On the back mountain of Seimei Shrine, along the road leading to the White Fox Palace, within the ghost realm barrier of Seimei Shrine, Ling Tian was surrounded by over ten lantern ghosts.
These lantern ghosts launched mental attacks on Ling Tian, attempting to intimidate and scare him, but to no avail.
The ten-plus lantern ghosts were instantly enraged. Their bodies suddenly expanded, as if a person was puffed up with anger.
Immediately after, the lantern ghosts' volume rapidly shrunk. Correspondingly, the two fireballs circling around them suddenly grew from fist-sized to human-head-sized!
Following this, the fireballs whizzed towards Ling Tian.
Over twenty human-head-sized fireballs flew towards Ling Tian in the eerie dark night, a scene that was quite bizarre, resembling attack planes launching rockets on a battlefield.
Ling Tian extended his hand and directly caught a fireball. The fireball struck Ling Tian's hand, quickly enveloping his palm, and then dissipated.
Ling Tian almost burst out laughing. The power of these fireballs was simply too weak, with temperatures only around seven to eight hundred degrees Celsius, similar to a household gas stove.
Even if one fireball hit an ordinary person, it would only cause injury and rarely be directly fatal.
Of course, this was referring to a single fireball. If one were to be directly hit by the more than twenty fireballs released by these lantern ghosts, it would also be fatal.
However, Ling Tian did not allow the fireballs to explode directly. He extended his hand, releasing his true essence. The remaining fireballs, when still one or two meters away from Ling Tian's body, suddenly seemed to hit the brakes. Then, these fireballs began to circle Ling Tian's body.
Ling Tian extended his right hand again. At this moment, a ball of fire ignited on his right hand. The extremely high temperature contained within this flame made the lantern ghosts several meters away feel uncomfortable.
Immediately after, the circling fireballs, one by one, as if lining up, were directly absorbed by the flame in Ling Tian's hand.
Ling Tian's hand held a fire spirit. In Ling Tian's opinion, flames were a great tonic for fire spirits. Such a pile of fireballs shouldn't be wasted.
Thus, he directly controlled the fire spirit to absorb these fireballs. However, Ling Tian soon received feedback from the fire spirit, leaving him with mixed feelings.
The fire spirit told Ling Tian that these fireballs were mediocre and tasteless!
It made sense. Fireballs of this caliber, with temperatures below 1000 degrees, were not even enough to tickle the fire spirit.
At this moment, the ten-plus lantern ghosts became somewhat fearful. Although they lacked independent consciousness, these entities possessed instincts.
Neither the mental deterrence nor the fireballs had caused any damage to the human before them. They instinctively felt that the creature before them was extremely dangerous!
So, these fire spirits turned to flee, but how could Ling Tian let them escape so easily!
He raised his hand, and the fire spirit on his hand swiftly transformed into a firebird, flying towards the fleeing lantern ghosts.
The lantern ghosts flew very slowly, not much faster than sky lanterns, while this firebird flew at a speed comparable to a sea eagle.
Ling Tian seemed to hear screams from the air. The next moment, only a ball of light remained from these ten-plus fireballs, which was the light emitted by the fire spirit.
Ling Tian raised his hand and retracted the fire spirit into the spirit realm space. The entire ghost realm was plunged into darkness once more.
Inside the White Fox Palace, Abe no Oishi, who was kneeling on a futon, frowned. He sensed that the ten-plus lantern ghosts in the barrier had disappeared!
In fact, this ghost realm barrier was very important to Seimei Shrine. It was not just a defensive barrier but also a place for nurturing ghosts.
This barrier could absorb the surrounding spiritual energy of heaven and earth, converting it into Yin energy to nourish the ghosts. The Onmyoji of the Abe family could come here to capture them if they needed some Shikigami.
These ten-plus lantern ghosts were much more powerful than the lantern ghosts outside the barrier that only scared people or served as warnings. Yet, within a minute, these Shikigami were all annihilated, which caught Abe no Oishi off guard.
Ling Tian did not proceed further but took out his compass and began to study this ghost realm barrier.
A barrier was, in essence, a type of formation, and Ling Tian was very interested in such complex formations.
He planned to return to Little Immortal Island or his home and set up a similar formation. This way, invaders would find it difficult to locate their targets. Moreover, understanding the Sumeru Mustard Seed space technology used in this formation would allow Ling Tian to better explore the secrets of the spirit realm space.
Soon, Ling Tian figured out some things. He discovered that the barrier contained various formations such as a spirit gathering formation, a Yin gathering formation, and a spirit storage formation.
These formations' core points were arranged together using very clever methods.
Therefore, Ling Tian, holding his compass, began to search for the core points of the formations. He did not rush to destroy them. In his opinion, revenge was not urgent; cracking the secrets of this barrier was more important to Ling Tian.
Inside the White Fox Palace, Abe no Oishi was also puzzled. Logically, Ling Tian could break through the outer illusion formation, and although the Yin energy within the ghost realm barrier could obstruct vision, it should not stop this intruder.
However, he couldn't understand why this intruder was not moving forward but was instead wandering around the entire ghost realm barrier.
As Ling Tian was wandering, he suddenly felt danger approaching. Dozens of creatures were rapidly closing in on him from tens of meters away!
Ling Tian immediately activated his Heavenly Eye divine ability, only to discover that what was lunging at him were dozens of hunting dogs!
These hunting dogs were about a size larger than ordinary Akita dogs. However, their bodies were not covered in normal fur but in skin like dried corpses!
The key point was that these hunting dogs had no signs of life. Ling Tian immediately understood that these dogs were actually zombie-like creatures.
Ling Tian extended his spiritual power further and found that, more than thirty meters away, there were three humanoid figures approaching him, and these three humanoid figures were also zombies!
Ling Tian observed these three humanoid zombies with his Heavenly Eye divine ability and found that they were wearing strange red robes, walking with a hopping gait. Looking at their figures and withered hair buns, they were clearly women!
Ling Tian immediately searched his mind and soon found the answer in the "Night Parade of One Hundred Demons" scroll. These things were Inu-shi!
The ancestors of the Japanese were also hunter-gatherer peoples. They had begun training dogs to hunt prey for them very early on.