Terrifying Strange Shadow! Heretic Who Blasphemes the Great Venerable!!!

Inside the inn, candlelight flickered.

The aroma of wine and meat filled the air. Although no sounds could be heard from outside, the inside was bustling with "people."

Diners were drinking and eating meat within the inn.

Some were clinking glasses.

Others were boasting and bragging.

Fan Wu felt it was truly difficult to keep a low profile. As soon as he stepped into the inn, all eyes turned and focused on him within a few breaths.

Fan Wu surveyed the interior of the inn and could only sigh inwardly: 'There are so many of them!'

Why did he think that?

Because... the "diners" in the inn looked exactly like humans. At first glance, one would think they were actually people.

But that was only because Fan Wu could see their attribute information.

They were completely exposed to Fan Wu's sight!

The attribute information was densely packed together.

It gave Fan Wu the feeling of playing a browser game.

[Confused Starving Ghost -- Vitality: 136 -- Strength: 4 -- Skill: Corrosive Saliva]

[Schadenfreude Hanged Ghost -- Vitality: 222 -- Strength: 5.9 -- Skill: Self-hanging Rope, Yin Energy Infiltration]

[Headless Ghost -- Vitality: 76 -- Strength: 3 -- Skill: None]

[Sudden Death Ghost -- Vitality: 178...]

[...]

Looking around.

There were no living people!

Fan Wu even suspected if the ghost messengers in the underworld of the World of Gods and Anomalies were slacking off.

Did they think that having a stable job meant they didn't have to work?

In this large inn, there were at least thirty to forty ghosts, and their deaths were all different, as were their strength levels.

Beings like the green-faced water ghost and the white-robed vengeful ghost...

There were quite a few of them in this inn!

It was like stumbling upon a nest of monsters.

"...I was too hasty." A familiar voice came from behind Fan Wu.

Xie Jiuyi, who had also entered the inn, looked at the scene inside and said with a complex tone: "Just now, seeing Fellow Daoist Fan hesitate to enter, I thought this place wasn't as dangerous as imagined."

"But now it seems... it's not what I thought. Fellow Daoist Fan, your courage is extraordinary! You stepped into a place more dangerous than a tiger's den."

There was no fear in Xie Jiuyi's tone. Perhaps people from the Imperial Astronomy Bureau were all like this.

After all, he was a staff member of the relevant department that dealt with all sorts of demons and monsters.

However, his tone was still quite solemn.

It was clear that Xie Jiuyi was now in a state of high alert.

His eyes were fixed on the "guests" in the inn.

No more words were spoken.

At this moment.

In this inn, all the "people" had fallen silent.

The "guests" sat still.

But their heads all turned towards Fan Wu.

The heads of the "guests" in the inn who were facing away from Fan Wu even twisted 180 degrees!

Their eyes stared intently!

The temperature instantly became extremely cold, as if entering an ice cellar.

Frost formed on Xie Jiuyi's eyebrows, and his breath condensed into clouds of white mist.

Although all the doors and windows were tightly shut, a chilling wind howled through.

The candlelight flickered more violently.

The fiery red candlelight suddenly turned a faint green!

A terrifyingly hoarse voice, seemingly coming from all directions, or perhaps from the deepest part of the mind... slowly echoed: "Leave the... thing, and you... can go."

As the eerie voice faded, the chilling wind in the inn intensified, whipping Fan Wu's Daoist robe and hair into a frenzy.

Dark shadows on the ground slowly condensed.

They formed a ten-foot-tall strange shadow standing in the center.

On the black strange shadow, one massive eye after another suddenly opened!

Dense eyes covered its entire body, and each eye was filled with an ominous aura!

Those eerie pupils were all staring at Xie Jiuyi at this very moment.

They had locked onto Xie Jiuyi completely.

When their eyes met the eyes on the strange shadow, a chilling sense of déjà vu washed over him.

It felt as if...

his soul was about to be sucked in!

Of course, that was how Xie Jiuyi felt.

Fan Wu, standing beside him, didn't feel much. He was currently focused on the strange shadow's status information.

[Special Anomalous Entity Formed from the Grudges of the Dead in a Mass Grave - Vitality: 788 - Strength: 13.5 - Skill: Control of a Hundred Ghosts, Illusion Array Barrier, Soul Devouring, Object Attachment...]

The exaggerated stats were astonishing. The 788 points in [Vitality] was definitely the highest Fan Wu had ever seen.

The opponent's [Strength] stat was also the highest Fan Wu had encountered.

It far surpassed Xuan Shizi, who had been possessed by the Great Venerable.

The [Skill] attribute was also a dazzling array.

The moment he saw these stats, only one word popped into Fan Wu's mind...

--Elite BOSS!!

"This aura is... the power of incense and offerings?!" Suddenly, Xie Jiuyi's voice rang out, tinged with surprise, followed by unprecedented solemnity.

Then, adopting a falsetto voice, he roared, "How dare you! What kind of wild evil ghost, without a government license, dares to pretend to be a god and deceive the people of Great Zhou into worshipping you?!"

"You audacious wretch, how dare you lay your hands on what the Imperial Astronomy Bureau was transporting... Wait! How did you know the Imperial Astronomy Bureau would be transporting this item, and that it would pass through here?!"

Fan Wu turned his head, glanced down at Xie Jiuyi, then looked back at the black shadow.

It seemed the ghosts in the inn weren't after him.

They were after the Imperial Astronomy Bureau.

Damn it!!!

As expected, getting too close to people from the Imperial Astronomy Bureau wasn't good. He hadn't done anything, yet he was getting dragged into this.

Especially since this thing, at first glance, didn't look easy to deal with.

Not to mention...

there were other ghosts in the inn.

Even if it wasn't as exaggerated as the "Control of a Hundred Ghosts" described in the strange shadow's [Skill], there were still thirty to forty ghosts!

"The thing... leave it, the person... can go."

Whether the strange black shadow couldn't understand human speech or for some other reason, it kept repeating that one sentence.

And its voice grew louder and more jarring.

It became hoarser.

"Leave the thing, the person can go."

The strange shadow's voice gradually lost all pauses, becoming more rapid and noisy.

Fan Wu glanced at Xie Jiuyi.

This was the first sentence he had spoken since entering the inn: "I think you should reconsider."

He didn't want to get involved in this mess.

If Xie Jiuyi handed over that "thing," he might be able to leave this place.

However, the moment his words fell.

From the strange shadow's side...

there was a disturbance.

On the strange shadow's body, the dense, horrifying eyeballs began to spin chaotically... until one of them fixed its gaze on Fan Wu.

The other spinning eyeballs abruptly stopped and quickly turned in the same direction.

They all locked onto Fan Wu!

Fan Wu clearly saw that the moment those eerie eyes locked onto him... bloodshot veins spread across their whites.

As if they had encountered an enemy.

Immediately--

A piercing, hoarse shriek...

erupted!!!

"Heretic who blasphemes the Great Venerable!!!!"

Fan Wu: "?"