Chapter One: The Celestial Demon Beyond the Realm, the Battle Intent Primordial Spirit

His head struck the ground.

Blood from the neck sprayed out like flowers in full bloom.

Screams, groans, roars, whinnies.

Who am I?

Where am I?

Why is the blood on my face so hot?

Why are they all falling back?

What are they afraid of?

The broken remnants of the army retreated in utter disarray. Amid the clamor of iron armor, countless armored soldiers surged forward and surrounded me in layers.

Battle axes gleamed cold as water, heavy shields stood shoulder to shoulder like mountains, and leveled spears bristled like a forest.

These were the elite among the elite of the state of Wei, the famed Warrior Corps, each one selected through many rigorous trials.

To be naturally strong was only the beginning; to bear heavy armor and wield formidable weapons was merely the foundation. Only after surviving several bloody battles could one earn the right to be counted among them.

Yet these veterans of a hundred battles were all pale-faced now, and more than a few could not help swallowing hard.

Within the layers of encirclement formed by these armored warriors of Wei, there stood only a single solitary figure.

His left lower leg was gone, and a broken spear shaft had been tied to his thigh as a makeshift support for his body. Half the flesh on his right leg had vanished, exposing the bloody bone beneath; at the wound, the muscle was half red, half white, and no blood could still flow from it.

On his back, the once intact armor had been reduced to a single fragment. It was less as though it hung upon him than that it had been embedded in his flesh, still bearing the dents of heavy hammer blows.

Before him, half a length of intestine had been forced out through the gaps in a silk cloth haphazardly wrapped around his lower abdomen.

His chest bore a gash deep enough to admit half a fist, and through that wound one could just barely see the heart, long since stilled.

He was no longer alive.

"Grand Historian of Great Wei, Gongyang Zan, may I ask your name, sir?" A scholar in white stepped forward under the protection of many armored guards and bowed respectfully, his expression solemn as he asked.

Was he speaking to me?

"Son of Zhang Lianyue, Zhang Le, Zhang Zhanjue, son of Zhang Gongzhenyue of Great Han!"

This is not my voice!

Who is speaking in my place?

"Sir, your valor is peerless under heaven and will surely be recorded in history. Yet the man who slew your father today is already dead, and your hatred and vengeance have been answered. Why does your soul not return?" the scholar in white asked.

"I am already dead?"

My mouth was speaking, yet I was not the master of this body, only an observer.

I am a spirit from beyond the heavens, now lurking within the soul of this host.

I am a transmigrator, an outer demon!

"With one man and one blade, you broke five formations, slew seven generals, and in the midst of ten thousand troops killed our Great Wei deputy commander Zai Fu Gan. You suffered ten grievous wounds and uncountable lesser injuries; your armor shattered, your blood dried, and even in death you still fought on. From ancient times to the present, among all warriors under heaven, you must stand foremost." The man in white cupped his hands, his face bearing three parts gravity and seven parts reverence.

There was a strange power in his voice, one that made the spirit feel pleasantly at ease.

"Is that so?"

The head lowered, looking down at the body.

Through the dreadful wound in the chest, one could directly see the heart. It had withered somewhat and long since ceased beating.

"So I really am dead?"

Screech.

The long blade was driven into the ground. The eyelids fell shut.

It seemed that something had vanished from this body, leaving me no longer suppressed.

Did I count as having successfully seized this body?

"You have cast aside life and forgotten death, and your heroic soul still lingers, to such a degree!" Looking at the body before him that stood with a blade for support, dead yet unfallen, the man in white sighed and turned to leave.

"Commander, this..." the armored guard beside him asked in a low voice.

"A peerless hero should be honored. Wait until tomorrow," the historian Gongyang Zan, no, Commander Gong Wuxie, instructed.

"And the deputy commander's body?"

"Take it away. We cannot let his soul be seized by those cultivators. It is one thing to slay enemies on the battlefield, but to abuse the corpse of an enemy general and display it to the world is rather excessive. Had he not been so cruel, how could he have stirred such fighting spirit in the other side? If I had arrived one step later today and could not have vented this man's surging battle intent, he might well have transformed on the spot into a ghost king."

"Besides, such a figure is exactly the finest material for forging a battle soul. If we were to leave him here, those people would not let it rest."

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The Ten Thousand Bones Plain was a basin between the states of Han and Wei, wedged between Qishan and Mangdang Mountain. Whoever held this place could advance or retreat at will, and thus it was a strategic prize contested by all military powers.

Since it was a prize contested by all military powers, it naturally became the focal point of contention between both sides.

Over the span of more than a hundred years, the kings of Han and Wei had changed many times, yet this place remained a prize to be fought over. The nameless basin had also been renamed the Ten Thousand Bones Plain.

The setting sun bled like blood. As the last streak of afterglow faded, the Ten Thousand Bones Plain sank into silence, with only the mournful cries of crows and owls echoing desolately across the land.

By day, the battlefield had become a ghostly domain.

Night fell. Midnight.

Across the Ten Thousand Bones Plain, chilling winds rose simultaneously from all directions.

Where the yin wind passed, wild dogs, wolves, crows, and vultures wandering the battlefield all fell to the ground. As the wind swept over the bodies of the fallen soldiers, it drew forth strands of remnant souls—some still retaining human form, others no more than wisps of black smoke. These souls wailed and howled, dyeing the yin wind black.

The black yin wind converged at the center of the battlefield, rose into the air, and condensed into dark clouds that blotted out the entire sky.

The earth was plunged into complete darkness.

Some three hundred meters beneath the Ten Thousand Bones Plain lay a vast grotto, half artificial and half natural.

At the center of the grotto stood an altar nine feet high and nine zhang square, built from countless skulls.

In the center of the altar, a massive skull had been pierced by a black banner.

The black banner measured three chi, three cun, and three fen in length. Its triangular pennant unfurled of its own accord, pure black and without a single ornament.

Nine men in black robes stood around the altar.

"Heh heh heh, this time at least they did not send a bunch of laborers to fool us," one black-robed man laughed.

"Naturally. If we still cannot gather ten thousand battle souls this time, our ancestor-master is likely to fly into a rage," another black-robed cultivator said.

"And rightly so. If we still fail to gather ten thousand battle souls, one of the twelve World-Lord Thousand Ghost Banners will be missing, and if the Underworld Sovereign takes offense, the ancestor-master would not be able to bear it."

"The ancestor-master spent a vast fortune a hundred years ago to set up this spirit-gathering array covering several hundred li around this place. The states of Han and Wei have also been at war year after year. How could we not gather ten thousand battle souls?" another black-robed man asked in curiosity.

"You junior brother are not one of our external affairs disciples, nor do you cultivate along the soul-gathering path, so you do not know this. Battle souls are different from ordinary ghosts. Only brave and fierce men who die in direct, fierce combat, with their refined souls still unscattered after death, can become battle souls.

In a host of ten thousand, if a thousand die in battle and do not retreat, that already counts as well-trained and high in morale, yet among them one may gain no more than a hundred battle souls. If three thousand die and the formation does not collapse, that is an elite force of a nation, and if we can obtain several hundred battle souls we should count ourselves blessed. Even for such elite troops, both Wei and Chu together do not have many. Gathering ten thousand battle souls is no easy thing.

We have lurked here for twenty years, through three great wars and countless minor battles, and have only collected one thousand three hundred battle souls. If not for the many accumulations left by the senior brothers before us, who knows how many more years it would take to gather ten thousand."

The black-robed man was still speaking when the leader cut him off.

"The yin wind has finished searching the souls. Everyone to your positions, activate the altar, and gather the spirits into the banner."

The black-robed figures hurried to their places.

The nine black-robed cultivators each drove their power into the altar, and at once the yin wind within the grotto grew fierce.

"All ghosts obey, World-Lord Seizes the Soul, come!" the nine shouted in unison.

At the center of the altar, the Thousand Ghost Banner of the World-Lord suddenly expanded to a height of three zhang. The banner surface crackled and billowed as strands of black qi rose slowly from it, converging three chi above the banner’s peak into a pillar of black light.

This black light treated mountain rock as though it were nothing, piercing through layers of earth to burst from the ground and shoot straight into the clouds above.

Thousand Ghost Banner of the World-Lord — Soul-Seizing Divine Light.

The black pillar of light stood between heaven and earth, while the boundless black clouds above spun inward toward it.

Within this pillar of black light, a figure stood propped upon a blade, dead yet unfallen. Bathed in the light, his shattered body began slowly to grow, heal, and mend itself.