The Years When I Was the Boss of the Evil Abyss

The black-and-white clumps of energy in his field of vision began to draw closer to him. Su Yu subconsciously rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding the direct attack. After regaining his focus, he saw the "person" from a distance adjust its direction and look straight at him.

Coming down from a higher ground, Zhang Fugui had a clearer view of the figure. He saw the "person" standing up, half of its body twisted and eaten away by worms, its body fragmented, yet it still retained a human shape.

Zhang Fugui had spent some years in Nawu Mountain and had heard that the stronger ghosts took on more human-like appearances. However, he had never encountered a ghost like this one — it was neither human nor ghost, but rather a decaying living corpse. The only discernible feature of the corpse's filthy face were its eyes, which were now fixed on Su Yu. The body shifted in sync with the eyes, and the creature lunged at Su Yu again.

The hillside was full of messy dead trees and deep pits, and Su Yu didn't run far before stepping into one of the uneven holes. The rugged terrain made it even more difficult for him to retreat. His eyes could only see these strange "energies," but he couldn't discern the trees or the pits around him. However, the "person" behind him moved quickly and, in just a few steps, had pounced in front of Su Yu, crouching down like a beast, sniffing at him.

Su Yu could clearly feel the weight pressing down on him, with the creature's hand pinning his left arm, making it impossible to exert any strength. The strange, mottled impurities on the creature's body became clearer. The scattered ink-like dots seemed to be drawn by some unknown force, circulating inside the creature like a dark river, starting from its lower abdomen and moving outward like veins in a human body.

Were these ink dots being controlled by the creature? The dots were still in motion, and Su Yu's eyes followed the trajectory of their movement. He watched as they gathered, dispersed, and finally concentrated on the creature's hand.

At that moment, the figure in his field of vision leaned closer, and Su Yu felt something sticky licking his skin. His body tensed instinctively as he felt the licks moving over his neck and continue upward. A sense of danger surged in his mind as if his neck was about to be bitten. His dantian's totem glowed brightly, and he coughed up a mouthful of blood. The yin energy inside him exploded, immediately forcing the crouching corpse away.

Zhang Fugui, observing the situation around him, seized the opportunity and rushed over to grab the young man, throwing him over his back and running off.

"Daoist, the living corpse is sucking your blood," Zhang Fugui said, feeling an icy chill spread throughout his body, the sweet metallic smell of blood growing stronger. "It wants to drain you dry."

After spitting out the blood, Su Yu felt a lot better. As they were running, he glanced behind. A living corpse? Interested in his blood? "Aren't you interested?"

Zhang Fugui froze, caught off guard by the question. He did feel the allure of the Daoist's blood, but this shouldn't be happening. At first, when the Daoist fell off the cliff, his desire for fresh human blood had far outweighed his rationality, which was why he had teamed up with the other wild ghosts to eat people... But now, though the blood smelled delicious, he hadn't had the urge to devour the Daoist. When did this change happen...?

It seemed to have started when the Daoist had tied him up. A cold realization gripped Zhang Fugui's heart. It wasn't that he wasn't interested; it was that he dared not defy the Daoist.

The living corpse, which had blood splattered on its face, didn't react immediately. It touched the blood and licked it, seemingly confirming something, and its gaze toward Su Yu grew more frantic.

"It's here." Su Yu spoke up.

Zhang Fugui snapped back to attention. He turned around to see the living corpse rushing at them again. Su Yu called upon the yin energy in his body to envelop his arm, preparing to block the corpse's next attack. However, an unfamiliar, overwhelming pressure bore down on his arm, and in the next instant, the corpse's teeth pierced through his yin barrier, sinking deep into his skin and causing blood to gush out.

In a split second, Su Yu's mind went blank. He struggled to throw the creature off, shouting hoarsely, "Run!"

"!!!"

Zhang Fugui panicked, "How could I outrun it?!"

The living corpse landed lightly on the ground, then paused as it began licking the blood from its mouth, meticulously cleaning every drop, even the blood that had splashed on its body. The black worms on its body seemed to grow more excited, wriggling frantically.

"I found it..." the living corpse thought absently.

Outside Nawu Mountain, the yin winds grew even more rampant. Injured wandering cultivators emerged from the mountain pass, each one covered in wounds, their bodies in disarray. The eerie cawing of crows echoed through the dry forest, mixed with the sounds of cultivators' agonized screams.

In the land of the powerful cultivators' nirvana, the sealing was the second line of defense; entering meant encountering wild beasts or wild ghosts at most, or the protective items left behind by the cultivators. But the retreating cultivators spoke only of wild ghosts, and there were already many of them running out of the mountain. How could there still be so many inside?

"What's going on?!"

"There are too many wild ghosts, we can't kill them all."

"This is just an ordinary mountain peak with few nearby villagers; how could there be so many vengeful ghosts?"

The scattered cultivators who had originally intended to defy the Su family and explore the mountain now stopped in their tracks, looking toward the Su family and the Lihuo Sect.

The elders of the Su family and the Lihuo Sect remained still, seemingly looking down on the cultivators' futile actions.

These ignorant cultivators truly believe that the hidden treasures in the place where a great expert sat in meditation are so easy to obtain? The elder of the Su family tightly gripped the spiritual artifact in his hand and activated the Yin energy of Nanwu Mountain. The first reason was to provide the Su family with a legitimate excuse to seal and control the mountain, and the second was simply to lure these ignorant cultivators in, using them to attract the attention of the malevolent spirits of Nanwu Mountain for the Su family.

Half a month ago, when the Su family entered to explore and failed, it was clear that sending the young master and his party on their own would still be dangerous. However, throwing a group of cultivators into the mix was different. A good bait could clear away many obstacles for them... The Living Grave was just one aspect, but the Su family's cultivators would not fall into the Living Grave. What was more worrying were the strange things near the Mist River.

The Su family still hadn't received exact information on how their cultivators died half a month ago.

"But Elder, shouldn't we inform the young master about all of this?" A Su family cultivator whispered, "The young master came here to help, and he doesn't know what we're doing outside..."

The elder of the Su family gave him a cold glance. "What do you know? The young master has been in seclusion at Cangxue Sect for years and may not be fully aware of the outside world. Some things don't need to be known by the young master. All we need to do is clear the path for him."

Thinking of this, the elder's sharp face showed a trace of displeasure. In addition to the current situation at Nanwu Mountain, there was also the matter of the marriage contract in Tianyuan City causing a commotion. In the past, when such things happened, the Gu family would always step forward to clarify the situation.

Like many years ago, when the young master of the Gu family went on a journey and was said to have fallen into a perilous situation, rumors spread that he had died. But the Gu family immediately came forward to clear the air. When it came to anything concerning the Gu family's young master, the Gu family was never careless. But this was the first time the Gu family had remained indifferent to such a matter.

Now, the entire South of Easthuan was waiting for the Su family to take a stand, and this made it difficult for the Su family to decide. But could the Su family truly take a stand? Very few people within the Su family even knew about the marriage contract. Even the young master, who had been in seclusion at Cangxue Sect for many years, might not be aware of such secrets.

After all, the person bound by the marriage contract with the Gu family's young master... was not their young master, but that waste. The Su family had indeed signed a marriage contract with the Gu family. With the contract in hand, the Su family wouldn't have been so worried. But that contract had been destroyed half a month ago. How it was destroyed, no one knew.

At that time, when the Su family patriarch and a number of esteemed elders came out of the ancestral hall, their faces were grim, and even that waste was locked away in the back mountain. They had thought the matter was suppressed, but somehow the news leaked, and soon the whole city knew. Even the waste himself had gone missing, which infuriated the patriarch.

The elder of the Su family gazed at the dark Nanwu Mountain, his eyes filled with determination. Nanwu Mountain had to be taken, and it had to be used to create momentum for their young master and the Su family to shift the winds in Tianyuan City.

The spiritual ship transformed into a defensive formation, firmly guarding the seal at the entrance of Nanwu Mountain, blocking the previously swirling Yin energy. The elder of the Su family frowned and casually said, "I wonder which great expert's meditative resting place this is. I've gone through all the records of the Southern Region, but I've never heard of any great expert connected to Nanwu Mountain."

Nanwu Mountain wasn't particularly powerful, but it was certainly the most mysterious place the elder had seen in all his years. Otherwise, the Su family wouldn't have lost so many cultivators when they ventured in half a month ago.

"Could the expert who meditated here have been a demon or evil cultivator?" The elder of Lihuo Sect mused. "If such an expert meditated here, most of the treasures left behind would be their personal cultivation items, which would conflict with the orthodox methods of today. Such a resting place could easily give rise to evil spirits."

At that moment, a voice interrupted the conversation between the Su family elder and the Lihuo Sect elder.

"This seal is not something an evil cultivator could use," said a white-haired elder, leaning against the spiritual ship. He looked up, pointing at the high ground and continued, "The seal of Nanwu Mountain uses orthodox sealing techniques, but inside, the Yin energy is overwhelming, and there is no spiritual energy—only a suffocating Yin aura. It's more like some great expert used this seal to imprison something."

Upon hearing this, the elder of the Su family glanced sharply at the white-haired elder. "Do you have any insights?"

"What insight could I have? I'm just the one steering the ship," the white-haired elder shrugged, uninterested in the Su family and Lihuo Sect's fight for treasure. "If I were a powerful cultivator from a thousand years ago and my resting place were dug up for treasure, I'd climb out of my coffin and drag those unruly cultivators to hell."

The elder's eyes were clouded with weariness, and he waved his hand, signaling that he wasn't interested in any further discussion. "But digging up graves... there will be retribution."

Before the Lihuo Sect elder could respond, a Su family cultivator rushed over, his face pale with panic, holding a communication talisman that had already burned halfway.

"Bad news, Elder! We've lost contact with the young master and the others!"

The faces of both the Lihuo Sect elder and the Su family elder changed dramatically.

"So, the retribution has come? Perhaps we should accumulate some virtue..." the white-haired elder muttered halfway through his sentence.

Suddenly, his dim eyes lit up with strange light. He looked toward the high ground as a sword light appeared in the distance. It darted past unnoticed corners, piercing through the seal and entering Nanwu Mountain.

A sword cultivator!? Who could it be?

A sword qi pierced through the thick fog, shattered the seal, and landed heavily in the crevice of Nanwu Mountain.

As the sword qi dissipated, two figures appeared amidst the raging Yin energy in the withered forest. The man dressed in flamboyant red wiped the dust from his shoulder, his face showing displeasure as he looked toward the east. His tone paused for a moment before he spoke: "I wondered why the entrance outside was sealed so tightly. The Yin energy here is overwhelming. With such a seal, how come the cultivators from the Southern Realm didn't take action earlier... Nanwu Mountain's situation is far from simple. It's quickly approaching the boundary of the Extreme North."

If this were just a normal situation of Yin overpowering Yang, there wouldn't be a need for such drastic action.

But the Yin energy here was dense to the extreme, nurturing evil spirits. Given time, this place would certainly become a land of malevolent spirits.

"Guzi… Gu Qi! Are you listening to me?" The man in red had been talking for a while without receiving any response. His face grew impatient as he glanced toward the other side of the withered tree.

The swordsman stood dozens of steps away, the sword sealed on his back slightly trembling.

At this moment, as the swordsman stood beside the withered tree, the Yin wind sweeping through the forest ceased when it reached him. The silence was so profound that only the sound of dry earth and withered leaves crunching remained. Leaning against the tree with his eyes closed, he was deep in thought, his gaze drifting beyond the stormy winds, toward the deeper mountains.

Suddenly, the swordsman seemed to notice something.

His body moved slightly, leaping a few steps away.

"I've been calling you for ages, and you haven't responded. There must have been some malevolent spirit passing by here, and an ancient seal from unknown origins. If you don't send word to your sect—" Jiang Xingfeng shouted for a long time without seeing the swordsman approach, only to find the latter had stopped beneath a tree. Before he could finish his sentence, he was distracted by the swordsman's movement. "Gu Qi, what's wrong?"

The swordsman crouched slightly, his fingers picking up some dark, crumbled soil, which he brought to his nose and sniffed. His thin lips parted slightly, "Blood."

Blood? Jiang Xingfeng, who had just walked over, immediately followed the swordsman's gaze. Only then did he notice several strange traces on the ground around them. The color of the withered earth in these traces was as dark as black ink, starkly contrasting with the surrounding black-brown soil of Nanwu Mountain, as if something had been burned or scorched on the ground.

The swordsman looked outward. The traces stretched toward the mountain wall of Nanwu Mountain. He walked to the base of the mountain wall, lowered his head, and found bloodstains still remaining on the broken roots of a withered tree, suggesting that someone had been lying here not long ago.

"Did this person… fall from above?" Jiang Xingfeng raised his head and gazed at the high cliff, pondering. "So much blood… The burning of blood and Qi—this must be a common technique in talismanic arts, the Scorching Blood Technique."

The swordsman pinched the crumbled soil between his fingers. There was a peculiar scent mixed in with the bloody odor. He tried to analyze further, but could no longer detect it. The surrounding blood had been burned dry. Aside from the raw stench, the other smells had been blown away by the wind.

The scorched soil where the blood had burned left deep black traces on the ground. Yet, despite all these traces, there was no sign of any cultivator, nor were there any wandering souls. Upon closer inspection, the bloodthirsty withered trees of Nanwu Mountain had not consumed the remaining blood. Instead, the plants growing near these scorched spots—spiritual herbs nourished by the Yin energy—had all withered... not a single one had survived.

It was as if all vitality had been drained in an instant.

The talismanic arts used for exterminating demons and evil spirits never had the effect of stealing life force.

Jiang Xingfeng, who had been carefully observing the surroundings, raised his hand to press on the swordsman's shoulder. "A number of cultivators have arrived at Nanwu Mountain, among which those skilled in talismanic formations are likely from the Su family of Tianyuan City."

"This is not Su family's talismanic arts."

The swordsman released the crumbled soil from his fingers, casting a distant glance toward the unfathomable depths of Nanwu Mountain. A hint of coldness flickered in his eyes. "Borrowing Yin to traverse the body, burning blood and Qi."

"This is someone practicing the evil Yin arts."