"This talisman will transmit a live feed directly to the heavenly court," The delegate chuckled and proceeded to tear off the talisman.

The other ghost king turned into a mist and hit himself inside the ashen clouds.

​​

When he tore up the talisman, the delegate's expression turned from one of joyfulness to a distressed expression.

"Lord Jade Emperor, the foreign gods are demons who wish to infiltrate and corrupt our sacred land!"

"I've barely managed to incapacitate them and I will prepare my escape back into our land..."

"If I don't come back, that means that the demons have gotten their hand at my life," Tears appeared in the delegate's eyes.

"Please, look at this demon's appearance and send our strongest forces to avoid catastrophe," The delegate also began describing Hermes.

A few dozen seconds later, the talisman dissipated into thin air, and the crocodile tears of the delegate instantly dried up.

"Now then, let's see how your immortality will work if your body gets cut up into a million pieces..."

The sharp light at the delegate's hand slowly approached Alex's neck.

Alex struggled to get the flask of Essence out of his pockets, but it was clearly too late.

'F*ck, I overestimated myself again...'

Suddenly, the life-giving ghost king returned to his corporeal body and exclaimed, "There's a strange barrier around this place that we can't leave!"

"What do you mean?" The delegate approached the ghost king and followed him.

His hands stopped in thin air, and no matter how much force he exerted over the barrier, he couldn't leave.

"Was there some natural barrier around here that we didn't know of?"

The life-giving ghost king shook his head and replied, "I have been here for decades, and this has never happened..."

Alex's vision was blurry, and he listlessly stared at the puzzled silhouettes.

"Is it just me, or is the barrier shrinking around us?" The delegate asked as he felt his hands pushed back.

"No, it's not just you."

"Who was that?!" The ghost king screamed.

"Your worst nightmare." A flash of light flickered in the cold night and stopped in front of the heavily injured Alex.

The usually pristine wings of the god now looked like a death angel's wings.

A serpentine staff approached the injured god, and Hermes glared at the bloody hole in Alex's torso.

The torn tissue of his vital organs slowly healed, and his heart began beating again.

"His body should be able to heal the rest," Hermes passed his hand by Alex's barely open eyes and closed them.

"You probably shouldn't see this, Alexei-boy."

"Now then, I heard you wanted to cut him up into a million pieces?"

The delegate and the ghost king frowned.

A bead of cold sweat fell down their foreheads, yet the delegate still stated, "I saw him fight earlier, his only advantage over us is speed, if we both corner him, we can finish the fight."

"Can you? Look around you," Hermes giggled.

The delegate moved back a step, but his body halted as if it hit a solid wall.

"The barrier shrank even more!"

The two couldn't do anything about it, as they were pushed closer and closer to Hermes by the barrier.

This strategy wouldn't have worked against Indra, who was as powerful as Zeus, but against two small fries, Hermes was going to go overkill.

He borrowed Prometheus from Alex, and the silver dagger in his hands towered like a sword of Damocles over their heads.

"Try escaping the god of swiftness in this small area, will you?" Hermes smiled, showing his pristine white teeth.

Suddenly, he disappeared from his spot.

"Where is he?!"

However, Hermes appeared again in the same position.

"He didn't attack us-

The delegate's right arm suddenly fell to the ground, causing a light thud.

The delegate thought it was over, but suddenly, his three other limbs mysteriously detached from his body, and only his bleeding torso and head remained.

"Silver Immortals, huh? What's so immortal about you? I cut you up so easily."

The delegate could only stare with a wide jaw as his range of movement became null.

The ghost king by his side recognized the threat of the situation and turned into a mist.

He tried to escape underground through the sand, but the barrier was spherical, and the ghost king had no choice but to stay in mist form in the air.

"Perhaps I can't vanquish you, but the Buddhist monk is coming this way and will do that for me, so let's just wait patiently, shall we?" Hermes snickered and crouched.

The delegate had nothing but terror in his eyes.

Hermes said he was 'waiting', but occasionally, new cuts appeared on the delegate's body, and he became a mangled mess of blood.

The vitality of a Silver Immortal, however, allowed him to remain alive even through that pain, and Hermes took advantage of that.

Hermes yawned and the delegate's head twitched.

Every single movement of the former seemed like a death sentence to him now.

Suddenly, the sound of footsteps approached them, and Hermes exclaimed, "Finally!"

The barrier disappeared, and the ghost king tried to escape, but somehow, he could not.

Xuanzang was standing there, and reading incantations from a strange, gold-coated scroll.

When he read the incantations, the mist started gathering and turned into the human figure of the ghost king.

The ghost king wanted to sacrifice his ghostly form, but Hermes stood there.

Additionally, the incantations of the Buddhist monk caused him great pain.

In the great Indian game of Chaturanga, there was only one way to describe this outcome.

Checkmate.

"I could not have expected a heavenly court member to be a ghost king," Xuanzang stroked his beard and contemplated.

Suddenly, two men appeared in the battle scene.

One of them was short and stout and wore black robes.

The other one was tall and slender and wore white robes.

Behind them, an army of red-skinned men followed the two in a strict formation.

Xuanzang remarked, "The armies of Yan Wang are here..."

A screen-like slit appeared in mid-air, and through the slit, the scary figure of Yan Wang sat upon his judicial platform.

"What a great result, two more ghost kings captured in one day!" Yan Wang exclaimed.

His two underlings sent thick chains that shackled the two corpses.

"Hmmm, where's the boy?" Yan Wang inquired about Alex.

Hermes replied to his interjection, "You must be the one who gave him the quest, right?"

"Another foreign-looking man? Are you his companion?"