Young Noble Be Monster Slaying
Chapter 1001: It’s Approaching (I)

Chapter 1001: It’s Approaching (I)

 

It was a moonless night, the winds were high, and cicadas cried mournfully in the cold.

Far from the clamor of civilization, the gurgling and splashing of a flowing stream filled the silence of a deep ravine.

Suddenly, a shadowy figure flitted by.

"Ghost! I've finally caught you!" someone shouted near the ravine.

As two voices yelled for a ghost to stop, two white-clad figures leaped out from among the trees, one ahead of the shadowy figure and the other behind. They each wielded a longsword, and judging by the fluctuations of their foundational qi, both were around the third realm of cultivation. Their sword qi quickly flooded the ravine.

Under the moonlight, the shadow figure’s true form was revealed. It was a green-faced ghost with tusks and a fearsome visage.

"Aaaaahhh!"

Normally, anyone would be frightened if they saw a ghost like that, but now, terror flashed in its own eyes. Not daring to fight the two cultivators head-on, the ghost turned and shot toward the top of the ravine, its form flickering like the wind.

The two young sword cultivators gave chase, but before they could catch up, a large net covered in yellow talismans suddenly descended from above, trapping the ghost on the spot.

Zzzzzzt.

The sound of meat searing on a hot iron plate came from the net. A quick-witted teenage girl descended from the sky, followed by four people in black. Together, they pulled the net and bound the ghost tightly.

The teenage girl urged them, "Hurry and seal it into the Yin Jade Bottle. If we're too slow and end up killing it, none of us are getting paid."

"Understood!" the black-clad group replied with a nod.

The two sword cultivators finally caught up and yelled, "Stop! We waited a whole day and night in that ravine for this ghost. How can you swoop in and steal it now?"

"I don’t care how long you waited. You didn’t catch it, did you?" the teenage girl snapped. "I sensed a wave of yin energy here and just happened to arrive in time. Doesn’t that mean this ghost was meant for me?"

One of the sword cultivators argued, "If not for the two of us driving it out, how could you have possibly—"

"What a strong aura of death…" the other sword cultivator muttered as he turned his head away. He nudged his friend. "Forget about this ghost. It only has a hundred years of cultivation. That one over there looks way stronger!"

With that, the two sword cultivators mounted their swords and flew south, streaking across the night as twin beams of light.

The teenage girl stared in that direction too and ordered loudly, "After them!"

The two groups gave chase, one lagging behind just a tad. Both groups arrived almost at the same time beside a riverbank downstream.

Standing by the bank was a petite young woman with three umbrellas strapped to her back. One black umbrella was open, while the other two remained shut. She wore an indifferent expression and quietly stared into the water, as if waiting for something.

The two groups of cultivators found the young woman’s cultivation unfathomable, so they halted in their tracks, not daring to utter a word.

After a moment, a shadowy figure shot out from the water. It turned out to be a ghost clad in black, and it was holding a fairly large water ghost.

The black-clad ghost moved at incredible speed, like a blur of motion. It handed the water ghost over to the young woman and vanished into the black umbrella in a flash.

The young woman closed her umbrella, then she sealed the water ghost into an enchanted tool.

When she was done with all that, she finally turned to face the onlookers. She asked coldly, "What do you want?"

"N-nothing…" The two groups of cultivators hastily waved their hands, not daring to provoke someone with such an imposing presence.

Only the quick-witted girl dared to step forward and said, "Big Sister, your ghost is amazing! Where did you catch it? It looks like it can find other ghosts. Can you give it to me?"

The young woman looked at her and replied icily, "That’s my father."

The quick-witted girl then asked, "Can you give your father to me?"

The moment the words left her mouth, she realized there was something off about what she said. Her face turned beet red in embarrassment.

The young woman turned around and spat, "Scram."

Dejected, the onlookers quickly slinked away.

Only the white-haired young woman remained by the riverbank.

She frowned and muttered, "That damned Chu Liang... he's seriously super annoying."

This young woman was Luo Yao of the Valley of the Three Absolutes. Of course, she wasn’t there to catch ghosts and earn spirit-stone coins from the Mount Shu Sect. She was the face of her sect after all; she would not be lacking in money.

Instead, she was there because of one of the three ghosts she kept with her. The red-robed ghost was her younger brother, and he had grown increasingly restless. He constantly seemed to be trying to lead her away from her sect’s base and into the remote wilderness, far from any trace of people.

Luo Yao didn’t know the reason for that, so she just went along with it for now.

As she made her way deeper into the mountains, she sensed the fear and unease that her younger brother felt. Gently patting the red umbrella, she patiently tried to soothe her younger brother.

"Don’t be afraid… I can protect you all now."

…

Since the dawn of time, yin and yang had coexisted in this world. The humans flourished, while evil spirits were born from the shadows. For countless ages, it had always been people who feared ghosts.

Never in history had there been a time like this. Now, it was the ghosts who feared people. They were scared out of their minds.

Ever since the Mount Shu Sect released the news that it would be buying ghosts, the cultivation world was shaken. What followed was a ghost-hunting craze that swept across the nine provinces. That was when everyone realized that there weren’t actually that many ghosts in the mortal realm.

Demonic creatures were mostly born in remote wilderness, far from human settlements. Furthermore, only a small minority caused trouble in human towns or cities. Ghosts, on the other hand, were tied directly to humankind.

Beasts lacked divine intelligence, so it was difficult for them to turn into ghosts. Even if they died with great resentment, only demonic beasts with some cultivation power could become yin entities after death.

Consequently, once a ghost formed, there was a high chance it would be discovered and then dealt with quickly. People had always assumed there were plenty of ghosts and evil spirits, but when they truly went looking for wandering souls and wild ghosts, they realized it wasn’t that easy to find them.

Even malicious ghosts with a hundred years of cultivation were rare, let alone great ghost kings that had been cultivating for a thousand years.

Some humans raised ghosts. Those ghosts might have higher cultivation levels, but raising a ghost was an enormous expense. It would cost far more than a few hundred spirit stones to fund a ghost’s cultivation for a few hundred years. In other words, raising ghosts to sell to the Mount Shu Sect simply wasn’t a viable method of generating income.

Besides, it wasn’t even that easy to raise a ghost. When it came to making ghosts, no one was better at it than the disciples of diabolical sects. However… there were no diabolical sects left.

The remnants of the Dark King Sect had gathered under the Mount Shu Sect, and the West Sea Diabolical Forces had long since been destroyed. The diabolical sects of the eastern and western coasts had experienced their darkest chapters in history.

For the disciples of the Divine Nine and Terrestrial Ten, it wasn’t worthwhile for them to hunt ghosts in exchange for a mere hundred or so spirit stones. However, it was a totally different story for disciples of second-tier or third-tier immortal sects, which lacked resources. Capturing one ghost meant they could exchange it for enough spirit stones to buy pills or enchanted tools, so it was an extremely tempting opportunity for them.

Many cultivators like that rushed out to catch ghosts, causing the ghosts near human cities and towns to vanish in one night. Some ghosts scattered into the remote forests and mountains, but they still couldn’t escape those greedy humans. It was no exaggeration to say that ghosts were now on the brink of extinction.

When cultivators went to sell the ghosts to the Mount Shu Sect, the sect offered three methods in which they could be paid.

The first was that they could take the set amount of spirit stones for the ghost and leave. The second was that they could give the ghost to the Mount Shu Sect on credit, and the Mount Shu Sect would repay the debt in a year, along with an additional twenty percent in interest. The third was the same as the second, but instead of one year, the Mount Shu Sect would repay the debt in three years, along with an additional fifty percent interest.

For cultivators, a few years wasn’t a long time. Some who urgently needed funds chose the first option, but many opted for the latter two. The Mount Shu Sect had a great reputation, so most people had faith that they would get paid as promised. After all, the Mount Shu Sect was a large sect and one of the Divine Nine; it wasn’t about to collapse any time soon.

Venerable Wen Yuan’s eyes shone with admiration as he watched the yin entities of the mortal realm gradually get pulled into Baize’s Yin-Yang Realm.

Looking back at how the Mount Shu Sect had climbed step by step to its current standing, Venerable Wen Yuan had to admit that his contributions as the sect leader were far less than those of Chu Liang, a young disciple. No matter where he went, Chu Liang always seemed to have a way of turning decay into something magical.

…