Chương 62: A Hell of Ghosts

Hell.

Beyond the gates, they saw hell. A hell without screams of despair or pain, one without fire, devils, or a constant, scorching heat. Regardless, what lay before them was a hell regardless, one of ghosts and wraiths.

Jun Meng Chen, Balthazar, and the others could hardly believe their eyes. A monochrome world dyed a deep scarlet, with the repugnant stench of blood striking their nostrils.

Stepping forward, they could detect spatial and temporal tears, both large and small, ripping through fountains, buildings. And yet, the most horrifying aspect before them were the hundreds of immortal constructs before them.

The defining constructs of immortals were strewn everywhere within the domain akin to carelessly sown seeds, in the form of weapons, accessories, objects, or even jadeite tears containing an abstruse concept. There were several piles of immortal constructs throughout the domain, and Jun Meng Chen could spot ghosts and wraiths surround the pile, with an obvious intent to feed.

"Assimilating immortals…" Balthazar whispered, his face drained of blood.

"How could ghosts…feed on immortals? Didn't you state that the Ghost King's Domain was purely assigned to assist immortals cultivate, and not to feed on them!?"

Whirling onto the supervising elder, he shouted in rage, his body quivering as Balthazar gazed accusingly at the elder. Surprised and shaken by his yell, the elder trembled as his gaze met with Balthazar, and Jun Meng Chen could see the confusion, betrayal, and despair within.

"We truly didn't know…the Divine Palace even had the Pavilion Heads to examine each immortal that successfully departed to ensure the lack of a backlash. Conjuring agglomerate thoughts to consume immortals…just why did the Ghost King…"

Observing that Balthazar was about to explode into another onslaught of verbal accusation, Jun Meng Chen forcefully shook the lavishly-dressed youth, returning him to his senses. As clarity returned to Balthazar's eyes, he finally saw the turmoil within the supervising elder, and ceased to say any more.

With a sigh, Jun Meng Chen strode forward towards the nearest building.

"Might as well," he spoke, cloaking his palm in a dense globe of divine essence. "Who knows what might be inside."

Gazing at the monotonous door, he thought for a bit before slamming the palm forward onto the door. Without a single noise, the door disintegrated, revealing an impenetrable darkness within what seemed to be a single chamber.

Sensing a pulse of divine essence, the rest of the group quickly ran towards Jun Meng Chen's position, before coming to a stop, gazing at the mass of darkness within the building.

"A chamber possessing a Spirit of Darkness," spoke Balthazar, his voice oozing with venom.

"Are you sure that the Ghost King was indeed sincere about training the immortal youths, Elder of the Divine Palace?"

"This…" the elder replied, hesitant and indecisive. Gritting his teeth, the elder extended his right hand, a small pillar of flame rushing forth to drive away the darkness, revealing the contents of the room for all to see.

From the interior, the building seemed to be made not of a metallic material, but rather a liquid. The walls and ceiling were of a syrupy, black substance, and the floors were seemed to be made of both a solid and liquid.

The substance comprising the walls and ceiling occasionally dripped and vanished into the floor, and when Jun Meng Chen prodded it, the resulting sensation was similar to quicksand.

"Careful," he called towards the elder. The supervising elder nodded, conjuring panels to place his feet on. Once he had taken three steps into the chamber, the elder tossed out a wooden totem, quickly fleeing towards the entrance, pulling Jun Meng Chen and the others along.

"What are you-" struggled Balthazar, as the elder quickly shushed him. Having dragged everyone outside, the elder pointed towards the door and shouted.

"Conflagrate, <Earth's Fire>!"

Boom!

The building they had just exited out of, violently shook multiple times as fierce sparks splashed out of the entrance, prevented from harming them by a hastily conjured shield by the elder. Enhancing their sight to cautiously peer in, they discovered a large snake of fire thrashing in the chamber, savagely devouring the unusual substances consisting the wall, ceiling, and floor.

With each devouring, the snake would grow in size, and eventually, it shook twice before exploding. The building tore apart from within, and the contents were now revealed to everyone's sight.

"A restrictive sealing technique exclusive only to the Divine Palace," spoke the elder, lightly panting.

"Taught only to the protectors, the seal has both defensive and aggressive attributes, and uncontrollably and unceasingly attack anyone who nears beyond a certain point."

Gazing at Balthazar then the rest, he continued, his tone cautious and stern.

"Beware for traps similar to this. Had any of you investigated instead of me and been careless, perhaps only shreds of your immortal construct would litter the floor. Come, let us see what else the Ghost King has been hiding from the Divine Palace! This elder wishes to know!"

Jun Meng Chen and the cloaked immortal followed the elder, whereas Balthazar hmphed before grudgingly dragging along. As they stepped forward to investigate the remains of the destroyed building, they noticed that it wasn't empty inside as they had assumed it to be.

With the restrictive seal neutralized by the elder, the four immortals could see distinctive changes in what used to be a commonplace materials storage shack. Instead, they could see a pile of chains and shackles, a various assortment of torture implements, and a notebook placed upon a desk.

Manipulating his divine essence, Balthazar raised one of the torture implements from afar, a tiny scalpel, before examining the chains.

"Nothing out of the ordinary," he began, before his eyes narrowed, a flicker of dangerous light passing through. Forming a pale spear above him, Balthazar swept his hand downwards, coldly speaking.

"Reveal what remains hidden. The Avenger of Sorrows and Evil dictates thus, and thy shall comply!"

With Balthazar's statement, his immortal construct manifested behind him, a dark violet tome without a cover, and a diagram of an eye. As he swept his hand down, the tome suddenly sprang open, the white pages within flipping through at a breakneck pace, attracting and assimilating the nearby divine essence.

The soil before them trembled, before gradually displaying a black jar sealed with a lid embossed with a diagram of a deformed human skull.

Allowing the immortal construct behind him to dissipate, Balthazar covered his hand with divine essence as he manipulated a strand to wrap around the jar and pick it up. Closing his eyes and examining the contents within, Balthazar stiffened for an instant before relaxing.

"A misery jar of mortal souls. Whoever managed this place must have tortured the mortals within the jar in various methods, before transferring the pain to the immortal caged in the room."

"Other than being designed and enhanced to inflict the most pain possible, these tools are nothing more than steel crafts, nothing more than mortal implements with a grafted array."

Speaking with a hint of disdain, Balthazar tossed the jar to the supervising elder, his handsome face locked into a cold mask. Catching the jar, the elder shook his head in pity before storing the jar. With a sigh and conjuring a totem with a dragon's head engraved on it, the elder spoke.

"Our immortal constructs can only house two more at the very most, perhaps even one if the construct isn't as distinctly defined. Hence, preserve only the mostly intact constructs you find, and construct wards to belay any ghosts from disturbing or consuming them."

"As for those that had been tortured, leave them be. Attempting to save them might place you in danger as well. The risks are too great to act with saintly intention!"

Stepping back, the elder tossed the totem onto the pile of chains, before clapping his hands. A dragon of fire exploded from within to devour the chamber's contents, and under the blazing heat, the torture implements, chains, and the remnants of the building itself began to melt and crumble.

As a sudden thought struck him, Jun Meng Chen cast a stream of divine essence to pull the notebook towards him, storing it in a pocket dimension within his sleeve. Balthazar gazed curiously at him, but paid it no mind, gazing at the flames with a detached expression.

Turning towards them, the elder gazed at each of them, with hesitation in his eyes. Struggling to fight over his indecision, the elder sighed multiple times.

"Everyone will split up when we return to the plaza," he spoke, a determined gleam surfacing in his pupils.

"Anything that you can store within a personalized spatial or temporal dimension, do so. The Divine Palace's exclusive restrictive seals are designed to unravel under induction of any attribute exceeding a specific magnitude, but the interjecting attribute must be wholly pure to avoid backlash."

"Oh? Do you know the specific strength we need to nullify them?" Balthazar questioned. The elder shook his head, faintly replying.

"The restrictive seals are all configured to automatically dispel when the required conditions are met. However, failure results in a randomizing sequence to ignite, which would require a different magnitude of purity to dispel. Three failures will cause the seal to self-destruct, destroying the contents within or severely damaging them."

As he spoke, they had approached the main plaza in which the gate had led directly to.

Balthazar directly headed north, the cloaked immortal trailing behind. Jun Meng Chen hesitated for a moment, before walking westward. The elder sighed once more, before slowly striding down the east path.

"Just don't perish here like the rest," his whisper could be heard in the now empty plaza. "Demon Palace's scion, Pavilion of Swords' scion, if any of you die, I wouldn't be able to survive, either."

The westward path was devoid of life, with Jun Meng Chen being the only existence walking down the pathway. To his left and right, buildings similar to the one they had just explored could be seen every fifty meters, and when expanding his perception, Jun Meng Chen could faintly sense the faint darkness that they had encountered.

Each building housed an array of torture implements of some kind, and a tormented immortal. Every few moments, Jun Meng Chen would experience a faint resonance in his soul, causing him to ignore all else and travel towards the source. As he walked down the long, lonely path, Jun Meng Chen could see multitudes of mangled, partially consumed immortal constructs littering either side.

A few mere hours later, Jun Meng Chen found himself standing before a crumbling mansion. Built of bricks dyed in the same monotonous scarlet as the rest of the Ghost King's Domain, the mansion lacked any windows or doors, with a simple cavity at the center.

Stepping into the mansion, Jun Meng Chen found himself surrounded by numerous, dense shadows. They coiled around the bare walls and ceiling, the movements akin to a dangerous snake.

Hhhshh!

Sensing Jun Meng Chen barging into the mansion, the shadows all hissed warningly at Jun Meng Chen, coiling themselves even more tightly, compressing their figure. Eventually, thirty balls emitting a dense, black radiance hovered around Jun Meng Chen, each emitting a fierce, murderous aura.

Gazing around him, Jun Meng Chen gripped a longsword in his right hand and a dagger in his left. Infusing divine essence to the extent that the inscriptions sustaining the sword were close to auto-implosion, the blades emitted a fierce, pale glow.

When the lights extended towards the floating balls of darkness, Jun Meng Chen could perceive a tormented face within every single one.