Chapter 59: Phantoms of Hong Kong, The Resurgence of Evil

Chen You’s secret Maoshan arts relied on righteousness to overcome ghosts, mostly focusing on simple suppression and exorcism effects.

However, in actual combat, these messy secret arts were extraordinarily bizarre and extremely difficult to deal with.

Scanning his surroundings, Yang Sheng pushed his mental power to the absolute limit.

Five-Fierce Soldier Soul!

The golden body of the soldier soul, which had previously condensed to be only slightly larger than Yang Sheng—around two meters—suddenly expanded.

At this moment, as Yang Sheng concentrated his mental power to the extreme, a five-meter-tall golden soldier soul materialized. The Imperial Guard saber swept horizontally across the room, and a golden blade light instantly slashed through the entire space.

In a fraction of a second, dozens of substitute paper dolls hidden in the dark were instantly shattered. Chen You’s figure emerged, using a coin sword to block that single strike from the Five-Fierce Soldier Soul.

"Found you!"

Yang Sheng slashed forward with his saber, while talisman after talisman coiled and wrapped around his blade's edge.

With a sharp shout, the power of spilled blood suddenly erupted, the blade tearing through flames and thunderbolts as it charged straight toward Chen You.

However, the black flames surrounding Chen You ignored the sharpness entirely, wrapping directly around the Imperial Guard saber and burning toward Yang Sheng.

Yang Sheng hastily abandoned the saber and retreated, but the Five-Fierce Soldier Soul materialized behind Chen You, slashing at his back.

The Five-Fierce Soldier Soul had both offensive and suppressing effects on physical bodies and spiritual Qi, but Chen You’s black flame was formed by the spiritual Qi he had cultivated for decades, tainted by ghostly Yin Qi and set ablaze. It was extremely domineering; even the power of the soldier soul could not suppress it, and with a single hand, Chen You shattered the Imperial Guard saber manifested by the soldier soul.

Yang Sheng slashed his own palm, unleashing the Exorcism, Five Thunders, and Soul-Suppressing talismans in rapid succession, but none of them had any effect.

Before these talismans could even touch Chen You, they were burned to ashes by the black flames.

"It's useless! Your Maoshan talismans were taught to you by me in the first place. Did you really think you could use them to deal with me?"

The surrounding vibrations grew increasingly violent. The talisman array had been completely triggered, and the entire King’s Pavilion Building had transformed into a giant alchemy cauldron. The torrential Yin Qi acted as the fire, intended to refine the Obstacle-Breaking, Illusion-Leaving Relic.

Yang Sheng sighed and once again drew out his pneumatic pistol.

"Firearms are useless against me, even though this gun of yours is quite peculiar."

Chen You’s body was gradually fading; his power had already begun to merge into the entire building.

However, the next moment, as Yang Sheng pulled out the Vairocana Buddha incense-molded statue, Chen You’s expression changed drastically.

"No!"

Yang Sheng abruptly hurled the somewhat battered Buddha statue toward Chen You, and the pneumatic gun fired, striking the statue dead center.

Accompanied by a crisp sound, the statue shattered, and an endless torrent of Buddha light and incense merit swept across everything before it.

Chen You’s seven years of preparations, and the Yin Qi accumulated by the King’s Pavilion Building over more than a decade, seemed utterly fragile in front of the Vairocana Buddha incense statue that had been venerated for a millennium.

Yang Sheng’s vision was completely filled with blinding Buddha light.

He seemed to see the Yin fire surrounding Chen You being completely extinguished by the Buddha light, while Chen You’s eyes revealed a mixture of regret and relief.

He also saw the thick-browed Daoist priest from the photograph seemingly step out of the black-and-white picture, merge into the Buddha light, walk up to Chen You, and gently pat him on the shoulder.

Everything vanished in the Buddha light like a dream or a bubble. At the same time, two cold, mechanical voices echoed in Yang Sheng’s ears.

"Current side quest completed. Obtained: Borrowed-Dharma Spiritual Seal - Infinite (Able to control all attributes of spiritual Qi with mental power; cultivation of spiritual Qi secret arts has no attribute restrictions, anciently known as: Innate Spiritual Body)."

Current side quest completed...

"Current main quest completed. The reincarnator may return immediately, or automatically return after one hour. Do you wish to return immediately?"

Yang Sheng let out a long breath and said in a deep voice, "Return immediately."

A heavy darkness engulfed Yang Sheng entirely. However, through the mist outside the King’s Pavilion Building, he vaguely caught sight of evil entities reviving and a hundred ghosts walking the night, their ferocious and terrifying phantoms spreading across the whole of Hong Kong.

Yang Sheng sighed; he had guessed correctly.

This world was not the Latter Day of the Law, but an era of evil entity revival and the descent of spiritual Qi.

The darkness gradually swallowed Yang Sheng completely. Rows of black text appeared before his eyes, and a cold mechanical voice sounded in his ears.

Reincarnation task settlement in progress...
Task Evaluation: Lowest Heavenly Grade
Reincarnation Points Reward: 1,000 points
Main Quest Reward: Reincarnation Treasure Chest (Mysterious Grade)
Side Quest Reward: Borrowed-Dharma Spiritual Seal - Infinite
Purchase Clearance Unlocked: 20%
Heavenly Grade Evaluation Bonus: Storage space of 3 cubic meters (living creatures cannot be placed inside)

This return did not encounter any bizarre mishaps like the last time. When Yang Sheng opened his eyes again, the place he appeared in was actually still the private dining room in the Longhua Hall of the Grand Regal Hotel.

Only this time, there were no corpses or bloodstains in the private room, though a faint smell of blood still lingered.

However, before Yang Sheng could react, his entire body was instantly swallowed by a beam of light.

When Yang Sheng materialized again, he found himself inside a narrow rental room.

The entire rental room was not large, containing only a bed and a computer desk, with the surrounding walls plastered with posters of various sexy female celebrities.

The computer desk was covered with VR equipment and all sorts of strange little male toys.

The computer was turned on, logged into a cloud drive membership, and downloading dense files. Underneath the desk was a pile of crumpled tissues.

Fatty Wang was lying on the bed wearing only a pair of large boxer shorts. Seeing Yang Sheng suddenly appear, Fatty Wang blurted out, "You're actually still alive?"

"Did you really want me to die?"

Fatty Wang rubbed his hands together and said, "Of course not! But to be honest, I really didn't expect you to come back alive. I was almost about to dismantle the teleportation array inside the hotel. Damn it, I took a loss! Thinking you had perished prematurely inside the reincarnation world, I even spent a huge sum of money to buy a Shura Token!"

Yang Sheng let out a long breath and asked, "I remember you telling me back then that I was going to one place to complete a task. But as it turned out, I went to two places. This isn't what you told me."

Fatty Wang looked slightly embarrassed and said, "There was a tiny, minor error; don't sweat the small details. Being able to come back is good news. To compensate you, I've handled the Lin family's affairs for you properly and cleanly."

Having experienced two worlds consecutively, and having learned some information about the reincarnation world from Jiang Tianlei, Yang Sheng already had a rough idea of what kind of existence this was.

Although Fatty Wang's "minor error" had almost plunged him into a death trap, could he really go pick a fight with the guy?

Even though this fat man looked wretched in appearance, Yang Sheng had not forgotten the god-and-demon-like terrifying power Fatty Wang possessed.

A person needs to know what's good for them and have some self-awareness.

"Now that I'm back alive, I suppose I'm entitled to know some things, right?"

Fatty Wang waved his hand, gesturing for Yang Sheng to sit down and talk. But Yang Sheng looked at the mattress stained with unidentified fluids, glanced around, and ultimately chose to sit in the computer chair.

"Actually, I've already explained these things to quite a few people. Some can accept it, while others need to experience several worlds before they can figure it out. Let me explain it to you like this: suppose the world we are in is a straight line; at some point in history, there will always be a moment when it deviates from our world and extends into another branch line. This branch line consists of the various bizarre worlds where the Heavens' Reincarnation takes place. For example, if First Emperor of Qin had truly found the elixir of immortality during the Qin Dynasty, it would have spawned a parallel world belonging to an Immortal Qin era. Any minor change in history can cause a mutation in the world, thereby spinning off a brand-new world. The various myths and ghost stories passed down in the primary world might very well be the developmental lines of other parallel worlds. If the primary world is the trunk of a giant tree, the parallel worlds are the branches growing out from that trunk—only some branches are very small, while others are very thick and robust."

Yang Sheng had already deduced and guessed what Fatty Wang was talking about beforehand, so it wasn't difficult for him to understand.

Organizing his thoughts slightly, Yang Sheng asked, "Then what about us? What is the meaning of our existence as reincarnators? And who is it that sends us to execute tasks in these reincarnation worlds?"

Fatty Wang snapped his fingers and said, "Good question! The parallel worlds are the branches of the tree trunk, but these branches might undergo sudden mutations at some point, producing things that do not belong to this world, or reaching an unpredictable turning point because of a certain event. This situation can cause the branch to mutate further, becoming uncontrollable. Some twisted branches might even touch the main trunk, thereby affecting the primary world—and the consequences of that are very serious. Therefore, we, the reincarnators of the heavens, are needed to go to these worlds, clear out these things that do not belong to this world, or perform certain actions to maintain the balance of the world. As for what kind of existence commands us to execute these tasks, I don't know either. Perhaps it's the deities who created the world, or perhaps it's the ethereal gods and demons above the nine heavens. However, we prefer to call it the Will of the Heavens. It has no emotions, only cold rules of will, manipulating us. But at the same time, the Will of the Heavens is not omnipotent; it seems to be bound by certain rules and cannot directly interfere with mutated parallel worlds, which is why it requires us reincarnators to take action. Moreover, some mutated worlds conceal unimaginable power, which requires us reincarnators to explore in order to determine the world's rank. World ranks are divided into Heaven, Earth, Mysterious, and Yellow, with each grade split into upper and lower tiers, making roughly eight grades in total. If you encounter a world with a clear rank level in the future, but the subsequent details are vague—like Yellow? Or Mysterious?—you must be careful. If even a rough rank is missing and it's all question marks, you must be even more cautious; such worlds are extremely perilous."

Yang Sheng took a deep breath and said with a poker face, "After the Dragon City Hegemony world ended, the second world I encountered was Mysterious??"

Fatty Wang gave two dry laughs, and the atmosphere became somewhat awkward for a moment.