Terror Blade

Trying to take the Long Cleaver straight from the Male Corpse's hands would most likely end in death.

The bus would suppress Vengeful Ghosts as much as possible, but that didn't mean their Killing Rules no longer applied. Anyone who deliberately provoked a Ghost would still die.

Otherwise, with people and Ghosts constantly coming and going, there was no way this blade would have been left there for so long.

The "Gao Tian" inside the pot had only safely taken the blade from the Male Corpse after performing a series of strange ritual gestures.

Those rituals must have had some sort of suppressive effect on Ghosts, allowing "Gao Tian" to take the blade and get away unharmed.

The real Gao Tian pulled out the tip of the Ghost Transformation Spear from beneath his coat and drove it straight into the back of the Male Corpse's head, forcing it several centimeters into the skull.

As he did so, Gao Tian felt as if his heart were about to stop. He didn't know whether the Pot Prophecy was absolutely accurate or just an illusion conjured by some Supernatural Item to trick him. If this failed to seal the Male Corpse and instead enraged it, he'd lose another life today.

Gao Tian's sudden, terrifying behavior in his seat left Su Jiu and Ling Feifei, sitting in front and behind him, utterly shocked once again. Zhou Yan let out an even louder cry:

"Hey! Have you completely lost your mind?

"If you want to die, find somewhere to do it. Don't drag the rest of the people in the apartment down with you!"

Gao Tian ignored him. After the spear tip pierced it, the Male Corpse in the seat ahead remained completely still, staying in its dead state without turning around to kill anyone.

It seemed the Pot Prophecy had been proven right, at least for now.

He had already gone over "Gao Tian's" actions in his mind a thousand times. Seeing this, he no longer hesitated. At the fastest speed he could manage, he stabbed the Male Corpse once in each shoulder and once in the back. Only after confirming that four holes had appeared in its body did he stop. He put away the spear tip, clasped his hands together, and bowed devoutly to show his repentance.

Did those actions really work?

Su Jiu clapped a hand over her mouth, breaking into a cold sweat as she watched Gao Tian. She had no idea why he was doing this or what he would do next.

Gao Tian paid no attention to the other three's stares and confusion. Now that the sealing ritual was complete, he should be able to take the Rusty Long Saber from the Male Corpse's hands safely, without suffering retaliation from a Vengeful Ghost.

Even Gao Tian himself didn't understand how it worked.

He stood up, leaned over the Male Corpse's shoulder, and put one hand on the hilt. Then he pulled hard, trying to yank the rusty blade out of its grasp.

The Male Corpse had been incredibly strong to begin with. On top of that, its body had held the same position for so long that part of its palm had fused with the Long Cleaver, making the blade extremely difficult to pull free.

Gao Tian didn't dare use too much force, afraid of touching any other part of the Male Corpse. He tried several times from an awkward position, cold sweat beginning to bead on his forehead. At last, the motionless blade started to budge. Gao Tian threw his full body weight into the pull, and with a layer of the Male Corpse's skin still attached, he finally tore it from its grasp.

Even after losing the rusty blade, the Male Corpse in front remained motionless, as if the four holes in its back had successfully suppressed it.

"You lunatic. You actually pulled it off."

Zhou Yan muttered as he watched from behind.

As a resident who had completed two Green Text Missions and had some basic knowledge, he knew the Long Cleaver in the Male Corpse's hands was most likely a Supernatural Item. But what normal person would go after it? The Male Corpse was obviously a trap. Who would dare touch it?

He hadn't expected Gao Tian's seemingly suicidal stunt to actually work. He had gotten the Long Cleaver without triggering the Male Corpse's Killing Rule. No one could watch without feeling jealous.

Ling Feifei reassured him:

"Hubby, don't get worked up.

"Some other Ghost passengers will definitely get on soon. Since these Ghosts aren't fighting back, let's see if we can take the Items from the others.

"We'll get something even better then."

Zhou Yan watched Gao Tian with envy and nodded.

"Yeah, let's do that."

He looked down on Gao Tian, a newcomer who had only just entered the apartment. If the other man could do it, why couldn't he?

Meanwhile, Gao Tian carefully rubbed the Rusty Long Saber in his hands.

After claiming the Living Person Gloves in the Chat Group, a package had really appeared outside the apartment. Inside was a pair of thin-film gloves that didn't look like they were made of human skin.

When Gao Tian cautiously put them on, the gloves blended into his skin and disappeared. At the same time, information flowed into his mind. The rules for using the Human Skin Gloves were simple: the user only had to place both hands on the Supernatural Item they wanted to identify. After fifteen seconds, all known information about the item would automatically enter their mind.

Now that Gao Tian had gotten the Long Cleaver, he activated the Human Skin Gloves and placed both hands on the blade.

A moment later, information really did flare in his mind:

[Terror Blade]

Effect: Sacrifice a human life to dismember a Ghost.

Origin: Unknown

Notes: None

That was the Terror Blade's effect.

Simple. Horrifying.

To activate it, he had to kill a Living Person.

The price was harsh, but the power it granted was astonishing. Even if Ghosts were immortal, one swing of the Terror Blade could hack one into pieces.

The Terror Blade's range was about ten meters.

And the Living Person chosen as its sacrifice didn't have to agree.

Gao Tian looked at the Long Cleaver in his hands. Although he'd been mentally prepared, he was still shocked.

This blade was... sinister in every way. It actually used Living People as the price.

But there was no doubt about its power.

At the very least, it was definitely better than a Ghost Transformation Spear, which had nothing but negative effects. Gao Tian carefully put away the Long Cleaver. At last, he had a primary weapon for fighting Ghosts, instead of having to run around Supernatural Instances carrying the utterly bizarre Ghost Transformation Spear.

After dealing with the Male Corpse, Gao Tian began observing the bus.

The next stop would arrive in about three minutes.

A Pitch Black Silhouette sat in the driver's seat. Its arms moved noticeably as it turned the steering wheel. It looked no different from a normal driver.

If not for the fact that its hands were made of wood.

The one driving the bus was actually a Humanoid Puppet. Controlled by Invisible Threads, its arms and fingers moved nimbly, capable of performing all kinds of actions a human driver could.

The Puppet Driver itself didn't count as a passenger.

The bus only forbade passengers from killing each other. But no one dared to test whether they could attack the driver. They wouldn't even go near the driver's seat.

Just then, Gao Tian suddenly thought of something else.

Would the Gao Tian in the next time period treat his actions just now as a Pot Prophecy and observe them carefully?

In other words, as he performed that strange ritual to placate the Male Corpse and successfully took the blade, another pair of enormous eyes had been watching him from the invisible world outside the bus. Just as he had once watched the Bus Inside the Pot from outside the pot?

If so, then Gao Tian had fallen into a Space-Time Vortex, trapped in a Self-Loop. Every generation of Gao Tian would do the same things and reach the same ending.

Gao Tian instinctively wanted to look up and gaze outside the bus.

He wanted to see whether those enormous eyes outside the pot were still watching him, as tiny as an ant inside the bus.

But just as he was about to raise his head, Gao Tian stopped himself. He kept his gaze straight ahead instead of doing what the "Gao Tian" from the previous time period had done.

He had to change something, even if only a little, with every Time Loop.

He wasn't a Puppet of Fate, an Actor of Time.

At least this time around, Gao Tian had forcibly stopped himself from looking up, changing that one action.

With a creak, the bus began to slow down before the next stop.

At some point, the bus had carried everyone into an endless wilderness. Its four wheels were still rolling along the road, but outside it, in the fields, Gao Tian saw countless human-shaped figures impaled on wooden stakes. They swayed in the night wind, making a rustling sound.

They were all scarecrows.

It seemed they had reached the rice paddies.

But the number of scarecrows in the fields beyond the road was enormous. A quick glance revealed hundreds, if not thousands.

Would a normal farmhouse make a thousand scarecrows for its rice paddies?

This definitely wasn't a normal place. The bus had left the city center in less than ten minutes. There was no way they could have covered that distance in that time. Without realizing it, they had already been taken into the Inner World by the bus.

"Scarecrow Dock. The bus is approaching the stop.

"Passengers who need to get off, please gather your personal belongings and exit through the rear door."

The mechanical female voice crackled out of the malfunctioning old-fashioned speaker.

Gao Tian tightened his grip on the Terror Blade. He saw the bus's front doors creak open, a long shadow stretching inside as a passenger boarded.

The passenger count on the screen jumped to 6 in red.

At the Scarecrow stop, an Old Woman boarded at a slow pace. Her back was hunched, and she gripped a cane as she walked with difficulty.

In appearance, she wasn't much different from an ordinary old woman.

If not for the Black Cross driven upside down into her head.

The cross was about half a meter tall and buried deep in the Old Woman's skull. It had surely gone all the way through. As soon as she entered the bus, the other end of the cross touched the roof of the Supernatural Bus, making a metallic clank.

No one, Gao Tian included, dared even breathe loudly as they watched the Old Woman slowly approach along the aisle. The bus suppressed all the Vengeful Ghosts inside it, but who knew whether Ghosts would follow the rules? They were immortal. What did it matter if they killed someone?

The old woman, the Inverted Cross embedded in her head, fixed her murky gaze on Gao Tian and walked straight toward him.

Click.

The red passenger count on the screen at the front had just jumped to 6. Now it jumped to 7.

The Old Woman hadn't even taken a seat when another passenger boarded.