42. The Decree of Ascension

Countless sinister beings fixed their gaze upon him.
Yet Chen Huangpi felt no fear in his heart.
He considered himself a most formidable and malevolent entity—one class above even high-level evil spirits.
Not only that, he even waved at the other fiends with enthusiasm.
However, none of them understood his friendliness.
Instead, each lowered its head and made way for him.
This left Chen Huangpi secretly delighted, but also a little disappointed.
He seldom encountered so many of his kind.
Now that he finally had, he naturally wished to approach and mingle.
In his heart, Chen Huangpi said, “Huang’er, it’s as if there’s a barrier between me and them. It makes me quite unhappy.”
The brass oil lamp replied in a complicated tone, “Chen Huangpi, has your mind gone dull? Don’t tell me you really think you’re one of them.”
With that reminder,
Chen Huangpi came to his senses.
“I nearly forgot—I’m human after all.”
At that moment, the big-headed fiend stammered, “Great and terrible one, I must go wait for other spirits, you… you…”
It seemed to struggle for words.
Chen Huangpi understood and waved his hand. “Go on, do what you must. I’ll wander around on my own.”
The big-headed fiend let out a breath of relief.
Speech was a true ordeal for its kind.
“Please, don’t consume any of the others.”
With that, it scuttled back the way it had come.
It had already caught the scent of another spirit,
One even more terrifying than the great fiend—one who was here for the first time.
After the big-headed one departed,
Chen Huangpi walked through what looked like a bustling morning market. In his mind, the voice of the Death-Seeking Ghost echoed intermittently.
“The last time I came here, this place was a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood. The time before, it was a vast lake. Go east—I sense the aura of the Man Who Survives a Hundred Deaths.”
As a creature born of the Underworld’s Yellow Springs,
The Death-Seeking Ghost was naturally very familiar with the Man Who Survives a Hundred Deaths.
Though it hadn’t returned in countless years, that scent was unforgettable.
Chen Huangpi set off at once.
All around, the sinister beings lowered their heads.
His interest now faded, Chen Huangpi quickened his pace toward the place the Death-Seeking Ghost had indicated.
It was a street—
A broad, spacious avenue.
Even the Death-Seeking Ghost’s colossal true form could have fit here with ease.
On either side of the street lounged, stood, or glared at each other an assortment of fiends—strange and myriad, a veritable forest of oddities.
Any ordinary person would have been scared out of their wits at the sight.
But Chen Huangpi was different.
He actually felt at ease.
Here, none of the fiends knew he was a great and terrible one—he blended in with ease.
“This place is far livelier than the temple,”
Chen Huangpi beamed. “If I didn’t have to return, I might like to stay several days.”
“It’s not usually so lively,”
Explained the Death-Seeking Ghost. “After the earth dragon turned, the fiends were disturbed as well. Normally, only a few would drift through—not such a crowd as this.”
“I see,”
Chen Huangpi replied, a little disappointed, and gave up the idea of lingering.
He liked bustle—temples were too cold and empty.
Whether fiends, mortals, or cultivators,
The more, the merrier—that was what made him happy.
As he walked, he even glimpsed a fiend whose form shifted ceaselessly.
It seemed able to imitate others.
Whenever a fiend brushed past, it would copy their appearance, as if tireless in the pursuit.
“Hurry, go around it, don’t let it touch you,”
The Death-Seeking Ghost said anxiously, “Your true form is different from your current appearance. If it transforms into your real self, all the fiends will know you’re an impostor.”
Hearing this,

Chen Huangpi hurriedly detoured.
But the ever-changing fiend took no notice of him, remaining rooted in place.
“Huang’er, why are these fiends so different from those in the temple, or those near Jade Qiong Mountain?”
Chen Huangpi struggled to find the right words.
They just didn’t seem menacing enough—
Not strange enough, either.
The brass oil lamp replied, “There are congenital and acquired differences among fiends. Those born in the Ten-Thousand Mountains are what they are from the start—some strong, some weak, it’s natural.
But beings like me, extraordinary from birth—should I become a fiend, I’d far surpass the likes of them.”
“So what about that demon tree?” Chen Huangpi asked. “Is it extraordinary too?”
Truth be told, after years patrolling the mountains, the most terrifying fiend Chen Huangpi had ever encountered
Was that demon tree.
Its terror wasn’t merely in its calamitous presence—
But in the overwhelming, inescapable oppression it exuded.
It could twist space itself,
Block out even the red moon, letting not a single ray of moonlight through.
And those clusters of human-fruit hanging from its branches—in some sense, even the Yellow Plague was not as dreadful.
“I don’t know. I just have the feeling that demon tree shouldn’t be as terrifying as it is,”
The brass oil lamp mused. In its memory, the Pure Immortal Temple had no spiritual roots or sacred trees.
Even if there had been, they were all cut down during the creation of the gods.
Oddly enough, Chen Huangpi had planted a tree in his childhood—
But it was just an ordinary sapling, which he drowned with his daily overzealous watering.
Nothing else remained.
At that moment,
The Death-Seeking Ghost said, “Master, see that fiend over there? The Man Who Survives a Hundred Deaths is in its possession.”
At these words,
Chen Huangpi looked in the direction indicated.
There he saw a long, thin figure, stretched out like a noodle.
Its limbs were also long, sharp, and slender, and it wore a conical hat, colorful strips of cloth hanging down to partially conceal a deathly pale face and purple-black lips.
The figure was clad in a tattered black robe—
It looked for all the world as if it had crawled from a grave.
“What should I do?”
Chen Huangpi was at a loss.
He couldn’t just walk up and ask, “Hello, how much for your Man Who Survives a Hundred Deaths?”
The Death-Seeking Ghost said, “See if you have anything worthwhile to offer. If you present it, it’ll know your intent.”
“Something worthwhile?”
Chen Huangpi thought. Aside from the Soul-Hooking Ledger, he had only the brass oil lamp and a branch from the demon tree.
As for the Seventy-Two Secret Elixirs, they were left in the alchemy room.
If he’d brought them, that would have been something.
“Ah! I nearly forgot about this,”
Chen Huangpi said, and with a thought, a wisp of ghostly light emerged from the Soul-Hooking Ledger,
In a flash becoming the Geomantic Compass.
This device was meant for tracking sources of corruption. Chen Huangpi had no use for it—keeping it seemed pointless.
He might as well trade it away.
He approached the fiend and offered the compass.
In the next instant,
The tall, thin fiend—almost three meters high—bent down and lowered its head.
Its conical hat was enormous, the colored strips of cloth falling down to envelop Chen Huangpi within.
“Eek!”
Chen Huangpi stared with black-red eyes at the deathly white face pressed close above the compass, scrutinizing it intently. He felt thoroughly unsettled.
That face was unnaturally long and thin, with no ears or nose, and lips of a ghastly purple-black.
Most terrifying were its eyes: the pupils were white, the sclera black—
A confusion of black and white that made one’s scalp prickle.
One glance was enough
To see this fiend was no simple creature.
Fortunately, it soon straightened, its face again hidden behind the cloth strips.

Chen Huangpi let out a sigh of relief.
Then, he saw the fiend open its tattered black robe. Beneath, its body was predictably long and thin, but not a bone was in sight; its pale torso was riddled with gaping holes, each one containing various objects.
Some housed a stone, others a house, others still an eye.
Chen Huangpi even saw something that unsettled his very mind—
A jade token
Engraved with a name: Yi Qingzhou.
Chen Huangpi murmured inwardly, “That’s the Immortal Ascension Order. Yi Qingzhou—I remember now. He was the Daoist who regretted following his master from Great Qian to the Ten-Thousand Mountains to create gods.”
Back then, Yi Qingzhou had always stood by Xu Qingshan’s side, and only after Xu Qingshan finished telling his senior brother of his affliction did Yi Qingzhou speak, exposing the truth of god-making.
It was because of those words
That Chen Huangpi learned of Great Qian and their regrets.
Yet the last time he’d glimpsed Yi Qingzhou’s Immortal Ascension Order in the Mountain God’s memories, it had been flawless and smooth as jade.
Now, it was covered in cracks,
Stained with a mix of brown and yellow that had seeped into the token itself.
“Could it be this fiend dug the Immortal Ascension Order out of Yi Qingzhou’s grave?”
The brass oil lamp was equally shocked.
But it knew little of the Immortal Ascension Order—when it was forged, the token already existed.
It had asked Huang Yi about it, but Huang Yi was always evasive.
He’d rather pass on the Escape-Light Divine Art than speak of it.
“Chen Huangpi, trade for it! This is a fortune for us!”
The brass oil lamp was beside itself with excitement.
The Death-Seeking Ghost didn’t know what the Immortal Ascension Order was, but knew the lamp’s origins were extraordinary—much higher in rank than the Soul-Hooking Ledger.
So it too urged, “Master, I’ve never seen this fiend before. If you miss this chance, it may never return.”
“I know!”
Without a second thought, Chen Huangpi pointed directly at Yi Qingzhou’s Immortal Ascension Order,
Indicating that he wanted it.
But to his disappointment,
The fiend shook its head. The fleshless cavity containing the token snapped shut in an instant.
Clearly, it knew the token’s value
And was unwilling to trade.
“Kill it!”
The brass oil lamp howled in Chen Huangpi’s mind, “It’s just a fiend—no need to reason. Let’s kill it and snatch the token!”
The Death-Seeking Ghost murmured, “It’s about as strong as I was at my peak—even the three of us together might not defeat it.”
Chen Huangpi gritted his teeth. “I’m shrouded in black smoke—can’t I take it on?”
The brass oil lamp had been split into thousands, and though revived by his master with an avatar fused into it,
It was only somewhat stronger than a deity.
Without its keeper, its true power was limited.
The Death-Seeking Ghost was down to a skeleton—enough said, probably on par with the lamp.
As for Chen Huangpi,
He had no fear. If wounded, the Death-Seeking Ghost could carry him.
Besides, with black smoke swirling round him, at such close range, if he struck fast and hard enough, he might catch the fiend off guard.
As he pondered this, the black smoke around him seemed to stir, as if sensing his intent.
Then suddenly,
The fiend appeared to realize something. In a flash, it extended a long, thin arm, its sharp, pale fingertips plunging straight for Chen Huangpi’s head.
It all happened in an instant.
Chen Huangpi did not dodge—he sensed no malice.
The fiend’s finger halted just above his head,
Right where a wisp of black smoke lingered.
Chen Huangpi said in surprise, “You want my black smoke?”
The fiend nodded.