The Heavenly Wandering Sword

Chapter 50

The Lancers stopped as many of the soldiers glanced at the portal. Portals to the underworld were technically possible but it required a large amount of spiritual force. This was accomplished by substituting life force for spiritual force and the subsequent sacrifice of thousands of innocent people. “What is this portal? I can only feel darkness come from it.” General Shing gazed at it, her eyes feeling a sudden spark of pain. There was just too much negative energy coming from the portal itself. For ordinary cultivators, negative energy acted almost as a direct cancel. It meant that for the Royal Lancers, this portal was almost a blackhole.

The portal suddenly became active and what looked like more Oyrat tribesmen began to pour out of the portal. To Li Jian, this suddenly made sense. The ones that they had fought earlier, the reason the tribesmen had let off such a strong sense of evil essence was because they had been exposed to something that held enough darkness to corrupt their spiritual essence. If something wasn’t done, this would begin to happen to the Lancers as well. As more of the Oyrat came out of the portal, the evil essence inside the camp became stronger and stronger. A few of the Lancers roared out as their eyes began to bleed; some collapsed to the ground while others turned and attacked their compatriots.

General Shing realised too late the trap that they had fallen into. Li Jian looked over at the students and saw that they were resisting still, but the use of spiritual essence was starting to become draining on them. Even with his powers, he couldn’t simply close the portal. General Shing sounded a retreat and the remaining Lancers who had sufficient power left attacked the wooden gates of the camp. It took a few tries, dozens of lives being lost in the time but the seal on the gates finally broke, allowing the Lancers to retreat out of the camp. The retreat was by no means a clean one, with various soldiers dragged back by the corrupted Oyrat tribesmen as well as by turned Lancers.

Li Jian directed the students to pour attacks onto the hole in the wall they had made. All of the students now had given up fighting hand to hand and instead of using their ranged attacks to launch spirit energy in the form of arrows, blades as well as spears into the gap. Slowly but surely, the surviving Lancers were able to finally finish off the last tribesmen. General Shing however was not satisfied. “It’s only a matter of time before they come out of there again. We need to find a way to seal it off.” She was prepared to sacrifice greatly in order to stop more of this evil from pouring into the world but that was not a long-term solution.

This was something that required perhaps a divine touch. For some reason, Li Jian also felt that this had something to do with the unrest in the Divine Hunts Ground as well as what had happened with Sun Li the demigoddess of healing. It was too coincidental that the underworld had a passage forced through only a small while after a Tengu Lord was summoned onto this world somehow. General Shing was busy trying to come up with a plan while his students looked at him curiously. “Professor, what is that portal? Where does it lead to?” Shing Hai asked, her uniform ripped in places where she had been unable to avoid attacks while smears of blood would also streak over her armour. The students had finally been blooded in a real battle.

“The portal, it is not so easy to explain.” Li Jian said carefully. He wasn’t about to explain his understanding of the underworld to the students, nor did he wish to give an explanation to the Royals or the General. He gazed over his students, all of whom were at least slightly injured in some way or the other. Thinking to himself about a solution for the portal, he idly handed out some healing pills to the students including Qin. “This man is not just a master scholar and warrior, but it seems he understands alchemy as well.” Qin thought to himself, accepting the pill with a bow. It was a pill that spread spiritual energy around and in truth, even the essence of it was enough to revitalise some of the injured around them. He absentmindedly took out another healing pill and crushed it, scattering it up in the air and using his spiritual energy to circulate it around the injured Lancers. Those with minor injured felt themselves healing all of a sudden and those with more serious injuries felt their injuries slowly get a bit better.

Qin saw this and wondered just how powerful a master was to not only be able to produce pills of this nature but use them in such an effective manner. The students had healed up quickly thanks to the effect of the pill and Li Jian just nudged them forward. “Move forward, plug the gap. The rest of the army has to heal before more of the tribesmen come out.” The students looked at him with uncertainly, but he just nodded for them to go ahead. “Let’s form one single line, since we need to protect the front.” Shing Hai of course was the one to take charge. After all, her older sister was the General. In fact, General Shing Yon herself had also been injured in the fighting. Li Jian noticed it and walked up to the General who had deep slashes in her armour. He examined them, ignoring the fact that the General was having a discussion with her captains and nodded here and there. As she was talking, he produced a healing pill and placed it in her hand before walking off. She couldn’t help but slightly blush when she turned to see him hold her hand, even though it was just to put a pill. She still vividly remembered those glowing petals.

After a few more moments of deliberation, the consensus was that the Lancers had to stay here and guard this location. Messengers were prepared to travel to the capital city Murk and tell the three Rulers of this. Li Jian however had other plans. “Please tell the Principal that I must go, it has to do with the field in the cavern. Make sure you tell her that.” He said to the students who were formed up in a line to defend against any further intrusions from the portal before he walked forward, giving them a casual wave. “See you all later.” He said before he stepped through the portal. He felt a rush of air and then a sudden stillness in the air when he made it through the other side.

Once he was on the other side, he saw that the portal had a spiritual anchor. There was a skeleton that cradled a large black tablet that seemed to have an energy link to the portal, and he could tell that the black stone tablet was something of a great evil nature. When he got a little bit closer and looked, he saw that it was indeed a tombstone that had various names on there, but the meaning was unclear to him. Reaching out, he sent a jolt of spiritual essence and crushed the tablet to powder. With a loud grating sound, the portal slowly closed. Hearing a low growl, he turned to see that a bit further down from the portal anchor was a large altar where the souls of Oyrat tribesmen were being collected and then overwhelmed with energy from a yokai. The yokai that had growled was what was known as a Yokai Undertaker. They were powerful mages that practiced necromancy which was common in the Underworld.

It suddenly made sense in his head why they were facing a group of tribesmen that had no fear and kept going no matter what severe damage were inflicted on them until they were dead. The Yokai here was raising up undead soldiers. The Yokai Undertaker growled at him some more, the altar still collecting more souls to churn out. Away from the prying eyes however of the mortals, he was free to unleash a bit of his powers. He drew his sword and with one sweep of his blade, the altar itself was cut into over ten thousand pieces of stone. The pile of now useless stone collapsed onto the ground while the Yokai Undertaker paused and growled again, aware that the opponent it faced now was a powerful one. There was also no way that Li Jian was going to let him go either.

The Yokai blinked only to see that Li Jian was standing behind him now. It tried to turn but it was unable to move any of its limbs. He sheathed his sword with a definitive click, the yokai falling apart into pieces of inert flesh. Li Jian searched the Yokai’s body to find that the mage had very little on it except some spirit stones, and a storage ring. The storage ring had an odd assortment of necromancer items that were useless to him but it also bore a tombstone shaped crest the size of a mortal token that had the words “Undead Palace” engraved on it. It was as good a clue as any. The Yokai mage was clearly the servant of the Undead Palace, the entity that was responsible for processing the souls of those departed from the mortal realms. The villainous souls were sent off to be devoured by the other yokai while the innocent souls were guided to the cities of the Underworld where they were able to live before deciding on reincarnation.

Although he had no real frame of reference, he was however able to sense a large gathering of soul energy from a point on one of the large grey mountains and that was good enough for him. He began to walk aimlessly up towards that section of the mountains, quickly disguised himself with the mask that he had from the mortal world. It would not bode well if he was recognized immediately as a human. Disguising his aura was an easy feat. After half a day of walking, he found himself in front of a large city that had yokai as well as souls in various shapes and forms. It was strange however as there were also various humans, witch elves and demons who seemed to have the evil essence of yokai that came from them. He looked up and saw that the name on the city gates said “Hong Fen City.” Hong Fen City was the place where all the souls went to be gathered up after death. From there, they were sent to the various different realms of the Underworld Deities.