The darkness of night gradually gave way to dawn, until a pale light appeared in the sky.
Si Yehan woke from his sleep, his eyelids lowered, looking as cold as ever. He glanced around the room, then got dressed and rose to look out the window.
The entire village was unusually quiet. Not even a rooster crowed today, as though something ominous had happened the night before.
Presumably, it had been between the ghosts and whoever was behind the scenes. The time to clear the instance was drawing near, and things definitely wouldn't keep dragging on.
As Si Yehan looked into the distance, the words mentioned in the letter suddenly came to mind: When the snipe and the clam fight, the fisherman profits. But who had become the fisherman now?
Probably himself, though perhaps not.
The closer he got to a critical moment, the more cautious he had to be. Whatever the circumstances, he needed to make extra preparations. As the thought crossed his mind, Si Yehan went to the utility room and rummaged out some prayer beads and a length of rope, then prepared to go downstairs and head out.
He wanted to take advantage of the early morning to check on the Buddha statue from yesterday. If it had been disturbed, that would mean a conflict had indeed broken out last night; if not, the opposite was true. He could also take a look at the old village chief's corpse.
After all, the old bastard's fingers were swollen, looking particularly strange against his build.
Si Yehan descended the spiral staircase. He moved quickly, but his footsteps were very quiet.
He pushed open the door, and the room fell silent once more.
Si Yehan headed first to the ruins of the village chief's house. As he walked through the village streets and alleys, a very faint smell of blood hung in the air.
Six mangled corpses lay scattered on the ground at intervals, most of their skeletons exposed. Extinguished torches nearby were stained dark by pools of blood. Si Yehan then looked at the village chief's charred hand and saw that its flesh had disappeared. He understood everything.
He hurried over to the old madman's pit. The stench of the corpse seemed to have been masked, and flies swarmed over the old madman's festering skin. Si Yehan looked past the corpse and saw that the Buddha statue was gone. He fell into thought. A conflict had indeed broken out last night, but he didn't know who had won or lost.
Today was the third day, and tonight was also the final night. It would presumably be even more dangerous. Whichever side had won, there would be more killing rules.
He could clear the instance tomorrow. If it had still been the original ten days of survival, the time would probably have felt exceptionally long and agonizing. But in that case, he would have had more time to slowly slaughter all the villagers.
With that thought, Si Yehan headed out. He went straight out of the village, but didn't go far, choosing only the path he had taken to enter. After all, whether he would be erased for going too far away was still unknown.
Si Yehan followed a forest path up a small hill near the village. From there, he could take in the whole village at a glance. He had always been like this, preferring to stand alone at the highest point and look down on everything.
The wind howled past as Si Yehan gazed at the houses in the village and the families in each one. He rubbed his fingers together, and a faint ripple suddenly passed through his indifferent gaze. If the killing rules increased from here on, he could die at any moment. He might as well slaughter everyone in the village first.
Killing intent spilled out. A rather brilliant smile rose to Si Yehan's lips, and he said softly, "How to kill them is another matter, though."
The village wasn't large, with a hundred households. Conservatively estimating three people per household, that made at least three hundred people. Although quite a few had died already, compared to the total, it was still a drop in the bucket and made little difference.
Slaughtering them house by house was far too slow. Even if he started now and killed until dark, he might not be able to kill them all. He had no efficient weapon for killing, and he also had to account for his own physical exhaustion, so the overall efficiency was simply too low.
All sorts of methods came to Si Yehan's mind, but he found that none could completely wipe everyone out. The ripple in his indifferent eyes gradually subsided, and the smile vanished from his lips. He took the doll from the outer pocket of his windbreaker, and as he kneaded and rubbed it between his fingers, an idea suddenly came to him.
In that case, he might as well use the power of the Ghost Slaves to massacre the village. He only needed to lead large numbers of villagers into breaking the killing rules, then make his move and finish off those who survived.
Dark clouds rolled across the sky like spilled ink, and thunder rumbled. Signs of rain had already appeared. Si Yehan recalled what had happened in the rain yesterday. Ghosts could appear on rainy days, and he didn't have much time.
Si Yehan quickened his pace a little, but kept his footsteps quiet. By the time he reached the village, dark clouds covered the sky, and fine rain fell in a steady drizzle.
Si Yehan found the eaves of a house and stood beneath them. The doors of every household were tightly shut, and a bluish mist gradually rose. Heavy footsteps sounded from the rainy fog, and ghostly figures took shape within it. Their faces were black as ink, with blood like tears upon them, and they wandered through the streets and alleys.
The sounds of children crying and snickering also rose all around, like the wails of ghosts and wolves, making it utterly eerie. They crawled out from all directions, tongues extending from their eye sockets. Each tongue forked into two, with blood dripping from the middle, making them especially terrifying.
Si Yehan watched the scene before him and listened to the sounds around him, unmoved. The Ghost Slaves paid him no attention whatsoever, as though he didn't exist.
The rain grew heavier, and bluish-black hands drifted past Si Yehan one after another. The entire village seemed to have fallen under a blockade woven from rain and Ghost Slaves.
Si Yehan stepped out from under the eaves. The courtyard wall wasn't very high, and as he climbed it, he didn't step heavily on the ground. He went straight up onto the wall without landing on the ground.
Si Yehan then took out a prayer bead and threw it at a tightly closed window. The sound of breaking glass rang out. A child screamed inside the room, then began to cry. Ghost Children surged out from all over the village like a rising tide.
Soon, the enraged roars and screams of the child's elders rang out, and the sounds of flesh being torn apart and chewed came from the room. Si Yehan sat on the wall, listening with interest as the rain soaked his hair and dripped onto his windbreaker.
Si Yehan then climbed down from the wall, gripping it with one hand to keep the sound of his landing from being too loud and triggering a killing rule.
Next, he walked through the rain, repeating the process house by house. He used prayer beads or stones to smash windows and provoke a reaction from the residents, making them trigger the killing rules.
With this approach, the efficiency of the killing immediately rose considerably. Seven out of ten households reacted, while the other three remained silent. Si Yehan made a point of remembering the houses that didn't react, deciding to visit and clean them out himself after the rain ended.
To be safe, he also gave the houses that reacted a cursory inspection, making sure no one of unshakable resolve had slipped through the net after watching their family die before their eyes.
Time passed bit by bit. The Ghost Slaves' terrifying appearances left Si Yehan completely unmoved; to him, they were far less interesting than the sight of them slaughtering and feeding.
The dark clouds in the sky gradually thinned, and the sound of rain grew quieter. By now, Si Yehan had used the Ghost Slaves to clean out more than seventy households.
Si Yehan found a house that had been cleaned out and slipped inside, completely ignoring the scraps of flesh on the floor and the four mangled corpses farther away.
He took off his rain-soaked black windbreaker, laid it on a bed unstained by blood, and took out the knife and the doll.
He had begun preparing to massacre the village with his own hands. By the time Si Yehan walked out of the room, the rain had stopped and the sky had cleared considerably, though there was still no way to tell the exact time.