Ghoul

About ten minutes later, he finally reached the source of that warm light. It turned out to be a towering lighthouse built from massive stones. A huge searchlight swept across the sea above it, while a faint, dim yellow glow shone from the top of the lighthouse—the very light that had drawn him here.

"At last, I found somewhere to shelter from the rain." Li Shaolin wiped the rain from his face, straightened his back, and ran toward the lighthouse through knee-deep seawater. He held the Book of the Dead over his head in his right hand. It was better than nothing. He had no idea what material the book was made of, but it was impervious to water and fire, so he did not have to worry about damaging it.

He hurried up a slope, pushed off with his feet, and arrived at the wooden door before the lighthouse. Outside, lightning flashed and thunder roared. The wind howled, and the crashing waves came one after another. Li Shaolin shivered from the cold and hurried to the wooden door of the stone tower, raising his hand to knock. Of course, to keep the skeletons from frightening anyone, he had cast Bone Armor on all of them. The Black Skeleton had entered Stealth long ago, so there was no need to worry about anyone seeing it.

Knock... knock... The wooden door was strangely resonant, spreading the sound like a great bell until it drifted away into the night sky.

He knocked several more times, but there was still no response. Rain poured down relentlessly, and growing impatient, he unconsciously put a little force into his hand. With a creak, the wooden door seemed unable to withstand the push and opened by itself.

Inside was pitch-black. As the wooden door opened, the violent wind and rain behind him rushed in, filling the interior with a clattering uproar.

Li Shaolin could not help but laugh. So it was an abandoned lighthouse. No wonder no one had answered after all that knocking.

Not daring to lower his guard, he pulled the dagger from his waist with one hand and summoned three Bone Shields with the other before stepping inside.

After only two steps, crack, his foot kicked something. Li Shaolin's heart jumped, and he retreated at once. Two skeletons brushed past him and rushed forward, while behind them, magic lit up in the hands of the Electric Skeleton and Fire Skeleton.

Under the glow of the Fire Skeleton's Fireball, he saw that it was merely a broken wooden chair.

"Ha..." He let out a breath of relief. By the faint light emitted by the Fireball, he discovered that the place was already thick with cobwebs and had clearly been uninhabited for a long time.

He had the Fire Skeleton raise its hands and sweep the area with light. Ancient, worn bronze oil lamps had been installed along the walls, but they had long since become unusable due to a lack of fuel.

"Right, didn't I get several bags of lamp oil when I killed the Harvest Golems? This is the perfect time to use them." Li Shaolin suddenly remembered the lamp oil dropped by the harvest golems he had killed at Jason's Farm. It should be flammable.

He searched his Storage Space, and sure enough, the lamp oil was there. He quickly took it out and poured it into the bronze lamps. When the Fire Skeleton's burning bone hand lightly touched them, they ignited amid a sizzling sound.

Li Shaolin was delighted. He got up and lit the other oil lamps in turn, then shut the weathered wooden door before finally sitting down in peace.

After being battered by the storm, he was freezing and starving. Just as he wanted to find something to eat, he realized that trouble never came alone. His food and water had all been stored in the storage belt, and he had handed the whole thing over to Sulonna. What a tragedy. He could only wait until the rain stopped tomorrow and catch some fish to roast.

"Forget it. I'm exhausted. I'll sleep first and deal with it later." The lighthouse's wooden staircase had long since broken, making the upper floors inaccessible. Other than some wooden chairs and several strange stone tables, there was nothing else on the ground floor. Li Shaolin could only take bedding from his Storage Space, change out of his wet clothes, and lie down. He also released the Clay Golem from the Book of the Dead. With all these summons around, he did not need to worry about safety.

Thus, he drifted off to sleep in a haze.

"Adventurer, please save me! Save me! My body was taken and turned into a demon, while my soul was desecrated and imprisoned. You must help me!" Suddenly, miserable cries for help echoed endlessly beside his ears in his dream.

"What was that?" It seemed someone was calling to him in his consciousness. He wanted to open his eyes, but his eyelids were as heavy as lead. Vaguely, a black shadow appeared ahead of him, only to vanish in an instant.

As the cries grew louder and louder, countless illusions flooded his mind. Somehow, he seemed to have returned to Earth and was sitting in an office. A blurry figure drew closer and closer. It looked like that once-beloved girl, then like his first love. Yet when it turned around, it became Sulonna again, while he found himself aboard a Sunken Ship tossed by wind and rain.

"Who the hell are you?" Li Shaolin screamed hysterically. The figure smiled faintly, and as its face twisted, it seemed to turn into the female Skinner outside Goldshire, the one who enjoyed peeling people's skin. She walked toward him with a sweet smile!

Panicking, he tried to cast magic, but it was as if he had forgotten the incantations entirely. No matter how hard he tried, he could not remember them. Then he remembered the dagger at his waist and reached for it, only to grab empty air. The woman sneered. "Looking for this?" With a flick of her fingers, the gleaming dagger stood balanced on her fingertip!

Her figure blurred. As her long hair fluttered, she was suddenly right in front of him!

Before the woman could come any closer, a streak of blood-red light burst from Li Shaolin's body. A crimson skull flew out with a savage shriek, opened its mouth, and grew larger and larger until it swallowed the woman whole! Black mist immediately billowed through the air, and the enormous skull even seemed to chew several times!

"Ah!" With a startled cry, Li Shaolin woke up. His entire body was covered in cold sweat, and his forehead was drenched!

"What was that? Could this place be haunted?" He shook his head, flinging away beads of sweat. Before he could react, he caught sight of two monsters standing in the faint lamplight. Half their bodies were rotten away, their limbs were planted on the ground, and they had huge mouths, fangs, and long tongues!

"What are those?" He quickly sat up and drew his dagger. Before him, several skeletons had already formed a circle around him, protecting him.

The wind howled.

Looking up, he saw that the lattice windows had long been broken. Outside, some sort of predatory bird seemed to be circling!

Caw! Caw! With those cries, three huge birds crashed through the window and landed in the hall with gusts of wind!

Carrion Birds!

A series of bone-snapping cracks rang out. The three birds shook off their feathers, rolled across the floor, and transformed into three creatures identical to the monsters before them. Their huge mouths opened as they stared at the group, but they did not attack immediately.

"I remember now. These are Ghouls!" Li Shaolin suddenly recalled reading about these creatures in the Scourge Alchemy Book he had casually flipped through. They wandered graveyards and fed on the flesh of the dead or on infants. Their mouths carried plague and disease. In alchemy, everything about them—their fangs, hearts, hair, and more—was regarded as essential material for certain refinements.

"Carrion Birds turning into Ghouls?" His mouth fell open in astonishment. It was too incredible.

A wheezing sound like an old man gasping for breath rose from one of the Ghouls before him. It seemed to have caught the scent of a living person. Its hind legs pushed off hard, and it leaped into the air at Li Shaolin! The other four followed, springing up and pouncing from the air!

The wind in the hall stirred the air into violent currents! The oil lamps went out one after another!

"You're asking to die!" Li Shaolin shouted, reaching into the air. The three Bone Shields began to whirl and fly. The Bronze Skeleton stepped forward with its shield raised and blocked the way before him. At the same time, the Black Skeleton sprang upward, instantly leaping four or five meters into the air to meet the first Ghoul!

Drip! Viscous liquid fell from the creature's mouth and splattered onto the floor of the hall.

The Black Skeleton's curved blade flashed, easily slicing through the rotten flesh, yet no blood flowed out. The Ghoul swung both claws downward with force, slamming the airborne Black Skeleton back to the ground. By then, the other Ghouls had already arrived!

"This is going to be a tough fight!" The Black Skeleton was one of the strongest among his servants, yet it had actually lost out when directly confronting a Ghoul's strength. These things would not be easy to handle.

Splat, splat! Mud flew from the Clay Golem's body as one Ghoul slashed wildly with its claws, leaving deep marks across it.

On the other side, the Bronze Skeleton swung its great shield sideways and blocked two of them. Nails scraped against the shield with a harsh sizzling sound, but fortunately, it was bronze, so there was no need to worry about it being damaged. The Bone Skeleton barely held off one as well, forced back again and again.

A bolt of lightning shot out first and struck the Ghoul fighting the Clay Golem. Its body trembled, and its movements slowed slightly. Then a huge, scorching Fireball slammed into it head-on. With a boom, it actually caught fire!

The Ghoul immediately had no time to keep attacking the Clay Golem. It rolled all over the ground, but the flames only burned fiercer. Its shrill screams and roars rang out without end. After several cries, the Ghoul stopped moving.

"Could it be because of their saliva? Does it fuel the flames?" Li Shaolin could not help but speculate. Knowing their weakness would make things much easier.

Another Fireball shot forward, but after witnessing their companion's miserable end, all the Ghouls became cautious. Their bone claws flashed, knocking the Fireball down, and they refused to expose themselves again.

Lesser Blindness! Li Shaolin cast his magic, blinding one of them. The Bone Skeleton immediately brought down its Bone Blade, cutting through the tough tendon at the Ghoul's shoulder and severing it. Its sinews were still connected, however, and it instantly became a Ghoul dragging one arm behind it.

Just as the battle continued, the Black Skeleton suddenly went berserk.

It seemed to have drawn inspiration from the Bone Skeleton. Its curved blade danced as its body became fluid and elusive. It no longer attacked with brute force, instead hooking and flicking with artistic movements. Then, with a crash, all the soft tendons connecting its opponent's bones were severed, and the Ghoul collapsed onto the ground, unable to rise.

"Good job. That's exactly the effect I wanted." Li Shaolin was overjoyed. Ever since obtaining the Scourge Alchemy Book, he had never tested it before. Now that he had ready-made materials, this was the perfect chance to experiment.

Two of the five Ghouls had been disabled at once, greatly easing the pressure. The Bronze Skeleton relaxed its grip on the shield and swung its Bronze Blade in wide, sweeping arcs, chopping down fiercely! When its opponent could no longer block, it thrust with all its strength, driving the blade into the Ghoul's chest! When it pulled the blade out, another Ghoul fell!

Seeing that things had turned against them, the remaining two suddenly bent over and curled their bodies into balls, charging toward the wooden door!

Boom! The Fire Skeleton's Fireball struck their bodies, but only scattered a few sparks before going out.

Bang! There was no time to stop them. Amid flying wood chips, the two Ghouls fled through the door and disappeared into the pitch-black night. Rain was still pouring outside. How could he possibly catch up to them?

"Just where did these things come from?" Li Shaolin crouched down and examined them for a long time by the firelight in the Fire Skeleton's hand, but aside from being disgusting and terrifying, he could not make heads or tails of them.

He stood and was about to relight the extinguished oil lamps when a sigh suddenly came from above!

"Who is it?" Not daring to let down his guard, he quickly looked up.

A translucent figure appeared on the broken staircase, flickering in and out of sight!