Chapter 474: Abacus

Li Qi finally broke free from the restraints of the Demonic Qi.

To be detached from all forms is formlessness.

But to be able to detach from forms, the inherent nature is pure and clean, thus taking formlessness as its essence; to be unstained by all environments is called no-thought.

To be detached from environments in one's own thoughts, not to give rise to thoughts about phenomena.

Do not think about a hundred things, just eliminate all thoughts.

When one thought is cut off, there is no other place to be born.

Since there is no other place to be born, then the five aggregates are naturally difficult to entangle.

Thus, Li Qi escaped the entanglement of the five aggregates and truly saw where he had arrived.

Hell.

The red sky, like blood, accumulated dark clouds overhead, and the sky was dim, but still with a red glow.

Droughts, floods, locusts, blights, wind, hail, thunder, fire, landslides, overflows, dried springs, and untimely snow and frost appeared; although the surroundings were incredibly hot, they were filled with other extreme weather, with heatwaves and cold snaps alternating, seasons reversing, and blood rain, acid rain, and meteorites falling one after another.

All open water bodies had either evaporated or turned into solidified blood clots, with no fish, only living corpses floating on top like dead fish, and the air was filled with a stench like a slaughterhouse.

There were also evil spirits and Rakshasas, arranged in divisions, with shackles and torture instruments displayed in a chilling array; countless tortured corpses, their putrid steam and other strange things combined to form extremely foul and terrifying poisonous gas.

No, those were not corpses! These people were still alive, they were suffering while alive!

Suffocating death clouds floated in the air, iron blades formed a dense forest, constantly chopping up bodies that hadn't quite died, and after they were chopped into pieces, a strong wind would blow, restoring their bodies.

But after restoration, the iron blades would strike again, mincing them into paste.

Infinitely repeated torment, endless torture.

Li Qi looked around, and everything here was very hazy, as if caught in a whirlpool.

Screaming winds and countless extreme weather conditions raged within, mixed with the distant cries and echoes of people being tortured, coming from an unknown location.

Boundless despair enveloped this place… But if one looked closely, every corpse, every rotting piece of flesh, every crippled human form barely clinging to life, was piled up here in disarray, yet at some unknown time, they would be swept away by the harsh extreme weather.

From the earth arose immeasurable raging fires, burning oil pots; countless large pots were arranged in rows, with fire burning beneath them, and people were being boiled in the cauldrons, their cries of pain were heart-wrenching, and the bodies of sinners were thrown into them by evil spirits and Rakshasas, like live fish in a boiling oil pot, with nowhere to hide.

The boiling oil from the pots dripped onto the ground as the bodies, like fried fish, constantly struggled and rolled, so the ground was entirely covered in a foul-smelling greasy sheen.

Fat dripped from the oil pots, and the fried bodies swelled with malignant blisters, expanding like tumors, and the air was filled with the smell of burning hair and the stench of decaying flesh.

Outside the oil pots, on other flat ground, countless physically disabled walking corpses wandered, these pieces of flesh that had been tortured for an unknown amount of time.

Li Qi could only call them pieces of flesh, because besides their bodies still being alive, it was hard to say they were still 'living.'

Their minds had been destroyed, and even their memories might have been shredded in this endless torment; they had no emotions whatsoever, they wouldn't laugh, nor cry, nor care about anything; in the endless torment of Hell, their vitality and hope had long been drained.

Crushed souls and shattered hope, this was all that this Hell presented.

This place, this Hell, is where sinners are tormented, it is the deep layer of Reincarnation.

Here, it must have long since departed from the world, right?

Li Qi finally understood.

She understood how Ao Guangxiao, the True Dragon, and that 'Demonic Lord' had pulled them out of the world and into the outer realms.

It was by using the stepping stone before them.

Li Qi had already experienced it with his Physical Body; that sudden jump, appearing or disappearing silently from a certain dimension, should be the characteristic of the Ghost Gate.

After all, the 'Ghost Gate' is the boundary between the Yin and Yang realms, an extremely terrifying existence for ordinary people.

This Demonic Lord only needed to first use the convenience of the Ghost Gate, using the Ghost Gate's power, to pull the entire Treasure Ship into Hell, and then use Hell as a stepping stone to jump into the outer realms.

In this way, he could indeed circumvent the prohibitions and iron rules of the world.

There was just one problem.

Jumping to Hell through the Ghost Gate should not be so simple; there must be others helping behind the scenes.

That is, as mentioned before, the Ghost Emperor of the Ghost Gate?

Li Qi dared not think, punched himself to clear his head, and then used his spell to clarify his vision, looking at the battlefield at least ten thousand miles away.

Yes, the battlefield.

Over there, one could clearly see a Dharma Idol and a True Dragon, forming a circle, with a small figure in the center.

The Dharma Idol was a Demonic Overlord Dharma Idol, with flames burning all around, as if the Demonic Overlord was burning a palace, and faintly, the Seven Treasures Platform was scattering!

That Demonic Overlord Dharma Idol had several braids of hair hanging down, wore an ivory demon crown, a large red cloak, a golden skirt, a golden patchwork jacket, cloud shoulders, combined sleeves, celestial robes, sashes, shoes and socks, and sixteen hands, each holding an instrument like a Kapala.

There were bowls, alms bowls, dragon-head pipes, small drums, zithers, flutes, lutes, sheng, huqin, clappers, and wooden clappers, each clanging, as if a lewd sound was coming, spirits and ghosts appeared chaotically, and then demons were fully revealed, even banners were raised during gatherings, incense was offered to Buddha, and the sound of gongs and drums roared, making people dizzy.

Li Qi clearly did not hear those demonic sounds, but merely seeing them caused countless demonic thoughtss to arise in his heart.

There was fear, joy, anger, and countless desires swirling in his heart, seemingly wanting to devour his Dao Heart.

Fortunately, Li Qi had undergone the trials of the Heavenly Demons, and his Dao Heart was stable.

He then saw a True Dragon nearby, a thousand miles long, coiled and intertwined, with strange shadows around its body; countless Dragon scales were like city walls, coiling and spouting the water of the Heavenly River, infinite power descending, actually extinguishing the boundless raging fires that arose from the Hellish earth, only the demonic fire of that Demonic Overlord Dharma Idol was still burning.

The True Dragon and the Demonic Lord had actually formed a balance of water and fire, one cold and one hot, alternately targeting the Dao of Reason Grandmaster in the middle, seemingly wanting to break open his Heavenly Principle Shield.

It seemed that the Dao of Reason Grandmaster had voluntarily left the ship and faced the two alone, presumably to protect the ship, but the entire ship was still enveloped in Demonic Qi; besides Li Qi, no one else had awakened from the Demonic Qi, everyone was in a dazed state, almost indistinguishable from the walking corpses outside in Hell.

Li Qi immediately understood the meaning, and once again used the Heavenly Principle method, then set up a simple altar to sacrifice the small outer world he had just constructed around himself.

The Heaven Sacrifice method succeeded; the moment he did so, Li Qi immediately felt a surge of intention.

This was the mutual understanding of intention achieved by the Heaven Sacrifice method, and also a common means for Invoker to communicate with Heaven, Earth, Man, Gods, and Ghosts.

As expected, communicating with the Heavenly Principle of this small outer world was actually equivalent to communicating with that Dao of Reason Senior, thus allowing communication with the other party.

When Li Qi had just used the Shaman method to communicate with the Heavenly Principle to form the outer world, he was already borrowing the other party's power.

The moment communication was established, Li Qi sent a message: "Senior! How are things?"

"Things are not good, two people are attacking me, I am temporarily unable to send messages outside, I can do nothing but defend myself, oh, by the way, I just felt someone borrowing my power, was that you?" The Dao of Reason Grandmaster replied to Li Qi.

Seeing that communicating with the Heavenly Principle through the Heaven Sacrifice method could indeed contact the other party, Li Qi's face lit up with joy, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

Being able to contact this Grandmaster meant he could help.

So, Li Qi immediately said: "Thank you for your help, Senior, I have now awakened from the Demonic Qi and have the ability to act.

What is the current situation? Could you please inform this Junior, so I might be able to help you break the situation."

"You help me break the situation? Kid, you're only a Seventh-Rank, I see you have a Spiritual Artifact that can travel between Yin and Yang, take the opportunity to run, you can't help me." The Dao of Reason Grandmaster said.

Li Qi shook his head and replied: "Senior, in the face of twice the enemies, you can still withstand the pressure to help me awaken, how can I escape alone? Besides, there are my friends on the Treasure Ship, and others traveling with me, I don't want to abandon them and let them die while I live alone."

"You can't help me, a good heart can't do anything, go, I will make a move to open a crack for you, your departure is the most valuable thing; after you leave, with your identity, you will surely be able to find other members of the Dao of Reason and inform them of what happened here.

Then someone will naturally come to avenge me and this Treasure Ship, this is the only thing you can do, don't stay here to die; if the events here cannot be spread, then you and I will probably become an unsolved mystery." This Dao of Reason Fourth-Rank Grandmaster said to Li Qi.

Saying this, on the battlefield, his constantly defensive posture began to twist, as if he wanted to forcibly make a move against the pressure, to open a path for Li Qi to leave and report the news.

However, Li Qi felt a bit strange at this moment.

It was clearly the Dragon Slaying Squad that caused the trouble, so why did this Dao of Reason Grandmaster just accept it? He would rather die than let them inspect the Treasure Ship?

At a time like this, if he just softened a little and let the Demonic Lord and True Dragon inspect it, he shouldn't have to die, right?

Or… Li Qi's heart sank, thinking of another possibility.

The Dragon Slaying Squad was very likely invited by the Dao of Reason itself, which is why the Dao of Reason decisively took the blame; the True Dragon should also know this, which is why he didn't go looking for the Dragon Slaying Squad, but came directly for the Dao of Reason.

Then… how did the Demonic Dao get involved?

No matter what, I still need to continue communicating and get more information, I can't just leave like this, besides, the other party said I couldn't help, which clearly underestimates me.

Li Qi's thoughts, though long in explanation, were completed in an instant, so he immediately stopped the Dao of Reason Grandmaster and said: "Senior, don't rush, helping me escape now will not only completely doom my life but also probably prevent me from taking away the True Dragon's intelligence."

"The True Dragon's intelligence? Hmm...? You guessed it?" The Dao of Reason Grandmaster pondered slightly, immediately understanding Li Qi's implied meaning.

Clearly, this Seventh-Rank boy knew there was True Dragon intelligence on the ship.

One of the Dao of Reason's little secrets.

Dissecting True Dragons and studying the secrets within the True Dragon Bloodline.

One must know that the Dao of Reason… never really cared about things like 'good and evil.'

"Regarding the True Dragon, I don't care about this matter, but now that the Demonic Dao has also intervened, there might be another reason, after all, the identity of the people on this ship is too high; regarding this point, Junior has some clues." Li Qi quickly added at this point.

He had to quickly make it clear, because Li Qi had already guessed the purpose of this Fifth-Rank scientific research ship.

The ship carried the Young Master of Shaman God Mountain, and a genuine Buddhist Son; Li Qi hadn't had much contact with the others for now, but their identities wouldn't be too low, otherwise, they wouldn't even be qualified to board this Fifth-Rank Treasure Ship.

Therefore, the purpose of this ship was actually to use the identities of these people, hoping to deter the True Dragon or other forces, making them afraid to act under the pressure of various major forces.

The Dao of Reason… truly had a good plan.

It's just that, for some reason, the True Dragon and the Demonic Dao didn't seem to be intimidated.

No, it's not that they weren't intimidated, but that they had other confidence; Li Qi felt that they must have obtained other backing to dare to do this.

"You? Oh, I understand, the Buddhist Qi that descended on the ship earlier, I thought it was brought by that Buddhist Son, so it was brought by you, ah, that's why an additional Fourth-Rank Demonic Dao Grandmaster descended… Hmm, then this time it's truly self-inflicted, but you said you have a clue… do you have a way to break the situation?" This Dao of Reason Fourth-Rank smiled, his tone a bit helpless.

He didn't blame Li Qi for attracting the Demonic Dao, or use Li Qi to vent anything.

After all, he was also a Fourth-Rank existence, and he knew that everything had consequences.

Having this tribulation was essentially because the Dao of Reason wanted to use these Disciples of great powers to shield itself, and thus attracting other enemies was only natural.

Therefore, he neither blamed Li Qi nor blamed himself; everything had a probability, there were benefits and risks, and people of the Dao of Reason were always very rational, rational to the point of being ruthless.

The Hell Dao's Longevity Pagoda, the Human Dao's demon beast farms, the Dao of Reason was involved in all of these; as craftsmen, they were the favorite tools of all major Dao Orthodoxy.

"Junior does not have a definite way to break the situation, but I still have some ideas." Li Qi didn't know what the other party was thinking, he only knew that he had to find a way to escape now.

His Shaman sixth sense told him that if he really let this Dao of Reason Fourth-Rank open a path for him, the outcome would probably be very bad.

Someone was watching him, someone was targeting him.

These were the words his sixth sense kept screaming in his ear.

Li Qi had always treated his sixth sense with respect, so he chose to stay and face it.

"However, for greater certainty, please tell Junior the current situation, Senior, you probably don't know my capabilities, my understanding of the Demonic Dao is definitely higher than yours." Li Qi said confidently.

At this time, acting confident can gain trust.

He wasn't worried about time, because battles between Fourth-Rank powerhouses were a slow grind, lasting ten days to half a month was simple, and these few minutes of talking were nothing.

"Is that so? Since you have made your decision, then so be it, what do you want to know?" The Dao of Reason Fourth-Rank said.