"Good at faking ghosts and gods? Able to summon spirits to fight?"
Quinn Shepherd paused, suddenly recalling the Soul-Calling Rite and Spirit Command Seals—two arts concerning souls and spirits he found on the first floor of the Heavenly Records Tower.
The Spirit Command Seals came from the Redcrest Mountain Sect, while the Soul-Calling Rite originated from Nine Hells Gate.
Both arts were stored on the first floor because they’re considered niche spell types—rarely practiced, focused on souls, and lacking much offensive power.
Especially the Spirit Command Seals, which claim to summon and dispatch ghosts and gods. Quinn tested it a few times—at best, it was about as effective as the Five Ghosts Relocation Art from the Grand Fostering Heavenly Demon Sutra, just a lot more complicated.
After finding these two arts, Quinn tried asking Libationer Barrett for guidance. Barrett dismissed them as too obscure and hadn’t studied them, so he tossed them to Quinn to figure out on his own.
While the Spirit Command Seals are similar to the Five Ghosts Relocation Art, their rune system is much more complex and requires forging a sigil-cube artifact.
That sigil-cube is even more intricate than the one Quinn saw in Loulan Golden Palace—a quasi-spherical device with 1,024 irregular faces, each carved with a complex rune.
The sigil-cube at Loulan Golden Palace only had fourteen faces.
Quinn assumed that, given its complexity, the Spirit Command Seals must be a powerful divine art—only to find its effects were no better than the Five Ghosts Relocation Art.
He suspected Redcrest Mountain Sect might’ve concealed something, but that sect has vanished from the world and no longer exists.
As for Nine Hells Gate’s Soul-Calling Rite, Quinn had practiced it, but he’d never actually tried to summon a dead soul back from the Netherworld.
Some runes in both arts looked similar—most soul-type spells seemed to share common features.
Quinn bought some yellow talisman paper and cinnabar in the city, spent two days forging the sigil-cube for Spirit Command Seals, then spent another day copying down the Soul-Calling Rite’s runes and comparing them side by side.
After a thorough comparison, Quinn finally confirmed that both the Spirit Command Seals and Soul-Calling Rite in the Heavenly Records Tower had mistakes—some runes were intentionally written wrong.
These sects had been unwilling to hand over their real techniques to the court, so they deliberately introduced errors in the submitted versions, crippling their power or making them unusable.
The Spirit Command Seals required an enormous number of runes; more than a dozen were wrong, but with over a thousand correct runes, it was still a vast resource.
It was a tremendous knowledge trove.
With that foundation, Quinn could now correct the faulty runes in the Soul-Calling Rite.
The Soul-Calling Rite required more than six hundred rune arrangements. After fixing the errors he spotted, Quinn felt confident it was correct, so he called over a soldier and asked, "Are there still corpses in the city? I want to test a spell."
The soldier asked, "Sir, do you need Nine Hells Gate corpses to test your spell? Their bodies were all buried—you’ll need to dig them up again if you want them."
Quinn’s face changed. He asked urgently, "Where were they buried?"
The soldier replied, "A batch was buried at the mass grave near Embankton, and another at Deer Mountain beside Lu County. Whenever we pulled up bodies, we just buried them wherever was closest."
Quinn’s heart skipped a beat. He said quickly, "Where’s the Deputy Prefect? Go notify her immediately—tell her to put the whole army on alert and send men to the mass graves and Deer Mountain to burn those corpses!"
The soldier didn’t understand, but still rushed out, saying, "Deputy Prefect has gone to Embankton across the river to comfort the people—I’ll go notify her right away!"
"Claire’s over in Embankton? Damn!"
Quinn called another soldier, told him to alert the city garrison, then quickly gathered Elias Yun, Serena Yunxiang, and the others. He said in a rush, "Nine Hells Gate might be coming back—get ready, now!"
Elias Yun, Serena Yunxiang, and the rest were baffled. Monk Yun Que said, "Nine Hells Gate’s people were almost wiped out—just a few stragglers left running around. Do we really need to be on guard against them?"
"They faked their deaths!"
Quinn had just said this when, suddenly, a faint, ancient song drifted over the river. It sounded as if some underworld deity was calling lost souls back to life—a hazy, towering presence opening a gateway and sending the dead’s spirits home from the land of shadows.
Quinn’s face went pale. He sprinted at full speed, wind howling around him, landing atop the north city gate tower. The defenses there were thin—just a handful of soldiers on patrol. Most of the Lichou Prefecture army was still recovering from the recent battle.
Quinn looked out over the river. In the center, a Daoist in a straw hat stood atop a mast, chanting and casting spells. Huge runes glowed green, twisting through the air like countless luminous serpents.
Monk Yun Que and the others rushed over, crowding beside Quinn to peer at the river. Elias Yun asked, "What’s going on—"
He didn’t finish. His face went blank as a wave of black mist surged across the river, spreading wider and wider. In the darkness, a ghostly gate seemed to stand in the river’s heart, floating above the water!
In a blink, night fell. Quinn looked toward the opposite bank and glimpsed several scholar tower-ships approaching, only to see them swallowed by the darkness.
One more scholar tower-ship had just reached the river’s center, only to be engulfed by the dark. Shouts and screams rang out from the deck—clearly, something terrifying had struck.
Quinn turned to look at Deer Mountain on the city’s left. Suddenly, the mountain split open and tiny figures shot into the sky, diving straight toward them.
Several soldiers guarding Lu County’s west gate hadn’t even reacted before the flying figures pinned them with yellow talismans—then killed them on the spot!
Boom!
The west gate burst open. Corpses surged into the city, slaughtering the unprepared defenders!
Those really were corpses—but inside them, the souls of the dead remained. The Daoist on the river used the Soul-Calling Rite to summon back every Nine Hells Gate disciple’s spirit, sending them into their bodies and launching a surprise attack on Lu County’s defenders!
Some corpses were torn to shreds, some had heads hanging by a flap of skin, some had gaping holes in their chests, others were missing limbs—their faces twisted and terrifying.
They were truly dead—but the spell dragged their souls back from the underworld, restoring them to flesh. Their strength was just as it had been in life.
Elias Yun was stunned, standing frozen atop the city wall.
Quinn looked again toward Embankton across the river—now shrouded in black mist, with only the muffled booms of divine arts echoing through the gloom.
"Abandon the city—head for the east gate!" Quinn ordered without hesitation.
Elias Yun and the others were shocked. Quinn sprinted along the wall, shouting for Dragon Qilin and Fox Lina. Chaos had already erupted inside Lu County—the resurrected Nine Hells Gate corpses were butchering defenders who hadn’t had time to react.
The army of Yan Kang Kingdom usually trained in coordinated battle formations, practicing the same spells or sword arts. Small squads of ten or so could work together to defeat even stronger foes.
This tactic was devastating in large-scale wars—like a flood sweeping away all resistance, crushing rebellious sects without mercy.
But this battle in Lu County also exposed the weakness of that tactic.
The resurrected Nine Hells Gate corpses stormed into the city. The defenders hadn’t had time to regroup and were scattered—forced to fight alone. One-on-one, the soldiers were far weaker than the disciples of martial sects. It was a massacre.
Night deepened. The revived Nine Hells Gate disciples saw perfectly in the dark, fighting as fearlessly as if it were daylight.
They were already corpses—unable to feel pain, unconcerned with defense. They simply charged in and killed.
And Nine Hells Gate was a major sect—plenty of experts among them. Even those of the Celestial and Life-and-Death Realms were ‘revived.’
This wasn’t true resurrection—just a spell calling souls back for a time. Eventually, the dead would return to the underworld, but that was long enough to wipe out Lu County’s defenders!
"Lu County’s defenders are finished."
Quinn’s heart sank. He saw Fox Lina and Dragon Qilin arrive and finally breathed a sigh of relief. The group leapt from the east gate, fleeing into the night.
Behind them, the east gate collapsed—shattered by a Celestial Realm expert.
Quinn glanced back—just in time to see a general of the Celestial Realm torn apart by several resurrected Nine Hells Gate experts working together!
Several Daoists were flying overhead on yellow talismans, making Quinn’s heart sink. They were remnants of the Corpse Immortal Sect, now allied with Nine Hells Gate—one controlled corpses, the other souls. Few defenders in the city were likely to escape.
"Doctor Quinn, we should cross the river and return to Embankton!" Elias Yun said gravely.
Quinn shook his head. "There are plenty of corpses in the river, too. We can’t go back."
He’d barely finished speaking when, suddenly, water splashed along the riverbank. In the black mist, dripping corpses climbed out from the depths—seeing the group, they charged straight at them.
"We’ll have to head south—wait for a chance to return north."
Quinn’s expression didn’t change. He slapped his waist, and a sword light shot from his gluttonous pouch, spinning into a Cloud Sword Style that sliced off the heads of several charging Nine Hells Gate disciples.
The headless corpses stooped, picked up their severed heads, tucked them under their arms, and kept coming!
One corpse’s severed head opened its mouth and screeched, "Over here! Some survivors—quick, get them!"
Even Monk Yun Que, Serena Yunxiang, and Elias Yun—well-versed in strange arts—had never seen such twisted magic. Only the usually shy and timid Serena remained calm, not panicking at all.
Quinn splayed his fingers and squeezed. The light from his Junior Protector Sword spun into a Spiral Sword Style, slicing the Nine Hells Gate disciples to pieces. He said grimly, "Go—before their experts catch up."
The group hurried into the darkness. Monk Yun Que glanced back at the fire-lit Lu County, a chill of fear and sorrow in his heart. "South? That’s enemy territory…"