A Will Eternal

An enormous, invisible hand ripped the sky open. Then, an enraged shout echoed out as the Giant Ghost King himself appeared!

He wasn’t alone. Flanking him were Duke Deathcrier and the patriarchs from the Bai and Chen Clans. Clearly, those two patriarchs had been thoroughly brought under control by the Giant Ghost King after the rebellion.

Further back were six half-devas, and beyond them, tens of thousands of ordinary soul cultivator troops. For all intents and purposes, this was the full reserve power of Giant Ghost City! The Giant Ghost King had come out in full force!

He had begun trying to track down his daughter earlier, but despite being a demigod, was still a single person. Therefore, he had also ordered some of his subordinates to join him.

The stir Bai Xiaochun had caused in Arch-Emperor City had attracted the Giant Ghost King’s attention, and had caused him to hasten his search. Worried that he might not be able to handle the situation on his own, he had brought all of these subordinates with him, hoping to use their divine abilities and magical techniques to bolster his own power.

As soon as the Giant Ghost King arrived, the might of a demigod weighed down in the area, causing all heaven and earth to shake. Furthermore, a sound like a shattering mirror could be heard as a semi-transparent shield of light suddenly appeared, fracturing and cracking. Then the shield exploded!!

That shield was the sealing method Gongsun Wan’er had used to prevent any outside communication or interference. When Bai Xiaochun saw that, he suddenly felt like a great weight had been lifted off of his shoulders.

As Bai Xiaochun’s spirits lifted, Gongsun Wan’er’s face became very serious. However, that greedy gleam in her eyes didn’t go away, and she even licked her lips as if she were looking at a delicious snack.

“Ah, finally…” she said, her voice vibrating in bizarre fashion, “at long last, I’ve hooked a really big fish….” Then she began to speed in the Giant Ghost King’s direction!!

Bai Xiaochun gasped at the realization that Gongsun Wan’er was going so far as to directly attack a demigod! Mind reeling, his newfound hope suddenly faded away.

“Father-in-law, be careful!” he shouted. “This creature is bizarre, and really powerful!!”

The Giant Ghost King’s eyes narrowed as his heart burned with fury. He could see his daughter lying there unconscious, and could see Bai Xiaochun standing over her protectively, and it only made his rage grow.

However he couldn’t afford any distractions at the moment. As soon as he had arrived, he could sense powerful fluctuations coming from Gongsun Wan’er, as well as an aura that struck even him with fear!

“You must be the soulclone of some almighty being. Am I right? Well, whether you come from this heaven and earth, or from the beyond… it doesn’t give you the right to run amok here!” As the Giant Ghost King spoke, his words transformed into a magical symbol which rushed toward Gongsun Wan’er, accompanied by intense rumbling sounds.

At the same time, the Giant Ghost King strode forward, extending his right hand in a way that caused all heaven and earth to grow dark. An enormous ghost hand appeared, stretching down from the sky with all-destructive power, heading toward Gongsun Wan’er and simultaneously locking down the entire area.

This was power that surpassed that of a deva, and caused all creation to tremble violently. Devas could insert their will into heaven and earth, and supplant the will of the heavens. But demigods could surpass the will of the heavens, and bend it to their own desires. They could replace the sun and moon, and create their own version of creation!

Intense rumbling sounds assaulted the ears of all present as dozens of lightning bolts appeared, all of them filled with power that could destroy devas. Before anything else could happen, the lightning bolts all began to shoot toward Gongsun Wan’er.

Strangely, Gongsun Wan’er didn’t do anything to dodge. She allowed the heavenly lightning to strike her, and let the gigantic ghost hand crush down onto her!

A boom could be heard as her body shattered into countless pieces!

The sight of it caused Bai Xiaochun’s eyes to go wide. Although this wasn’t his first time seeing a demigod in action, it definitely surpassed anything he had experienced so far.

Demigods… were people whose single attack, an attack that wasn’t even on the level of a trump card… could cut down a deva!!

And yet, Bai Xiaochun had the feeling that things couldn’t be that simple. It didn’t make sense that Gongsun Wan’er would be taken out so easily….

Even as he wondered about that, the Giant Ghost King’s expression flickered, and his eyes began to shine. At that point, it was possible to see something like strands of red muscle growing within the giant ghost hand!!

The muscles seemed to be building up from inside of the hand itself, and yet, even as it squirmed… the entire ghost hand began to wither!

“What gall!” the Giant Ghost King roared. With that, he performed an incantation gesture and pointed out, causing the ghost hand to explode. As the resulting shockwave spread out, giggling laughter joined it as Gongsun Wan’er yet again appeared in her guise as Bai Xiaochun, completely unharmed!

In fact, not only was she unharmed, she seemed remarkably healthy. On top of that, the greedy gleam in her eyes remained. Licking her lips, she murmured, “Finally… I feel a bit full….”

The Giant Ghost King’s heart was beginning to pound, and a very unsightly expression could be seen on his face. In fact, this was the first time that fear had ever been seen in his eyes. All of a sudden, he seemed to put all the pieces together, and slowly said, “That was the Ghostform Lifedraining technique! Who exactly are you!?”

Gongsun Wan’er seemed surprised by his words. She looked closely at him, her eyes turning pitch black for a moment. Then the blackness faded away, and she smiled.

“Oh, you actually cultivate an incomplete form of the Ghostform Lifedraining technique…. Interesting…. Heh. I wonder if my true self has some secrets that even I don’t know about….” She chuckled, and the greedy glint in her eye grew stronger.

The Giant Ghost King’s expression grew more unsightly, and his breathing became irregular. Clearly, what Gongsun Wan’er had just said was incredibly shocking. The truth was that the technique he cultivated, the Giant Ghost Incantation, had been passed down orally by his predecessors from one generation to the next. No one other than the Giant Ghost Kings knew the truth, which was that… the Giant Ghost Incantation had been created by the first generation Giant Ghost King when he came across some incomplete ancient records from beyond the heavens.

The very fact that it was incomplete was why it contained a fatal flaw. At the same time, it made the Giant Ghost Incantation so powerful that it gave birth to the line of Giant Ghost Kings in the Arch-Emperor Dynasty!

“As for who I am,” Gongsun Wan’er continued, “well that’s simple. I’m Bai Xiaochun.” Laughing, she blurred into motion as she sped toward the Giant Ghost King!

Although their small interchange had been somewhat confusing to all of the Giant Ghost King’s subordinates in the area, they could tell that there was some enormous secret at play.

Furthermore, the fact that Gongsun Wan’er was this strong had them all gasping in astonishment.

However, Bai Xiaochun felt like he was about to go crazy, and could hardly control his emotions. Although he didn’t completely understand everything they had said either, he did know that the little girl came from the Fallen Sword Abyss, and that that sword… had fallen from beyond the heavens….

“She’s from beyond the heavens!! And did she just say something about her true self…?” Bai Xiaochun’s eyes went wide, and his heart began to pound. As of this moment, he felt convinced that the little girl had actually come from beyond the heavens. Furthermore, she wasn’t complete. She was actually the soulclone of some almighty being!!

It was a shocking thought. Furthermore, it explained why Gongsun Wan’er hadn’t even needed to use her full power to handle both him and Mistress Red-Dust earlier. She had really been… fishing!

That mere thought caused him to shiver in fear, look up at the sky, and wonder what exactly existed beyond the heavens…. It was also in that exact moment that the Giant Ghost King waved his hands violently out in front of him.

“Get out of here, all of you! And keep back!” A massive wind sprang up that pushed away all of the Giant Ghost King’s subordinates, as well as Bai Xiaochun.

At that point, the Giant Ghost King’s expression turned unprecedentedly serious. Lifting his right foot, he stamped down, causing a powerful boom to echo out. At the same time, he began to grow larger. In the shortest of moments, he went from the size of an ordinary person to being 30 meters tall. Then he was 300 meters tall. Then 3,000! In the end… he reached a height of 15,000 meters!!

In addition to becoming an enormous giant, a vortex sprang up around him that sucked in all of the energy of heaven and earth in the area.

Beyond that, his skin turned green, he grew enormous tusks, and two curved horns grew out of his forehead. As of this moment… he looked exactly like the statue back in the city which bore his name. He looked like… a giant ghost!!

The explosive energy which surrounded him caused all heaven and earth to shake. Lightning bolts danced across the surface of his body. And most shocking of all was that, after fully powering up, it was as if he had touched something that acted as a limit of the world in which he lived.

Unexpectedly, numerous magical restrictive symbols appeared in the sky, forming something that looked almost like a net. They were blood-red, enormous, and seemed to contain the most ancient of wills.

It was as if they were the guardians of this world!!

With them in place, this world would always stand firm and stable!