Time slipped away like sand through the fingers of a hand. About ten minutes had passed, but Su Wei felt her mind was unusually clear and quiet. All she could see were the lifeless eyes of the old man in black, and her body trembled involuntarily with fear. She had clearly lost all awareness of her surroundings!
Si Yehan leaned against a pillar in the darkness, gazing in this direction. He watched Su Wei's trembling body, then his eyes met for a moment with the motionless old man in black on the coffin. Thoughts raced through his mind. So much silence for so long—could eye contact really not be a murderous pattern?
But if it's not a pattern in the killings, why is Su Wei acting so strangely right now?
Let's try it out first and see if she can sense the outside world.
Si Yehan called out softly, "Su Wei."
Su Wei stood there, unresponsive like a wooden doll. Si Yehan slowly took a step forward, looking at the empty, calm expression on her face, her eyes still fixed on the old man in black, as if she were lost in a state of oblivion!
Seeing this, a very bold conjecture slowly surfaced in Si Yehan's mind: Could it be that the pattern of murder is death the moment eye contact ends?
But he had briefly locked eyes with the old man in black earlier. Could it be that the old man wasn't paying attention to him? But these ghosts, even their spawned Ghost Slaves, have no consciousness; they only have the instinct to kill and feed, and the instinct to follow the rules of killing! How could they possibly have any attention?
If it's not a matter of attention, then it's likely the duration of eye contact. After a certain time, ending the eye contact results in death! If it's a case of death upon eye contact, then this old man in black has an incredibly long-standing pattern of killing; more than ten minutes have passed and there's still no movement.
Si Yehan raised his hand and slapped Su Wei across the face without any hesitation, hoping to startle her and make her turn around to look at him, thus ending their eye contact! Even if the four people behind them saw it, he could explain it as him having to resort to this "last resort" because he couldn't wake her up.
Su Wei's face flushed red, but she remained unresponsive, like a wooden doll, not even letting out a cry of pain, nor turning her head.
Si Yehan remained indifferent. Since neither calling nor hitting could wake him up, he would use force to turn the other's head away, thus ending the staring contest! Immediately, he swung his palm again, this time with greater force, creating a whistling sound as a crisp slap rang out.
The slap slapped Su Wei's left cheek until it was completely red, and made her turn her head away. In an instant, the emptiness and blankness on her face disappeared, and a burning pain shot through her nerves. As if given a delay, she endured the pain and screamed softly.
After the eye contact ended, she didn't blame Si Yehan, because she had guessed what had just happened.
She was just about to turn around to thank Si Yehan for waking her up when she found that he had already disappeared.
Su Wei looked down and found a shadow behind her, clearly visible in the moonlight! The shadow was exceptionally thin, quite different from Si Yehan's appearance. What could it be? It had already surfaced.
Su Wei's body stiffened, cold sweat trickling down her neck. She looked up and turned around, only to find nothing there. She breathed a sigh of relief, thankfully it was a false alarm! But when she glanced at the coffin, she felt a chill run down her spine, because the old man in black was gone.
When she looked down again, the shadow beneath her feet had become one with her own. A chill ran through her, and the shadow detached from the ground and floated up, slowly outlining a gaunt figure—the old man in black!
A blood-red arc cracked across the aged face, and the eyelids were stretched wide and spread out, with the upper half of the face occupied by the eyes. The next moment, the eyeballs bulged out and cracked again, revealing fine, broken teeth, making the face look ferocious.
Su Wei's screams could no longer be suppressed; they were born from excruciating pain. Her neck was severed, and bloody threads stretched across the wound as flesh was torn apart! In an instant, her neck was empty; her head was severed.
The old man in black used this to bite off Su Wei's head, and blood gushed out like a fountain. After a moment, the sinister aura on the old man in black surged, and he spat out Su Wei's head from his eyeballs, with skull fragments and hair mixed together!
It immediately raised its arm and tore Su Wei's body to shreds as if it were tearing paper.
A gust of cold wind swept by, clearing away the pieces of flesh on the ground. The old ghost in black lay back in the coffin, and the ice coffin lid closed again. For a moment, only the old woman, Vengeful Ghost that had not yet fully transformed, remained in the huge hall! She stood there, her skin opening and closing, and the bulging veins looked as if they might burst at any moment.
In the darkness, Si Yehan took in everything. He was languid, his smile fading, his expression returning to its cold indifference. He didn't look at that place again, but returned to his original position.
All four of them witnessed Su Wei's murder! But no one blamed Si Yehan, because from their perspective, they could see that Si Yehan had gone to great lengths to wake Su Wei, and had already done his best.
As soon as Si Yehan sat down on the cushion, he heard Qianjing Youhui's slightly hurried voice ask, "You're the closest, have you found anything?"
This time, Si Yehan didn't hide anything. After all, everyone had seen what had just happened and would be able to analyze it sooner or later. However, based on the scene of Su Wei's death, he fabricated a new direction to mislead people. "The black-clad Vengeful Ghost's killing pattern should be that it will die after eye contact! However, there are additional conditions that are not very clear. It may be its attention or the duration of eye contact!"
Of course, it's also possible that eye contact was fatal, because when we made eye contact, a shadow was approaching on the ground, and the surrounding environment was too dark for me to notice immediately. It's just that the eye contact lasted a relatively long time.
Ge Congze analyzed methodically, "If death is certain once the eye contact ends, then a certain duration must be met! Because I also stared at that old ghost for a moment before, but I'm not sure if this certain duration is a one-time event or can be accumulated? If it's the former, then the risk to this black-clad old ghost will be greatly reduced; if it's the latter, it will increase slightly, but with such a long eye contact time, it's not too dangerous."
Xie Fei, who hadn't spoken for a long time, suddenly said, "What if Su Wei's eye contact had lasted long enough? It's just that she hasn't ended the eye contact, which is why it seems to have been so long."
Ge Congze was silent for a moment, then switched to a male voice and said, "If that's the case, the risk level of this old ghost will rise even further. The only way to avoid it, and the best way, is for us to avoid making eye contact with it."
Qianjing Youhui sighed in regret before saying, "The demons in the dungeons so far haven't been too troublesome. They lack intelligence and only attack when we trigger their killing patterns. Occasionally, they'll create some noise to lure us into a deadly trap, but that's relatively rare. If later dungeons feature demons with some intelligence who devise schemes and disguise themselves as their own kind, I can't imagine how difficult that will be."
Xia Yuanhou's gaze fell on Qianjing Youhui's body, and he snorted coldly, saying, "At that time, we might be able to use some supernatural powers. After all, you won't get any items in the dungeon. If ghosts are this troublesome in the underworld, and we have no room for error, what's the difference between entering the dungeon and certain death?"
Si Yehan rubbed his fingers together, preparing to find a sharp blade during the day, which would greatly facilitate both playing with it and killing.
As for the ghosts that everyone was discussing, he wasn't very interested; these things were completely unkillable for the participants at the moment.
Currently, the only thing that can kill ghosts is the deity mentioned in the invitation. After all, ghosts can only fight each other. The vortex when entering the instance is just a struggle, wailing and screaming of thousands of Vengeful Ghosts, or sounds of resentment, and they are not completely annihilated.
If one were to usurp the authority of the gods, could one then annihilate everything?
Si Yehan lowered his eyes slightly, his cold and handsome face revealing no emotion whatsoever; he suppressed the thoughts in his heart.
Foresight at this stage is meaningless; the most important thing is to harvest all life and ensure one's own survival.