ading away. The ghost let out an extremely piteous screech.As the wood sword pierced into the ghost, its body started to fade and disappear where it came into contact with the sword, eventually vanish...Chapter 775: Succession (4)

Although he could not utilize the mana within his body back then, due to some level of cultivation and experience, he managed to reach the Jindan stage over several decades by relying on the meager primordial energy. Moreover, he had medicinal pills; the pills carried during the Great Perfection stage were incredibly potent. Furthermore, though he lacked cultivation, his physical body was that of a Great Perfection level, transformed by celestial qi, allowing him to absorb some diluted essence from these medicines.

As for what happened to Blood Flame True Man in the end, Xiao Yu had no idea; it had been more than fifty years since Blood Flame True Man returned.

In Blood Flame True Man's records, Earth was the only place with life within the Divine Prohibition Domain and even possessed its own cultivation civilization, which impressed him somewhat.

Unfortunately, as an outsider, his cultivation was locked inside his body. He could not uncover some of the secrets of the Divine Prohibition Domain, leaving these mysteries for his successor to reveal.

The successor must be a native Earthling, abiding by the unique rules here and able to cultivate to higher realms; at a high enough level, perhaps they would unravel the mysteries of this Divine Prohibition Domain.

After all, the Divine Prohibition Domain and the outside cultivation realm share the same expanse of stars but follow entirely different sets of rules, like two separate worlds. Logically speaking, there should be only one set of cosmic laws, yet their existence here contradicts this notion.

Moreover, the legendary Earth Immortal Realm and Heavenly Realm within this domain are not the same as those outside, with this realm's celestial realms obviously much smaller compared to the vast starry universe beyond. Yet, cultivators here were exceedingly powerful; if ancient myths were true, these ancient immortals would be more formidable than major figures in the external cultivation world. Particularly, the sages who control cosmic laws are enigmatic even to Blood Flame True Man.

Everything Blood Flame True Man knew about celestial realms came from an ancient immortal's cave dwelling. The divine artifact that saved his life was obtained from this ancient immortal’s cave; however, it only provided vague information about the celestial realm.

Though merely vague, it revealed that both cultivation and celestial realms are governed by the same set of cosmic laws, yet here they clearly differ. Therefore, he entrusted later generations to uncover the mysteries of this Divine Prohibition Domain, as in his view, Earth was a prison, and only by unveiling its secrets could one break free from this confinement.

Beyond the solar system where Earth resides is actually void, while the stars seen at night on Earth do not exist outside the solar system. The nighttime sky appears like an illusion or mirage.

Blood Flame Immortal hoped that those who came after him would uncover the secrets here. After all, if this place wasn’t naturally formed, then it was a monumental undertaking. In such a case, there would be unimaginable secrets hidden within this Earth.

However, he did not have time to unravel these mysteries himself; only his successor could do so.

Xiao Yu fell silent when he saw this. Whether it was him or the memories of Zhong Kui in his mind, both were revolutionary realizations. Especially with Zhong Kui’s thousand-year-old memories, they had been completely overturned in just a short while.

According to Zhong Kui's memories and Blood Flame Immortal’s records on jade slips, the world of earthly immortals on Earth was indeed too small compared to the boundless starry sky outside. It seemed like it was reserved for them alone.

As Xiao Yu read about Blood Flame Immortal’s descriptions of the outside world, his heart gradually stirred. How vast and magnificent that world must be! He found himself yearning for it, but he quickly dismissed those thoughts. Regardless of what lay beyond, it wasn’t something he could consider at this moment.

Xiao Yu put down one jade slip and picked up another, immersing his mind within.

The contents on this second jade slip were minimal; it recorded an item of magical equipment that Blood Flame Immortal had left behind. This was the true legacy for guarding the Blood Flame Corps.

Upon seeing the introduction to the legacy item, Xiao Yu was also stunned by Blood Flame Immortal’s generosity in leaving such a legacy.

After digesting the contents of the second jade slip, Xiao Yu stood up and went to a corner of this stone house. As he arrived at that corner, he formed an intricate hand seal, muttering incantations under his breath. With each incantation, a vortex composed of righteous energy gradually formed around him, rotating around him in circles that grew larger with every turn.

“Open!!”

When the vortex reached its peak, Xiao Yu shouted loudly. As he did so, the stone wall before him gradually vanished, revealing a screen identical to the one on the stone door when he first entered.

Xiao Yu looked at the light screen and walked in. Inside the light screen was a stone room of similar size, but this one was different. The stone room contained fierce yin煞qi that seemed almost solidified. Within the stone room, a flag-like magical treasure was drifting along with the yin煞qi.

This flag-shaped magical treasure was the Blood Flame Immortal's legacy left for the Blood Flame troops, known as the Ten Thousand Ghosts Banner. In fact, it was called the Ten Thousand Ghosts Banner, but it differed from ordinary magical treasures in many ways.

Ordinary magical treasures would erase the spirits of ghosts and use them as tools, whereas this Ten Thousand Ghosts Banner treated the flag like a container for ghosts to reside in without transforming them into mere instruments. They were independent ghostly entities.

The Blood Flame Immortal's legacy of the Ten Thousand Ghosts Banner was similar to the principle behind spatial rings: both create space within an object.

According to Xiao Yu’s understanding, this Ten Thousand Ghosts Banner was akin to a small demon realm in Japan, except that the Blood Flame Immortal had refined it into the banner itself.

The stone room was one of the Nine Yin Converging煞Places. Knowing that Beijing was originally a place where dragon veins converged, everything has two sides. In this area of converging dragon veins, there were also locations where Nine Yin Converging煞Occurred, and this place was one such node.

The yin煞qi here was channeled by the Blood Flame Immortal's magical power from that node. He had warned future users that if they took away the Ten Thousand Ghosts Banner, they must seal the node to prevent the leakage of yin煞qi, which would be a great calamity.

Xiao Yu silently recited the secret methods left by the Blood Flame Immortal for controlling the Ten Thousand Ghosts Banner. Suddenly, the Ten Thousand Ghosts Banner floating in the yin煞qi transformed into a beam of light and shot towards Xiao Yu. By the time it reached him, it had shrunk to the size of his thumb.

When the Ten Thousand Ghosts Banner arrived at Xiao Yu’s side, it flashed several times before merging into his forehead and vanishing. At this point, the stone room was left with only that solidified vicious煞qi, devoid of any trace of the small banner.

Now in Xiao Yu's mind sea, yin souls were seated cross-legged, while the small banner just now was hovering above their heads, connected by a faint golden light.

Xiao Yu’s yin soul had partially entered into the banner. Inside the banner was an expansive world, but everything here was blackish-brown with no trace of green or other colors, and the entire space was shrouded in gray mist.

In this dim and gloomy space, a vast amount of yin energy permeated the area. Amongst these energies, countless ghostly figures drifted within the space.

The Ten Thousand Ghosts Banner could be said to have become Xiao Yu's magical artifact already. Thus, with just a slight movement of his mind, he knew everything about this banner and its contents.

Inside the Ten Thousand Ghosts Banner were 1,778,000 ghost souls, and these were all war spirits that had died in battles long ago. These war spirits were incredibly loyal and brave when they fell on the battlefield back then, naturally carrying a bloody aura of killing intent. The reason Blood Flame True Person created this Ten Thousand Ghosts Banner was because of these war spirits; they could be said to have been his comrades-in-arms, so in a sense, the banner was their second home.

In Blood Flame True Person’s worldview and that of others like him, there was no concept of the afterlife or reincarnation. There might be an underworld but it was all just hearsay; nobody knew for sure if it existed at all.

Within the realm of cultivation, there was also no talk of a ghost gate. After people died, they generally ceased to exist, while cultivators could sometimes become ghost cultivators under certain circumstances. On Earth, however, people turning directly into ghosts after death did not exist in the greater world of cultivation. Ordinary folks couldn’t凝聚魂力after dying, so they became nothingness, and whether or not they went to the legendary underworld was something no one knew.

Back then, Blood Flame True Person had seen ghosts and ghost gates; he found them very strange and studied them but still didn't understand much about them. He even wasn’t clear on how these ghosts existed in the first place, ultimately attributing it to unique heavenly laws here.

Afraid of anything not governed by heaven’s rules, Blood Flame True Person concluded that Earth was a prison; after people died on Earth, they didn't truly die but instead entered reincarnation and reappeared in this world. This meant that no matter whether one lived or died, they couldn’t leave Earth; they would remain here forever, and it remained unknown if this was fortunate or unfortunate.

Disbelieving in reincarnation, he settled these war spirits within the Ten Thousand Ghosts Banner.

Naturally, all of these ghost souls had chosen to stay voluntarily. Those who didn’t wish to remain had already entered reincarnation. These unwilling ghosts wanted to stay and observe New China, observing the realm they had fought hard for with their lives.

No one knew why Blood Flame True Person left so urgently after liberation in search of his path to transcendence, leaving these ghost souls behind.

Now this place had formed an alternative ghost domain where they were already accustomed to their current way of life. However, Xiao Yu still planned on sending them back into the cycle of reincarnation. Blood Flame True Person didn't know about this, but he was certain that reincarnation existed; Zhong Kui had become a deity through being a ghost in his past, so Xiao Yu knew all about the Six Realms of Reincarnation and how one could be reborn as a true human again through it despite losing memories from their previous life.bout it, only to find out that she indeed had the Nine Yin Fatal Pulse. Since her condition was different from what his family recorded, he told Xiao Yu as much."Haha, hers has undergone a slight muta...