Lang Jiuchuan felt the world spin around her. Before she could even open her eyes, a fetid yin wind struck her from behind, reeking of rot and decay. Without a moment’s thought, she conjured a Palm Thunder and hurled it backward.

Boom.

A shriek of pain rang out behind her.

Lang Jiuchuan opened her eyes. She was in a bizarre and alien space. The sky was a deep crimson red, rings upon rings of water patterns stained with blood rippling outward. The river water around her was a thick, viscous black, like old blood that had long since congealed. Along the banks, countless reeds were twisted and warped, reaching and writhing like arms. And there — flowers of the underworld bloomed in red so deep they seemed to bleed, filling the air with a pungent stench that stung the eyes and made the head swim.

This was the ghost domain the water demon had constructed beneath the river.

“Hehehe.” A sinister laugh came from every direction, heavy with malice and rage. “You filthy Daoist — you dare lure me out with a child’s corpse, and then dare to enter my Forgotten River Ghost Domain? Today I will make sure none of you leave this place alive.”

As its words fell, the river’s surface exploded, and its massive form surged upward — a human head atop a fish’s body. The lower half was a fish tail covered in hard, interlocking scales, wrapped in what appeared to be rotting vine-like corpse worms. Along its fish body, countless human heads had grown, and from each head stretched an arm, forming a thousand-armed monster.

Lang Jiuchuan’s expression grew cold and still. Yice had been wrong — this was the water demon’s true form, its original body — a human-fish abomination built from rotting corpses and the lives it had claimed.

She swept her gaze across the shadowy figures gripped in those outstretched arms. They radiated tremendous resentment, ceaselessly struggling and wailing — these were the souls of those who had drowned.

Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes hardened. She looked them over, one by one. One, two, three, four, five, six… seventy-two.

This was bad. Just a handful more lives, and the ten-thousand-soul death art would be complete. At that point, the demon would surely begin hunting and devouring on a massive scale.

“Heaven has a road and you refused to walk it; hell has no gate and yet you barged right in. I have cultivated beneath these waters for a hundred years. Heaven, earth, and circumstance all favor me — I am one step away from completing my work and shedding my ghost form. And yet you wretched Daoists dare stand in the way of my path to ascension? Today I will sacrifice your souls and your merits to heaven, and they will help me claim the position of Water God!” It laughed its hideous laugh, and the dozens of dead souls bound to its body seemed to cry out in terrible unison, a sound sharp enough to cut the ears.

Lang Jiuchuan’s voice dripped with contempt: “The position of Water God — a foul, demonic beast like you actually dares to covet such a thing?”

She formed a hand seal. “Rolling heavenly thunder — Thunder God descend, vanquish the wicked — Strike!“

Boom.

A bolt of divine thunder blasted toward it.

The water demon swung its fish tail, and the arms upon its body moved like banners unfurling, sweeping the thick, dark river water forward in a crashing wave that smothered the thunder bolt. That black water carried dense yin evil energy — like arrows it pierced forward, cold seeping into the very marrow.

“In my Forgotten River Ghost Domain, you still think you can use thunder and fire? Dream on!” The water demon laughed wildly and lunged at her. “Your body carries deep, profound merit — once I devour you, I will surely ascend to godhood.”

“Then let’s see if you have what it takes!” Lang Jiuchuan gave a cold laugh and produced the Dizhong Bell, chanting rapidly: “Five Stars hold their colors, light illuminates the underworld, bell shatter evil barriers — Edict!“

A vast and sweeping Dao resonance poured into the Dizhong Bell. The bell tone erupted outward with a tremendous clang, shaking this entire domain to its foundation. The sound wave became a blade, slashing into the water demon and cleaving it in two at the waist.

The water demon’s expression changed — but the domain remained intact. It swept a hand outward, and the black water engulfed it, surging and flowing until its body reformed as though nothing had happened. Then it let out a snide laugh: “Useless. This water realm is my domain — I am this water, and this water is me. You cannot harm me in the slightest!”

Sweat had appeared on Lang Jiuchuan’s brow, yet she refused to be discouraged. “Then I will destroy your domain.”

One strike was not enough — what about two? What about three?

She struck the Dizhong Bell again. The tolling sound crashed down like a hammer, heavier than before. The water demon was blasted apart and reassembled itself, again and again, as the domain seemed to tremble on the verge of collapse — the crimson sky looked as though it might crack apart. Sensing a genuine threat, the demon lashed out with all its ghost claws at once.

Lang Jiuchuan circulated her protective divine energy as a shield around her body. When those ghost claws made contact with her, they were scorched by thunder fire and let out piercing, wailing shrieks.

The Dizhong Bell continued its heavy tolling.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

Alongside the oppressive force of the bell, a faint, rippling strain of Buddhist chanting seemed to pierce through the very sky of the ghost domain — causing the souls trapped upon the water demon’s body to wail and howl like grieving wolves, as though lamenting their fate, as though pleading, desperate for the Buddha to deliver them from the Forgotten River.

The ghost domain was straining under the weight of it all.

The water demon grew agitated. With a roar, it swung its fish tail, and the thick black water came surging at Lang Jiuchuan — bone-chilling and sinister, laced with incomparably resentful corpse poison. To be touched by it meant certain damage.

Lang Jiuchuan narrowed her eyes. It was panicking.

What was making it so anxious?

She struck the Dizhong Bell and watched as the ghost domain swayed on the edge of collapse, then looked at the souls hanging from its body — crying out in misery, their dim forms flickering, constantly radiating resentment as they consumed their own soul energy to patch the cracks the bell’s tolling had opened.

A flash of clarity struck Lang Jiuchuan’s mind. That was it — the souls of the dead were its fundamental source of power. Deliver them, and it would have nothing left to sustain itself.

Her hand seals shifted abruptly. She switched to the Buddhist seal, and the Great Compassion Mantra began to flow from her lips as she performed the rites of passage for the souls upon the water demon’s body.

The water demon let out a piercing shriek and charged at her, intent on tearing her apart — but the divine thunder energy surrounding her held it at bay. Hatred and venom blazed in its eyes.

Die, die, die!

It planted itself before Lang Jiuchuan, its thousand arms waving wildly in unison, spiritual power surging without restraint. In an instant, the black water transformed into countless yin evil water wraiths — baring their fangs and claws, they hurled themselves at her in wave after wave, heedless of being burned and destroyed by the divine thunder. They came regardless.

Lang Jiuchuan watched those hideous water wraiths charge at her in a grinding relay, her complexion white from the tremendous drain on her vital energy. Yet she was unmoved. Her spiritual power was depleting at a furious pace, and still the Great Compassion Mantra fell from her lips without pause.

“Silence — shut your mouth!” the water demon shrieked, its claws raking the air ceaselessly, desperate to tear apart the one reciting those sutras.

It thrashed its fish tail, as if attempting to throw Lang Jiuchuan off balance, trying to break her concentration.

It succeeded — and yet Lang Jiuchuan continued shaking the Dizhong Bell and chanting the Great Compassion Mantra without cease. The incantations became a golden light shaped like a Buddhist seal, striking the resentful souls upon the water demon’s body. That seal, radiant with a supreme divine authority, was like a pair of gentle, pale hands — reaching out to peel those souls away from the fish body.

Suddenly — crack.

The bell’s tolling had finally struck a fracture in the blood-red ghost domain’s sky. And at that same moment, someone came bursting through that crack — Yice and Gong Qi.

The ghost domain was breached.

The water demon was seized with terror. It roared in fury and heaved the entire sky’s worth of black water upward, sending it crashing down toward them all.

Seeing this, Lang Jiuchuan switched to the Daoist Taishan Wangsheng Sutra — the sutra carried a resonance of comfort and guidance for the departed. It transformed into golden light and slammed into those souls. The light was razor-keen, and those souls — clinging to the fish body like barnacles — broke free one by one, rising as wisps of blue-gray smoke that drifted upward toward the crack in the sky.

“No!” Panic and fury overwhelmed the water demon. It went berserk, opening its massive mouth wide and lunging to bite Lang Jiuchuan.

“Five Thunder Mighty General, Fire Chariot Marshal — slash the wicked, Edict!” Yice spat a mouthful of pure yang vital blood onto the paired Three-Five Demon-Slaying Swords in his hand. The blade blazed with blinding brilliance and left his grip, shooting straight toward the water demon.

Gong Qi simultaneously produced the other Three-Five Sword. The two blades joined as one — one man aiming for the head, the other for the fish tail — and they drove both swords into the water demon’s main body simultaneously.

A concussive boom shook heaven and earth.

“No — damn you all!” As the sword light consumed a hundred years of the water demon’s cultivation, it let out one final wail of agony. With the last of the condemned souls tearing free from its body, the ghost domain shattered like a mirror struck by a fist.

Crash.

Before the three of them could even catch their breath, they plunged into the water. A spiraling, upward-spinning water vortex swallowed them whole.

Lang Jiuchuan: !

When does this ever end?