Chapter 454: Capturing and Killing Tang Ye (Part 1)

  "Family ancestor Tie Ning said when teaching me Qingtong Chengying that capturing and killing the living dead man Tang Ye would be my ultimate test."

  At that time, the family's ancestor, Tie Ning, was the head of the Yin Department's Ghost Capture Division. Most of the ghost capture tasks were handled by his four subordinates: Bei Tie Shan, Xi Tie Jiang, Nan Tie Hai, and Dong Tie Shu. He rarely got involved in trivial matters, except for the secret assassination squad led by his father, Tie Chong, and the Fengdu Cui family's ghost capture team, which was managed by Tie Bing.

  The Ghost Capture Secret Killing Group is mainly responsible for capturing and killing various ghostly creatures that appear in the gray area between the Yang realm. They face fierce and formidable characters every day, so the members of this group are all the strongest and most ferocious people from the Iron Family's generations.

  Being selected for the Ghost Capture Secret Murder Team can be said to be the highest honor of every generation of Tie family members!

  When I was about to leave the underworld, Tie Zu, the head of the ghost catcher, received a secret order. The order was to capture and kill the one who had caused chaos in the human world, slaughtered a village in one night, and killed 120 villagers in Ku Ling Village, Sichuan Province, making it a desolate village - Tang Yao!

  "A massacre in one night? Such a beastly act can be done?" I was extremely shocked.

  At this point, I feel that Tie Yi is trying his best to suppress some kind of emotional excitement inside him, as if it might erupt at any moment. This must be an extremely unusual experience.

  Tie Yi adjusted his emotions and spoke slowly: "The first time I was sent to capture Tang Yang in the west of Sichuan, it was my first ghost-capturing mission. To be able to act as a member of the Ghost-Capturing Secret-Killing Group, I am truly proud, that is the honor of all Iron Family members."

  Looking at Tie Yi's serious expression, I also put away the thought of teasing him. It seemed that the story was not as easy-going as I had thought. So I asked, "What is a living dead person?"

  "Transcending the three realms, wandering in the gray area between yin and yang, bordering on the boundary between humans and beasts, existing at the limit of life and death, a walking corpse, bloodthirsty like a beast, no joy without bloodshed!"

  Actually, Tan Huai was not a bad person from the beginning. He was born in a poor family in Sichuan Province and lost his parents at a young age. There were no relatives in his family, and he was also a miserable person who relied on the support of the villagers in the surrounding villages and made a living by collecting medicinal herbs in the mountains.

  What is the reason for Tang Yan becoming a living dead man?

  "It all started with an accident, that day, Tang Yang was picking herbs in the mountains when he accidentally fell into a mountain stream. Who knew this kid's life was big, and he even managed to grab onto a pine tree on the cliff and pull back one life. Maybe everything is destined."

  Who would have thought that under this stone pine there was a cave, Tang Ye unexpectedly found the tomb of Sui's great demon general Si Jianren, the mountain cave was where Si Jianren refined the corpse elixir and cultivated.

  It's really fate playing tricks on people. Tang Ye, this kid, actually got involved with the demon Xiang Si Jian, and was trapped in the mountains. Under the pangs of hunger, Tang Ye ate a lot of corpse pellets in the tomb, and obtained a ghost book called "Lian Shi Lu" through cultivation, which led to a drastic change in his temperament, turning him into an undead creature that is neither human nor beast.

  This undead creature's survival is by taking lives to sustain its own, feeding on humans and drinking blood, and also cultivating the "Corpse Refining Scripture" with all of its heart and soul.

  Ordinary Yin agents are no match for them, so the Ghost Capture and Assassination Squad took on this task.

  "Could it be the legendary zombie?" I blurted out.

  "It's almost the same, it can be considered a different variety of the same subject. They are more agile than zombies and have a more violent temperament. Zombies only suck blood, while these living dead enjoy peeling human skin, picking bones and eating internal organs..." Listening to Tie Yi's words, I suddenly felt a chill down my spine.

  "So that's how it is. I was just wondering why human affairs would fall under the jurisdiction of the Underworld? Even if they did, shouldn't it be handled by the Black and White Impermanence or some other low-ranking yin deity?"

  Tie Yi shook his head and said, "Whenever such monsters appear in the yin-yang realm, they are located in the gray area between yin and yang. The responsibility of capturing and killing these monsters falls within the jurisdiction of my father Tie Chong's Ghost Capture Secret Assassination Team."

  So it seems that this underworld also has many secret departments and hidden professions unknown to ordinary people.

  "It makes sense, dealing with these fierce goods, we must use our trump card, go all out and mobilize the heavy artillery of the task force!"

  "After Tang Ye's cultivation, he became like a wild beast without any human nature, violent and bloodthirsty by habit. When he emerged from the Youxiang grave, in one night, he slaughtered over 120 people from 30 households in Gukou Village. Those villagers who had helped him before were also killed."

  The village turned into a dead city, and even domestic animals, mice, insects, and ants were not spared, leaving no living things behind.

  Overnight, the entire village of Kuhling was dyed red with blood, like a purgatory on earth.

  "This incident led to the rewriting of the life and death books of over 120 people, so the higher-ups gave the order, no matter what the cost, they must be captured! And the secret killer for that action was me and a distant ancestor of my Iron family, Tie Hong."

  Listening to Tieyi's shocking words, I felt a chill run down my spine, as if I could hear the sound of goosebumps exploding. I couldn't help but shiver at this violent and bloody scene, which was too restricted and not suitable for children.

  "In comparison to my impulsive personality when I was young, Tie Hong was much more mature and calm. He treated people with tolerance and openness, but unfortunately, I was too arrogant and ignorant at that time to understand the intention of our ancestors."

  That was my first time taking action as a ghost catcher, I was nervous and excited, thinking that I could finally leave hell and show off my skills. Who knew... As I said this, I vaguely saw that Iron Clothes' eyes seemed to have tears in them.

  There's a saying that men don't easily shed tears, and it seems like something major must have happened on this trip.

  Afraid of delaying and something unexpected happening, that day I used the family's ghostly pursuit technique with Tie Hong, and before half a day had passed, we rushed from Fengdu to Xishan's Shumen Ridge in western Sichuan, not daring to waste a single second.

  Kulang Ridge is located in a mountainous area of western Sichuan, with steep cliffs and jagged rocks. The journey was arduous, but when I finally arrived at Kulang Ridge, I was stunned by the breathtaking view before my eyes.

  Even though I have witnessed the tyranny of the eighteen layers of hell, seen many cruel punishments, read through all kinds of death scenes, and experienced countless tragic events, those were all evil spirits from when they were alive, and their punishment was deserved, so I could convince myself.

  But as I stood with Tie Hong at the entrance of the village, what I saw was a purgatory, a human purgatory. A kind of unprecedented anger struck my heart, making it hard to breathe.

  "What exactly did you see?" I was very curious what on earth could shock this lump of iron.

  "When we arrived at the village entrance, we saw that the entire village was stained with blood, and as far as the eye could see, the only color was crimson. The village was eerily silent, without a single sound, like a dead city."

  At the entrance of the village on the barren ridge, there is a thousand-year-old locust tree. Four people surround it and still can't encircle it. When we arrived, the locust tree was also dyed into a blood tree. The tree was hung with many human skins that were blowing in the wind, many of which had been stripped off not long ago and were still dripping with blood. The air was filled with the smell of bloody death.

  In those pieces of human skin, there were men and women, old people and children... Seeing that scene, I felt a kind of suffocating feeling, my head was filled with blood, my whole body was stiff. Facing the tree full of human skin, I knelt down and made a vow: I will not kill Tang Yang, I swear to be a good person!!!

  Tie Yi's words deeply shocked me, and I couldn't imagine what kind of scene it would be, how cruel it would be to do such a beastly act.

  "Along the base of the tree, we found many mutilated corpses, limbs, skulls and hair. From 80-year-old men to several-month-old babies, not a single one survived. There were even unborn fetuses."

  When I heard Tie Yi say this outrageous story, I was suddenly furious, my blood vessels bursting with rage, and I couldn't help but want to throw that living dead man into the 18th level of hell. Just listening to it makes me go crazy.

  I took a deep breath and exhaled heavily, trying to maintain calmness, continuing to listen.

  "On the Blood Tree, more than a hundred freshly peeled human skins dripped with blood, and the soil on the ground was also dyed red. We searched very carefully for a long time, but didn't find even one living insect or ant."

  The scene before me is shocking, at that moment I wanted to chop Tang into a thousand pieces and still couldn't vent the hatred in my heart, this beast single-handedly created the hell on earth before my eyes!

  So we searched everywhere for signs of Tang Yan.

  Listening to Tie Yi's words, I couldn't help but think of the scene in the mortal world that shocked my heart. Those who were being punished in the underworld were originally evil spirits among humans. The knife mountains and fire seas, the oil cauldrons and grinding mills, were all repayment for debts from past lives. No matter how they were tortured or reformed, it could be said to have passed. But these dead people, they were ordinary families, a lifetime of not doing evil, not enjoying blessings, yet suffered such a catastrophic disaster, enduring such fate, still made my spine chill and my chest feel suffocated.

  Iron Clothes continued:

  Although the ghost catcher has a natural talent for ghost energy, the technique of ghost pursuit is not applicable to Tang Yang. This guy is very cunning, although he has no anger at all, but also no ghost energy, it's extremely difficult to find and track him down. Moreover, Tang Yang was familiar with the terrain as he often lived in these mountains before his death, so Iron Phoenix and I searched for several days without finding any trace of him.

  We scoured every nook and cranny of the village, crossed the forest, descended the precipice, searched for five whole days but to no avail. As the corpses in the village began to rot, I and Tiehong decided to bury the dead first before making any further decisions.

  When collecting the bodies of villagers, I felt more deeply the cruelty of life and death. The villagers' corpses had been fragmented to the point where it was impossible to piece together a complete body. Some were discarded all over the place, while others had been eaten away by insects. We exerted great effort, but out of the entire village of 120 people, we couldn't even manage to find one intact corpse...

  We had no choice, so Tie Hong and I decided to bury all the villagers together. It took us three whole days, working day and night without stopping, to finally lay all the bodies to rest. We struggled to control our emotions on the verge of exploding, and every shovel of dirt made my hatred for Tang Yang deepen.

  "These beasts didn't even spare unborn babies, three pregnant women in the village had their bellies ripped open..."

  Tie Yi's face twisted in rage.

  "This Tang Huo is even worse than a beast, calling him a beast would make beasts blush!!!!" I gritted my teeth and said with hatred.

  "After dealing with the aftermath of the villagers, I and Tiesheng continued to search for Tang Yang's whereabouts. Since we couldn't pinpoint his location based on the yin energy, we could only rely on some random clues that we stumbled upon."

  More than ten days have passed and we have gained nothing. When I went to the stream to fetch water, I found that the whole stream was dyed with a bloody color. It was the first time in my life that I shed tears.

  We followed the stream and found that on about the twelfth day, when we passed by a mountain temple, there were several human skins and animal hides hanging outside the temple gate. On the fence, there were also several human heads and beast heads inserted, which seemed to be the remains of hunters who had died not long ago. Through the gap in the temple door, blood flowed on the ground, and we determined that Tang Zhuo must be hiding inside the mountain temple.

  As soon as I saw this scene, I was suddenly overcome with emotion, and in an instant my head was clouded with anger. Although this guy was no better than a beast, he had also studied the "Corpse Refining Record". When I rushed in, Tang Yang let out a loud roar, spat out the meat from his mouth, swung his sharp claws, and pounced on me.

  At this moment, Tang Yang has completely lost all signs of being human. His limbs are like iron claws crawling on the ground, his eyes are dull and lifeless without a hint of vitality, and his body is covered in thick scales, resembling a giant wolf-like fish.