22 An Insane Ghost
Hu Wenxi soared uncontrollably through the air with the monstrous Sam trail blazing after him. The monster repeated punched the air creating streams of ghostly energy fists that blast out towards the emperor. Hu Wenxi did not panic but instead counted the rain of attacks with slashes of his wooden sword.
The blade countered many of the attacks causing explosions which rained through the air like fireworks going off. 'I really need to practice with this thing' Hu Wenxi swung his sword repeatedly and with difficulty parried all impending strikes. However this gave Sam enough time to reach the unprepared emperor.
"DIE VILLIAN" the delusional monster attack with enraged ferocity. It wanted to smash the emperor into pieces. It landed a blow on Hu Wenxi's head causing him to bleed and drop his sword. It landed another blow on the emperor's gut causing him to spit out a mouth full of blood.
The monster kicked out at the emperor hiding him with such force that he slammed into the ground hard. A tremor could be felt across the entire world.
"What's going on?" Taoist Infinity Heaven and the rest had obeyed the emperor's orders and stayed in the capital when they felt extreme tremors. They all wondered, 'Had the battle gone that bad?'. They could also recognise Sam's new identity as a ghost and likely a Karmic Lord to be able to force Human Immortals back.
'Is he finally gonna die?' one of the Human Immortals thought. He was dressed richly in black robes decorated in starry luminaries. He wore a small crown atop his head. His power was vast, comparable to taoist Infinity Heaven yet fell short compared to the emperor. This was the Celestial Star king.
At the side Qiang Wang had recovered his injuries. Sam had shocked him with its strength and manage to damage him but it wasn't anything fatal. However Qiang Wang looked uneasy at the moment. This Sam had caused many large incidences since he got here. What's more he apparently returned from the dead.
While it is possible for souls with great resentment/grudges/worldly desires to skip the reincarnation process and immediately become ghosts, it was a very rare process. Qiang Wang has been alive for many thousands of years and certainly did not expect to encounter such a live example today. Alternatively ghosts could also be artificially created by mighty experts, one did not need to be a necromancer to do so however the quality will always be average-bad without a necromancer.
He could see that Sam's ghost body was very strong. "Could a necromancer be involved in this?" Qiang Wang wondered. "Father" a gentle voice rang out and a dazzling figure with long golden hair descended. She was like a goddess gracing the world with her appearance.
Qiang Mei Hua appeared after she sensed the battle between her husband and Sam take place though she was confused as to who he was fighting. As far as she knew Sam was dead. Qiang Wang brought her up to speed by transmitting his thoughts to her. This left the empress completely shocked, Sam's reappearance was an entirely new variable.
On Hu Wenxi's side, he had managed to escape the monster's grasp using his agility and dodge multiple punches. "ROAR" Sam had become much more animalistic after Hu Wenxi's mockery, it stomped on the ground hard splitting the earth in a straight line at the emperor. From within the fissure ghostly power poured out attempting to kill the emperor.
"YOU CAN'T BEAT ME OLD VILLIAN" the monster gloated and stomped again and again. Massive fissures opened up and the geography rearranged itself as more and more ghostly power shot out.
Hu Wenxi leapt into the air, "Impressive of you to get used to your powers so fast" despite his bleeding head the emperor now looked fine. He performed several hand seals as more runes appeared, "A crazed ghost is hard to deal with, a berserk one even more so. But its not like this is my first rodeo". Mysterious light was generated by Hu Wenxi, it began swallowing up the ghost energy until the land was dry of it.
Hu Wenxi recalled his river map and vast quantities of water flowed out. They manifested into the shape of a long Chinese dragon 100 kilometres in length. The might beast blast a stream of water at Sam who dodged and spat out a massive ghostly phantom towards the dragon.
However the dragon was unaffected and sliced through the phantom with its claws. It reached out at Sam who dodged the dragon but immediately got smacked by its tail.
"ROAR" the monster was through back impacting on a sand wall created by Hu Wenxi. The sand wrapped itself around Sam restricting his movements. Hu Wenxi raised his right hand and an hour glass appeared. He tipped it over and a massive bubble of sandy light engulfed the entire area.
Two effects took place. The first of which was that the land began to restore itself back to its original appearance. All the fissures closed up restoring to its former forest and grasslands. "I normally don't do this as it taxes my reserves. But the royal coffers can't afford a second construction on this scale".
The part engulfing Sam did not fast forwards time. Ghosts are immortal by nature, immune to ageing so Hu Wenxi did not bother with that. He could also not rewind time on Sam as it was too strong for him to do so, beings of equal realm and even lower can resist his time reversal spell. Instead he slowed time down to such a state that Sam felt as if he was experiencing an infinity of stillness.
Time spells were complex they were easy to resist with cultivation. For an expert chronomancer like Hu Wenxi, he had to find ways to effectively use it in combat. This was such a case as he slowed down every part of Sam many times over. However Sam's awareness was sharpened by his ghost instincts. As such his immortal sense could bypass the slowing of time.
The effect was that Sam experienced in real time yet his body could not react. Normally he could break out however Hu Wenxi's sand bindings restricted his movements. The water dragon also joined the assault by launching orbs of water that shot out geysers at the mobile Sam.
The water impacted its body with such force that it penetrated it riddling even Sam's impressive ghost body full of holes. All this while Sam was being driven insane by the pain. He wasn't a true warrior nor cultivator, he had never had many difficult fights before. To him who was an ordinary civilian prior, he experienced mind breaking physical torture across his confrontations with the emperor.
To his untrained civilian mind, the pain was too much for him. Hu Wenxi got to work spewing out streams of magical fire from his palms in an attempt to finish Sam once and for all. Sam could feel itself being burnt, and it hurt like hell.
The flames ate away at his body and soul, its legs were slowly reduced to ashes, its arms were charred beyond recognition, its mind was breaking even further. As of currently Sam's mind was composed of three aspects, himself as a human, itself as the instinct of a ghost, and the order set by 'god'.
Sam had forcefully repress the orders in order to get to be himself again. This put a tremendous strain on his psyche, he also had to resist the instincts as it too was gnawing away at his mind. He didn't want to be a ghost nor a puppet, he wanted to enjoy life and do whatever the hell he wanted like a true unfettered hero.
He was never use to pain, that's why the fire and injuries easily tore away at his psyche. He could feel himself losing it bit by bit even as he confronted the emperor the second time. He felt tremendous hatred for the emperor for hurting him so much, he hated the emperor for telling him the truth, he hated the emperor for despite being a reincarnator quite similar to him he was very successful. Something in him just snapped.
One must understand that Sam was simply a means to an end. That being wanted to perfect his personal project and when Sam died he took advantage of the situation and forced Sam's soul out of the netherworld to be his lab rat. When Sam was revived as a ghost, he was set to be a machine who would retrieve the system. However by some miracle Sam's conciseness survived.
If that being had stayed longer, he would've noticed and removed Sam. However this defect stayed and carried with it vast resentment. So much hatred fuelled the ghost even further. The robotic ghost was an artificial undead being designed to follow orders. Yet Sam's resentment, self delusion, and grudge was so much that he would've formed into a natural ghost.
As Sam's mind broke once and for all, he longer resisted the instincts. Sam's ghost instinct was always something terrifying, it was created from the immense hatred the human had for Hu Wenxi but also incorporated some power from that being who made the ghost body from Sam's ashes.
"AAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIEEEEEE" The beast screeched crazily as it spewed hundreds of phantoms from its body. These phantoms dived for the flames burning themselves lessening the flame's power. The beats crazily thrashed around before it began bleeding down the middle. It's maw opened with long blades shooting out to Hu Wenxi.
This disrupted the emperor's concentration as he called the water dragon to defend him. The emperor gripped his fist causing the sand to tighten so much that the ghost's body was squashed like a squishy toy children on earth played with.
The monster's eye popped one by one. The bleeding intensified as several arms burst forth from the top of the creature. A new creature spouted forth and with a burst of speed escaped its former corpse. It rocketed into the atmosphere before circling around. A normal ghost would be smart enough to escape however this one was created from hatred towards to emperor. What's more it has lost all sense of reason.
"AAAAIIIIIIIIEEEEE" it screeched so loudly that the emperor gripped his ears in pain. Even the surrounding environment was being destroyed by the sound waves. The cost circled round and round spewing ghostly phantoms that bit away at the water dragon.
These ghosts consumed the dragon before turning to the emperor. Every single one of them fired of countless bullets of water at break neck pace. The emperor swiped up with his hand and a giant wall of sand shielded him. His wooden sword returned to hand and he slipped horizontally. This strike destroyed every phantom and even split the ghost in halve.
The ghosts instead just ejected more ghostly energy and regrew its lower half. It began attacking the emperor with a mix melee and ranged attacks. It would fire off energy blasts and spew out phantoms before rushing in to punch and kick. The emperor countered the ranged attacks easily and defended its physical blows.
The emperor dashed backwards and pillars of sand slammed into the ghost. "AIE" it screeched however the sand muffled its mouth. More sand formed into the shape of a bull and boar. The two animals stomped on the ghost flattening it several times however each time it would regenerate and reach out to attack.
Although it was constantly healing from Hu Wenxi's spells, its strength was far from infinite. However it kept on attacking like a madman, "AIE", the ghost with eleven arms and five legs clawed at Hu Wenxi who sliced off 6 of its arms in one go while blasting it away with a burst of flame. The bull caught up and flattened the beast with its hoof before calling to the skies.
Above the sky, dark clouds encircled the ghost. A thick pillar yellow lightning struck the ghost who was attempting to get up. It melted the ground beneath it and roasted the ghost. The bull came in and breathed fire at the charcoaled ghost.
Even Hu Wenxi got his hands dirty and sent blast after blast of pure Qi blasts at the ghost. Again and again it was hit, again and again it was hurt. The ghost spiralled further and further into madness as it suffered more and more hits. Slowly it was able to slip away from the three's relentless attacks.
Its battered state was a terrible sight. It had all but one arm amputated. Its body was mush like a collection of convulsing flesh. "AIE" while it only an upper jaw remaining, it still spewed ghostly gases at the three. Both sand constructs converged in Hu Wenxi who formed it into a protective bubble around himself.
The sand ball hurled itself at the ghost bashing its body once more sending it flying into the distance. Hu Wenxi immediately chased after it with fire in hand.
