Chapter 138: The Terror Ridge

When the dark cloud was within a hundred feet, Lao He confirmed that this person was only at the early stage of the Foundation Building phase—capturing him would be no problem at all.
Most demonic cultivators were deeply guilty, especially those from the Ten Thousand Ghosts Sect, who had harmed countless people by manipulating their souls. Thus, Su Che had no qualms about capturing such individuals.
Su Che never claimed to be the embodiment of justice, but he still had his own standards for who could and couldn’t be captured. As the old saying goes, one should act in a way that satisfies one’s conscience.
Activating the Jade Disk, he accelerated rapidly and soared into the sky. Without hesitation, he released the top-grade Jade Ring, whose powerful restraining force instantly enveloped the dark cloud.
“Who are you? How dare you cause trouble on the territory of the Ten Thousand Ghosts Sect?”
The dark cloud’s speed dropped sharply, and a hoarse, gloomy voice emerged, filled with malice.
Su Che wasn’t bothered by idle talk; he wanted to end this quickly to avoid attracting more demonic cultivators.
To achieve this quickly, his own strength alone wasn’t enough, so he quickly summoned three allies: Asura, the Snake Woman, and the Silver-Bearded Dragon.
“Huh? Who are you?”
A cry of shock came from within the dark cloud—clearly, the sudden appearance of such a formidable force had stunned them.
The appearance of Asura alone was already terrifying, let alone when combined with a dragon and a snake, all seemingly ancient exotic creatures… Anyone would wonder, “Which deity have I offended?”
Su Che remained silent, intensifying the restraint with the Jade Ring while his spiritual sword spun as it pierced into the dark cloud.
The Silver-Bearded Dragon opened its maw and blew out a silver-gray gust of wind, causing the dark cloud to flicker like a dying flame. The demonic cultivator inside then became visible.
He appeared to be in his forties, thin, with sunken eyes. His hair was tied up in a bizarre, upright style—clearly not a trustworthy person.
At that moment, Lao He and the Snake Woman also attacked simultaneously—Lao He’s tribal axe and a serpentine energy blast flew forward at once.
This wasn’t a fair duel in a arena with no rules against using allies. Even in internal sect competitions, summoning creatures was allowed. It’s just that Su Che seemed to have quite a few summons…
“Hold back!”

The demonic cultivator let out a cry of shock and frantically activated his protective magic artifact. Yet, each of his attackers was far stronger than him, and his resistance could only be described as feeble.
Bang!
His ring-shaped defensive artifact was shattered by Lao Hei’s axe, with a clear crack appearing on it—severely damaged.
In panic, the demonic cultivator used an attack artifact shaped like a ghost claw to block Su Che’s flying sword, only to be struck by the snake-shaped energy blast sent by the snake woman.
Boom!
That strike caused him to lose control, tumbling through the air. His black cloud-like flying artifact lost control and turned into a piece of black cloth, drifting downward.
Crack!
The two silver whiskers beside the Silver-Bearded Dragon touched each other, emitting sparks of electricity before unleashing a bolt of lightning that instantly struck the still-tumbling demonic cultivator mid-air.
The snake woman had the highest cultivation level. Before the others could strike again, she sent out another snake-shaped energy blast, hitting the demonic cultivator once more…
In fact, it was because Su Che and the others didn’t want to kill him that they didn’t use their full strength. Otherwise, just one round of such attacks would have been enough to kill him.
Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish!
Four figures disappeared from the sky, leaving only Su Che behind. Including the dying demonic cultivator, everyone was taken into the Immortal Prison by Su Che.
Su Che activated his jade dish, dived downward, and swiftly collected the piece of black cloth as well. Then, like lightning, he left the crime scene…
The reason this arrest was so swift was not only due to their numerical advantage but also because this demonic cultivator was just an ordinary disciple of the Ten Thousand Ghosts Sect, with no powerful magic artifacts or exceptional spells—his overall combat strength was quite low.
Inside the Immortal Prison, Lao Hei used mind-reading to examine his memories and confirmed that this man had committed numerous evils. Arresting him was justified, thus solidifying his status as a prisoner in the Immortal Prison.
Half an hour later, Su Che transformed into a middle-aged demonic cultivator in black robes and entered the Xinghun Ridge Cultivation Market.
Xinghun Ridge wasn’t really a mountain—it resembled two humps rising from a plain. Thus, the local people customarily called it “Hump Ridge.” But because the area was extremely eerie and contained a vast graveyard, people kept their distance, afraid to approach.
Within the jurisdiction of the Ten Thousand Ghosts Sect, people from over a dozen countries also lived peacefully. Just like immortal sects, the Ten Thousand Ghosts Sect required tributes from various countries to cover its daily expenses.

The Cultivation Market was located between two humpback mountains, enclosed within a large illusion array. Ordinary people without spiritual eyesight could hardly see anything other than a gloomy mass of graves.

Inside the market, there were over a dozen regular shops, and as many as a hundred vendors set up stalls along the streets. All the cultivators visible here were at least at the Foundation Establishment stage; not a single low-level cultivator in the Qi Cultivation phase could be seen.

Su Che came here to purchase three thousand souls needed to unlock the second floor of the Immortal Prison Pagoda. “Soul” was a general term; specifically, they were divided into ordinary souls, ghost soldiers, ghost guards, ghost generals, ghost kings, ghost emperors, and so on.

Starting from “ghost guards,” they could be called spiritual ghosts. Ghost guards corresponded to the strength of humans in the Qi Cultivation stage, ghost generals to the Foundation Establishment stage, ghost kings to the Golden Core stage, and ghost emperors to the Yuan Ying stage.

Normally, purchasing three thousand souls wouldn’t be considered a big deal, as Su Che only needed ordinary souls and not necessarily high-level spiritual ghosts. Generally, two spiritual stones were enough to buy one soul.

But today, after checking hundreds of stalls, he didn’t find anyone selling souls. With no other choice, Su Che picked one stall, spent dozens of spiritual stones on random items from the demonic cultivator vendor, and then had the face to ask about his needs.

“Three thousand ordinary souls?” the vendor replied, “Normally, they’re easy to get. You can gather three thousand without spending five thousand spiritual stones. But these past few days have been unlucky. I guess you’ll have to wait for a while before you can get them.”

“Why?” Su Che asked.

The vendor continued, “Ten days ago, a senior at the Golden Core stage came to the market and publicly announced he would buy one hundred thousand souls at a high price, regardless of quality—more the better. So everyone sold their stock to him, but even that still isn’t enough to reach one hundred thousand.”

“One hundred thousand souls?” Su Che was shocked. “That’s quite a large amount. That must cost at least two hundred thousand spiritual stones, right?”

“Two hundred thousand? How could that be enough?” the vendor smiled faintly. “If they were all ordinary souls, yes. But don’t forget—many people can afford spiritual ghosts at the ghost guard level, and those are valuable.”

“What’s the price of spiritual ghosts at the ghost guard level?” Su Che pressed further.

The vendor glanced at him curiously. “You seem to have a strong aura of ghosts. You must be an expert in this field. How come you don’t even know such basic knowledge?”

Su Che smiled and explained, “I’ve always caught souls myself and rarely spent money on them, so I’m not very familiar with market prices.”

The stall owner nodded before answering, “Depending on their strength, Ghost Guards cost around five hundred to five thousand spirit stones; Ghost Generals are even more expensive, at about ten thousand to one hundred thousand. Of course, in this market, it’s utterly impossible for anyone to sell Ghost Generals.”
Su Che nodded, thinking to himself, “Ghost Generals belong to the Foundation Establishment stage, and few people are willing to sell them.”
The Wan Gui Sect had few disciples yet could still be one of the top ten schools in the demonic path because of their formidable skills in controlling ghosts. Fighting against a disciple of the Wan Gui Sect meant battling a group of spirit ghosts. Generally speaking, in one-on-one fights, the Wan Gui Sect was virtually invincible at their level.
Earlier, Su Che had taken advantage of his numerical superiority and used a thunderous strike to easily capture that Wan Gui Sect disciple. That was because he hadn’t had time to summon ghost servants in a hurry and only used two magic artifacts. Otherwise, it would have been impossible to defeat him so easily.
After thanking them, Su Che left the stall and secretly sighed that he was unlucky—having come all this way only to encounter someone buying souls in bulk…
“If nothing else works, I’ll go to the Tai Yi Sect first to complete the sect exchange task. I’ll have to come back here on my way back.”
Lao He suggested, “Master, we found eight Ghost Guards and over thirty Ghost Soldiers on that Wan Gui Sect disciple we captured just now. This shows that if we go deeper and specifically capture lower-level disciples of the Wan Gui Sect in the Qi Cultivation stage, we can gather enough ordinary souls.”
“No, that’s too risky,” Su Che thought. “Once is enough. If we capture too many, we might attract some senior member of the Wan Gui Sect, and then we’ll be in big trouble.”
To be fair, Lao He’s suggestion wasn’t a bad idea, but Su Che still felt it wasn’t worth taking such risks when the problem could be solved with spirit stones.
After that, Su Che continued to browse the many stalls in the market, spending a few hundred spirit stones on some strange trinkets. Though they might not be useful, it was at least a worthwhile trip.
Just as he was about to leave, there was a loud explosion, quite astonishing in intensity.
Like everyone else, Su Che turned to look at the source of the noise and saw thick black smoke rising from a three-story shop over a hundred zhang away, with a huge hole ripped in its roof.
Su Che couldn’t help but think, “The security here is truly terrible. Even such a large shop can suffer such disasters.”

Generally, in a cultivation market, there is always a relatively powerful organization that controls everything. Outsiders don’t dare to fight with others inside the market; any disputes are resolved outside. This was the first time Su Che had seen a riot in a market… As he was thinking, he saw a mass of black mist burst out from the roof of one of the shops, accompanied by an arrogant and loud laugh that echoed in his ears: “Hahaha! Very well! If that’s the case, I’ll wipe this place out and kill everyone! Let’s see how you’ll explain this to the Ten Thousand Ghost Sect!”
“Kill everyone?”
Hearing these words, Su Che’s heart skipped a beat, and he couldn’t help but sigh, “My luck today is even worse than I thought. It’s not just about not being able to buy souls…”