The weather at Tongbai village today was even drearier than it was yesterday.
The entire expanse of sky was murky and bleak, blotted by a large patch of cumulonimbus clouds, like an invisible weight pressing down over their minds, stirring an agitated restlessness in them.
From the weather, a heavy downpour was certainly forecasted in the coming days.
Black-Robed Azan walked while conversing with the small ghosts in his Spirit Summoning Streamer.
These ghosts were spiritual bodies that he had collected when clearing various horror instances. Reluctant to move on to what awaited them in the afterlife, all of them were spirits who willingly chose to accompany Black-Robed Azan.
Naturally, he had also subdued a fair amount of malicious spirits. However, in fear that the malicious spirits who had lost their rationality would taint the other spiritual bodies in his Spirit Summoning Streamer, Black-Robed Azan didn’t usually keep the malicious spirits in his streamer. All who had passed his screening were spirits with overly deep emotional anchors.
The small ghosts told him that earlier in that temple, they could feel an extremely discomfiting aura.
It wasn’t the chill of Yin energy, but closer to the anxiousness they would feel when being enshrouded by Buddha’s halo.
At its essence, man and ghost differed in that man belonged to the Yang aspect, whereas ghost belonged to the Yin aspect. A discomfiting aura for ghosts would fundamentally be something that belonged to the opposing, Yang aspect.
Even if an artifact of Buddhahood appeared in this famine age, only temples tended to by senior monks who had attained immortality or Daoist priests who had gathered enough merits would produce such an effect. So how was it possible that it would appear in a beyond-ordinary village deep in the mountains?
Could it be that the myth mentioned by the villagers was authentic? Was there really a bodhisattva who had attained Buddhahood here?
Apart from this conjecture, Black-Robed Azan was unable to come up with a more probable explanation.
Tongbai village was situated deep in the mountains. The terrain was steep and encircled by a mountain range. In feng shui geomancy, the position wasn’t ideal; a chilly gloom could be felt even from the entrance to the village. Coupled with the turbulent days of famine, countless ghosts of people who had died from hunger congested the sides of the roads, largely at odds with Black-Robed Azan’s hypothesis.
However, not all was for naught.
Last night, something had caught Black-Robed Azan’s attention.
To verify this suspicion, he intended to make use of the time while the villagers were out capturing the woman to properly investigate each and every house.
He pulled his robes tight, taking large strides onwards.
—
The passageway was as dark as before.
During their fight, they had drawn a short distance away from the mourning hall. Faint light obliquely slanted over from outside on the passageway, but was still able to dissipate the chilly gloom in the air.
[Oh fuck, this C-rank veteran is really ruthless, he’s actually the type that would mount surprise raids on people.]
[Yeah. And trainees aren’t allowed to kill each other, so he’s trying to kill with a borrowed knife.]
It was a wide world in the infinite loop. There were evil people of all descriptions. Just like how Messiah was publicly acknowledged to be a good man, there were also those who specially backstabbed others, those envious of fame and talent.
[Such people are so despicable. I never thought that there were maggots like this in the Thriller Trainee competition who’d act out even when under live broadcast. Speechless.]
[But,,, why didn’t either of them notice the talisman paper? Look at the lower right of the screen. I’m getting a little panicky, it can’t be the sort that invokes some kind of evil curse, right??]
To Yi Ruisi’s accusation, Zong Jiu simply shrugged. “I beat you; you can just keep believing whatever you want, loser.”
It was clear that his opponent had only claimed him to be the mole out of fury at his powerlessness. Unless five got together in agreement to accuse him, he wouldn’t so easily show his feet of clay.
If it weren’t for Yi Ruisi gunning straight for his front door, Zong Jiu would have long forgotten about someone like this. After all, he had offended too many, and he wouldn’t fret over those who didn’t pose any threat.
However…
Fcvfg atf yglwwlcu tjaf lc atf batfg’r ujhf, atf ktlaf-tjlgfv sbecu wjc ragbxfv tlr mtlc lc atbeuta.
Ktlr ues kjr jikjsr j tlvvfc rcjxf lc atf ugjrr. Vlcmf atf batfg kjr rb kliilcu ab ralg rtla, fnfc Ibcu Ale kbeiv rajga ab offi ybatfgfv ys oilfr.
Eluta jr tf kjr jybea ab rqfjx, tf ofia jc jycbgwji mtlii rmeaaif eq tlr rqlcf.
In a twinkling, the entire passageway darkened.
A short distance away, the translucent white veil hung around the mourning hall started to toss and dance in the wind, daylight dimming.
A chilly and foreboding wind curled up into a gust from the ground’s icy cold graphite slate, carrying the whiff of an unusual stench and the dark, flickering shadows projected on the slate.
Yi Ruisi’s eyes popped.
Terrified, he lowered his head, following the feeble rays of light to catch sight of the charred black talisman paper by his feet.
“Tss—”
Yi Ruisi’s face instantly contorted.
He couldn’t care less about the hand that was pinned to the wall, desperately withstanding the unbearable pain to yank it free, crimson blood immediately spraying across the ground.
“Fuck!”
While this whitey in front of him remained oblivious, Yi Ruisi couldn’t be more than aware.
This Yin Gathering Talisman was an E-rank prop that he had obtained from a C-rank instance. Although the prop wasn’t of high grade, its functionality was the real deal. There was one time that he was fighting for a prop with another contender from his team and had inadvertently used the Yin Gathering Talisman to attract a malevolent demon from that instance. After narrowly escaping death by the skin of his teeth, Yi Ruisi was then made aware of how potent it was, secretly leaving a few in his system backpack, in wait for an opportunity to use them as borrowed knives.
Even Yi Ruisi could sense the danger looming on the horizon. Yet Zong Jiu conversely didn’t feel anything particular towards it. He only felt the ominous gust of wind and an abnormal stench in the air. While mulling it over, he even sent a kick over in passing, successfully making the other fall on his face.
However, this wasn’t the time for subtlety and discretion. The white-haired young man swiftly whipped out the Soul Devouring Bell.
Dense runes were inscribed on the small and exquisite bronze bell. When palmed in his hand, a rock of the bell would produce a sound that only the deceased could hear in accordance with the will of the user.
“What’s that talisman?” Zong Jiu looked over, following the other’s line of sight. His brows knit.
They were clearly just standing here doing nothing out of the ordinary, so why was a supernatural creature summoned for no apparent reason?
“Screw… screw off!”
At a moment like this, Yi Ruisi was in no mood to answer his question, not even noticing that the prop Zong Jiu was holding was the mole’s exclusive prop written about in the system prompt. He staggered up from the ground, rolling and crawling as he frantically fled to the front.
However, in the next second, he was rooted to the spot.
In the near darkness, a pair of legs so wizened that they had turned bluish-black hung suspended behind the legs of the young man’s pants.
Its toenails were burned black beneath the ragged clothing and its flesh was a shriveled, dark yellow, covered with the livid discoloration of livor mortis.
It was apparent that these weren’t legs that belonged to a living person.
“Be… behind you—”
Yi Ruisi’s eyes jolted. Bone-deep fear was written all over his face and his teeth were clattering together.
With a lurch, his fingers were paralyzed in their grip around the prop. Like falling into an ice cellar, he froze from the soles of his feet, a glacial chill working its way up from his spinal cord to his nape.
The rotting miasma grew increasingly thick in the air, pervading the cramped passageway with its stench.
Zong Jiu didn’t speak. While shaking the bell in his hand, he turned his head over.
After receiving the system’s [Not the main task item. Submission failed.], he knew what it was that stood behind him.
Behind him, a visage of a face bloated by water into countless white marks silently dangled. These aside, the black pupils had completely swallowed the whites of its eyes, turning them jet-black, which at first glance, made them unnervingly appear as if one was staring into sunken, pitch-black eye sockets.
The white light cast from the mourning hall pulled long behind them, projecting only two dark, slim shadows.
And as to what this third, additional person was, went without needing to be said.
“AHHHHHHHHH!!”
Yi Ruisi saw this ashen white face at the same moment that Zong Jiu did, his mouth immediately falling open to produce a blood-curdling screech like a butchered pig.
In the next second, Zong Jiu read an undisguised trace of disdain in the black eyes of the corpse.
However, this blood-curdling screech only lasted for a fleeting moment before terminating in his throat.
It was terminated for eternity.
Fresh blood gushed uncontrollably out of Yi Ruisi’s throat, gurgling and bubbling with bloody froth.
“Hah, hah, hah—”
A chilling aura gradually invaded his limbs, effortlessly causing his body to turn rigid.
Finally, when his two eyes had also turned similarly black, Yi Ruisi’s expression finally settled on one of utmost horror.
A pale greenish-white pallor crawled up his face.
He had died.
The passageway was deathly still.
A system prompt rang in due course.
[Mole Identity Card Privilege, Immunity (1/3)]
Zong Jiu gazed at that ashen white face, watching it “look” at the bell in his hand with its pitch-black eyes.
The white-haired young man paused. He stopped shaking the bell.
The other man grinned eerily at him. It rigidly bent down to pick up Yi Ruisi by his collar, then brushed past him, hopping away and disappearing at the end of the passageway.
The ominous gust of wind disappeared. The chill in the air dissipated. Aside from the pool of blood on the ground, no one knew what had happened here just a few minutes ago.
The mouths of those in the bullet chat were agape.
[HUHHH??? I’m stunned down to the core. The Magician is actually a mole?]
[Wah, I just knew it. Master Zhuge wouldn’t speak nonsense. I’ve got a reason to believe now that Master Zhuge had raised that question earlier because he already has his sus on the Magician? /kneel.]
[Hold up. Why didn’t that monster kill the Magician just now?]
[Buddy, did you just enter the live broadcast? Can’t you tell that he has the mole card? Moles usually have an immunity count. It would be too tiring to have to fight humans while warding off the supernatural otherwise.]
Zong Jiu gave a long exhale, slowly lowering the hands that held the poker cards and the Soul Devouring Bell.
He had made the right gamble.
Zong Jiu had also exchanged several low-level trinkets able to restrain the supernatural at Las Vegas. But props also had their home field advantage; their maximum efficacy was in the instance that produced them. Since he had obtained special props as the mole for this instance, it was naturally more fitting to use the corresponding props here.
More importantly, he was the only one who had received the mole identity card. The system definitely wouldn’t do a 1v30 scenario without first entrusting the mole with a few privileges.
Recalling his experience in the Mental Asylum, the mole had immunity against the instance’s invincible supernatural entity, so Zong Jiu guessed that it was possible that his identity was similarly set up in this instance. Unfortunately, the instance had only begun not too long ago. The ghosts had yet to officially kill off a single trainee, cutting off the road for Zong Jiu to verify his guess.
And gauging from the present situation now, the mole card didn’t disappoint; he did actually possess immunity to the supernatural. While it was limited to only three times, this was the equivalent of having three lives. He was practically infiltrating the ghost camp!
Zong Jiu grumbled a little in his mind, going after where the corpse had headed towards just now.
Less than ten steps later, his surroundings suddenly turned spacious and bright.
Incidentally, he walked over at just the right moment to witness that corpse calmly lie back to the ground. Moving stiffly, it conveniently raised the white cloth to cover over itself before laying motionless, just as if it were a proper corpse.
Zong Jiu, “…”
Did corpses have such professional ethics nowadays?
He sighed at the absurdity of the world for a moment before kneeling down to stick a corpse chaser’s talisman onto Yi Ruisi’s forehead.
This was the F-rank talisman that he had obtained along with the Soul Devouring Bell. It allowed a short period of control over a corpse’s movements.
Seeing the upper half of the corpse’s body shoot up like a bird startled by a bow, as if it were going to start hopping along behind him, Zong Jiu cackled.
By golly, as expected of a professional corpse chaser, the technical proficiency scored a full hundred points.
He instructed, “First get out of the mourning hall then hide in the village. You’re not to come out unless I order you to.”
Yi Ruisi rigidly nodded and hopped off.
Zong Jiu followed behind him, contemplating how to use this corpse to mislead the other trainees when an indifferent voice suddenly came from beside him.
Zhuge An was leaning against the icy wall of the tunnel, sweeping a glance at the well-documented mole props in Zong Jiu’s hands and walked straight towards him.
“All taken care of? Let’s go.”
Zong Jiu, “…?”
Wait, what are you doing!! Shook!
The weather at Tongbai village today was even drearier than it was yesterday.
The entire expanse of sky was murky and bleak, blotted by a large patch of cumulonimbus clouds, like an invisible weight pressing down over their minds, stirring an agitated restlessness in them.
From the weather, a heavy downpour was certainly forecasted in the coming days.
Black-Robed Azan walked while conversing with the small ghosts in his Spirit Summoning Streamer.
These ghosts were spiritual bodies that he had collected when clearing various horror instances. Reluctant to move on to what awaited them in the afterlife, all of them were spirits who willingly chose to accompany Black-Robed Azan.
Naturally, he had also subdued a fair amount of malicious spirits. However, in fear that the malicious spirits who had lost their rationality would taint the other spiritual bodies in his Spirit Summoning Streamer, Black-Robed Azan didn’t usually keep the malicious spirits in his streamer. All who had passed his screening were spirits with overly deep emotional anchors.
The small ghosts told him that earlier in that temple, they could feel an extremely discomfiting aura.
It wasn’t the chill of Yin energy, but closer to the anxiousness they would feel when being enshrouded by Buddha’s halo.
At its essence, man and ghost differed in that man belonged to the Yang aspect, whereas ghost belonged to the Yin aspect. A discomfiting aura for ghosts would fundamentally be something that belonged to the opposing, Yang aspect.
Even if an artifact of Buddhahood appeared in this famine age, only temples tended to by senior monks who had attained immortality or Daoist priests who had gathered enough merits would produce such an effect. So how was it possible that it would appear in a beyond-ordinary village deep in the mountains?
Could it be that the myth mentioned by the villagers was authentic? Was there really a bodhisattva who had attained Buddhahood here?
Apart from this conjecture, Black-Robed Azan was unable to come up with a more probable explanation.
Tongbai village was situated deep in the mountains. The terrain was steep and encircled by a mountain range. In feng shui geomancy, the position wasn’t ideal; a chilly gloom could be felt even from the entrance to the village. Coupled with the turbulent days of famine, countless ghosts of people who had died from hunger congested the sides of the roads, largely at odds with Black-Robed Azan’s hypothesis.
However, not all was for naught.
Last night, something had caught Black-Robed Azan’s attention.
To verify this suspicion, he intended to make use of the time while the villagers were out capturing the woman to properly investigate each and every house.
He pulled his robes tight, taking large strides onwards.
—
The passageway was as dark as before.
During their fight, they had drawn a short distance away from the mourning hall. Faint light obliquely slanted over from outside on the passageway, but was still able to dissipate the chilly gloom in the air.
[Oh fuck, this C-rank veteran is really ruthless, he’s actually the type that would mount surprise raids on people.]
[Yeah. And trainees aren’t allowed to kill each other, so he’s trying to kill with a borrowed knife.]
It was a wide world in the infinite loop. There were evil people of all descriptions. Just like how Messiah was publicly acknowledged to be a good man, there were also those who specially backstabbed others, those envious of fame and talent.
[Such people are so despicable. I never thought that there were maggots like this in the Thriller Trainee competition who’d act out even when under live broadcast. Speechless.]
[But,,, why didn’t either of them notice the talisman paper? Look at the lower right of the screen. I’m getting a little panicky, it can’t be the sort that invokes some kind of evil curse, right??]
To Yi Ruisi’s accusation, Zong Jiu simply shrugged. “I beat you; you can just keep believing whatever you want, loser.”
It was clear that his opponent had only claimed him to be the mole out of fury at his powerlessness. Unless five got together in agreement to accuse him, he wouldn’t so easily show his feet of clay.
If it weren’t for Yi Ruisi gunning straight for his front door, Zong Jiu would have long forgotten about someone like this. After all, he had offended too many, and he wouldn’t fret over those who didn’t pose any threat.
However…
Fcvfg atf yglwwlcu tjaf lc atf batfg’r ujhf, atf ktlaf-tjlgfv sbecu wjc ragbxfv tlr mtlc lc atbeuta.
Ktlr ues kjr jikjsr j tlvvfc rcjxf lc atf ugjrr. Vlcmf atf batfg kjr rb kliilcu ab ralg rtla, fnfc Ibcu Ale kbeiv rajga ab offi ybatfgfv ys oilfr.
Eluta jr tf kjr jybea ab rqfjx, tf ofia jc jycbgwji mtlii rmeaaif eq tlr rqlcf.
In a twinkling, the entire passageway darkened.
A short distance away, the translucent white veil hung around the mourning hall started to toss and dance in the wind, daylight dimming.
A chilly and foreboding wind curled up into a gust from the ground’s icy cold graphite slate, carrying the whiff of an unusual stench and the dark, flickering shadows projected on the slate.
Yi Ruisi’s eyes popped.
Terrified, he lowered his head, following the feeble rays of light to catch sight of the charred black talisman paper by his feet.
“Tss—”
Yi Ruisi’s face instantly contorted.
He couldn’t care less about the hand that was pinned to the wall, desperately withstanding the unbearable pain to yank it free, crimson blood immediately spraying across the ground.
“Fuck!”
While this whitey in front of him remained oblivious, Yi Ruisi couldn’t be more than aware.
This Yin Gathering Talisman was an E-rank prop that he had obtained from a C-rank instance. Although the prop wasn’t of high grade, its functionality was the real deal. There was one time that he was fighting for a prop with another contender from his team and had inadvertently used the Yin Gathering Talisman to attract a malevolent demon from that instance. After narrowly escaping death by the skin of his teeth, Yi Ruisi was then made aware of how potent it was, secretly leaving a few in his system backpack, in wait for an opportunity to use them as borrowed knives.
Even Yi Ruisi could sense the danger looming on the horizon. Yet Zong Jiu conversely didn’t feel anything particular towards it. He only felt the ominous gust of wind and an abnormal stench in the air. While mulling it over, he even sent a kick over in passing, successfully making the other fall on his face.
However, this wasn’t the time for subtlety and discretion. The white-haired young man swiftly whipped out the Soul Devouring Bell.
Dense runes were inscribed on the small and exquisite bronze bell. When palmed in his hand, a rock of the bell would produce a sound that only the deceased could hear in accordance with the will of the user.
“What’s that talisman?” Zong Jiu looked over, following the other’s line of sight. His brows knit.
They were clearly just standing here doing nothing out of the ordinary, so why was a supernatural creature summoned for no apparent reason?
“Screw… screw off!”
At a moment like this, Yi Ruisi was in no mood to answer his question, not even noticing that the prop Zong Jiu was holding was the mole’s exclusive prop written about in the system prompt. He staggered up from the ground, rolling and crawling as he frantically fled to the front.
However, in the next second, he was rooted to the spot.
In the near darkness, a pair of legs so wizened that they had turned bluish-black hung suspended behind the legs of the young man’s pants.
Its toenails were burned black beneath the ragged clothing and its flesh was a shriveled, dark yellow, covered with the livid discoloration of livor mortis.
It was apparent that these weren’t legs that belonged to a living person.
“Be… behind you—”
Yi Ruisi’s eyes jolted. Bone-deep fear was written all over his face and his teeth were clattering together.
With a lurch, his fingers were paralyzed in their grip around the prop. Like falling into an ice cellar, he froze from the soles of his feet, a glacial chill working its way up from his spinal cord to his nape.
The rotting miasma grew increasingly thick in the air, pervading the cramped passageway with its stench.
Zong Jiu didn’t speak. While shaking the bell in his hand, he turned his head over.
After receiving the system’s [Not the main task item. Submission failed.], he knew what it was that stood behind him.
Behind him, a visage of a face bloated by water into countless white marks silently dangled. These aside, the black pupils had completely swallowed the whites of its eyes, turning them jet-black, which at first glance, made them unnervingly appear as if one was staring into sunken, pitch-black eye sockets.
The white light cast from the mourning hall pulled long behind them, projecting only two dark, slim shadows.
And as to what this third, additional person was, went without needing to be said.
“AHHHHHHHHH!!”
Yi Ruisi saw this ashen white face at the same moment that Zong Jiu did, his mouth immediately falling open to produce a blood-curdling screech like a butchered pig.
In the next second, Zong Jiu read an undisguised trace of disdain in the black eyes of the corpse.
However, this blood-curdling screech only lasted for a fleeting moment before terminating in his throat.
It was terminated for eternity.
Fresh blood gushed uncontrollably out of Yi Ruisi’s throat, gurgling and bubbling with bloody froth.
“Hah, hah, hah—”
A chilling aura gradually invaded his limbs, effortlessly causing his body to turn rigid.
Finally, when his two eyes had also turned similarly black, Yi Ruisi’s expression finally settled on one of utmost horror.
A pale greenish-white pallor crawled up his face.
He had died.
The passageway was deathly still.
A system prompt rang in due course.
[Mole Identity Card Privilege, Immunity (1/3)]
Zong Jiu gazed at that ashen white face, watching it “look” at the bell in his hand with its pitch-black eyes.
The white-haired young man paused. He stopped shaking the bell.
The other man grinned eerily at him. It rigidly bent down to pick up Yi Ruisi by his collar, then brushed past him, hopping away and disappearing at the end of the passageway.
The ominous gust of wind disappeared. The chill in the air dissipated. Aside from the pool of blood on the ground, no one knew what had happened here just a few minutes ago.
The mouths of those in the bullet chat were agape.
[HUHHH??? I’m stunned down to the core. The Magician is actually a mole?]
[Wah, I just knew it. Master Zhuge wouldn’t speak nonsense. I’ve got a reason to believe now that Master Zhuge had raised that question earlier because he already has his sus on the Magician? /kneel.]
[Hold up. Why didn’t that monster kill the Magician just now?]
[Buddy, did you just enter the live broadcast? Can’t you tell that he has the mole card? Moles usually have an immunity count. It would be too tiring to have to fight humans while warding off the supernatural otherwise.]
Zong Jiu gave a long exhale, slowly lowering the hands that held the poker cards and the Soul Devouring Bell.
He had made the right gamble.
Zong Jiu had also exchanged several low-level trinkets able to restrain the supernatural at Las Vegas. But props also had their home field advantage; their maximum efficacy was in the instance that produced them. Since he had obtained special props as the mole for this instance, it was naturally more fitting to use the corresponding props here.
More importantly, he was the only one who had received the mole identity card. The system definitely wouldn’t do a 1v30 scenario without first entrusting the mole with a few privileges.
Recalling his experience in the Mental Asylum, the mole had immunity against the instance’s invincible supernatural entity, so Zong Jiu guessed that it was possible that his identity was similarly set up in this instance. Unfortunately, the instance had only begun not too long ago. The ghosts had yet to officially kill off a single trainee, cutting off the road for Zong Jiu to verify his guess.
And gauging from the present situation now, the mole card didn’t disappoint; he did actually possess immunity to the supernatural. While it was limited to only three times, this was the equivalent of having three lives. He was practically infiltrating the ghost camp!
Zong Jiu grumbled a little in his mind, going after where the corpse had headed towards just now.
Less than ten steps later, his surroundings suddenly turned spacious and bright.
Incidentally, he walked over at just the right moment to witness that corpse calmly lie back to the ground. Moving stiffly, it conveniently raised the white cloth to cover over itself before laying motionless, just as if it were a proper corpse.
Zong Jiu, “…”
Did corpses have such professional ethics nowadays?
He sighed at the absurdity of the world for a moment before kneeling down to stick a corpse chaser’s talisman onto Yi Ruisi’s forehead.
This was the F-rank talisman that he had obtained along with the Soul Devouring Bell. It allowed a short period of control over a corpse’s movements.
Seeing the upper half of the corpse’s body shoot up like a bird startled by a bow, as if it were going to start hopping along behind him, Zong Jiu cackled.
By golly, as expected of a professional corpse chaser, the technical proficiency scored a full hundred points.
He instructed, “First get out of the mourning hall then hide in the village. You’re not to come out unless I order you to.”
Yi Ruisi rigidly nodded and hopped off.
Zong Jiu followed behind him, contemplating how to use this corpse to mislead the other trainees when an indifferent voice suddenly came from beside him.
Zhuge An was leaning against the icy wall of the tunnel, sweeping a glance at the well-documented mole props in Zong Jiu’s hands and walked straight towards him.
“All taken care of? Let’s go.”
Zong Jiu, “…?”
Wait, what are you doing!! Shook!
