"Whoo~"
Leaning against a crooked tree, Li Hai let out a weary sigh. His face was pale and ashen, and a foot-long stream of white breath tinged with blood drifted from his lips.
"Using this Blood Devouring Burning Heart... really takes it out of you."
A life-burning skill was indeed exhausting, but its effects were also quite impressive.
In this mist-shrouded, gloomy forest, an ordinary person couldn't travel very far even in half a day.
Even a martial artist of Guo Huaijin's caliber could manage, at most, a speed of ten zhang per second.
But Li Hai, after using the Heart Burn Divine Ability, had crossed a distance of twenty or thirty li at a speed of fifteen or sixteen zhang per second in the time it took to drink a cup of tea.
This place was so far from the Three-Fork Junction that it seemed safe enough for now.
"If I'm safe, you're safe."
Li Hai looked coldly at Guo Shiwen, who was lying on the ground and slowly coming to. "If I'm not safe, then you... huh?"
Suddenly, he spotted an old farmer carrying a hoe, slowly making his way through the mist across a clearing in the forest not far away.
"Old sir, please stop!"
Li Hai took three steps in two and hurried across a dozen zhang of thin mist to the old farmer's side. Smiling, he asked, "Old sir, where are you..."
The moment the words left his mouth, his eyes widened, and he froze in place.
Only when he got closer did Li Hai realize that the old farmer's face, neck, and hands were covered in large patches of burns, flesh charred away to the bone.
No, they weren't merely scars.
On closer inspection, the old farmer was nothing but a broken, charred corpse, burned until he had turned to carbon, with no living blood or flesh left.
A corpse could still carry a hoe around?
Damn, this was a ghost!
"You're lost, young man, aren't you?"
The charred-corpse farmer opened his toothless, tongueless mouth, little more than a hollow cavity, and smiled with an honest simplicity. "Otherwise, why would you have come to our poor, out-of-the-way village?"
Who knew how Li Hai had managed to read an expression of "honest simplicity" on a charred, rotting corpse's face?
But that wasn't important.
What truly mattered was the old farmer's status panel—
Character Name: Unknown Level and Rank: Ghost Path → Dead Soul Skills: Ghost Body Soul Remains Traits: [Ghost Body Level 1][Ghostly Image Level 1] Stronger Fragment: None
That was right. After Orthodox Martial Arts and Bloodline Divine Ability, in such a short time, Li Hai had discovered a third cultivation system on this "farmer"—the Ghost Path!
And at the same moment he saw the ghost's status panel, Li Hai was surprised to find that he could learn the other's skill, Ghost Body Soul Remains, without any hindrance.
No, it wasn't a skill.
Only after the system "identified" it—or perhaps "explained" it—did Li Hai suddenly understand.
As it turned out, this so-called Ghost Body Soul Remains was actually the old farmer's fundamental nature as a ghost.
By analogy, it could be regarded as something like bloodline or constitution.
In other words, if Li Hai learned this Soul Remains ability, he might become a... ghost himself.
"Hm? What smells so good?"
Just as Li Hai hesitated over whether to learn this ghost-making ability, the charred-corpse ghost, dressed like a farmer, suddenly sniffed and muttered, "It's a little like watermelon. Tsk~ What a strong fragrance."
As the old ghost muttered, its expression grew visibly more hideous, swiftly changing from honest and simple to greedy and ravenous.
At the same time, its appetite-filled gaze fell on Li Hai... no, on the person behind him.
Following its gaze, Li Hai looked over and saw, in the distance—
A dozen zhang away, Guo Shiwen had already woken up. Clutching his severed hand, he limped as he fled toward the depths of the Ghost Forest.
Whoosh—
The next moment, the charred-corpse ghost vanished from before Li Hai's eyes. It crossed the dozen zhang in an instant and appeared behind Guo Shiwen. Then it threw its head back and let out a howl as its mouth and half its face split into eight gaping pieces. From behind, it sank its teeth viciously into Guo Shiwen's shoulder and neck.
Crack! Crack!
"Ah! Aah! Help me!!"
Amid the sounds of bones shattering and flesh tearing, Guo Shiwen immediately collapsed to his knees, screaming.
Then, in a shadowy clearing beneath the trees, a dozen zhang away and devoid of light, a bloody, horrifying scene unfolded: a ghost devouring a man.
Huff, huff!
Chomp, chomp!
The charred-corpse ghost devoured him at astonishing speed. In just a few breaths, everything above Guo Shiwen's chest and abdomen had disappeared, leaving behind only a severed torso gushing blood and a messy heap of bloody scraps.
Perhaps it had eaten its fill and had its fun. The charred-corpse ghost gradually slowed down, then turned its head and fixed its eerie gaze on Li Hai in the distance.
Feeling the ghost's icy stare and undisguised malice, Li Hai thought, Damn, this thing's bloodlust has taken over. Looks like it wants to eat me too... Fine, I'll become a ghost as well. Let's see if you'll still try to eat me!
He didn't hesitate any longer. He immediately and decisively learned the ghost's "bloodline," Ghost Body Soul Remains, and in the very instant he mastered it, pushed the skill to its limit with a single thought.
Whoosh~
As if he had plunged to the bottom of a thousand-zhang-deep, dark lake, Li Hai suddenly felt the space around him—above, below, and on every side—filled with a sinister aura so strange it chilled him to the bone.
The aura writhed and danced like countless invisible snakes and insects, hissing as it forcibly burrowed into his body and even his soul.
The process brought no pain at all, only endless cold and numbness.
To describe it, it felt much like the local-anesthetic surgery Li Hai had undergone at a hospital in his previous life to remove a ganglion cyst.
He had been anesthetized and couldn't feel much pain, yet he could still clearly sense the dreadful sensation of a scalpel slicing through skin and flesh.
It was the same now.
Though he felt no pain, Li Hai could still sense the intense discomfort as wisps of dark energy bored through his skin, pierced his bones, and tore through his soul.
Fortunately, the process passed as swiftly as an illusion. He had only just begun to sense it when it vanished without a trace.
At the same time, this meant that Li Hai had truly become a ghost.
Or rather, he had become a... human who possessed martial arts, divine abilities, and a living body, as well as the abilities and fundamental nature of a ghost.
Master Name: Li Hai Level and Rank: Orthodox Martial Arts → Force-Body Circulation, Bloodline Divine Ability → Lower Grade, Ghost Path → Dead Soul Skills: Five Animals QigongTiger Claw Blade FistBlood Devouring Burning HeartGhost Body Soul Remains Traits: [Soul Strengthening Level 1][Finger Claw Level 1][Berserk Level 1][Ghost Body Level 1][Ghostly Image Level 1] Stronger Fragment: None
And now that he had truly acquired the fundamental nature of a ghost, Li Hai instantly understood the specific effects of the traits known as [Ghost Body] and [Ghostly Image].
The former allowed Li Hai to move freely through walls and rocks like a genuine ghost, and to ignore ordinary physical contact and attacks.
As for the latter, it allowed him to use ghostly tricks on living people, such as making them think they were trapped in a ghostly maze or had gone blind, playing them around in circles.
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