The ghost and god were trying to peel my skin!

Jiu Gui had scared me years ago, saying he would capture me, cut a slit in my head, and pour mercury into the wound.

At that point, a person would be in unbearable pain, struggling desperately until, with one final heave, they would leap out of their skin, leaving behind a complete human hide on the ground.

I don't know if that's true or not! But wasn't I in the same state Jiu Gui had described?

All that was missing was the cut!

As I struggled to control the unbearable itching, I suddenly felt a tightening on my wrist. When I glanced sideways, I saw two ghostly claws clutching my hands, one on each side.

A keenness, like the approach of a blade, bore down on my brow in that instant.

The ghost and god wanted to peel my skin from the front.

Before it could reach my brow, I slammed my right foot into the ground, and Zi Ye, hanging at my waist, slid down my leg towards my foot.

As soon as Zi Ye's blade touched my calf, I stomped my left foot down and used my arms to resist the downward pressure of the ghost claws. Though I couldn't break free, I flipped over backwards on the spot.

While I was in mid-air, Zi Ye slid to my foot, and the ghost hand on the hilt opened automatically, gripping my ankle, with the blade extending more than a foot past the sole of my shoe.

Black light burst from the bottom of my shoe, striking forward in mid-air.

The "Inverted Hanging Moon" strike that I unleashed in that instant was a moon of sword light, a fire of murderous intent, meeting the sharp edge probing from the black mist.

Zi Ye collided with something, and sparks flew.

Under the impact of the force, I broke free of the two ghost hands and landed back on the steps in the distance.

As I landed, I felt excruciating pain in both arms. Looking down, I saw three half-foot-long cuts on each of my hands.

At the same time, the surging black mist swarmed towards me, seeping into my flesh through the wounds on my hands.

The agony of having my skin peeled back spread through my arms in an instant!

My first reaction wasn't that I was doomed, but to reach back and grab the hilt of the Nine-Ringed Soul-Reaping Blade.

"Wind Sweeps the Clouds!" I roared, brandishing the long blade in a whirlwind, a vortex of flashing light that met the black mist and drove it back towards the secret chamber door.

That was all I could do. Even if, after that one strike, my skin peeled off and lay on the ground, leaving me to advance, dripping with blood, I would still take a few more steps.

If I could hold back the black mist for a moment, I could buy Qin Xin and Zhao Yue Zhu a few more seconds to escape.

As I frantically pushed the blade forward, Zhao Yue Zhu appeared silently beside me. I was so angry, I almost collapsed on the spot: "Go! What are you doing back here?"

This little girl was crazy!

My master once told me that if someone was buying you time with their life, no matter who they were, you had to escape with all your might.

Staying to live or die together wasn't loyalty, it was foolishness.

Only by escaping alive, then returning to tear your enemies to pieces, could you truly repay that loyalty. Otherwise, you were just calling the person who risked their life for you a "fool," because only a fool would risk their life to save another fool.

Only then did I truly understand what my master meant.

As I was about to kick Zhao Yue Zhu away, she suddenly raised a golden Buddha statue and threw it into the black mist like a brick.

I seemed to hear a Buddhist chant from within the black mist, then a raging fire burst forth, and as the flames momentarily pushed back the mist, I saw the ghost and god standing within.

Its humanoid body was about two meters tall, covered in what looked like a skin wrapped around bones. Its hands, hanging at its sides, had five fingers like knives, with exposed blades, as if they had been specifically grown to peel off human skin.

As I looked at the ghost and god, it fixed its eyeless gaze upon my face.

Could the human skins I had been killing all along have been avatars of this ghost and god?

We stared at each other for only a second before Zhao Yue Zhu threw out a large, square seal.

As soon as the seal took to the air, I heard a chorus of battle cries rise with it.

In that instant, as I looked up, I saw countless ghostly soldiers following the seal as it fell to the ground, charging towards the ghost and god.

The sound of thundering hooves and battle cries, like an army sweeping across the land, surged from the secret chamber door, and I could only vaguely see the ghost and god being pushed towards the depths of the chamber through the gaps between the soldiers.

I didn't have time to think about how Zhao Yue Zhu had forced back the ghost and god; I immediately raised my blade and chased into the secret chamber.

The sound of walls collapsing in the distance continued to echo as countless soldiers trampled over the ruined remains, pushing relentlessly towards the depths of the chamber.

I had chased through five broken walls before I heard a non-human roar from the depths of the chamber: "I will not peel your skins, if I were to do that, I am no longer Ghost and God."

The murderous roar was quickly drowned out by an explosion, and I found myself standing in the gathering hall I had seen before.