After glancing at the token, Li Hai casually slipped it into his pocket.
Then he turned around and took out the jade box called the Soul-Binding Cocoon.
According to the old man, a vicious ghost was sealed inside. It had wiped out everyone at this outpost and was extremely dangerous.
But that very danger was what made Li Hai intensely interested.
So he wanted to release it.
As for what the old man had said earlier about handing the box over to the Demon-Slaying Division headquarters to deal with, Li Hai figured there was no need to go to all that trouble.
Either way, someone would have to deal with it. He might as well put it to use as scrap and feed it to Guiyou Grotto-Heaven to unlock a new building. That would be more worthwhile.
With that thought, Li Hai strolled out of the storeroom and into the open space outside. Then he raised his hand and abruptly tore the talisman off the jade box.
Hiss~~
At a faint, almost inaudible cry, an utterly gloomy, sinister atmosphere instantly flooded the area around Li Hai.
But after sensing the evil aura, he sighed in disappointment.
"So after all that, it's only a Fierce Soul-level ghost. I thought you'd be a lot stronger."
Even so, judging by the foul, sinister aura roiling all around, this ghost was clearly far stronger than Asu, despite both being at the Fierce Soul level. It had likely reached the very peak of that rank.
"Heh heh heh. Whatever. Let's see what new tricks you've got."
Laughing loudly, Li Hai—his face deathly pale and greenish, and riddled with corpse spots—suddenly floated fifty feet into the air. Great waves of dense, profound resentment and fiendish energy surged from every part of his body.
At the same time, an Invisible Evil Spirit—fierce and savage, constantly thrashing and roaring—appeared without warning in the dark void around him.
Roar!
As soon as the spirit appeared, it roared and sniffed about like a ravenous evil wolf that had gone hungry for a hundred years. It darted down to the ground and began rapidly scouring the wide area around it.
It wanted to find the unknown fierce ghost that had escaped from the jade box and was now hiding somewhere.
As it searched, the evil spirit cackled with wild abandon, seeming to mock the ghost for cowardly hiding itself.
Such an utterly blatant provocation naturally enraged the vicious ghost.
The next moment, a sound like countless tiny snakes and insects wriggling rapidly suddenly came from the cracks and crevices scattered across the training ground below Li Hai.
Following the sound with his gaze, Li Hai saw that what was crawling through the cracks in the ground wasn't snakes or insects at all, but countless bloody, mangled fingers—tens of thousands upon tens of thousands.
Like a swarm of worms, the countless fingers wriggled and twitched as they burrowed out of the cracks. Once they emerged, they quickly pieced themselves together like building blocks, forming one horrifying human figure after another—some female, some male, some children, some old people.
After the several hundred "people" slowly rose to their feet, they all looked up in unison. Their gray-white eyes, made of fingernails, fixed on Li Hai as he hung in the air. In voices of every pitch, they cursed him viciously as one:
"You deserve to die... You deserve to die... You deserve to die... You deserve to die... You deserve to die... You deserve to die... You deserve to die... You deserve to die..."
The invisible curses were like tangible poisoned arrows. The moment they left the mouths of those several hundred "people," they gathered into a surging torrent and hurtled upward toward Li Hai at tremendous speed.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—
The torrent moved far too quickly. Before Li Hai could react, it engulfed him completely, plunging him into a boiling ocean of Evil Intent.
Under the impact of this frenzied Evil Intent, ordinary people would be no match. Even the steeliest Steel-Grade Martial Artist would quickly have their mind corroded and their soul consciousness dissolved, reduced to a mindless husk.
But after Li Hai was swept into the torrent of Evil Intent, he remained miraculously unharmed. He even sucked it all up instead. Then his body twisted and swelled grotesquely before suddenly splitting into countless horrifying, eerie severed fingers, which dripped to the ground amid splattering blood.
That's right. As soon as the Finger Ghost appeared, Li Hai had clearly seen its character interface. With a single thought, he learned all its skills and raised them to their highest levels.
The ghost's character interface was—
Character Name: Unknown
Rank: Ghost Path → Fierce Soul
Skills: Ghost Body Soul RemainsDelicate Ghostly FingersRed Dust Yin Gathering Method (Incomplete)
Traits: [Ghost Body Level 2][Ghostly Image Level 2][Demon Finger Level 2][Evil Intent Level 2]
Stronger Fragment: None
As the basis for existence shared by all ghosts, Ghost Body Soul Remains went without saying. This ghost's true secret arts were the two Ghost Path techniques that followed: Delicate Ghostly Fingers and the incomplete Red Dust Yin Gathering Method.
The former allowed a ghost to split into countless severed fingers, each carrying its own thoughts and consciousness, and then overwhelm its enemies like a swarm of insects.
Besides this attack that won through sheer numbers, the evil art could also control a small number of fingers individually to perform all kinds of delicate tasks. It was so precise that the fingers could even be used like building blocks to piece together countless people, animals, and objects.
As long as the surrounding yin energy remained, the severed fingers could continue to split and mutate under the evil power of the ghost art Delicate Ghostly Fingers.
As for Red Dust Yin Gathering Method, it was an entirely new method of absorbing yin energy, completely different from both Evil Land Yin Gathering Method and Golden Ridge Yin Gathering.
The first method absorbed the yin and evil energy of the Evil Spirit Land, while the second drew in yin energy from deep mountain forests.
Red Dust Yin Gathering, on the other hand, absorbed the poisonous yin energy lurking in the mortal world.
And just as the Evil method let ghosts control the countless evil energies of the Evil Spirit Land, while the Golden method let them conceal their breath and energy, hiding their form without a trace, this Red method also gave ghosts a strange ability.
That ability was to refine and store the malice in people's hearts and the countless grudges of the mortal world, then gather them into a torrent and bombard their enemies.
But... no matter how bizarre and powerful the Finger Ghost's skills were, they now all belonged to Li Hai.
So when the countless severed fingers he had split himself into fell to the ground, they too began stacking and piecing themselves together. They quickly formed one blurry human figure after another, gathering into a group to curse back at the several hundred "people" formed by the Finger Ghost:
"You're the one who deserves to die... You're the one who deserves to die... You're the one who deserves to die... You're the one who deserves to die... You're the one who deserves to die... You're the one who deserves to die... You're the one who deserves to die... You're the one who deserves to die..."
Whoosh~
In an instant, the invisible curses of several hundred "Li Hais" likewise condensed into a torrent of Evil Intent and thundered toward the "group" of Finger Ghosts, who had been left utterly stunned by the sight.
Boom!
In that moment, the vast, dilapidated training ground was completely engulfed by surging torrents of Evil Intent. Under their influence, every scene blurred and twisted, like a painting doused with boiling water.
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