Earthbound Spirit

Earthbound Spirit

The parking lot on the second basement level was huge.

Li Yi walked alone across the mud-covered ground, every muscle in his body taut as he kept watch on his surroundings.

"They knew this place was haunted and that plenty of people had died here, yet they still insisted on acting alone. Looks like they had already made up their minds to gamble with their lives. That Old Crow was truly vicious—he painted such a grand pie. Who could resist that?"

"At first, they only wanted to take a chance and make a few tens of thousands. Now they did not even care about their lives. Even I could not help looking for strange artifacts in a situation like this."

"After all, an opportunity like this might only come once in a lifetime. Everyone wanted so badly to get ahead."

Li Yi let his thoughts run wild as he swept his flashlight around in search of something.

The flashlight illuminated only a limited area, and the abandoned structures and load-bearing pillars blocked much of his view, making the search harder.

Most importantly, Li Yi had no idea what he was even looking for.

He did not recognize strange artifacts.

"While the danger has not appeared yet, I'll wander around a bit and head back. I can't go too far and get lost. I'll be satisfied if I make some money this time. I can't throw my life away over a strange artifact that may or may not exist. What the others do is their business. I can't let myself be blindly swept along."

Li Yi had calmed down somewhat. He immediately slowed his pace.

After walking a little farther, he felt that he had searched enough ground to give an account of himself, so he stopped going deeper.

He shone his flashlight from side to side. If nothing unusual turned up, he would turn back.

But soon, Wei Li's voice came from the darkness not far away.

"I think I found something here. I don't know what it is, but it feels very unusual. If you're interested, come closer."

"You found something? Good. I'm coming." Wang Hu's voice answered.

Zhang Kaiwen said as well, "Wait for me. I'll be there soon."

Several beams of light then moved through the darkness, converging in one direction.

"It's not far from me. I'll go take a look. If I don't get any information at all, I probably won't get paid in the end." After giving it some thought, Li Yi moved closer as well, driven by a measure of curiosity.

Very soon, several people converged in one area.

Though they remained far apart from one another, the flashlights in their hands all pointed in the same direction.

There was a slightly raised burial mound there. It seemed to have been dug open long ago. Several broken gravestones lay scattered nearby, along with offerings for the dead. Yet the damaged grave was peculiar—it was not something produced by Earth at all. Instead, it resembled a newly built ancient tomb.

"Was that just an illusion?"

Li Yi waved his flashlight over the burial mound and found a ring of glow shrouding the area around it. Yet the moment the flashlight beam moved away, that glow vanished back into the darkness.

"It wasn't an illusion. There really seems to be something different there."

His heart, which had only just calmed down, began pounding once more.

Could that be the strange artifact they had been talking about?

He could not be sure.

But it was not far away. If they went closer and took a look, they would know.

Yet he was not the only one with that thought.

At that moment, however, everyone tacitly refrained from acting rashly. Wei Li's flashlight was not aimed at the burial mound, but at the ground around it.

They saw that arms belonging to dead people had grown eerily from the ground around the burial mound. Those arms were caked in mud, twisted and deformed, looking utterly bizarre. The farther forward they looked, the more arms there were. Even more terrifyingly, they could vaguely see something writhing beneath the mud.

"No wonder Wei Li didn't dare go forward."

Li Yi's heart tightened. He had a premonition that if they set foot in that area ahead, they would suffer an unimaginably terrifying attack.

If anything went wrong, the chances of ordinary people like them surviving would be extremely low.

So Wei Li had not notified them out of kindness. He simply was not confident he could cross that area alone and needed others to test the waters for him.

"The path is right in front of us. There is risk, but the reward is great. How you choose is up to you."

As Wei Li wiped his lenses, he said unhurriedly, "If you turn around and leave now, getting the remaining hundred thousand will not be a problem. But think it through before making your choice."

None of them said a word, falling into brief silence.

They were hesitating, but they also seemed to be waiting for someone else to take the lead.

Meanwhile, on the first floor of the building.

The tall woman stood in an abandoned room with her eyes closed, completely still.

She had maintained that posture for some time. Then the corners of her lips suddenly lifted in a smile. "They really did reach that core area safely. I judged their location from some of the sounds, and so far, not one of the five has died. The previous deduction was true—ordinary people would not be targeted by the fierce ghosts wandering below."

"Because they haven't activated Spirit Medium and cannot see the fierce ghosts, they will not be attacked. People like us, who have stepped onto the path of cultivation, can see many things ordinary people cannot. In reality, the moment we enter the first basement level, we are attacked by countless fierce ghosts. There are even more fierce ghosts on the second basement level, packed together so densely that if we rushed in with our strength, we would die horribly," Old Crow said in a low voice from the side.

"Just thinking about countless dangerous fierce ghosts wandering around those five makes my hair stand on end. But sometimes, I envy them. If you cannot see something, it might as well not exist. If it does not exist, you will not be afraid. Otherwise, how could they have reached the core area so easily? They would have been scared out of their wits long ago."

The tall woman continued, "Avoiding attacks from unseen fierce ghosts is only the first step. But the thing there is far from simple. It has already become an Earthbound Spirit. If they get close, they will die horribly."

"These people are highly capable and all slippery as eels. They won't approach recklessly. At most, they'll take a look from far away, snap a photo, and leave," Old Crow said after thinking it over.

"That works too. With just one photo, I can pinpoint the exact location. Then I'll gather a few friends and make another charge. As long as we move fast enough, taking the item won't be difficult." As she spoke, the woman suddenly gave a soft gasp.

"What is it?"

The woman abruptly opened her eyes and immediately said, "Damn it. Wang Hu wants to snatch the thing in the Earthbound Spirit's hand. What he did has stirred the souls of the dead across the entire area into an uproar. We can't stay here. We need to leave this building, or we'll be caught up in it too."

"Then all five of them are doomed." Old Crow's expression changed slightly.

The two quickly withdrew from the dangerous area, while he ordered the rest of his men to stay far away.

At that moment, on the second level of the underground parking lot.

Wang Hu charged forward in huge strides. He leaped ahead, and both feet landed precisely on a patch of ground. Under normal circumstances, his body should have sunk into the mud by then, but it did not, because beneath his feet was a car buried in the mud.

The car became his stepping stone, allowing him to quickly draw closer to the lone grave.

But even though he had thought of this method, his actions had already triggered a chain of terrifying reactions.

"Aaah! Aaah!"

Agonized wails began echoing through the darkness. Numerous twisted, grotesque corpses writhed in the soft mud. Their mouths gaped open, their expressions warped in pain as they continually crept toward Wang Hu. The mud-covered arms also began swaying like wild grass in the wind, trying to devour anything they could touch.

"What the hell are these things?"

The sight made one's heart pound and one's flesh crawl.

Wang Hu leaped forward again, avoiding a terrifying arm that shot out of the mud. But this time, his luck seemed poor. The parking space ahead appeared to be empty, with no car buried beneath the mud.

At once, nearly half of his large body sank in.

The instant his movements slowed, the corpses in the nearby mud writhed and struggled toward him. In only a few seconds, those terrifying things had gathered around Wang Hu, seemingly about to drag him into the mud and swallow him whole.

"My body, move the hell up already!"

He roared, every muscle in his body tensing as his overwhelming desire to survive erupted with unimaginable strength.

Wang Hu actually broke free from the mud's restraints and quickly climbed onto the roof of a nearby car.

But the danger had not passed, because even more corpses were surging toward him.

At that moment, Wei Li moved. He stepped through the soft mud one step at a time, rushing toward the lone grave as fast as he could.

The terrifying corpses in the mud had all been drawn to Wang Hu. To Wei Li, this was an opportunity.

"My life is worthless. If I don't risk it now, when will I?" Zhang Kaiwen immediately kicked off his shoes and tried to cross the dangerous stretch before him as well.

At that moment, the three of them had begun gambling with their lives.

"Go, or not?"

Li Yi thought rapidly. He was tempted, because cars lay beneath the path before him to serve as stepping stones, and the corpses in the nearby mud had been drawn away by the others.

He was confident that he could safely cross the dangerous stretch ahead and reach the lone grave.

But that was all.

Whether there was still danger in the lone grave, whether a strange artifact existed there, and whether he could return safely—Li Yi knew none of it, nor did he think about it.

Because in the next moment, he charged out too.

I want to get ahead too.