The Ghostly Path Across the Heavens

The cultivation world is dominated by four great families: the Xuan clan of Mount Tianxuan upholds orthodox immortal cultivation; the Mo clan of Netherworld Valley commands secret arts of the ghost path; the Xie clan of Blazing Heart City excels at political intrigue; and the Yun clan of Mirror Lake is skilled in medicine, gu, and forbidden arts. For a century, their open and covert struggles have never ceased. On the day of the scholarly gathering at Mount Tianxuan, Mo Guhong, the Mo clan's legitimate heir, arrives with a locust-wood corpse puppet. Silver finger guards conceal soul-suppressing coins, and a shattered soul-luring lamp hangs hidden at his waist. As soon as he appears, he uses secret arts to disrupt the Xuan clan's wards. Xuan Ji, the Xuan clan's senior disciple, confronts him with the sword Delusion Breaker, only to discover during their clash that a red cord around Mo Guhong's wrist bears the soul-locking silver bell stolen ten years ago. The artifact was taken from the Xuan clan's ancestral shrine, and its design matches the half-bell at Xuan Ji's waist. Before they can investigate, a horde of corpse puppets in the Mo clan's back hills suddenly runs amok and swarms Mount Tianxuan. Xie Gu hides poisoned needles in his fan and takes advantage of the chaos created by the illusion art “Night Parade of a Hundred Ghosts.” Yun Jin gathers wandering souls in a glazed lamp and secretly searches for an opportunity using the “Blood Lotus Sacrifice” art. Xuan Ji and Mo Guhong are forced to join forces, but while fighting off the corpse puppets, they discover that someone deliberately caused the outbreak. The fragments of the Yellow Springs Soul-Luring Lamp coveted by all four clans are buried amid their tangled grudges. The blood feud from a century ago, when the Xuan clan patriarch slew the Mo clan matriarch; the puppet curse secretly laid by the Xie clan; and the truth behind the Yun clan's “Lone Star of Calamity” fate all begin to emerge in the soul-luring lamp's faint glow. The boundary between immortal and ghostly paths starts to blur. When Xuan Ji's Pure Heart Mantra meets Mo Guhong's Rebirth Incantation, the threads of fate have already bound these two adversaries and the destinies of all four great clans tightly together in a game of wits.