Eighth Passenger

The Inverted Cross Old Lady slowly walked down the aisle, a strong stench of decay mixed with blood assaulting the senses. As she brushed past Su Jiu, the newcomer's last line of defense crumbled. He blurted out subconsciously:

"Gao Tian, please, think of something!"

Gao Tian remained motionless, his hand gripping the Terror Blade, merely observing.

The Inverted Cross Old Lady didn't even glance at her, walking straight past. She headed towards Gao Tian's seat.

The stench of corpse had already formed a tangible presence. Compared to Su Jiu, she seemed more interested in herself...

Gao Tian's hand pressed down on the hilt of the Terror Blade, his thumb twitching incessantly. This blade had been dormant for too long, and in the hands of its new master, it too yearned to be drawn, to slay ghosts.

He didn't rashly draw the blade. The old lady was currently a passenger, and according to the bus rules, passengers were not allowed to kill each other.

Moreover, the price of activating the Terror Blade was that one of the three living people on the bus—Su Jiu, Zhou Yan, and Ling Feifei—had to die as a sacrifice to it.

The situation hadn't deteriorated to that extent yet.

The Inverted Cross Old Lady walked to the seat behind Gao Tian and sat down. The bloody hole on the back of her head, made by the inverted cross, was still trickling blood, leaving behind a trail of bloodstains, deep and shallow, behind her.

She simply sat down, closed her cloudy eyes, and entered a dormant state. She had no intentions towards Gao Tian, who was within arm's reach.

Gao Tian secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

The bus's suppression of ghosts still existed. At such close proximity, the old lady still sat like an ordinary passenger, showing no intent to kill. It seemed she was still adhering to the passenger code.

At the same time, a new figure appeared at the front door of the bus.

It was a tall man wearing a trench coat. The inside of his clothes was stained with blood, his face was weary, and his hair and beard were messy, looking like he hadn't groomed himself in a while.

After boarding, this man didn't emit the stench of a corpse, but rather the smell of sweat from days of travel without bathing. Yet, at this moment, this smell was reassuring; it was the smell of a living person.

After boarding, the man's gaze first fell on the tall male corpse, then shifted to the Inverted Cross Old Lady, and finally flickered back and forth between Gao Tian, Su Jiu, and Zhou Yan, the living individuals, as if to confirm if they were also of his kind.

Both sides froze for a moment, neither daring to speak rashly. They were afraid of mistaking a ghost for a human and approaching them, triggering their killing rule.

The man found a seat and sat down. Regardless of whether he was alive or dead, the number of passengers on the bus had now reached seven. If no one or ghost got off at the next stop, and a new passenger boarded, then a vote to expel someone would take place.

Gao Tian glanced at the bus schedule. The starting and ending stations were "Reality." Each stop along the way had strange names, such as "Blood Gate Village," "Old Town," "Bloody Foundling Ward," "Dexin Hospital"...

Pagoda Elementary School station was the eleventh stop. Thinking that it would take nine more stops to reach that station, he wondered how many more passengers would come and go along the way.

In the silent carriage, the one who broke the deadlock first was the ignorant and fearless Ling Feifei:

"Hey, you in front, are you human or ghost? How did you end up on this bus?"

"You're not here to complete a mission like us, are you..."

The man looked somewhat surprised by Ling Feifei's bold move. His sharp gaze swept over her again:

"I'm looking for someone.

"I've been running around in this godforsaken place for over a month and haven't met a single living person. I didn't expect to meet four at once today."

"The others on this bus, are they your companions?"

Gao Tian was stunned.

After entering the Inner World, they still felt perilous even within the bus's protection. This trench coat man had been in the Inner World for a month. Judging by how he boarded, he seemed capable of freely moving between different supernatural locations, indicating very strong capabilities.

However, Gao Tian didn't rashly approach him. Although the man looked human, who knew if he was human or ghost. Ling Feifei, who loved to talk, could ask.

As expected, Ling Feifei, unable to hold back, blurted out:

"We're from the Living Person Apartment. That cursed place makes us complete missions every so often.

"This time, our objective is Pagoda Elementary School. Do you know Pagoda Elementary School, uncle? Oh right, you said you were looking for someone earlier. Are any of your relatives in this Inner World? Which stop do you get off at?"

The trench coat man pondered for a moment and introduced himself:

"Although I don't understand what the Living Person Apartment means, I assume it's a curse-like mechanism that forces you into the Inner World.

"I'm different from you. I'm a Ghost Hunter and have dealt with various Supernatural Events. I've retired for some time.

"But last year, a Vengeful Ghost dragged my wife and my only Child into the Inner World, and their whereabouts are still unknown.

"To find my Child, I've been using this bus to travel through the Inner World for over a month. I nearly died several times during this period, and I still haven't found any trace of my Child."

He glanced at his watch, as if confirming the passage of time in the real world.

"We are all Humans. You want to survive, and I want to find someone. We should not interfere with each other. When it's time to vote later, we Humans will definitely unite and help each other."

As he said, any normal person would know that Humans on the bus must stick together, otherwise, they wouldn't survive among the Vengeful Ghosts.

"Oh right, my name is Shen Nian. My companions call me Shen Sanqiang. You can also call me A Nian."

The man said. His trench coat looked bulky underneath, as if hiding several guns.

Inside the carriage, the Ghost Hunter who called himself Shen Nian chatted intermittently with Ling Feifei and Zhou Yan. The atmosphere was so oppressive it made one feel drowsy. Just then, Bus 444 braked slightly, dispelling some of the drowsiness of the living passengers inside. The third stop, Dexin Hospital, arrived.

As the front door opened, Shen Nian's hand rested on the Gun beneath his trench coat, his entire body on high alert.

An experienced Ghost Hunter is always on guard when facing ghosts. Shen Nian had been in the Inner World for a long time, knowing that Bus 444 was just a Supernatural Event, and it was entirely possible to encounter even more terrifying entities that would ignore the bus's rules and kill people directly.

The Inner World was a completely unnamable place, and staying on the bus did not mean absolute safety.

On this stop, the gray fog outside was unusually thick for some reason. Less than a few dozen seconds after the bus doors opened, the unnamable mist slowly drifted in, greatly reducing visibility inside the carriage.

Through the car window, in the distance, a Gothic White Hospital Building could be seen faintly in the gray sea.

A long shadow fell in front of the carriage.

Click, click.

The passenger boarding this time seemed exceptionally tall. They almost reached the ceiling of the carriage.

After the Eighth Passenger boarded the bus, the red number on the screen changed from 7 to 8. At the same time, upon seeing the other party's appearance, Gao Tian's pupils contracted into two points, filled with fear and shock. The veins on the back of his hand, gripping the knife hilt, bulged. It took immense willpower for him to suppress the urge to draw his blade immediately.

He absolutely never expected to encounter this one in the Inner World.

The one boarding was also a tall "male" dressed entirely in black. The only difference was its extreme height; the topmost head on its body had to be constantly lowered after entering the carriage to avoid hitting the ceiling.

Below the First Head was stacked the Second Head, a Middle-aged Lady who had just applied pink lipstick.

Below the lady was a Head Below Old Man, a gaunt elder. Due to his extreme age, his face was too deeply lined to tell if it was a grandfather or grandmother.

Below the old man was a chubby Little Boy, constantly chewing something with a crunching sound.

Below the Little Boy's head was a Soldier, wearing tactical goggles and armed to the teeth...

This newly arrived passenger's body was composed of Countless Stacked Heads.

Below the heads were more heads. Where others had torsos and legs, this creature had heads.

As it walked crookedly, it resembled a twisted Centipede of Heads. Its black outerwear clung tightly to this Body of Heads. From the silhouette of its back, it could barely be considered a "male" who was quite tall and walked strangely.

When its outerwear opened, countless Faces and gazes under the Trench Coat would turn towards him, a sight that would surely cause sanity to plummet.

Gao Tian, of course, recognized this Ghost. Or rather, he had never seen its True Form with his own eyes, but he had heard its Name in legends.

It was the Four-headed Vengeful Ghost that had taken Xu Yuan's head after killing him at the Sapphire Mall.

This Vengeful Ghost's lifelong hobby was to collect the heads of its victims after killing them.

The first time Xu Yuan saw it, it only had four heads. After a period of absence, the heads under its Trench Coat were dense, as if connected to an endless Abyss, impossible to quantify.

Simultaneously, with the Eighth Passenger's arrival, the First Round of Voting on the bus officially began.

All the Vengeful Ghosts on the bus had temporarily awakened.