PD -Chapter 85 Ten Thousand Ghosts Paying Homage

It had transformed into a hunched old man—skin clinging tightly to bones, its face wrinkled and withered. I crouched down and, as easily as lifting a chick, grabbed it and pressed it against the wall.

The arrogance in its dim yellow eyes was gone without a trace, replaced entirely by shrinking fear and terror.

Using my spiritual energy, I pinned it firmly to the wall. My hands moved rapidly in front of me, forming a complex seal. Then, with four fingers, I pressed toward both of its temples and activated the Soul-Inspecting Divine Technique.

The Soul-Inspecting Divine Technique was a secret among secrets. As the name suggested, it allowed one to directly probe another’s soul and extract all their memories and information. Compared to mind-reading, it was far more direct and far more powerful.

However, its cost in spiritual energy and mental strength was enormous. If mishandled, not only could the target’s soul be destroyed, but the caster might also lose themselves after being overwhelmed by the realism of the memories.

Because of this, the Records of the Heaven-Illuminating Mystery classified it as a forbidden art—never to be used unless absolutely necessary.

Now, in order to find the whereabouts of the Ghost Emperor and ensure this creature wasn’t lying, I had no other choice but to use this forbidden technique.

The moment my fingers touched the creature’s temples, my consciousness plunged into darkness—and I saw its soul.

Ordinary beings possess three souls and seven spirits, but this thing had only one soul. In the pitch-black void, its soul flickered like a ghostly flame, eerie and unsettling.

With a wave of my hand, I stabilized the soul flame and leapt into it.

In an instant, my awareness lost all physical form, becoming a formless, drifting consciousness traveling through the depths of its soul.

Fragmented memories unfolded before me. Its world had always been without sunlight, like a personal hell.

Trapped in that darkness, the creature’s twisted thoughts unfolded—filthy desires, greed, indulgence, and deep-rooted bloodlust embedded within its soul. It made my consciousness feel suffocated and deeply uncomfortable.

I forced myself to filter through the memories quickly, searching for the period after the Ghost Emperor’s emergence.

At last, within those visions, I found Tang Shanshan—no, rather, the Five Directions Ghost Emperor.

She was still breathtakingly beautiful, but the innocence she once carried was gone, replaced by a cold and solitary aura.

And there was that detestable effeminate man as well, still wearing his arrogant expression. Seeing them together, a surge of nameless anger rose within me.

I reminded myself that I was using the Soul-Inspecting Divine Technique—I could not be controlled by emotion. Forcing down the turbulence in my heart, I continued observing.

Now the Ghost Emperor Tang Shanshan and Lucifer seemed to be in an enormous, pitch-black cavern.

At the center of the cavern stood a massive altar-like structure. In its middle was a well engraved with intricate runes, its depths unfathomable—like a passage to hell itself.

The Ghost Emperor and Lucifer sat cross-legged on opposite sides of the altar.

“Let us begin, my beautiful Ghost Emperor,” Lucifer said, his tone greasy and revolting.

The Ghost Emperor merely narrowed Tang Shanshan’s originally bright eyes slightly and nodded before closing them. Black mist began to swirl around her hands.

At the same time, Lucifer spread his dark wings, and a blood-red aura began to radiate from his hands.

The black and red energies slowly converged toward the deep well, forming a strange and indescribable pattern before plunging into its depths.

Their power flowed endlessly like water, gradually filling the cavern. The black-red energy soon overflowed from the well, spilling across the altar.

Like countless thin black snakes, the energy slithered through the carved patterns of the altar, forming an immensely complex formation.

The moment the formation was completed, a deep blue light erupted from the well. The Ghost Emperor and Lucifer slowly rose into the air.

They opened their eyes midair, exchanging a glance filled with faint satisfaction before looking down into the abyss once more.

The blue light illuminated the entire cavern…

And in an instant, the evil energy they had fused was completely absorbed.

When the blue light reached its peak, the cavern plunged back into darkness once more—silent, dead, absolute.

Neither of them made a sound.

This silence lasted for about ten seconds.

Then—

BOOM.

The cavern was once again flooded with blue light. Within it, countless black ghostly flames surged upward like a tidal wave, roaring like a flood or a tsunami as they burst out of the well.

Lucifer and the Ghost Emperor watched the scene with faint smiles, slowly rising higher into the air as if making way for the eruption.

I watched in shock and dread. I knew exactly what those ghost flames were.

They were the soul power of the creature I had just seen—and more importantly, they were what I had been witnessing inside its memories.

In other words, what poured out of the well were the souls of countless demonic entities… and among them was this very skin-shedding creature itself.

The Ghost Emperor and Lucifer floated above, looking down upon the countless emerging spirits like two sovereign rulers.

As the cavern filled to the brim, the spirits took shape for an instant—then, one after another, they all looked up at the two figures in the sky.

And then—

All the ghosts bowed in unison.

The Ghost Emperor and Lucifer merely narrowed their eyes slightly, expression calm and indifferent, as they looked upon the scene of ten thousand ghosts paying homage. With a faint wave of their hands, the spirits rose again and scattered into countless shadows, fleeing out of the cavern.

Then the figures of Lucifer and the Ghost Emperor slowly descended, sinking back into the deep well and disappearing into the endless darkness.

My consciousness tried desperately to follow them downward, to see where the well led.

But it was no use. I was only able to perceive this through the creature’s soul power. Now that the creature, along with the countless spirits, had returned to the outside world as shadows, my awareness was pulled out as well—I could no longer return to the cavern.

I tried to lock onto the location of the cavern through the creature’s memories, but the outside world was a maze of complex, continuous mountains, all looking almost identical. There was simply no way to determine where it was.