*Upper Realms, Borders of the Immortal Grave*

The wind howling at the edge of the Immortal Grave bore no resemblance to the fragrant breezes of the Dao Temple. It was a glacial whistle, laden with a fetid humidity that seemed to seep directly into the pores of the skin to freeze the flow of Qi.

The landscape stretching before the trio was an insult to life: a plain of gray ashes from which emerged petrified bone structures, remnants of titanic creatures that had fallen during the Era of Origins. The sky, a sickly violet, was obscured by a stagnant mist of Yin Qi so dense that it hid the celestial stars, creating an eternal twilight where visibility did not exceed a few dozen meters.

Xuan BaiShe advanced with a tranquil step, his hands clasped behind his back. His black silk tunic, embroidered with silver turtle motifs, seemed to naturally repel the shreds of toxic mist thanks to the passive protection of his Overlord aura.

He adjusted his sage monocle, observing the surroundings with a curiosity bordering on contempt. To his left, Zhi Mei, the Holy Templar, maintained constant vigilance. Her light Sidhe armor emitted a faint bluish glow, her purity Qi fighting against the corrosive pressure of the domain. To his right, the blind monk Chong Da walked on the uneven ground as if he were in the zen gardens of Mount Hua. His bare feet left no trace on the ash, and his face, crossed by his white silk blindfold, breathed a disturbing serenity amid this open-air charnel house.

"This place is even more corrupted than in the Temple’s chronicles," murmured Zhi Mei, her metal-gloved hand gripping the pommel of her blade firmly. "The Yin Qi here is not passive... it has a will to devour everything that breathes... It will be difficult to purify it."

BaiShe let out a light laugh, a crystalline sound that seemed to suspend the wind’s whistle for a fraction of a second. "Miss Mei, the nature of this place is the exact reflection of the hatred of the Ashura sealed within it. Trying to purify the Immortal Grave with your usual methods is like trying to empty the ocean with a spoon."

Chong Da stopped abruptly, tilting his head slightly. "The Judge is right, Holy Templar," said the monk. "The evil gnawing at this domain is not a simple accumulation of energy. It is the regrets of the dead that have taken form. Listen... they are coming."

Simultaneously, the basaltic ground began to vibrate. Fissures tore through the ashen earth, releasing geysers of blackish steam with the smell of decomposed flesh. From these crevasses emerged the first Yin entities. They were nameless abominations, masses of translucent and gelatinous flesh whose shapes vaguely recalled deformed humanoids. Their faces were nothing but gaping holes from which escaped moans capable of shattering the Dantian of a lower-rank cultivator. Their limbs, too long and equipped with black bone claws, scraped the ground with a sound of metal on stone.

Hundreds of these flesh specters surrounded the group, their empty orbits fixed on the overflowing vitality of the three intruders.

Purulent Yin Ghouls, BaiShe analyzed internally, activating his Third Eye Art.

[Ding! Targets detected: Law Master rank Yin Entities. Nature: Clusters of resentment and death Qi. Danger: High in groups.]

"Lord BaiShe, stay behind me!" ordered Zhi Mei while releasing her 5th stage Overlord Qi.

However, before the saint could move, Chong Da took a step forward. He joined his hands in a prayer mudra, and instantly, an aura of pure gold exploded from his matte and muscular body. It was not the violent Qi of a warrior, but a wave of peace so absolute that it seemed to freeze the Yin entities in place.

"Om Mani Padme Hum," pronounced the monk. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Each syllable of the mantra materialized in the air in the form of giant incandescent Buddhist runes. The runes spun around Chong Da before projecting toward the monsters. On impact, the spectacle was one of purifying gore. The first Yin specter, touched by the syllable ’Om’, saw its translucent flesh boil instantly. The golden light seeped into its black veins, swelling its body from the inside until it exploded in a rain of viscous fluids and toxic gases. The other entities screamed in pain, their limbs liquefying on contact with the monk’s holiness.

<Buddhist Arts: Palm of the Wrathful Compassion.>

Chong Da thrust his right hand forward. A giant palm imprint, made of binary light, swept across the plain. The shockwave was so powerful that it pulverized the surrounding bone structures. The Yin entities caught in its path were literally crushed. One could hear the sound of calcified bones turning to dust and the hiss of death Qi being purified by zen fire. The monsters’ black and smoking entrails were expelled from their bodies before evaporating into nothingness.

Zhi Mei observed the massacre with admiration mixed with concern. "Lord Chong Da’s technique is terrifying... It leaves no chance for the soul to reincarnate."

Chong Da turned slightly toward her, his white blindfold shining with a mystical glow. "In this place, Saint, reincarnation is a prison. I am only freeing these fragments of hatred from their cycle of suffering. But my action has attracted much hungrier predators."

Consequently, the darkness thickened even more. Massive shadows, the size of palaces, began to glide between the clouds of Yin Qi. They were the Tomb Guardians, entities born from the fusion between the remains of the Origins and the essence of the Ashura. One of them descended from the sky, a skeletal creature with six arms and a emaciated dragon head. Its eyes burned with a sinister violet fire.

"Finally a distraction worthy of the name," murmured BaiShe.

He could no longer remain completely inactive under penalty of arousing the monk’s suspicions. He raised his right hand, his fingers forming the sword gesture.

<Arts: Myriad of Frozen Illusory Swords.>

Hundreds of translucent blades appeared instantly above his head, but this time they were imbued with his golden-rank frost Yin Qi. The swords charged with bluish electricity, causing the ambient temperature to drop by several dozen degrees. With a simple movement of his index finger, BaiShe sent his blades toward the Tomb Guardian.

The projectile struck the monster head-on. The swords did not merely cut; they sank into the massive bones before exploding into spikes of eternal ice. The creature let out a visceral roar of pain as its left arm was cleanly severed, the wound instantly sealed by frost. The limb fell to the ground with a heavy crash, shattering into a thousand fragments of frozen flesh and bone.

Zhi Mei did not remain idle. She leaped into the air, her Sidhe wings unfurling majestically.

<Arts: Thorny Lotus Bloom.>

A giant azure lotus bloomed beneath the Tomb Guardian. The petals, sharp as divine razors, swirled in a cyclone of light. They attacked the entity’s joints, slicing through the black energy tendons. The monster’s blood, a thick and corrosive substance, splashed the petals without managing to extinguish their glow. The Guardian was literally flayed alive, its limbs torn off one by one by the templar’s fury.

While Zhi Mei and BaiShe dealt with the Guardians, Chong Da had sat in lotus position in the middle of the melee. He began to recite the Diamond Sutra. Each word that escaped his lips transformed into a physical barrier, a golden dome that protected the trio against the incessant assaults of the minor shadows swarming on the ground.

’This monk... his 50,000 points fortune is well earned,’ thought BaiShe while observing the stability of Chong Da’s domain. His Human Path allows him to manipulate the emotions of the dead to turn them into a weapon of purification. If I let him absorb the Ashura, he will become an unmanageable variable.

BaiShe approached the blind monk, walking calmly despite the chaos of Qi explosions all around them. "Lord Chong Da, your technique is admirable. However, I sense that your Dantian is under unusual pressure. The Immortal Grave seems to reject your presence with increasing aggression."

Chong Da opened his lips but did not stop reciting. It was through telepathy that his response reached the young master’s mind. ’The Judge has a sharp eye. This place is a karmic anomaly. The closer we get to the heart of the tomb, the more the past tries to engulf us. Prepare yourselves, for the true owners of this place have not yet appeared.’

Suddenly, a shrill whistle tore through the atmosphere, even drowning out the monk’s mantras. In the distance, a cyclopean structure began to take shape through the mist: the Great Sealing Pagoda. It was there that the Ashura was chained, and the energy emanating from it was so laden with hatred that it began to make Zhi Mei’s eyes bleed.

"We are almost there," announced Zhi Mei as she landed heavily beside BaiShe, her armor marked by splatters of Yin fluids. "But look at the ground."

Before them, the ashen earth had given way to a carpet of decomposing bodies that seemed to form a living road toward the pagoda. The corpses, some dating from the time of the Rakshasas, were still twitching, their hands reaching toward the travelers.