Chapter 578: Clues

Translated by: La0o9

Edited by: Dr.Lock

Proofreader: Arya

It was already a bit past midnight.

A cold mist filled the valley as it kept a stunned silence.

Gu Qing Shan and Ilya both stood in the empty valley, not knowing what to do next.

All traces of the ghost army ended as they entered the valley.

But there wasn’t a single ghost here to be found.

“An army of 100,000 can’t just disappear without a trace” Gu Qing Shan commented.

“I agree, that is impossible. This is a lost world of the Old Gods, even ghosts and revenants have to follow the Laws set by the divinity, not to mention, a large portion of them were Entropy Ghosts that scattered themselves, so they clearly still had to follow the most basic Laws of this world, as they couldn’t appear or disappear out of thin air” Ilya agreed.

Even after turning the entire valley upside down to check, they still couldn’t find any other clues.

Ilya scowled: “I have a bad feeling about this”

“Same here”

Gu Qing Shan replied.

He released his inner sight again to scour through every last inch of space in this place.

After he had checked the mountains, the trees, even the dirt, Gu Qing Shan still couldn’t find anything.

Ilya spoke: “Seems like we’ll have to use a few special means”

Saying so, she took out a large, polished bronze mirror.

Carefully setting it on the ground, she sternly spoke: “Magic mirror, please tell me if there were any voices here within the last 200 breaths”

The mirror stayed silent.

Ilya squinted her eyes, muttering: “Troublesome…”

She thought a bit more and asked: “Magic mirror, please tell me if there were any voices here within the last 1000 breaths”

A low voice came from the mirror: 「 To search for voices within the last 1000 breaths, you need 1735 units of Divine Power 」

Divine Power?

As Gu Qing Shan heard that, he looked at Ilya.

Ilya seemed clearly troubled.

My wounds still haven’t fully healed, if I use the remaining Divine Power I have to investigate an unclear piece of intel, that might be a bit unproductive.

It’s fine if we manage to find out important intel.

But if there still isn’t any intel after that, then it would be a huge waste.

While she was hesitating, Gu Qing Shan came forward and asked: “So you need Divine Power? Just 1735 units are enough?”

「 Correct, 1735 units of Divine Power is necessary to start the search 」the magic mirror answered.

“I’ll pay”

Gu Qing Shan placed his hand on the magic mirror.

Ilya hurriedly knocked his hand away, reminding him: “You can’t, the amount of Divine Power a living being can possess is limited, with your current strength, the maximum amount of Divine Power you can hold won’t even be 1735 units, you will die!”

“Don’t worry, when it comes to Divine Power, I’m naturally talented” Gu Qing Shan explained.

Ilya was stunned.

Naturally talented?

Is there such a thing?

Gu Qing Shan once again put his hand on the magic mirror.

The mirror asked: 「 Are you sure you want to pay 1735 units of Divine Power? If you die, I can’t be blamed 」

“Do it”

Following Gu Qing Shan’s voice, the number of Soul Points displayed on the War God UI changed.

[1735 Soul Points has been deducted]

[Remaining Soul Points: 510,000/400]

Gu Qing Shan glanced at it and silently nodded.

After deducting the fractional amount, the remaining Soul Points was now a round number.

All that effort and energy he spent into killing the ghost army wasn’t in vain after all.

As the magic mirror was supplied with Divine Power, voices and noises began to appear.

Ilya and Gu Qing Shan stood in front of the mirror, carefully listening to it.

This was a mirror, but it could only give off sound…

Gu Qing Shan was a bit surprised: “Why are there only sounds without any images?”

“This magic mirror can only search for sounds. But that’s already quite a feat, searching for past images is much harder so there are hardly any treasures capable of that” Ilya explained.

Gu Qing Shan nodded.

For some reason, he suddenly recalled the first time he met Bai Hua Fairy.

At the time, to check whether or not his words were true, Bai Hua Fairy invoked a Divine Skill.

[Truth from Void]

Using Gu Qing Shan’s badge as a catalyst, Bai Hua Fairy managed to see all of Gu Qing Shan’s battles up to that point.

She could even see whether or not the people around him were dead or alive.

…Gu Qing Shan fell into thought.

A treasure that came from the Mystic Zones of the 900 million World Layers can’t even compare to one of Shifu’s Divine Skills?

Now that I think about it, every single Divine Skill that Shifu possesses wasn’t as simple as they seemed.

While he was thinking that, clear voices began to appear in the magic mirror.

He quickly refocused himself to listen.

At first, there were a lot of noises and commotion coming from the mirror, together with restless screaming and shouting.

A few moments later, most of those sounds had calmed down, leaving only the sparse screeching of some ghosts.

Until finally, a thunderous voice speaking in ghost language came out from the mirror.

『 All troops, retreat 』

After this, there were no longer any sounds.

The two of them exchanged looks of disbelief and continued to wait.

But the magic mirror just continued to stay silent.

Just as Gu Qing Shan and Ilya were about to give up, a faint sound came out from the mirror again.

It was the deep sigh of a woman.

Such a sound coming from the perfectly silent valley caused both Gu Qing Shan and Ilya to be caught off guard.

This was supposed to be where the ghost army gathered, why was there a sigh of a human woman?

A few moments later, a soft singing voice echoed in the dark valley.

“A journey so far.

Far outside of my wildest dreams.

Sometimes I still dream.

Of how much I miss home…”

The singing voice disappeared.

At this point, there were no longer any sounds.

“Universal human language!” Ilya commented.

“That was unlikely to be a human, demonized people have no way to infiltrate this world” Gu Qing Shan refuted her.

“Then just who was that woman?” Ilya asked.

Gu Qing Shan couldn’t answer.

All they heard were a few lines of singing, how would they know who she was?

“No, there still isn’t enough intel” he muttered.

Ilya crouched down, putting her hand on the ground and chanted: “O’ Mother Earth, she who watches over all, grant me witness to the sky, the wind, the rain, the mountain!”

As she completed her chant, the valley itself began to tremble.

Large mountain peaks began to sprout from the ground.

A majestic mountain range that stretched far was created out of thin air, standing tall between heaven and earth.

The place where Ilya and Gu Qing Shan stood was now the top of a towering mountain peak.

“There are no traps within a 3-kilometer radius in the ground, nor are there any buildings, it’s all clean”

Ilya sighed and told him.

Gu Qing Shan took out a formation plate and quickly operated it.

Grand Anti-ghost formation, activate!

A yellow cluster of light began to expand from the peak of the mountain downwards.

A faint and curt grunt of pain abruptly came.

Both Gu Qing Shan and Ilya disappeared on the spot, reappearing where the sound had come from.

It was a large rock.

“That rock was originally underground, it only appeared on the outside of the mountain because of my spell” Ilya quickly said.

Gu Qing Shan slashed it with his sword.

The rock was instantly sliced to pieces, a jet black shadow rolled out from the rock, groaning while lying flat on the ground.

This was a shadow-type monster, its entire body was made of an incorporeal fog of darkness, but the head revealed its fierce and disgusting true self.

A Soul-devouring Revenant of Huang Quan!

“Apparently it was hiding inside a rock underground, if it weren’t because of your formation causing it to feel pain, it wouldn’t have let out a single sound” Ilya commented.

Gu Qing Shan nodded.

When he first came into this world, he saw one of these ghosts before.

At the time, the ghost had attached itself to a corpse, and Gu Qing Shan only managed to trap it using his Lightning power.

「 A ghost of Huang Quan, need me to contact it? 」 the Earth sword couldn’t help but ask in a low voice.

“Wait a bit” Gu Qing Shan said.

He walked forward, crouching down in front of the revenant and carefully checked.

This monster’s limbs were all torn apart, it was also very heavily wounded, enough for it to die at any time.

The wounds were clearly caused by sword-infused wind——– as if it was barely brushed past by the wind.

Who would’ve thought it could survive for this long.

『 The light, uncomfortable, take away your light… 』 the Soul-devouring Revenant moaned

Sensing that it was about to die, Gu Qing Shan dispelled his anti-ghost formation.

It was now that the revenant stopped its heavy breathing.

A sword was pointed right at its forehead.

The shining light of Lightning, filled with a presence of destruction had concentrated right at the tip of the sword.

“Come, tell me, why are you the only one left here?” Gu Qing Shan pointed his sword at the revenant and asked.

Having the power of Lightning so close caused the Soul-devouring Revenant to feel extreme discomfort, but it still smirked sarcastically.

『 I hid here simply because I didn’t want to be eaten by other ghosts. I never thought I’d be found out like this 』

“Then tell me what happened, I promise to think of a way to heal your wounds” Gu Qing Shan said.

『 Too late 』the Soul-devouring Revenant shook its head, 『 everything is about to be over, and you’re all done for as well 』

Saying so, the Soul-devouring Revenant turned into a puff of black smoke that gradually faded away.

It died.