As Si Yehan pondered, his surroundings abruptly changed.
The surface of the sea swayed, sinking into endless darkness.
Amid the blackness, a patch of blood-red light suddenly appeared, winding away into the distance! It shone brightly, revealing a bizarre scene in blood. A fissure shot straight into the clouds, illuminating and tearing through the endless darkness as a thunderous boom erupted in an instant.
The dream shattered in a flash. His heavy consciousness slowly returned, and Si Yehan gradually opened his eyes. His dark pupils were utterly calm, like a secluded pool or an ancient well.
He drew back the curtains and looked out at the scene after the rain. Dawn was breaking, layered clouds drifted gently, and it was another fine sight.
Si Yehan raised a finger and pressed it against the window. Few people were out and about in the city at this hour, and it looked far from crowded.
Day and night seemed utterly divorced from each other in this bustling metropolis. Si Yehan cast his gaze downward and moved his finger slightly. Wisps of bluish-gray mist surged out from behind him and spread down the entire building!
They expanded at tremendous speed until they blanketed the whole city. Four fanged ghost faces floated high in the sky, one above each side of the city!
Wisps of mist streamed down from the ghost faces, looking like waterfalls when viewed from afar. From this moment on, no one other than participants would be able to leave the city. People could only enter, and their inability to leave would be attributed to interference by various means, thereby rationalizing it.
Si Yehan withdrew his finger, and a tremendous boom rang out across the city! A high-rise in the city center suddenly collapsed, crashing into a lake. Masonry flew in all directions, silt filled the water, and the sound rose from the site and reverberated between heaven and earth.
It was as though Cangyun City were a cage, with invisible barriers raised on every side.
The internet and power went out as bluish-black mist invaded at a furious pace, paralyzing the vast majority of modern facilities! Elevators used in daily life stopped running, as did high-speed trains and subways.
Even backup measures were to no avail. Phones could now only be used offline; even with mobile data switched on, they could not be used as usual.
The interference participants caused in reality was tremendous.
A faint, mocking smile rose to Si Yehan's lips. He wondered what means would be used to rationalize it all. Without the chance to enter a dungeon, one could not even glimpse the true side of the world before them and could only let their understanding be altered and distorted.
Unfortunately, he had no means of searching souls. With that thought, Si Yehan let the smile fade from his lips and flipped his hand over. A long black blade appeared in it, flashing with a cold gleam.
The white clouds drifting overhead took on a bluish-black hue, and all of Cangyun City became oppressive and stifling! Feelings of despair swept across the city, and mournful cries came thick and fast.
The Ghost Slaves joined Si Yehan in the slaughter. The sky resembled a bluish-black mirror, shedding crimson raindrops that fell straight from the heavens like threads of blood.
Space rapidly fell into disorder, layers of ripples spreading outward in quick succession, as though it would collapse completely in the next instant.
Si Yehan slashed the blade through the air before him. The sound of weeping grew louder by his ears, and the sound of countless heavy footsteps pacing back and forth reverberated behind him. He did not spare any of the commotion so much as a glance.
Then the space before him warped. Si Yehan stepped into it, his figure blurring, and in the next instant he appeared inside a high-rise in another residential complex.
Si Yehan carried out his slaughter one place after another. Facing men and women, young and old, all in disarray, he swung his blade and butchered them without pause, occasionally changing his technique for practice.
At other times, he deliberately slowed his harvesting to bring the amusement to its peak.
The bluish-black ghost mist was also killing by various means. Cangyun City had a population of nearly ten million. If Si Yehan relied on himself alone, roaming about and killing with his blade, a single day would certainly not be enough.
Growing somewhat bored of killing in the same place, Si Yehan leaned against the wall by the door and looked at the remains strewn across the floor. The smell of blood filled the cramped room, but it was not pungent. Instead, like fine wine, its scent was a pleasure to take in.
Si Yehan's expression remained cold and unchanged. A participant's sense of smell had long since undergone some changes after merging with a ghost's characteristics.
If he had not been pressed for time, Si Yehan would certainly have found some seasonings and tried out the changes in his sense of taste when it came to flesh and blood. It might have been even more delicious.
There was a smile in Si Yehan's eyes, though his expression remained as it always was. As he swung his blade, bluish-black mist flowed down its length, and there was not the slightest sign of damage to its edge. He casually hacked apart the corpses on the floor until it was impossible to tell whether they were male or female, young or old, and murmured, "It wouldn't be bad to go slaughter my way through Cangyun City's schools."
Bluish-black mist surged up, enveloping Si Yehan and vanishing with him.
In a dormitory corridor at Cangyun City Third Senior High School.
Five boys fled at full speed, with the sound of weeping lingering behind them. A tongue protruded from a Ghost Child's eye socket, giving it a ghastly appearance, and its mouth emitted strange syllables that belonged to no human language.
The expressions on the five boys' faces were worse than if they had been crying. The dormitory corridor seemed infinitely long, as though they could never reach the end. They had been running for half an hour, but the ghostly things seemed to be toying with them, always staying on their heels. The moment they stopped, they would be torn apart. Only by keeping running could they survive.
Remembering the classmates who had been torn apart not long ago, the five boys broke out in goosebumps and shuddered.
Suddenly, a figure seen from behind appeared before them, blurred by bluish-black mist. Nothing like this had appeared before, and one of the five boys was overjoyed. "Looks like a person, not a ghost! Could he be a celestial master or a Daoist priest like in novels? Our school has an expert like that?"
Before he finished speaking, someone countered, "How do you know whether he'll be a person or a ghost when he turns around? We'd better keep running."
The five talked as they ran, trying to use words to cover up their fear. For now, they could only keep approaching the figure. As it gradually came into focus, they saw that the person was holding a long saber.
One of the five boys stopped. His body, already pushed beyond its limits, collapsed to the floor. The next instant, writhing arms reached out of the wall and tore the boy who had stopped to pieces! Blood splattered everywhere, and shattered bones wrapped in flesh flew across the floor.
The remaining four boys' throats had long since gone terribly hoarse, and they could not even scream. Sweat poured down them, soaking their clothes.
They already had the best running endurance among the boys; the others had all died long ago. At that moment, the figure turned around.
It was Si Yehan. Seeing that he really was a person, the four heard him say, "Come over here to me." They were delighted, but then their expressions froze on their faces.
A flash of blade light passed, neatly slicing all four heads in half horizontally. Brains and blood splattered across the floor, and the sound of skulls breaking was as crisp as music.
The cuts were exceptionally smooth, showing just how skilled his blade technique was.
"Fucking stupid," Si Yehan spat, looking at the four corpses being devoured by the ghosts before him.
He moved and appeared in the girls' dormitory, where he began slaughtering again.
He repeated the process at every school in Cangyun City, making the most of his time!
Wisps of bluish-black markings appeared on Si Yehan's arms and even showed signs of spreading to his body. The commotion by his ears grew louder.
He paid it no mind. The slaughter of a city was bound to alert Worldwatch. He wondered how they would react.
It was not until nearly an hour before the dungeon opened that Si Yehan, through his own efforts and by pushing the Vengeful Ghost's power to its limits, crushed the entire population of nearly ten million to death. Though they were weak as individuals, there were so many that clearing them out still took some effort.
Of course, it had also taken so long because Si Yehan had intended to practice and amuse himself. If he had truly used the Vengeful Ghost's power to slaughter at full strength, six hours would have been enough to wipe out a city.