A bloody glow spread through the room as Si Yehan's figure slowly emerged.
His black trench coat fluttered gently as the wailing and howling around him gradually faded into the distance. The countless evil ghosts struggling and bobbing before him vanished.
Si Yehan let the black fog and bloody light around him dissipate, and everything in the room returned to normal. He drew back the curtains and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the city outside.
It was still night, and the city outside remained brightly lit, its neon lights flashing! Since he lived on the twenty-third floor, he had an exceptionally wide view.
Cars streamed along the streets and bridges, while people came and went. Even in the early hours of the morning, the crowds showed no sign of thinning.
Si Yehan raised a hand and pressed it against the floor-to-ceiling window. The glass reflected his face and figure, which looked no different from usual.
But he could feel the surging power within him. With a slight thought, wisps of black fog poured from his palm and fingers, and cracks spread across the window in a spiderweb!
The instant he used his power, the sound of a child crying rang in his ears, and countless heavy footsteps seemed to echo behind him!
Si Yehan looked at the scene before him, a smile spreading across his face. Then the black fog abruptly withdrew, the cracks disappeared, and the various noises vanished as well. Clearly, those were the side effects of using ghostly power.
Si Yehan murmured softly, "A few side effects like these don't matter."
Black fog surged around Si Yehan, enveloping him as he took a step forward. The next moment, he passed straight through the glass and floated in midair! He looked down at the city beneath his feet, yet no one noticed anything unusual overhead.
It seemed the Weird Game really did automatically rationalize its participants' actions in the real world.
Why not act now and slaughter the entire city?
The thought surfaced in Si Yehan's mind. He raised a finger, ready to bring his palm down at any moment! Strong winds howled around him, and the feeling of moving through the air like this was utterly exhilarating.
Si Yehan considered what Zhang Kui and Shen Jing had said earlier. Small-scale killing would be automatically rationalized, but large-scale slaughter would not.
Great Xia had all kinds of organizations. If he rashly slaughtered a city, he might draw the pursuit of the official organization, Shirenjian. He had yet to become powerful enough, and a direct confrontation would leave him with little chance of survival. It was better to lie low for now, then slaughter a city, or even destroy the world, after he had cleared more instances.
But...
Just because I can't slaughter a city doesn't mean I can't slaughter a few hundred or a thousand people for fun first.
The smile on Si Yehan's face grew. Apartments in the residential complex where he lived cost fifteen thousand yuan per square meter. Not many people lived there, just over a thousand, and they rarely went out. It was fairly secluded.
After receiving his inheritance, he had sold the old family home and five houses in the county districts, keeping this apartment, two sea-view apartments, and a villa.
He still had more than seventy million yuan in his account, enough to spend as he pleased.
Si Yehan was twenty-one this year. In his original plan for his life, he would sell all his properties when he turned twenty-seven and use the money to buy firearms and modify cars.
Although Great Xia had always exercised strict control over firearms, enough money could still get him some guns.
But those plans were all useless now. To him, the more than seventy million yuan left in his account was nothing but a meaningless string of digits.
As the thoughts flashed through his mind, Si Yehan raised his palm and brought it down, enveloping the residential complex where he lived! Black fog blotted out the sky, and the sound of a child crying shook the surroundings.
Information about the ghost traits he possessed flooded into his mind:
[Summon black fog that kills ordinary people on contact. If desired, it can even corrode buildings!]
[Conjure countless bluish-black hands that can tear anything apart!]
[Kill anyone who looks directly at you!]
[Put people into a deep sleep and kill them outright]
The ghosts' killing rules had become much more flexible after turning into traits! He could actively kill people instead of passively waiting for them to trigger a killing rule, as ghosts did.
These four traits were closely connected to the two ghosts in [Soul-Shaking Ancient Village]. To some extent, they had been derived from their killing rules.
Si Yehan brought his palm down, intent on wiping out every living creature in the entire complex, cats and dogs included. Killing these creatures, which possessed no supernatural power whatsoever, had extremely weak side effects, so he had nothing to fear.
Black fog swirled above the complex, seeping in bit by bit and cutting its sounds off from the outside world.
Screams rang out to the heavens. With supernatural power at his disposal, Si Yehan naturally found all sorts of ways to kill.
For instance, he could pull a person's limbs upward and twist them into a knot, leaving blood to seep from the wounds as the person slowly died. Or he could use countless hands to tear apart every inch of a person's muscle.
The entire residential complex became a sealed slaughterhouse, where men and women, young and old, were all livestock and prey awaiting slaughter.
Si Yehan naturally would not tolerate any survivors in the place where he lived. He had refrained from killing before only because a rabbit didn't eat the grass near its own burrow; it would have been too easy to expose himself. Now he killed because there would be no repercussions.
As long as he didn't slaughter an entire city, even if an official organization found out, it wouldn't risk its life for a group of ordinary people.
Floating high in the sky, Si Yehan smiled, his handsome face otherwise impassive, like a god sitting by in solemn observation! Wisps of bluish-black fog surged around him.
Dark clouds gathered in the sky, and wind and rain poured down.
At this moment, ordinary people rushing about to make a living, wealthy heirs lost in drunken revelry, bureaucrats obsessed with power, and the rich and powerful were no different from one another.
None of them knew anything about the thousand or so people gradually dying in the city, like cats, dogs, and ants.
To Si Yehan, no living creature apart from himself was higher or lower, noble or base. The only difference was the pleasure each brought him when he killed them, but all of them would ultimately be wiped out.
A Vengeful Ghost's power killed with extreme efficiency. Even with Si Yehan deliberately seeking amusement, it took only an hour to wipe out all thousand people.
He still felt somewhat unsatisfied. Looking down at the complex, now deathly silent, he slowly let the smile fade from his face, though something in his eyes remained hard to conceal.
Si Yehan slowly calmed his thoughts and estimated how far he could travel now.
Cangyun City, where he was, belonged to Great Xia's Hedong Province! The closest city to it was North Yuan City.
The two were five hundred kilometers apart. Black fog surged around Si Yehan as his gaze continued to rise, his mind entering an exceptionally ethereal state while he looked down from high above the layers of clouds.
In the end, he concluded that, if he wished, he could leave Cangyun City and reach North Yuan City in half an hour.
And he had only cleared one instance. Just how powerful was the boss Jiang Shanghan, who Shen Jing said had cleared ten?
Si Yehan then recalled the trouble he had to face. He didn't know whether those organizations had a way to investigate the causes of their members' deaths.
Moreover, Si Yehan didn't know when instances opened. The invitation had only said that one would open promptly at midnight. Could it be every night?
That was unlikely. If so, the number of participants would plummet.
For the next few days, it would be best to find every possible way to improve himself first.
The black fog around him slowly dispersed, and Si Yehan returned to his room.
Outside the window, the raging storm suddenly lit up heaven and earth, revealing the indifference in his eyes.