"Clang, clang, clang—"
"Clang—clang, clang—"
"Clang, clang—"
The sound of metal striking tile came from deep within the corridor on the left, drawing closer from afar.
"What is that, a chef? Or a butcher?"
Jiang Qiao arrived at the crossroads and looked toward the source of the sound.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
The passage stretching to the left was extremely deep. Looking down it, even its end was blurred, as though it were a huge photograph placed there.
But.
At this moment, a tall, burly figure with stiff steps was walking out of that "photograph," one step at a time.
The man wore a filthy chef's uniform and a tattered chef's hat.
His fat-covered face was crisscrossed with more than a dozen deep knife wounds, the flesh turned inside out and the bones visible. Black liquid occasionally welled up from deep inside the wounds, slid down his face, and dripped onto the floor, giving off a faint stench of decay.
But what made him most horrifying was this.
He held a huge, rust-covered axe stained with blood, its head hanging downward.
His palm gripped the long handle, while the axe blade dragged along the ground, occasionally striking the walls and floor with a clang and leaving behind cracks of varying depths.
"What a terrifying thing."
Before it even drew near, Jiang Qiao sensed the concentrated, unyielding chill surrounding it, the thick, lingering Bloody Scent, and the stale vitality clinging to the axe.
"It's a Vicious Ghost."
"It has killed many people, including some top-tier Awakened."
Based on his experience.
He could tell at a glance that this was no supernatural phenomenon created by a ghost story, but an independent Vicious Ghost.
And.
It was extremely terrifying.
Terrifying enough to pose a lethal threat to an Eighth Tier Expert.
This ghostly