"If you want the Death-Exemption Wooden Plate to stay lit, you either go out and accumulate merit through service, or you report the villains around you and use their sins to fill it."
"If the plate ever goes out..." The burly man bared a set of bone-white teeth. "Then the next person to be flayed and stuffed with straw will be you."
The old ghost shuddered in fear, nodding and bowing repeatedly. "Yes, yes, yes, this little one understands. This little one will definitely keep a close watch!"
The door slammed shut with a bang.
Chen Zhou stood within his Ghost Domain, contemplating silently.
He could not yet see through the operational mechanism of this commandery.
However, the commandery exploited merit on one hand while collecting sin on the other.
In the end, those mediocre ghosts who were drained of their essence and spirit—those without merit or fault—somehow managed to maintain a strange stability.
With the world's mutation, under rules that punished good and promoted evil, merit had become the most useless thing unless one possessed Divine Path Authority. Even committing evil would not trigger lightning tribulations.
To think someone could actually utilize merit—this forced Chen Zhou to marvel.
'This Yin Wudao is truly a genius.'
With such methods, his ambitions were certainly not small.
It was about time to meet the master of the commandery.
At this thought, Chen Zhou no longer hid. He dispelled the Ghost Domain and took a step forward.
His black boots stepped into the blood-water with a soft splash.
Splosh—
Chen Zhou discovered that once he left the Ghost Domain and drew closer to the imperial palace, the black smoke on his body began to pour out frantically, almost wrapping him like a black torch.
That was the Golden Light of Merit disguised by 【Cloud Sea Resplendence】.
Chen Zhou could even feel that the further forward he walked, the more agitated the Dragon Carp within the City of the Wrongfully Dead became, and the thicker the black smoke on his body grew.
Chen Zhou's heart stirred slightly.
Ahead lay the east.
He looked up. At the end of the long street was a massive complex of palaces shrouded in a dark red, eerie light.
If one continued east, past the imperial palace and the commandery's border, it would be the vast Eastern Sea—the territory of the Eastern Region.
Was the Dragon Carp so excited because of something in the palace, or something in the sea?
Chen Zhou was lost in thought.
Just as his mind wandered, the Enforcement Team ahead finally sensed something amiss behind them.
"Who is it?!"
The flaying burly man at the lead was extremely keen and turned around instantly.
When he saw Chen Zhou standing in the pool of blood, wreathed in billowing black smoke, a murderous glint flared in his eyes.
"Where did this wandering soul come from, daring to spy on the Enforcement Team's business?"
The steel fork in the man's hand slashed down, accompanied by a foul wind.
However, the steel fork came to a dead stop ten feet away from Chen Zhou.
It wasn't that the man wanted to stop; he was forced to.
A tender little pig's trotter had reached out from the black smoke at some unknown moment, lightly pressing against the sharp blade.
The Dream Demon piglet floated down from Chen Zhou's shoulder and gave a lazy yawn, seemingly displeased with this ant that had disturbed its sleep.
It lifted its eyelids, and a purple light flashed in its eyes.
"Oink."
The man's movements froze instantly.
The world before him began to warp. The originally straight street turned into an endless abyss.
Countless human skins he had flayed flew out from the depths, carrying shrill wails. They wrapped around him layer by layer, cutting into his flesh.
The man clawed frantically at his face and body, trying to tear the skins off.
But the more he clawed, the more blurred his figure became. Soon, he faded and vanished from the physical world, forcibly dragged into a deep nightmare.
"Boss?!"
"Ho... How bold!"
The other enforcers were shocked by the sight.
They didn't understand what had happened. They only saw the little pig on the black-robed man's shoulder grunt, and their strongest captain was gone.
However, their long-accumulated ferocity kept them from retreating; instead, it ignited their killing intent.
"Attack together! Take down the rebels and turn them into strawmen!"
A dozen enforcers raised their steel forks, about to swarm forward.
Chen Zhou raised his hand slightly, his gaze indifferent.
The grey-white Ghost Domain instantly expanded, enveloping the entire street.
The street that had been flowing with blood-water was instantly transformed into grey-white defiled earth.
Countless bone hands burst from the ground, accurately grabbing their ankles.
"What are these things?!"
"My feet... I can't move!"
The enforcers discovered to their horror that the bone hands possessed immense strength. No matter how they hacked at them, for every one they severed, two more reached out.
Death qi spread up from the bone hands, rapidly corroding their bodies.
"Down you go."
Chen Zhou pressed his palm down.
The bone hands exerted sudden force, yanking the fierce enforcers deep into the defiled earth like pulling radishes.
They had no room for resistance.
Thud, thud...
Only bottomless black holes remained on the ground. A moment later, the defiled earth churned, returning to a smooth surface.
"That's it?"
Wu Gou poked his head out from behind Chen Zhou and smacked his lips. "These guys looked fierce, but why were they so easy to beat?"
Chen Zhou patted his hands and said calmly, "These people are far more fragile than the Yinsi Guard."
Though they also possessed ghost bodies, they were likely not connected to soul threads, making them easy to crush.
"Perhaps..." Chen Zhou pondered, "it's because they have done too much dirty work and their sins are too heavy. Even Yin Wudao doesn't dare easily connect his soul threads to them for fear of backlash."
"Therefore, they are merely pure consumables, naturally easy to deal with."
While almost the entire team was wiped out, Chen Zhou intentionally left a few ghosts alive.
By now, they were scared out of their wits.
Watching their companions being buried alive and feeling the terrifying aura emanating from the black-robed man before them—an aura that made their souls tremble—even breathing became difficult.
Thud!
Their knees buckled, and the several ghosts knelt in unison, their heads hitting the ground with loud thumps.
"I... I do not know which lord has descended..."
They could feel that the black-robed man before them was more terrifying than any Yinsi Guard commander they had ever seen.
That aura, high and mighty, indifferent to all living things, even reminded them of the offering deep within the palace.
Chen Zhou looked down at the ghosts kneeling in the blood-water and spoke flatly.
"Go tell Yin Wudao."
"The guest he invited has arrived."
"Tell him to open the gates and sweep the path clean."
Hearing the name "Yin Wudao," the kneeling enforcers all gasped, their bodies shaking violently.
That was the name of the Crown Prince!
In the entire commandery, those who dared to call the Crown Prince by his name—aside from the bedridden old Emperor—had probably not even been born yet.
One of them, his mind racing, immediately connected this to the disturbance that shook the city last night, the rumors coming from the palace this morning, and the tragic death of Eunuch Zhao Gao.
Legends said someone had crushed the Crown Prince's merit eye last night, and rumors this morning said even the Nine-Thousand-Year-Old Zhao Gao had fallen.
Could it be... this person before them?
"The Lord of Two Domains?"
Cold sweat instantly drenched him. He scrambled to his knees and knocked his head against the ground so hard that the blood-water splashed up.
"Yes... Yes."
"This small one will go report immediately! Right away!"
Rate on N.U.
