Just a Useful Pawn in the Stain Sect-Chapter 164: Overseas Scenery
On the vast, boundless sea, amidst a dreary, endless fog, a great ship shimmering with golden light cut through the waves, sailing unimpeded.
Neither the thunder from the heavens nor the waves from the sea could shake the massive vessel in the slightest.
The Middle Grade Sentient Artifact: the Void Crossing Golden Ship!
This Spiritual Treasure, bestowed by Perfected Chong Guang, was perfectly suited for the harsh Spiritual Qi environment Overseas. It was unstoppable, slicing through waves and braving the gales.
At the ship’s prow, Lü Yang stood with his hands behind his back, gazing into the distance.
"What violent Spiritual Qi..."
With his level of Cultivation, he could naturally see that this vast, boundless miasma—and the waves and thunder it spawned—were all manifestations of Spiritual Qi.
"Unlike the inland continent, the Spiritual Qi Overseas is extremely chaotic and violent. Ordinary Cultivators can’t even absorb it. This violent Spiritual Qi then gives rise to even more violent weather phenomena. Combined with the natural environment of the great sea, it forms this nigh-insurmountable boundary..."
Not just anyone could venture Overseas.
The sheer power of the ten-thousand-mile thunderclouds generated by this violent Spiritual Qi was comparable to his own Demonic Tribulation Light, and it never ceased.
Caught within it, even a cultivator at the Final-phase of Qi Refining would face almost certain death.
Fortunately, while the thunderclouds possessed immense power, they lacked Position. Thus, a Foundation Establishment Cultivator could still traverse them. Otherwise, even they would likely find it difficult to withstand.
"My fated opportunity..."
As Lü Yang performed a divination with his fingers, he activated the Prophetic Orrery. His Forehead Celestial Eye opened, casting down a brilliant golden Mythical Light that quickly illuminated a path for him. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎
And at the end of that Mythical Light’s beam, he saw a vessel much smaller than his Void Crossing Golden Ship.
"...An Overseas Cultivator?"
Upon seeing this, Lü Yang’s eyes suddenly lit up.
RUMBLE!
In the sky writhed thousands of golden serpents of Thunderbolt Lightning. In the water churned roiling undercurrents and monstrous waves. A three-masted ship struggled beneath this Majestic Power of Heaven and Earth.
"Hold on! Hold on, for crying out loud!"
At that moment, Chen Xinghai, the Helmsman of the Cyan Han Dragon Ship, stood at the stern, his hands clamped tightly on the rudder as he stared in despair at the howling winds and waves around them.
He never would have imagined that what was supposed to be a perfectly normal salvage operation on a border shipwreck would end with them encountering the legendary "Ghost Cloud" just as they were about to return. The Dragon Ship had been unable to evade it in time and plunged right in. No matter how hard he tried afterward, he could no longer find a way out.
At this thought, Chen Xinghai couldn’t help but look up at the sky.
As a Helmsman who made his living from the sea, he recalled his father once telling him that on the other side of the "Ghost Cloud" lay a heavenly paradise, a land paved with Gold.
At the time, he had thought his father was just full of it.
After all, no one who entered the "Ghost Cloud" had ever come out alive. Wasn’t that just a morbid way of saying they’d gone to a heavenly paradise? It was just nonsense to fool children.
But in this moment, Chen Xinghai sincerely hoped his father’s words were true.
’Just hold on. As long as I can make it through the "Ghost Cloud," I’ll survive...’ As for whether the other side was a heavenly paradise, he no longer cared.
CRACK—!
Just then, an unsettling cracking sound reached Chen Xinghai’s ears. He turned to see a Boatman looking at him with a tear-streaked face.
"Boss, I think we’re done for..."
"Shut up!"
Chen Xinghai also felt a bone-deep chill. Just moments ago, the Sea Patrol Immortal Talisman at the stern—personally drawn by an Immortal Master from the Immortal Alliance—had developed cracks. The Mythical Light that had been securely protecting the entire Dragon Ship began to dim, on the verge of shattering.
And here, in the middle of the "Ghost Cloud," the consequences of the Talisman shattering were unthinkable.
"Get the Honored Guest Elder to fix it!"
Chen Xinghai made a last-ditch effort. He had paid a fortune to have an Immortal Master from the Immortal Alliance stationed on his ship. Perhaps he could repair the Talisman...
However, when the Honored Guest Elder appeared before him, what little hope Chen Xinghai had was completely extinguished. At this very moment, the Immortal Master wore an unnervingly slack smile. His eyes were vacant, as if his soul had flown Beyond the Heavens, and he was completely unresponsive to the world around him.
"He’s been bewitched!"
Seeing this, Chen Xinghai’s heart sank. This was the most terrifying aspect of the "Ghost Cloud," and also the origin of its name.
Legend told of an epochal war.
The Great Power Cultivators of the entire Cultivation Realm had joined forces to fight against the Outer Celestial Demons that had suddenly appeared over the sea. On their battlefield, the sky turned crimson and the waves became a Sea of Blood.
In the end, the cultivators of the Cultivation Realm won, but at a great cost. The area shrouded by the "Ghost Cloud" was their former battlefield. The souls of the dead now roamed the dark clouds, transforming into serpent-like lightning. Their lingering obsessions stirred the sea, creating the relentless, monstrous waves.
The higher one’s Cultivation, the more susceptible they were to the influence of these lingering souls.
Once deeply affected, a person would become trapped in the memories of these souls, unable to escape. The people of the sea called this "being bewitched."
Meanwhile, though the Outer Celestial Demons were defeated, they were not exterminated.
Thus, to constantly fight against the Outer Celestial Demons, the surviving cultivators set aside their past grievances and stood together, eventually forming the unified Immortal Alliance of today.
"Boss! What do we do!?"
The voice rang in his ear again, interrupting Chen Xinghai’s escapist thoughts and dragging him back to the reality of his desperate situation.
But what could he do?
He was merely one of the Sea People under the Immortal Alliance’s purview. If not for the Dragon Ship, he would have been turned to dust long ago, alone in the "Ghost Cloud."
Thinking this, Chen Xinghai let out a bitter laugh and collapsed to the deck. "It’s hopeless. We’re just waiting for death now."
"There’s nothing left to be afraid of, anyway."
After all, things had come to this. Was there anything more terrifying than death?
And then he saw it. The "Ghost Cloud" before him, which should have been eternal, suddenly began to roil. An infinite golden light then tore it violently asunder.
Within the golden light, a great ship broke through the void. It stood thirty-six stories tall, each layer more magnificent than the last, like the legendary Thirty-six Layers of Gang Cloud. In the midst of the "Ghost Cloud," it was like a majestic Divine Mountain. Wherever it passed, the waves grew calm, and not even a thousand bolts of lightning could move it.
Chen Xinghai blinked.
He was wrong. Something even more ferocious had arrived from the other side of the "Ghost Cloud"!
The next second, the man who had just been slumped on the ground sprang nimbly to his feet and shouted toward the sky, "Immortal! Immortal, save me, Immortal!"
His cries were answered.
In an instant, Chen Xinghai felt the world spin. When he looked back again, the "Ghost Cloud" had become a distant backdrop on the horizon.
All around them were calm waves and a clear, endless sky.
The majestic, mountain-like golden ship had vanished into thin air.
’I escaped?’
For a moment, he even suspected he had just been having a terrible dream, until he noticed a handsome and imposing figure now standing on his ship.
"This humble commoner, Chen Xinghai, greets you, Master!"
Without the slightest hesitation, Chen Xinghai scurried over to Lü Yang, bowed deeply, and said, "Thank you, Master, for saving me from such a perilous plight!"
At these words, Lü Yang raised an eyebrow.
He had saved Chen Xinghai mainly to inquire about his origins and learn more about the Overseas region, lest he stumble headfirst into trouble.
But as soon as Chen Xinghai spoke, he realized something was wrong.
’The language is the same?’
It was perfectly normal for different regions to have different languages, or at least accents. As far as he knew, the vast region of the North alone had dozens of different accents.
Yet the language Chen Xinghai was speaking was the perfectly standard "True Words"—the common tongue—jointly recognized by the four great powers: the Stain Sect, the Sword Pavilion, the Pure Land, and the Dao Lineage. This was clearly not something a normal Overseas Cultivator would know. Either he had connections to the inland...
...Or the Overseas power behind him had connections to the inland!
