The whole of Iron Transformation City erupted in an instant.
"Hahahahaha-!"
Laughter exploded from the city lord's manor.
Then, deep in the alleys, behind the taverns, between roof tiles, and in the shadows of wells, the same laughter rang out all across Iron Transformation City.
They pounded the ground, slammed into walls, and tore at their own flesh, laughing like mad.
"We can get out..."
"This damned place!"
"It's finally open! Finally open!!"
Butcher Zhao stood before his meat counter, his thick shoulders shaking in spasms.
His split face still hung from his head, the flesh drooping on either side and swaying with his laughter.
A green-faced, fanged ghost head pushed halfway out, its scarlet eyes rolling upward to stare at the rift in the sky.
"The scent of the living..."
A strange gurgling rose from his throat, and he suddenly drew a deep breath.
"I can smell it!"
He raised both claws and viciously ripped apart the human skin covering his chest.
Black vapor shot skyward.
Resentment surged like a sea.
"Kill our way out!"
"Eat them!!"
"I want the blood of the living!!"
"To the mortal world! To the mortal world!!"
Countless ghostly figures charged madly out of the streets and alleys.
They smashed through towers, crushed roofs, and overturned stalls, lunging upward over broken tiles and splintered wood.
Every scarlet ghost eye fixed on the rift in the sky.
The rift hung above Great Black Mountain like a red-hot wound, slowly tearing wider.
Wind blew in through it.
The wind carried the scent of the mortal world.
The evil ghosts went utterly mad.
Some spread rotting wings of flesh and shot upward through the black smoke.
Others seized the backs of their fellows and used them to spring into the sky.
Thirteen thousand evil ghosts surged toward