Inside the inn, candlelight flickered.
The aroma of wine and meat wafted through the air. Clearly, not a sound could be heard from outside, yet inside, "human" voices were somehow roaring.
One customer after another drank wine and ate meat in the inn.
Some clinked their cups and exchanged toasts.
Others spouted wild nonsense.
Fan Wu felt it was truly difficult for him to keep a low profile. He had barely stepped into the inn for a few breaths when every gaze in the place shifted over and gathered on him.
Fan Wu swept his eyes around the inn and could only sigh inwardly: There are so many!
Why did he think that?
Because... the "customers" inside the inn looked exactly like humans. At first glance, one would really think they were people.
But who could blame Fan Wu, when he was able to see each of their attribute panels?
They could not hide from Fan Wu's eyes!
Those attribute panels piled together in dense masses.
They gave Fan Wu the immediate impression that he was playing a browser game.
[Confused Starving Ghost—Life: 136—Power: 4—Skill: Corrosive Saliva] [Schadenfreude Hanged Ghost—Life: 222—Power: 5.9—Skills: Self-hanging Rope, Yin Energy Infiltration] [Headless Ghost—Life: 76—Power: 3—Skill: None] [Sudden Death Ghost—Life: 178...] [...]
Looking around.
There was not a single living person!
Fan Wu even began to wonder whether the ghost officials in the underworld of the World of Gods and Anomalies were all slacking off and coasting through their days.
Did they think that, since they had iron rice bowls, they no longer had to work?
There were at least thirty or forty ghosts in the enormous inn. Their manners of death differed, and so did their levels of strength.
Existences on the level of the Blue-faced Water Ghost and the White-robed Vengeful Ghost...
There were actually quite a few of them in this inn!
He had practically stumbled into a nest of ghosts.
"...That was reckless." A familiar voice came from behind Fan Wu.
Xie Jiuyi had also stepped into the inn. After seeing the scene inside, he spoke with a complicated tone. "When I saw you step inside without hesitation just now, Fellow Daoist, I thought this place wasn't as dangerous as imagined."
"But now that I look at it... it seems things are not quite as I thought. Fellow Daoist Fan, your courage is truly extraordinary! Even knowing that what lies ahead is more dangerous than a tiger's den, you still walked right in."
There was not the slightest trace of fear in Xie Jiuyi's voice. Perhaps that was simply how people from the Imperial Astronomy Bureau were.
After all, he was a government worker whose job concerned all kinds of demons and ghosts.
Still, his voice remained relatively grave.
It was easy to hear that Xie Jiuyi was now acting as if he were facing a formidable enemy.
His pair of eyes was fixed on the "guests" inside the inn.
He said nothing more.
At this moment.
Every "person" in the inn had fallen silent.
The "guests" sat perfectly still.
But their heads had all turned toward Fan Wu.
The heads of the "guests" who had been facing away from Fan Wu had even twisted around a full one hundred and eighty degrees!
One pair of eyes after another stared straight at him!
The temperature instantly became bone-chillingly cold, as if they had entered an ice cellar.
Frost formed on Xie Jiuyi's brows, and every breath he exhaled became a cloud of white vapor.
All the doors and windows were clearly shut tight, yet gusts of Yin wind still howled through the inn.
The candlelight flickered more and more violently.
Streams of fiery-red candlelight suddenly transformed into a field of eerie green!
A horrifying, hoarse voice slowly drifted over, seeming to come from every direction and yet from the deepest recesses of their minds... "Leave... the item behind. The people... may leave."
As the eerie voice faded, the Yin wind inside the inn grew even more violent, whipping Fan Wu's Daoist robe and hair into a wild dance.
The patches of black shadow on the ground slowly began to gather.
They transformed into a ten-foot-tall monster shadow standing in the center.
Suddenly, a pair of enormous eyes opened on the black monster shadow!
Densely packed eyes covered its entire body. Every single one was filled with an ominous aura!
At this moment, every one of those strange pupils was staring at Xie Jiuyi.
They had locked onto Xie Jiuyi's entire body.
When Xie Jiuyi's eyes met those on the monster shadow, a bone-chilling sensation swept over him.
It was as if...
Even his soul were about to be sucked inside!
Of course, that was what Xie Jiuyi felt.
Fan Wu, standing beside him, did not feel much of anything. At that moment, he was focused on the monster shadow's attribute panel.
[Special anomaly formed from the resentment of the dead at a mass grave—Life: 788—Power: 13.5—Skills: Control of a Hundred Ghosts, Illusion Array Barrier, Soul Devouring, Object Attachment...]
The exaggerated attributes were enough to make one click their tongue in amazement. The 788 points of [Life] were definitely the highest Fan Wu had ever seen.
Its [Power] attribute was also the highest Fan Wu had ever encountered.
It far surpassed Xuan Shizi, who had been possessed by the Great Venerable.
Its [Skills] attribute was just as dazzling.
The moment he saw those attributes, only one word surfaced in Fan Wu's mind...
—Elite BOSS!!
"This aura is... Incense-Fire Power?!" Xie Jiuyi's voice suddenly rang out, carrying a trace of astonishment, followed by unprecedented solemnity.
Then he immediately spoke in an exaggerated, feminine voice and shouted angrily, "How dare you! What kind of wild mountain evil ghost are you? Without an official investiture from the imperial court, you dare pretend to be a god, play the devil, and deceive the people of Great Zhou into worshiping you?!!"
"You reckless fool, you even dare lay hands on an item being transported by the Imperial Astronomy Bureau... No! How did you know the Imperial Astronomy Bureau would be transporting this item, and that it would pass through this place?!"
Fan Wu turned his head and cast a downward glance at Xie Jiuyi before turning back to look at the black shadow.
It seemed the ghosts in the inn had not come for him.
They had come for the Imperial Astronomy Bureau.
Damn!!!
As expected, it was not a good idea to get too close to people from the Imperial Astronomy Bureau. He had done absolutely nothing, yet he had still been dragged into this mess.
Especially since this thing was obviously not an easy opponent.
Not to mention...
There were other ghosts inside the inn.
Even if they were not as exaggerated as the "Control of a Hundred Ghosts" described among the monster shadow's [Skills], there were still thirty or forty ghosts!
"Leave... the item behind. The people... may leave."
Whether the strange black shadow could not understand human speech or for some other reason, it continued repeating that same sentence.
Moreover, its voice became louder and noisier.
It grew even hoarser.
"Leave the item behind. The people may leave."
The monster shadow's voice gradually lost all pauses. It also became increasingly hurried and grating.
Fan Wu glanced at Xie Jiuyi.
This was the first thing he had said since stepping into the inn: "I think you should consider it."
He did not want to wade into these muddy waters.
If Xie Jiuyi handed over whatever that item was, perhaps they could leave this place.
However, just as his voice fell.
Something stirred over by the monster shadow...
The densely packed, horrifying eyeballs on the monster shadow began spinning about chaotically... until one of them landed on Fan Wu.
The other wildly rotating eyeballs abruptly stopped and swiftly turned in the same direction.
Every one of them locked onto Fan Wu!
Fan Wu saw with perfect clarity that, the instant those eerie eyes locked onto him... thread after thread of scarlet veins spread across their whites.
It was as if they had seen an old enemy.
Then—
An ear-piercing, hoarse shriek...
Exploded!!!
"Heretic Who Blasphemes the Great Venerable!!!!"
Fan Wu: "?"
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