Chapter 75: Yin Spirit

"Not human? What do you mean?" Mei Rong asked, appearing utterly bewildered, turning his head to face his father.

"Don't you feel it? There is no life in that thing," her father said with caution lacing each word.

Mei Rong frowned, focusing. It took him a minute to realize. There was, indeed no hint of life from the figure before them. It was as if they were staring at a corpse.

That was not to be enough, the creature turned around to face them. Its face was deathly white, colorless. And its eyes were misty - an indeterminate shade of gray.

"It's alive," Mei Rong breathed. This shock would not keep to his lips.

The corpse-like thing spoke, throwing the Mei family members into further shock. How was that possible? Something that lifeless spoke?

Before either of them could do anything, the creature vanished from its place and appeared instantly in the air above them. Its white hands morphed into claws as the being swooped down towards Xian Yue, straight for his head.

"You dare attack me? Begone!" Xian Yue's voice cut through the tension like a blade.

With a single word the weird creature disintegrated, crumbled in mid air with an explosive burst. In the silence after Xian Yue's quick dispatch of the creature, Mei Rong and his father sat there speechless.

"Senior," Mei Rong finally stuttered, trying to make sense of what he had just witnessed, "what was that thing? It had no breath of life but still moved and thought. What kind of creature is it?

Xian Yue was composed in his expression as he said, "What you just witnessed is a corpse which, over millions of years, has evolved to bring forth a Yin spirit."

"A Yin spirit?" interrupted Rong's father, Mei Kai. "That's a form of intelligence born from a corpse?

"Indeed," said Xian Yue, nodding. "If a corpse develops spiritual intelligence, it can act like a living being. You can feel its vitality. However, Yin spirits are created under special environmental factors such as this. They are quite naturally from the netherworld not something you would find in the living, or 'Yang,' world."

"The netherworld?" Mei Kai's voice was barely above a whisper. "Is that… a real place?"

"The underworld," Xian Yue said, "is where souls go to reincarnate after death."

Mei Kai's eyes opened very wide. "But is that real? We've only heard about such a place in ancient legends."

Xian Yue smirked as they moved forward, the eerie silence around them giving more weight to his words. It's real enough, including the laws of the underworld that linger in the black mist here. Those laws allowed Yin spirits to be born in this area, even though such spirits typically reside in the netherworld. The worlds of Yin and Yang are separated, which is why you couldn't sense the creature's life force. They exist on different planes.

Mei Rong nodded her head thoughtfully. "I see… But then, how is it that a corpse, which should decay, gives birth to a Yin spirit? Must it be freshly dead?"

"The body you saw belonged to an Immortal Dao being, Xian Yue said with a small smile. Such beings don't decay. If no external influence existed, they might stay like this for all eternity. In exceptional conditions, these corpses can result in spiritual intelligence. What you see was one of those phenomena."

"Immortal Dao? What is that?" Mei Kai asked, intrigued by the term.

"Immortal Dao being, highest existing form, which is what the immortals the cultivators pursued throughout countless generations," Xian Yue responded matter-of-factly.

Mei Rong could hardly believe his ears. "You mean to say those immortals really exist? Not just in stories?"

Xian Yue nodded again. "They do. You probably remember that crack in the sky not so long ago, and that giant hand that appeared? That is one of such immortals. That creature was part of the strongest of the Immortal Dao, equivalent to an emperor in the mortal realm."

Rong shook at the memory. "I remember that hand. The air around it gave off an overwhelming sense of doom."

"It was mighty, Meis," Xian Yue said as if to himself, with an almost dismissive air, "but certainly not the end. This was just the beginning".

Rong glanced at Xian Yue's back as they walked on. Her mind was whirling. The figure behind that giant hand was one of the most powerful beings in existence, and Xian Yue brushed it aside as if it meant nothing. Was he even stronger than such an immortal?

She grew more convinced. Xian Yue must be that person who surpassed the heavenly laws. But why would such a super-being remain in this seemingly insignificant town of Feihua City and pretend to be the head of a small family?

As they traveled, Mei Rong started telling him about the events that had occurred over the past years that he'd been away; among which was the Heavenly Dao Golden List materializing out of nowhere and overnight how all of the land began to experience these strange occurrences.

"That still doesn't explain why the black mist from the netherworld is here," Rong said after finishing her story. "If Yin and Yang are separate, why is this mist from the underworld appearing in our world?"

Xian Yue chuckled. "Who can say for sure? Perhaps we'll explore that later."

Through the mist, they encountered more dead Yin spirits. Like the first, these creatures had pale skin, with no warmth or blood. But the intelligence that they displayed was much sharper, and all attacks were well-thought-of.

Each time they prepared to strike, Xian Yue subdued them easily with a mere flick of his hand.

When he had three of the Yin spirits immobilized, Xian Yue advanced on them with a question. "Tell me where the poison beads are, and I might consider sparing you."

"We don't know what you're talking about!" one of the spirits spat, though fear flickered in its eyes.

Light gathered on Xian Yue's fingertips as his gaze hardened.

"Wait!" cried one of the Yin spirits. "We know something! Deep inside the mist, there's a stone tablet with ancient scriptures carved on it. Those might be of value to someone like you."

Another spirit chimed in, "There's also a dead tree, massive in size. The markings suggest it might be a flat peach tree—something rare in this world."

Xian Yue smiled knowingly, bending her lips into a curve. "Very good. Show me."