I Have Refined Qi For 3000 Years!

Book 8 Chapter 32 - All Hail The Ghost Emperor!

“It… it was them!”

Upon seeing the three figures standing at the forefront, Venerable Li felt a shiver of dread, and even Venerable Ran’s expression shifted visibly.

Every ghost in the Underworld could clearly recite the titles of those three.

Venerable Bone, Venerable Blood, and Venerable Yin—the three most ancient Venerables of the Ghost Realm.

Unlike Venerable Li and Venerable Ran—Immortal Venerables who had only cultivated up to the second stage of the Six Paths of Reincarnation—these three were beings who had existed since the primordial era; it would be no exaggeration to call them the most ancient of humans.

All three were supreme powerhouses who had fully mastered the Six Paths of Reincarnation, standing just a single step away from the pinnacle realm of the Immortal Emperor—the Firmament Realm.

To Venerable Li and Venerable Ran, they were beings of an entirely different dimension.

Seeing that Venerable Li dared not speak, Venerable Yin sneered:

“Then let this old man tell you who he is. I seem to recall you saying just now that he wasn’t qualified to lecture you?”

He took a deep breath, and an ancient, terrifying pressure radiated from the three of them. The heavens and earth changed color; unimaginable immortal power roiled through the world, and an indescribable, thunderous roar echoed from the void. Three massive manifestations of the Six Paths of Reincarnation appeared behind the three ancient Venerables.

The Six Paths slowly rotated—the golden light of the Deva Path, the blood-red of the Asura Path, the chaos of the Human Path, the slaughter of the Animal Path, the soul-snatching of the Hungry Ghost Path, and the wailing of the Hell Path—exerting crushing pressure upon everything in the Underworld.

“You fool!”

Venerable Yin’s eyes widened, and a colossal pressure crashed down upon Venerable Li’s head.

“You dare speak insolently to him? Just who do you think you are?!”

*Pfft!*

Already severely injured, Venerable Li could not withstand this pressure; blood spurted from his seven orifices, the halo of light behind his head dissipated, and he collapsed onto his knees.

The impact of his kneeling caused the earth for a thousand miles around to cave in; the ground shook and cracked violently. Even the bloodthirsty Asuras nearby, faced with such overwhelming might, obediently ceased their actions and fell silent. “So, who exactly is he?”

Having steadied his nerves, Venerable Ran finally couldn’t help but ask.

Venerables Yin, Gu, and Xue glanced at him, then bowed deeply and prostrated themselves in unison toward Bai Qiuran.

They chanted:

“All hail the Ghost Emperor!”

Behind them, Venerable Lie, King Yama, Xue Ling, and countless Soul Takers followed the three ancient venerables in prostrating before the masked man.

“Greetings, Ghost Emperor!”

They, too, chanted the words.

Venerables Li and Ran, along with all the Asuras present, stared in shock at the masked man who was holding a young woman’s hand.

“Ghost… Ghost Emperor…”

Mako Asura King rubbed his head and muttered to himself:

“It seems that my new boss is an incredible character.”

Venerables Li and Ran also gazed at the masked man with astonishment, too shocked to speak.

The title “Ghost Emperor”—surely there was not a single immortal, even within the Immortal Realm, who did not know it.

It represented a supreme status: an emperor who presided over the cycle of life and death, the ruler of the Underworld and all the realms under its jurisdiction.

Nominally, the position was equal to that of the five Great Immortal Emperors who ruled the five regions of the Immortal Realm; yet, in terms of actual power and standing, it was arguably even more exalted than theirs.

For if the day came when the five Great Immortal Emperors suffered a calamity and lost their formidable immortal bodies and powers—leaving only their souls—they would need the Ghost Emperor’s consent to reincarnate and cultivate anew.

Without the Ghost Emperor’s nod, their souls would be confined to the Underworld, subject to his rule.

The same applied to other immortals. Even though immortals possessed endless lifespans and could live until the end of time, they were not invincible; they could still be killed by others. Upon death, their souls would likewise enter the Underworld to become ghost immortals or undergo reincarnation. When that time comes, no matter how lofty their status was in life, they must bow and submit to the Ghost Emperor in death.

It was precisely because of the vital importance of the cycle of life and death that Bai Li—the Supreme Immortal Emperor who founded the Immortal Realm—established the position of Ghost Emperor alongside the five Great Immortal Emperors.

Although the position was created at the very inception of the Immortal Realm, the identity of the person holding the office has remained unresolved to this day.

It is said that the five Great Immortal Emperors once jointly petitioned Supreme Immortal Emperor Bai Li regarding the Ghost Emperor, only to be told that the position was already filled.

Yet, in the hundreds of thousands of years since the Underworld was established, the “Three Venerables” system has been infiltrated by the five Great Immortal Emperors’ factions, and the Immortal Emperors have wantonly manipulated the cycle of reincarnation—all without the Ghost Emperor ever appearing to set things right.

And now, just as Venerable Ran and Venerable Li finally betrayed the Underworld and attempted to unleash the human race’s arch-enemy—who had been suppressed deep within the Asura Realm—this Ghost Emperor, whose name was known but whose face had never been seen for ages, has suddenly appeared?

“Hahaha… Hahahaha…”

Venerable Ran suddenly pointed at the ghost-masked man and burst into laughter.

“It’s too late—far too late! Why didn’t you show yourself sooner? Why wait until I’d already released him? Had you appeared even a hundred years earlier, things would never have reached this point!”

Bai Qiu-ran frowned, though his expression remained hidden behind his mask.

He asked:

“What do you mean by that, Venerable Ran?”

“Of the Underworld’s Three Venerables, only the original trio—Venerable Bone, Venerable Blood, and Venerable Yin—were exceptions; every subsequent generation has been filled by Immortal Venerables appointed by the five Great Immortal Emperors. Over these hundreds of thousands of years, those appointees have done everything in their power to let the Immortal Emperors secretly control the workings of the Six Paths of Reincarnation.”

Venerable Ran glanced at Venerable Li beside him. “Even this incident was orchestrated by the Immortal Emperors; both Venerable Li and I are merely pawns in the hands of the Immortal Emperors ruling our respective realms.”

“Venerable Ran, you…”

Venerable Li’s eyes widened, but gravely wounded and on the brink of death, he no longer had the strength to do anything.

“When the Immortal Emperors manipulated the cycle of reincarnation, toyed with life and death, and did whatever they pleased—I want to ask: where were you, Ghost Emperor?”

Venerable Ran cupped his hands in a salute to Bai Qiuran, his emotions running high.

“For hundreds of thousands of years, the Underworld was left unguarded, allowing forces from the Immortal Realm to invade at will. I want to ask you, Ghost Emperor: why didn’t you step forward to uphold justice?”

*Well, I hadn’t been born yet, had I? You wanted a fertilized egg to serve as Ghost Emperor?*

Bai Qiuran felt a twinge of grievance; he instinctively touched his face, only to feel the cold, hard surface of his mask.

“Since Venerable Ran asks this, you are evidently not cut from the same cloth as Venerable Li.”

With his hands clasped behind his back, he urged Venerable Ran to surrender:

“If so, Venerable Ran, why not submit now? End this chaos and come back with me. I can answer all your questions one by one then.”

“It is already too late.”

Venerable Ran replied calmly.

He glanced at the Immortal Venerables and Yin Envoys hovering in the sky, then looked back at the Ghost Emperor.

“I suspect even you do not know what else lies sealed deep within the Asura Realm, aside from the souls of the defeated Heavenly Gods?”

“This Emperor truly does not know.”

Bai Qiuran shook his head honestly.

“It took painstaking effort for me to uncover the clues hidden within the fragmented records of a ruined sect in the Immortal Realm.”

Venerable Ran gave a bitter, hollow laugh:

“Buried beneath the Asura Realm lies the intact divine body of an ancient Demon God—a being who once vied for supremacy against the Heavenly Emperor. His soul has slumbered within that shell all this time… and now, he is waking up.”

As his words faded, the very heavens and earth of the Asura Realm shifted violently.