System, You're Useless, Aren't You?!

The cries for help were like a gust of wind that could vanish at any moment, so faint that even Yu Xing's hearing could not detect them clearly.

The wind swirled in the air a few times, as if if it weren't taken seriously, it would be like grains of sand, never to return to its original state.

Yu Xing's hair was a little messy from running wildly while being chased by the gatekeeper ghost, making him look less "approachable" than usual, revealing a calm beneath his irritation and an unusual aggressiveness.

He stopped looking at Carlos. The man hadn't made a sound since closing his eyes, and he had reason to guess that when Carlos communicated with others through the paper figure, his real body didn't need to make the same movements.

Someone is calling for help... Who could it be?

Yu Xing stood up and carefully tried to pinpoint the direction of the cries for help, but to no avail. He had no choice but to endure the dust on the wall and press his ear against it.

Through the transmission of solid media, the cry for help was amplified many times in an instant. It was a woman's voice, and its characteristics were different from any other woman he had seen in this simulation so far.

Sharp, rapid, collapsing.

It's as if the woman is experiencing something terrifying that has broken through her psychological defenses.

Naturally, Yu Xing wouldn't assume that it must be a cry for help from a living person.

He's so proactive because he has a plot-driven death coming up; a plot-driven death should be quite interesting, right?

Any anomaly he discovers first could be a plot device to kill him off.

Yu Xing thought for a moment, then took a piece of paper that Carlos had given her when he folded the paper figures, and wrote a sentence on it.

"Something seems to have come up. I'll go check it out. Don't follow me. Send the paper effigy to me again after the half-hour deadline."

He gently placed the note beside Carlos, then picked up his Tang sword and walked out.

The blood groove on his bloodstained longsword was now about a quarter red; some of the blood he had absorbed came from the fish monster, and some from the Water Ghost. These two creatures had indeed consumed some of his resources.

As for plot-driven deaths, sometimes they can also cause collateral damage, so Yu Xing hoped to stay as far away from Carlos as possible before the 30 minutes ended, so that Carlos would suffer in the end.

Yu Xing walked slowly toward the direction from which the cries for help came, using one hand to tidy her hair so it wouldn't obstruct her vision.

As he walked, he noticed something was off about his surroundings. The stone walls were getting lower and lower, and his tall, slender frame wasn't very comfortable in the narrow passageway. In some places, he had to duck to get through.

This area was definitely much smaller than when he first entered the maze; Yu Xing felt that he must have arrived at some special place.

The wall above him grew lower and lower, and he felt the space being squeezed, reluctantly continuing forward.

A few minutes later, he had to crouch to walk. Fortunately, the light ahead was relatively concentrated, unlike a tunnel, so the end should be near. Yu Xing quickened his pace and crouched forward. At one moment, the pressure eased, and the narrow tunnel came to an end, leading him into a larger room.

In an instant, the cries for help disappeared, as if they had achieved their goal and no longer bothered to pretend.

The light was no longer from the Mingzhu; torches were lit around the room, having started burning sometime during the night, casting a reddish glow over it.

He raised his head slightly, glanced at the new place, and a hint of excitement suddenly flashed in his eyes.

It was as if he had entered an art gallery from many years ago.

The reason for this is that several large, round heads were hanging in this square room.

They weren't specimens. Yu Xing could tell at a glance that the heads on the wall, some with their eyes closed, some with their eyes open, some that had been dead for a long time, and some that had just died, all had their eyes open, staring blankly into the distance, or rather, staring at the door.

The wall of human heads flickered in and out of the firelight, their expressions somber, and some even swayed slightly in the air because they were not hanging securely.

The cries for help just now most likely came from their mouths.

Yu Xing did not go forward first; he reserved his interest in the heads and examined the torches first.

The torch was intact and old; apart from the accumulated ash, there wasn't even a trace of burning on it.

He could see the torches burning from afar in the passageway. Logically, the burn marks on the torches should be quite severe. Could it be that these torches, due to the illusion array, are actually fake, allowing them to burn anytime, anywhere without restriction?

If the torches are fake, then this secret room, like any other small room, is hardly real.

Yu Xing's enthusiasm did not wane; he believed that there must be a reason for the existence of this secret room.

After looking at the torches, he finally arrived in front of the wall of human heads and looked up at them.

The heads were neatly arranged, but their cuts were not clean. They were not severed by a sharp weapon, but rather looked as if they had been twisted off. Even across the vast expanse of time and space, Yu Xing could feel the brutality of the perpetrator.

The hair on these heads was very long, but not the kind of long, disheveled hair he had seen before used to cover the face. Instead, it was carefully tied up in a bun at the back of the head, somewhat like that of an ancient soldier.

These people may have existed when the tomb was built. Now, in this maze, their faces have not turned into a pile of rotting flesh over time, leaving only skeletons, but have been preserved so vividly that they seem ready to smile and greet Yu Xing at any moment.

Yu Xing looked down at the heads at eye level with his own and found that they didn't look like soldiers. They were strangely different, as if they came from different social classes. Some were thin and sallow, while others were wealthy. Some looked fierce and menacing, while others had a scholarly air about them.

Some looked to be over fifty years old, with wrinkled faces and dark skin, like farmers; others were teenagers, with fair skin and delicate flesh, probably young masters from wealthy families.

They didn't look like soldiers; they looked more like... funerary sacrifices.

The two words flashed through Yu Xing's mind, and when she looked at the wall of heads again, her feelings were different.

That demon daoist went too far, dragging so many people down with him just because he died.

He remembered that the demon daoist built the tomb palace to be resurrected and to avoid interference from some kind of force. Since she knew she would come back to life, why did she kill so many people?

Yu Xing took a few steps back and counted the number of heads.

There are 134 human heads on this wall alone.

This can only prove one thing.

In the demon daoist's plan, so many people need to die to ensure her resurrection.

He then recalled his great-grandfather Uncle Zhang's diary, in which he wrote that the Ghost Tree was a giant tree covered with human heads. If the wall of human heads in the room was not real, then the real location of these heads should be on the Ghost Tree.

In other words, killing so many people was all to fertilize the Ghost Tree?

Yu Xing clicked his tongue.

He was almost certain that the demon daoist had discovered some kind of ability of the Ghost Tree and wanted to use it to complete her resurrection, or rather, to complete resurrection time and time again. That's why she built this tomb palace, occupied the "treasure land" first, and left some powerful monsters to guard it, so that future generations would not compete with her for it.

The Ghost Tree needs nutrients and time to grow. Based on the appearance of the Ghost Tree in my great-grandfather's diary, it should have been a seedling more than 1,200 years ago.

So the sequence of events should be: the demon daoist found the sapling of the Ghostly Ghost Tree, discovered its power and used it to wreak havoc on the region, was killed by the feudal lords and then resurrected, thoroughly establishing the demon daoist's reputation, and then built a tomb palace on Heavy Yin Mountain to enclose the Ghost Tree, and then used living people to water the Ghost Tree to make it grow.

Although the Ghost Tree is said to be unapproachable in legends, and death is imminent if one gets close, the demon daoist, as its cultivator, possesses its power and might be an exception.

The demon daoist probably never imagined that a fake chamber would reveal so much information to this despicable tomb raider. If she had known, she probably wouldn't have gone to all this trouble.

Yu Xing walked around the room again. He didn't think the purpose of this place was just to deliver information to him, so he was waiting for the plot to kill him off.

All the conditions are met: lone, strange, and so many heads.

If the plot-driven death doesn't happen, that's going too far; Yu Xing will definitely call the system useless.

Perhaps the system heard him mutter "useless," because the torch suddenly reacted.

The flickering of light and shadow suddenly intensified; even though there was no Fengdu, the flames began to shake violently, making it painful to look at.

The same goes for the ropes that held the heads; each head swayed from side to side, colliding with its fellow heads and making dull thuds. Some even began to spin due to these collisions.

The firelight shone on the heads of the people, casting huge and hideous shadows of human heads on the walls. Several walls were covered with such terrifying light and shadow, chaotic and menacing, everything seemed out of control.

Yu Xing caught a strong smell of blood, resentment, and decay.

He heard a rustling sound around his ears, sometimes loud, sometimes soft, overlapping and layered, as if a thousand mosquitoes were performing a surround sound performance around his head.

"A new fertilizer has arrived..."

"She's quite good-looking. Why didn't I have such a face when I was alive?"

"Hehehe... No matter how good your looks are, they'll just rot in the ground anyway, and that woman won't be soft-hearted."

"Shh... don't mention her. She's been coming over frequently lately, and I really don't want to see her. She reminds me of my ear, which is still missing."

"She's probably still in her belly, hahaha! Anyway, you don't need your ears anymore, so what can't you hear?"

Yu Xing looked up and, as expected, found that all the heads in the crowd were staring at him.

"Come on, come on," the fair-skinned, delicate-looking boy said with a smile. "Join us, you have no idea how tired I am of them."

The people around it cursed at it, but a few seconds later they started laughing again, "Come on, if you come, we'll grow taller and be able to see farther!"

Yu Xing raised an eyebrow; he felt an attraction drawing him forward.

Suddenly, many tree branch-like patterns emerged from the wall that had been perfectly normal just moments before Yu Xing took two steps back, and those tree branches relentlessly pushed their way out.

The heads burst into wild laughter, which gave him a headache.

His headache made him feel bad, so after the group laughed for a while, a deep, magnetic, and calm voice said, "What are you laughing at? Are you happy to be hung in a tree?"

The laughter of the heads abruptly stopped.

"You guys are so pathetic. This is the first time I've ever seen ghosts who can find so much joy in suffering. Other ghosts should learn from you. Be so forgiving of those who killed you, then enjoy your own death, and be happy that the coroner has even slightly repaired your skin." Yu Xing smiled mischievously. "Oh, I forgot, you don't even have corpses. Others can't learn that even if they wanted to."

Head: "..."

Are you even human?

It has to be said that Yu Xing successfully stirred up their painful memories. They were originally victims as well, and Yu Xing didn't want to treat them this way, but these victims had somehow become accomplices in the evil deeds.

Yu Xing found the attraction even stronger, and he involuntarily took a step forward, getting less than a meter away from the branch that stretched out of the wall.

He gripped his Tang sword, adjusted his posture to stabilize his lower body, and then slashed at a tree branch.

The branches recoiled as if startled, but Yu Xing's pupils involuntarily dilated. He knew very well that his knife hadn't left any wounds on those thin branches at all!

This must be the outermost branch of the Ghost Tree; I wonder how many levels it went through to become this thin.

If it's the main trunk, a first-level branch, or a second-level branch, it's probably thicker than him.

Even these thin outer branches, he couldn't cut them off. Is the Ghost Tree really that strong?

For the first time, Yu Xing felt powerless against a "ghostly" entity. He even imagined that if he were pulled into the Ghost Tree, even if he could be resurrected, he would be imprisoned inside the tree and die again and again.

His ability to resurrect is probably not an advantage at this point, but rather a form of agonizing torture.

In other words... he really can't die in front of Ghost Tree; dying even once would be the end of him.

This is really

That's wonderful!

Yu Xing looked at the thin branches, the dry branches without a single leaf, as if nothing could grow on them.

He struck with his sword, which, though largely ineffective, successfully caused the attraction to momentarily halt.

Taking advantage of this brief moment, Yu Xing retreated a few meters and glanced at the countdown.

The plot-driven death occurred within the first thirty minutes, and now it's the twenty-fifth minute.

Of course, the system only said it would appear within thirty minutes, not that it would end within thirty minutes. Even after the time was up, he would still have to rely on himself to get through this crisis.

The important point is that this plot-driven death meant he had a 50% chance of dying.

Even someone Yu Xing has a 50% mortality rate, so it seems the system can't find anything else and can only create a fake space for Ghost Tree to appear.

Yu Xing's attempt to dodge drove the demons into a frenzy. They yelled and shouted, urging Yu Xing to join them.

Yu Xing was overjoyed; he had finally found something other than the Lingren that posed a threat to him.

Only something that could truly plunge him into utter ruin is worth his full effort to deal with.

But just as he was about to continue hiding and look for that fifty percent chance of survival, he suddenly had a thought.

A familiar yet extremely unpleasant aura was surging within him, threatening to erupt.

The pitch-black mist flowed out of his heart like Silk Drawing and Unraveling, then frantically merged into the surrounding light and shadow, dimming the firelight.

The icy chill seeped into his internal organs, and Yu Xing shivered, nearly being caught by the tree branch. He used his Tang sword to push the branch back slightly, then covered his bleeding mouth and nose.

He felt the power of the curse suddenly becoming apparent, and in the end, he cursed the system.

"What happened to the promised suppression? You only got two drops in two dungeons? Are you useless?!"