Shen Ye took out his phone and pressed record.
"All right, say your incantation now. I'll play it for the undead."
Big Skeleton stiffened, then said reluctantly, "We usually chant it live. Do you have to use such a passionless method?"
"Buddy, I know you're angry," Shen Ye said, "but let me tell you, you're nothing but a head now. You can't interfere in their fight at all. If you actually joined in, you'd only get killed-recording is the safest way. Don't think too highly of yourself."
Those were the words Big Skeleton had said to him earlier. Now he had thrown them back.
"...Fine."
Big Skeleton spoke resentfully.
To recover my strength, can't I just put up with it?
Shen Ye placed the phone beside the Ring.
Big Skeleton obediently recited the incantation once.
Beep!
The recording ended.
Shen Ye took a deep breath and put all his Attribute Points into agility.
-His agility reached 10.1.
He suddenly pushed the door open and walked out into the long corridor. Raising the microphone to his phone, he immediately began playing the incantation.
At the same time, he canceled Dark Whisper.
All the corpses stopped singing.
The entire Hotel fell silent. Only the relentless clash of weapons rose from the first floor.
The next instant.
The undead incantation began echoing through the Hotel:
"O abyssal shadow wandering at the bottom of the underworld, let the power of our skeletal spirits' wishes form a mandala, helping you cross the barrier between life and death, and at this grand banquet of souls, become one with us as an endless throne of bones, calling for the mercy of the supreme one."
"-Mother of the Shadowy Skeletons, King of the Ghouls, Underworld Lord Micteticashiva."
"Bestow your blessing upon me, that I may spread your majesty among all living beings!"
The incantation ended.
Shen Ye raised the microphone and called out, "My friends, I just played a few lines. Does everyone know what they were? Tell me!"
-Dark Whisper activated!
Tens of thousands of corpses began chanting in unison:
"O abyssal shadow wandering at the bottom of the underworld..."
This was the chanting of the dead, completely different from the recording on his phone.
The moment the dead chanted the first sentence, Shen Ye suddenly noticed wisps of pale flame rising from the floor.
"The Soulfire has risen!" Big Skeleton said excitedly.
"We need to wait until the chanting ends, right?" Shen Ye asked.
"That's right-this is only the first step, but it's also the crucial one!" Big Skeleton said.
"All right," Shen Ye said.
By then, the tens of thousands of undead had reached the second line:
"...Let the power of our skeletal spirits' wishes form a mandala..."
Pale flames spread rapidly across the floor, filling the corridor and spreading in every direction.
The entire Hotel seemed to become a gigantic pale torch.
Shen Ye immediately ran toward the top floor.
With such a phenomenon, his opponent would definitely think he was hiding off to one side, preparing to unleash a powerful move in secret.
His opponent might risk everything to kill him!
-He had to buy time!
The tens of thousands of corpses continued chanting in unison:
"Helping you cross the barrier between life and death, and at this grand banquet of souls..."
The pale flames gathered, forming unicorn skeletons with bony wings in midair, flying back and forth around the Hotel.
"No-you damned little bastard, what are you doing?!"
The man's voice rang out from the first floor, filled with shock and fury.
Xiao Mengyu's sword attacks grew fiercer. She slashed at him with all her strength, trying to stop him from turning his attention to Shen Ye.
But the man paid no heed. He took the slash with his back, letting it carve a huge wound into his body.
He even used the force of the slash to leap with all his might, swinging outside the building. With a wave, he flung out seven or eight steel wires and pulled himself up toward the higher floors.
"Shen Ye!"
Xiao Mengyu's expression changed. She sliced through the ceiling with her sword and charged upward.
Both approached Shen Ye at tremendous speed.
At that moment, however, Shen Ye abandoned his climb toward the rooftop.
The instant the man shouted, he had just reached the ninth floor. Upon hearing his voice, he immediately turned and rushed into the ninth-floor corridor.
By the time he reached a certain room and pressed his hand against its door-
The man had already landed in the corridor.
Xiao Mengyu had yet to arrive!
"...Become one with us as an endless throne of bones, calling for the mercy of the supreme one."
"-Mother of the Shadowy Skeletons, King of the Ghouls, Underworld Lord Micteticashiva!"
The dead chanted.
All the flying unicorn skeletons stopped in midair around the Hotel and assumed postures of prayer.
Something seemed about to happen.
"I'll kill you! Right now!"
The man roared furiously and vanished from where he stood.
Shen Ye pushed the room's door open and rushed inside.
The man appeared behind him and lunged forward with all his strength-
Bang!
The man smashed through the door and entered the suite, only to find corpses covering the floor, with no trace of the boy.
The door was pushed open again.
Shen Ye returned from the Nightmare World and landed in the corridor.
Only then did Xiao Mengyu arrive.
Shen Ye slipped past Xiao Mengyu. She blocked the doorway with her sword and engaged the man, while Shen Ye sprinted at full speed toward the stairs leading down.
It took time to describe all this-
But it happened in just a few breaths!
In a flash, the situation changed drastically once again.
The tens of thousands of corpses chanted the final line:
"Bestow your blessing upon me, that I may spread your majesty among all living beings!"
The void opened.
An inverted White Bone Altar appeared in the dark void above the Hotel.
Big Skeleton said excitedly:
"It worked! It worked! Now the dead need to willingly pour their power into me, and I'll be able to recover my strength!"
Swish, swish, swish, swish, swish-
The air wailed as countless steel wires filled the corridor and stairwell, slicing relentlessly after Shen Ye.
-This was the decisive moment!
Shen Ye twisted, took several steps along the wall, and dodged a wave of slicing wires. He immediately charged forward, crossed the long corridor in an instant, and raced down the stairs.
The densely packed steel wires skimmed past him as he nimbly evaded every lethal attack.
Deer Walk Beneath the Moon-
Dodge, charge, sidestep!
This was an Elven battlefield movement technique!
"Everyone, the time for revenge has come. Lend me all your strength-"
Shen Ye leaped into the air and let his body fall:
"We only have this one chance!"
"Please give me your strength. I'll avenge everyone!"
"Please, all of you, help me-"
Holding up the microphone, he roared with all his might:
"-I'm going to kill him!!!"
The corpses were no longer chanting any incantation.
Perhaps they were already dead.
But at that moment, all tens of thousands of corpses opened their eyes, letting tears stream down their cheeks.
Death-
Death for no reason, everything taken away, never again able to experience anything in the human world.
How tragic was that?
If they could take revenge...
Pale light gradually emerged from the bodies of the dead.
The lights shot skyward and entered the inverted White Bone Altar in the sky.
All the densely packed Undead Runes on the altar lit up.
The ritual had succeeded!
An illusory, towering figure descended upon the altar.
She looked down at the earth-
The next instant.
Shen Ye heard the wail of tearing air beside his ears.
"What a joke. You think you can kill me?"
A mocking voice sounded behind him.
The man was drenched in blood, covered in horrifying sword wounds, but he had chased after him regardless.
He had finally caught up with Shen Ye!
Swish-
He raised his hand high and instantly released clusters of sharp steel wires, gathering them into a steel flower bud on the verge of blooming.
Once the bud bloomed, a life was sure to wither.
"Blood Rose, the time has come for you to bloom again."
The man murmured.
His target had evaded repeated attempts on his life, proving he was no ordinary opponent.
Then.
Kill him.
What he enjoyed most was standing behind his opponent, watching his life turn into a blood-red rose and wither away from the world completely.
At that moment, the man grew excited too!
"Die!"
With a furious roar, he released all his steel wires.
Clang, clang, clatter, clang!
A series of piercing clashes rang out, accompanied by flickering sparks.
The steel wires scattered in disarray, one after another, without blossoming into bloodstained flowers.
Boom-
Amid a deafening impact, the man was sent flying and landed far away in the Hotel lobby.
The moment he hit the ground, the man immediately looked toward Shen Ye.
Shen Ye was still in midair.
-He stood on the shoulder of a giant skeleton over four meters tall.
Pale flames rose all over the skeleton. It held a massive bone sword engraved with densely packed undead spells, which had cut through all the steel wires.
"It isn't a joke-"
Shen Ye pointed at him and said softly:
"If I say I'll kill you, I'll kill you. A day later, a second late, and it's my fault."
"I'm going to kill you right now."
"-In front of all the dead!"
The man froze for an instant, then suddenly cried out involuntarily:
"Calamity! You can actually summon a calamity!"