Lu Yun wasn’t the least bit surprised that there were ghouls here. Places such as ancient battlefields or burial pits of millions of souls were natural breeding grounds for ghouls.

In certain respects, ghouls were a kind of zombie, but they were also very different. They preferred yin energy and feared the yang, possessed very little intelligence, were as cowardly as mice, and very rarely attacked the living.

Thus, a sight like thousands of them chasing You Huoran was one to behold.

The ghouls within the Tomb of Heaven and Earth would remain ghouls within the chaos, they wouldn’t change on a fundamental level. There must be something inside the yellowish fetid air controlling the horde of ghouls and agitating these ordinarily fearful creatures.

……

You Huoran scrabbled and tumbled his way to Ying Luo and reached out to hug her legs, but she lifted her foot and kicked him out of the way.

He crashed heavily to the side and looked blearily at the others around him.

“You blithering idiot!” Wei Yuan was about to spit fire from his eyes. Not only had the fool attracted a large sum of ghouls to their location, he’d even wanted to use the situation to feel up Ying Luo!

Wei Yuan wanted to throw him right back into the horde, but it was too late to do anything now. Several thousand ghouls were upon them.

“Ying Luo, cold air!” Lu Yun suddenly roared.

“Okay!” The girl lit up when she heard the command. There were still plenty of realm monster core fragments in her storage treasure.

She waved a hand without skipping a beat and summoned the pile of shards as a river of frigid air, surrounding herself and Lu Yun. Wang Shu, Wei You, and You Huoran shivered uncontrollably when the arctic flow appeared, trembling and freezing in its wake.

The ghouls charging them instantly slowed down; those at the forefront froze over as ice sculptures and toppled to the ground. That gradually brought the horde of ghouls to a halt.

“Zombies are afraid of the cold?!” Wang Shu’s eyes gleamed.

“Zombies aren’t afraid of the cold.” Ying Luo looked at Wang Shu. “These ghouls are afraid of the cold.”

“Aren’t ghouls a type of zombie? So why are zombies indifferent to cold and ghouls afraid?” Wang Shu argued back. He was the young lord of Burgeon Palace and possessed uncommon knowledge of the realm. Of course he recognized ghouls.

Ying Luo looked at Lu Yun instead of answering him.

“Ghouls are both zombies and not zombies,” Lu Yun responded. “Zombies are formed by something with a knot of resentment in its chest. They are neither alive nor dead, living somewhere in between living and dead souls. They do not fear fire, water, cold, or flame.

“Ghouls, however, are different. They devour yin energy and are filled with it, which makes them the equivalent of a cold-blooded being. When yin energy meets with cold, they interact with each other and worsen each other’s effects. Yin energy immediately freezes over and immobilizes the ghouls.

“But, that’s the most the cold air can do. It won’t actually harm the ghouls, and once it dissipates, they’ll be able to move around again.

“Let’s go and see what’s at the origin of this gross smell. I wonder what’s manipulating these ghouls?” Two streaks of faintly golden light flashed through Lu Yun’s eyes and an image of the luopan existed for a brief moment.

He saw an enormous corpse at the center of this region—the source of the yellowish corpse qi. It hadn’t mutated into anything or spawned a vicious ghost, appearing to be a very ordinary, highly rotted body.

Lu Yun knew that the secrets of the region must lie within it. Thus, he set out in that direction, Ying Luo and Wang Shu following him with no hesitation, while You Huoran and Wei Yuan looked at each other.

“There are more zombie beasts—ghouls in that direction! Don’t go there!” You Huoran called out.

“With this cold air, the ghouls won’t be able to hurt us. Let’s follow them and take a peek, maybe we’ll find some treasure!” Wei Yuan frowned.

The situation was very clear, Ying Luo and Wang Shu were bent on following Lu Yun as their leader. Wei Yuan and You Huoran certainly wasn’t about to do that, so they had to team up with each other.

……

“Strange, we saw the creation seed when we were in that fog of zombie qi. How come we haven’t seen it after entering the area?” Wang Shu grumbled.

“The creation seed is immeasurable and indeterminable. What we’ve seen and sensed so far are just illusions projected by its main body. The real creation seed may not be here,” Ying Luo explained. “It’s said that the creation seed is alive and that the nine sacred lands used the power of chaos derived from them to build the sacred lands. The nine powers that they hold are second to only the highest orders that we grasp.”

“Nine powers? I’ve heard of a tenth creation seed before, apparently some bastard swallowed it in a complete waste of a great treasure…” Wang Shu added.

“Alright, enough chatter,” Lu Yun interrupted them. “Be ready, the foul stench ahead doesn’t just smell bad, it’s actually corpse qi.”

The pungent air around them had been a dark yellow, but the space ahead was enveloped by grayish-yellow fog. That was corpse qi, not just a disgusting stink. The stink wasn't just a smell emanated by the corpse qi. Its origins also lay with the huge corpse in the middle of the grayish-yellow corpse qi.

Wei Yuan and You Huoran approached them as well.

“How about we turn ourselves into zombies before going inside?” Wang Shu proposed cautiously.

Lu Yun shook his head. “We can’t, there’s poison in this corpse qi as well. If you enter it as a zombie, the poison will take control of you just like it did the ghouls.”

The ghouls were still following them, but were held at bay by Ying Luo’s torrent of arctic air.

“Seal off your nine orifices and all pores of your body, we’re going inside!” Lu Yun grunted.

“But what if there’s some sort of monster in the corpse qi?” Wei Yuan asked hesitantly.

“Even if there is, they’d only be second level mortal realm.” Lu Yun swept him a glance. “If my speculations are right, the opportunity to ascend beyond the chaos lies within this layer of corpse qi.”

“What?!” Heightened tension gripped the group.

“She may be dead and her true spirit scattered, but a trace of will lingers on. She guided us here to select an heir to inherit her legacy,” Lu Yun said slowly. “All of the living beings that have arrived in this area are her target.”