Specter

Qi Bei coughed as he climbed to his feet, grimacing. "Hey, I'm saying, there was no need to get so violent, was there? You hypnotized me without my consent. Was I not allowed to crack a joke?"

Yao Rao stared at Qi Bei for a long while before finally spitting out two words: "Monster."

"Gorgeous," Qi Bei said with a grin, baring a mouthful of white teeth. He raised his left hand to his nose and took an intoxicated sniff.

Yao Rao's pretty face flushed with heat. She nearly hurled a Wind Blade Technique at him and sliced him into pieces.

"It's getting dark. Do you know anywhere we can hide? Besides, I'm lost. Since fate brought us together, you wouldn't just abandon me, would you?" Qi Bei said with a cheeky grin.

"I never help people for free. What can you offer?" Yao Rao asked coyly, running a hand through her hair.

"Th-this... how about pledging myself to you?"

"Sure. But are you up to it?" Yao Rao crooked a finger, and a wisp of breeze bound Qi Bei and dragged him to her side. Her beautiful eyes stared straight into his, as if she wanted to see through him.

"What? You doubt I'm up to it? That's outrageous! Let me go. We'll fight three hundred rounds right now!" Qi Bei shouted as though he had been insulted.

Yao Rao shot Qi Bei a sideways glance, then suddenly turned her head toward the Blood River. A trace of delight appeared between her brows. She extended a slender jade finger and pressed it against his lips, her breath fragrant as orchids. "Shh. Can't you believe me? But you'll have to put up with a little grievance for now."

Qi Bei's heart jolted, both because of Yao Rao's soul-stirring allure and because his instincts told him they were surrounded by immense danger.

Damn it! Qi Bei could not move. He steeled himself and stuck out the tip of his tongue, licking Yao Rao's jade finger.

Yao Rao snatched back her hand as if shocked by electricity and scolded sweetly, "You scoundrel."

A gorgeous woman was a gorgeous woman—even when she cursed someone, she was still so alluring.

However, even after Qi Bei had taken a little advantage with his tongue, he felt no relief. The sense of danger had already made every hair on his body stand on end.

Yao Rao tapped Qi Bei's throat, sealing his voice. Then she took out a handful of crystal cores and actually began setting up a formation around him.

In the blink of an eye, the formation was complete. Two drops of blood flew from her fingertip. After she chanted a few incantations, the formation flashed with blood light before disappearing without a sound.

Then Yao Rao's entire body twisted like rippling water, and she vanished as well.

"Damn, this woman really is using me as bait." Qi Bei immediately understood what Yao Rao was planning and cursed inwardly.

Suddenly, whirlpools appeared one after another in the rushing Blood River.

In the blink of an eye, hundreds of tiny whirlpools filled the thousand meters of river. Within every whirlpool, shattered faces emerged.

The deathly aura and resentful energy that had already filled the air grew more than tenfold denser.

The gloomy wind whimpered like ten million children crying at once. Just hearing it sent a chill from the outside of one's body to the very core.

The inner force in Qi Bei's dantian flowed slowly, gradually dissolving the wind magic binding his body.

At that moment, strands of nearly glass-clear vapor drifted out from the hundreds of whirlpools in the Blood River. They gathered and condensed above the river, forming a translucent specter that glimmered with a faint golden hue.

The specter's eyes shone with a ghostly golden light as it greedily fixed its gaze on the immobile Qi Bei, as if he were the most delicious delicacy in the world.

Qi Bei's pupils contracted. It was a specter!

Specters were not ordinary ghosts. The souls of both humans and beasts were governed by the legendary Death God, and the Death God absolutely forbade souls from lingering in the mortal world. Even if some souls escaped the Death God's grasp, they would eventually scatter into nothingness after some time.

But if a soul not only escaped the Death God's grasp but also avoided being reduced to nothing, it would become a specter.

Qi Bei had spent eight months in the Undead Mountain Range and had seen only a handful of specters. All of them had been mindless, low-level specters.

Part of this specter had already become glass-colored. According to the undead hierarchy, that meant it had one foot across the threshold of the Undead King's realm.

All undead were divided into low-level undead, mid-level undead, and high-level undead. Above high-level undead stood the Undead King, such as the Corpse King, Skeleton King, and Specter King.

The Undead Kings all possessed considerable intelligence and could summon countless undead.

Provoking an Undead King was equivalent to provoking an entire undead army.

Although the specter before him had not truly become an Undead King, there was no telling whether it had a whole host of underlings. Besides, even without any underlings, its own strength was already an existence Qi Bei could only look up to.

Back then, that Silver Corpse had been left with only half a body and possessed merely twenty or thirty percent of a true Silver Corpse's strength, yet it had driven Qi Bei into dire straits. If not for his good luck, he would have died long ago.

Moreover, among high-level undead, the Silver Corpse's strength was only middle-tier. If it had been a more powerful Gold Corpse, it could have instantly killed Qi Bei in a single encounter.

Although the specter was drooling over Qi Bei, it did not pounce immediately. Instead, it circled him several times, apparently sensing that something was wrong.

In theory, while the scent of a living person was a stimulant to undead, it should not have made this specter so ravenous. Yao Rao must have tampered with something.

After hesitating again and again, the specter ultimately could not resist the temptation and lunged at Qi Bei.

Just then, the wind magic on Qi Bei's body was finally completely dissolved by his inner force.

As Qi Bei was about to dodge, a magic array radiating dazzling blood light flared up around him, trapping the specter inside.

Qi Bei forcibly held back his evasive movement. He wanted to see just how strong this woman really was. Perhaps the mantis would stalk the cicada while the oriole stayed behind, letting him profit as the fisherman.

"Lih gah lo, hai do qi mo%*￥###..." Yao Rao appeared outside the magic array, raised her magic staff, and rapidly moved her red lips, chanting an incantation in a hurried tone.

One blood-red vine after another suddenly drilled out of the magic array, tightly wrapping around the specter inside.

The specter let out a shrill cry that left Qi Bei, standing so close, dizzy and seeing stars, but the magic array kept the sound contained within.

The specter began struggling violently, golden light and glass-colored radiance flickering erratically across its body.

One blood-red vine after another snapped apart, but new vines appeared again and wrapped around it.

Qi Bei noticed that every time a vine broke, Yao Rao's pretty face grew paler by a shade.

However, with every vine that snapped, the light on the specter's body dimmed a little further.

Qi Bei could tell that without the aid of this wondrous magic array, Yao Rao would not be the specter's match.

That earlier shriek had very likely been a call for reinforcements. If it truly summoned a horde of undead, Yao Rao would have to flee in disgrace. As for Qi Bei, trapped inside the magic array, he would be torn to pieces by the undead.

The battle was at a stalemate now. It all came down to who could hold out until the end.

(Brothers, how about showing some support with recommendations?)