in stealth and assassination is by no means inferior. For this Purple Pole Thorn Decree, let him be the one to execute it.”

“Understood. This subordinate accepts the decree,” the dark figure said in a low, deliberate tone.

He then rose, bowed formally, turned his back, and slowly stepped out of the cold, gloomy hall. He walked into the boundless blue skies and azure seas outside, amidst magnificent jade pavilions, brilliant sunshine, and countless carefree immortals soaring freely across the Penglai Immortal Island.

He lifted his face—covered by a thick black blindfold—to meet the sunlight, yet all that met his vision remained eternal darkness.

Let the sinners live, let the high-merit die.

Ah, no wonder every master of the Ghost Department chooses to blindfold their eyes and plug their ears.

It is to forge the unwavering resolve to plunge into eternal darkness for the sake of the sect and its people.

*This was something I understood long ago. Why on earth did I feel a pang for that child…* A tremor rippled through his heart, and his drifting thoughts were forcibly cut short by his own will.

Within the Ghost Department, no one is a child, and indeed… no one is truly human.

He walked with rigid strides through the white-jade pavilions gleaming in the sunlight, yet not a single passerby brushed against him, moving like a ghost utterly out of place in the world of light.

Swiftly, he stepped back into the darkness to which he belonged, and summoned into the gloom that entity he had momentarily mistaken for a child.

A moment later, that ghost set forth.

Meanwhile, this exact scene played out within the shadows of two other islands beneath the vast azure sky. An unspoken, surging undercurrent drifted down from the distant Heavenly Court, spreading outward from the East China Sea to permeate the entire mortal realm.

Yet the undercurrent did not originate solely in the Heavenly Court; flowing from the East China Sea, tens of thousands of li to its north, a dense wall of fog connecting sea and sky—resembling a towering barrier blocking the heavens—was likewise roiling.

Scarcely dozens of li behind this colossal wall of mist, countless shrill, miserable screams echoed repeatedly through the vapor, resembling a living purgatory.

“Come on then, come over here!”

A majestic multi-decked warship, dozens of zhang in height, had half of its hull submerged in the churning seawater, while the other half surged and burned with towering, azure flames several zhang high. The flames were a haunting blue, seemingly capable of burning even the water, and the submerged portions of the hull burned unceasingly alongside the rest.

Clinging densely to the sides of the ship like swarming ants were countless figures—armored soldiers among them, as well as tender-faced boys and maidens dressed in opulent attire. Together they wept, crawled, and writhed amidst the azure brine and azure fire, either swallowed by the waves or licked by the flames into charred, withered skeletons.

Some managed to reach higher ground by clutching the masts or the elevated prow, escaping the water and the blazing fire. Yet it was as if an invisible phantom wandered the doomed vessel: one by one, those survivors began to bleed profusely from every pore, instantly transforming into azure torches that burned themselves to heaps of ash.

Paralyzed by sheer terror, soldiers drew their swords and slashed wildly at the empty air. But apart from wood shavings sent flying from the vessel and the blood and severed limbs of comrades mistakenly killed by their frantic blows, they struck nothing.

They roared meaninglessly, one after another ignited into blazing, gloomy torches.

Aside from this doomed vessel plunging toward its ruin, the surrounding space was dead silent, save for occasional rays of light piercing the fog to cast the shadow of a strange man upon the deck, alongside an even smaller shadow trailing beside it.

Hard by the great ship sat a thin, refined Daoist priest in purple robes aboard a small skiff, shouting at the top of his lungs in a voice hoarse and raw, bordering on frantic weeping and wailing.

“Come over! Come over here!”

“Board the boat, we can get out of this fog ahead!”

“Come on! Come over!”

Yet his small skiff floated merely a zhang or two away from the warship, while those struggling and weeping amidst the ghost-fires on the deck remained entirely oblivious to the life-saving vessel right beside them.

“Why?”

“Why can’t you see it?”

“Why is it only me?”

Hearing the agonizing, wailing screams of the tormented souls aboard, the purple-robed Daoist was overwhelmed by the hellish, terrifying atmosphere. Though his purple robes were soaked through with terrified sweat, a mixture of utter incomprehension and rage at witnessing his fellow men slaughtered broke through his paralyzing fear of the ghost-fire in a single instant.

He gripped the oar and drove it downward with all his might, propelling his skiff straight toward the warship—already so close at hand and engulfed entirely in spectral flames.

As the ghost-fires rushed toward him, the terror surged back, overwhelming his anger once more. Flustered and panicked, he scrambled to reverse his stroke and avoid the encroaching inferno, but it was too late; his boat had collided with the blazing ghost-fires of the warship.

He closed his eyes in terror, his anger morphing into a trembling, intensely bitter regret. Yet the excruciating pain of being consumed by ghost-fire that he had anticipated never arrived.

Dazed, he opened his eyes. The fierce ghost-fires burning brightly before him had suddenly parted, leaving an empty patch of hull right in front of him.

Blankly, he raised his head and looked around. The surrounding area had somehow grown dead quiet; the shrill screams and weeping had ceased. The very last soul besides himself had already been reduced to charred bones within the flames.

Only the ghost-fires raging upon the warship remained, sinking rapidly toward the ocean floor.

“Why only me?”

“Why is it only me?”

“This is the second time.”

“Five hundred armored guards and a thousand boys and maidens!”

The purple-robed Daoist’s face was streaked with sweat and tears, his vision blurred as he stared at the massive warship about to vanish beneath the waves.

“Why could none of you see?”

“Why only me?”

His hoarse, shredded cries gradually faded. He lowered his face, burying his head deep into the still-splendid fabric of his Daoist robes, and emitted a series of strange sounds that hovered between sobbing and laughter.

“Thank goodness it’s me!”

He lifted his buried head slightly, gazing at several stalks of strange, faintly glowing immortal herbs resting in the skiff. Though tears still streamed down his face, his expression radiated the ecstatic relief of one who had cheated death—along with… greed.

He swung his oars with all his might, spinning the skiff around. With reddened eyes and a flushed face, he rowed toward the looming wall of fog faintly visible between the sea and the sky ahead.

He carried with him the immortal herbs capable of granting his monarch greater longevity, and unimaginable wealth for himself; herbs that, at the same time, would likely bring greater calamity to his nation’s people and deeper death to these waters.

Upon the last remaining fragment of the great warship’s hull that had yet to slip beneath the waves, a figure—initially faint—gradually solidified. It revealed a young man with thick, drooping black eyebrows and a stiff, wooden expression. His face was leaden and rigid, resembling a corpse long dead.

He gazed out at the frantic figure rowing away in the small skiff and spoke slowly.

His voice was hoarse, flat, and low, as though he had not spoken in a very long time.

“This is the second time you have let him go.”

He lowered his gaze to the sinking, empty corner of the deck beneath his feet, his stiff expression carrying a sense of earnest solemnity.

“Are you certain he will bring the next batch back?”

His words drifted away with the ocean swells. He seemed to be talking to himself, his grim, terrifying face carrying a childlike earnestness.

Yet the space before his feet was not entirely empty; his shadow lay there.

The shadow slowly rose from beneath his feet, slipping around his front like a coquettish, mischievous woman. Its ink-black hands wrapped around his neck, leaning against his back like an affectionate lover.

“He will.”

A woman’s soft, alluring voice chimed gently behind Li Guifan’s ear.

Li Guifan’s leaden, rigid face twitched slightly.

The bizarre and terrifying shadow lifted a blurred head, resting it upon his shoulder to gaze ahead at the small skiff fleeing toward the misty sea, and chuckled softly.

“Even if he returns this time having attained everything he desired, he will have no choice but to come back. Because the world he belongs to has not yet obtained everything *they* desire.”

“He is the chosen one, and thus he can no longer merely be himself. He… will become the embodiment of all the greed within that kingdom. He will bring us more death, transforming into a deeper disaster for these waters, and more of my kin will awaken.”

“However, that doesn't concern us too much for now.”

A lazy, playful tease laced the woman’s soft voice.

“Once this is over, the accumulated calamity, combined with you, will allow me to accompany you back to the mortal realm to reclaim our king—the very one who killed you.”

“Well then, hee hee, are you happy?”

The eerie shadow stretched its waist in a languid pose. Its blurred, black head extended forward like a snake from behind Li Guifan, twisting into a bizarre arc. Bringing its face right up to Li Guifan’s, it split open into a slender white seam, releasing a peal of laughter as delicate as silver bells.