The Mountain Lord's Roll Call (2)

Nanyun was over nine hundred kilometers away from Qingmeng Mountain. Once the old fox pointed out the general direction, Nan Zhi rode the wind all the way south, arriving in the vicinity of Songhe Cemetery in just half an hour.

It was only now that she gradually came to appreciate the difference between innate divine abilities and magical spells.

Casting a spell consumed varying amounts of internal spiritual energy depending on its scale. While ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivators could fly through the air, doing so drained spiritual power heavily. Consequently, most cultivators opted to ride flying swords or dharma treasures when traveling to conserve their strength.

—Otherwise, flying thousands of miles to face an enemy only to land with a completely depleted sea of qi would be nothing short of seeking death, wouldn't it?

Innate divine abilities were entirely different.

The divine abilities she comprehended were innate talents inherent to the Witch race. They required no spiritual power, activation springing forth purely from will and mood.

Legend had it that when Chiyou fought the Yellow Emperor, his eighty brothers each possessed extraordinary talents, calling wind, summoning rain, and raising clouds of flying sand and rolling stones. They conjured unnatural heavenly phenomena that inflicted endless suffering upon the Yellow Emperor’s army. It was only with the assistance of the Lady of the Ninth Heaven that the Yellow Emperor managed to turn defeat into victory.

Though the Witch race possessed such formidable innate divine abilities, they ultimately met annihilation, leaving one to sigh at how fickle the path of cultivation truly was, with its unpredictable turns of fortune and calamity.

...

The local airports in Nanyun had received advance notice early on. Countless flights were grounded, runways were closed, and even planes mid-flight over Nanyun were forced to make emergency landings at nearby airports.

“Dear passengers, due to severe dense fog today, all flights at Nanyun International Airport are temporarily unable to take off. We deeply apologize for the delays and extend our most sincere regrets.

“According to the Meteorological Bureau, the duration of the heavy fog above the airport remains unknown, and it may be accompanied by rare phenomena such as mirages. To ensure your personal safety and resume flight operations as quickly as possible, please keep clear of the runways and refrain from filming or taking photos of the fog...”

“Dear passengers...”

Inside the terminal building, countless passengers looked through the glass, staring up at the menacing, boundless white fog with astonishment written across their faces.

High above Nanyun City, a dense white fog filled the sky. Massive plumes of clouds swept across the backdrop of the heavens as if alive.

It moved impossibly fast.

In what felt like a single blink, the fog swept across the sky and crept along the ground, turning everything outside the terminal into an expanse of pure white.

With every breath, the thick, milky fog filtered into their lungs, bringing a refreshing clarity as though their organs were being cleansed by spring rain.

Countless tourists frantically raised their phones to record this marvelous sight, but the white fog was fleeting. In the blink of an eye, the rolling mist surged forward.

The roads surrounding Songhe Cemetery were under emergency martial law. Caution tape was stretched high, police sirens wailed continuously, flashing red and blue lights, and all six intersections leading to the cemetery were completely sealed off.

“No entry ahead!”

“Stop your vehicle! Stop! Traffic is blocked here for now! Please cooperate!”

“For your own safety, please cooperate!”

Traffic police officers shouted until they were hoarse, managing to hold back the last wave of traffic outside the cemetery.

Yet the drivers and passengers stuck on the highway did not complain. Instead, they stepped out of their vehicles in unison, staring in stunned awe at the white fog sweeping straight toward them.

The sky hung vast and gray, the mist stretched boundless, and a low wind swept through withered yellow leaves.

The yellow hues of autumn were stained, devoured, and assimilated by an endless expanse of white...

The mist arrived with an eerie silence, like a milky-white giant beast roaring as it charged directly at them!

It was the sound of the wind.

Moist, cool air surged into their lungs. Droplets of moisture clung to everyone's hair, eyebrows, and even eyelashes.

High above, a powerful gust tore through the air, carrying a long, echoing tiger roar.

Men, women, children, the elderly, reporters, police officers, drivers, office workers—everyone present heard that resonant, far-reaching roar, as though it were etched directly into their souls.

A faint figure stood amid the clouds. It felt like an illusion, or perhaps the fleeting shadow of a falcon cast upon the mist, passing by in a flash.

Some cried out in terror, others gasped for breath, some panicked in confusion, and a few even tried to run after the dark figure inside the white fog.

Without exception, everyone whipped out their phones to capture this terrifying moment.

“What... what is that? Is there someone in the fog?”

“Holy crap! There really is someone! Look! She looks like a woman! She has long hair!!”

“I recorded it! It's definitely a figure!!”

“Someone is flying in the sky!”

“Something must have happened up ahead! Didn't you see the police blocking the road?”

“My phone isn't getting through!”

“Mine too! No signal!”

“I can't make calls either! What's going on?!”

“The Mountain Lord is passing through! Repeating, the Mountain Lord has arrived in Nanyun! The Mountain Lord is passing through!”

Official personnel tasked with tracking the Mountain Lord rode in black sedans, desperately chasing the white fog. Over the comms system, a female voice repeated over and over:

“All units attention! The Mountain Lord is passing through! The Mountain Lord is passing through! Do not engage or initiate conflict! Wait for the fog to disperse!”

“All units attention: Do not initiate conflict! Wait for the fog to disperse!”

“Wait—All units attention! Suspect Li Dapeng, who allegedly uses supernatural power to murder, has been spotted near Songhe Cemetery!”

“He is heading toward Songhe Cemetery! Repeating! Li Dapeng is heading toward Songhe Mausoleum!”

“Do not pursue! Do not pursue!!”

...

...

...

“Is this the flesh-eating yaksha haunting the cemetery?”

Nan Zhi, carrying the nearly vomiting old fox wrapped in her tail, landed slowly at the highest point of the cemetery. Her golden tiger eyes fixed upon the strangely terrifying great ghost below.

It was an emaciated great ghost over four meters tall, with three round bulges on its forehead, wild bushy eyebrows like tangled weeds, a green face, red teeth, and a completely naked body.

Hairless and bare all over, it looked like a plucked vulture, lacking any gender-defining organs. Its high, protruding flesh-colored belly bulged outward, clanking and sloshing with every movement like a skin gourd filled halfway with water.

The great ghost lay casually in the middle of the cemetery, its thin arms resting atop hundreds of stacked tombstones. Beneath its gaunt, oversized feet were piles of smashed urns.

A drum-like pounding echoed from within the yaksha's stomach. It was nothing other than the spirits of the dead it had devoured, screaming and wailing inside. Ghostly hands slammed furiously against the stomach wall, struggling desperately to break free.

“Mountain Lord, this yaksha... this yaksha is pretty formidable,” Hu Ban'er said, a trace of hatred flashing in his eyes as he glared at the creature's bloodthirsty gaze. “At first, it only dug up corpses in the cemetery to eat. But nowadays, cremation is everywhere, so there weren't enough corpses to fill its stomach. So it went to crowded places nearby to catch living people to eat.

“And the damn thing doesn't just eat humans—it even eats minor demons with a bit of intelligence! A while back, one of my Hu family's Chuma disciples took two little demons to negotiate with it, and it chewed the disciple's bones to splinters!”

Nan Zhi flicked her tail and voiced her doubt: “Don't humans have firearms? How can they not even handle a single yaksha?”