Borrowing a Monster's Might

Captain Bai Ling was still hesitating, while the gray-robed people really did stand quietly where they were, making no strange moves.

Perhaps these people really could be trusted?

"Watch out!" Bai Ling's voice suddenly rang out behind the captain.

Startled, he turned just in time to see a gray shadow lunging at him.

Then he knew nothing more.

Meanwhile, Bai Ling and several other team members clearly saw a shapeless gray shadow suddenly shoot out of the nearby woods and pierce the captain's heart like a javelin!

The gray shadow then made a nimble turn, carrying the captain's corpse back into the forest mist and vanishing without a trace.

It all happened in a flash, and the gray shadow made no sound from beginning to end.

If not for Bai Ling's warning, they might not even have registered what had happened.

"That's it! That's what attacked us!" The gray-robed man looked at the others in Bai Ling's team. "Now do you believe me?"

"Don't believe him! They give off the same smell as that gray shadow! They're together!" Bai Ling shouted.

But under these circumstances, her teammates were clearly more inclined to side with the gray-robed people.

After all, Bai Ling had no evidence for anything she had said.

Bai Ling was, of course, well aware of this.

It wasn't that she had no way to prove it. It was just that, the moment these gray-robed people appeared, she had heard strange sounds coming from them, like weeping and pleading, like resentment and curses.

The sounds bored straight into her mind, churning through her brain like a red-hot iron rod and leaving her utterly unable to control herself!

Under those circumstances, managing to sound a warning was already the greatest contribution she could make.

Fortunately, as time passed, the sounds' influence gradually weakened, and Bai Ling slowly regained her senses.

Then she swiftly drew a small, silvery-white pistol from her waist.

"Bai Ling, don't do anything rash!"

"She's gone mad! Restrain her, quickly!"

Bai Ling's teammates and the gray-robed man shouted at the same time.

But unexpectedly, Bai Ling did not aim at the gray-robed man. Instead, she swung the muzzle toward the depths of the woods and fired.

Boom!

The tiny pistol unleashed a tremendous report and blast of air utterly out of proportion to its size, followed by an inhuman cry of pain from deep in the woods!

At the same time, the gray-robed man at the front shuddered. A wound bizarrely appeared at his waist, sticky blood slowly seeping from it.

Bai Ling's teammates immediately widened their eyes.

"Run!" Bai Ling called as she fled.

Only then did her teammates understand, frantically drawing their weapons as they retreated.

Just then, one of the gray-robed people standing at the back suddenly stepped forward and pressed himself against the one in front. Then he melted like modeling clay and attached himself to the first gray-robed man!

The wound at the gray-robed man's waist healed on its own, and he opened his mouth to let out a hoarse shriek.

To the others, the shriek merely sounded somewhat unpleasant, but Bai Ling reacted as though struck by lightning. She plunged headfirst to the ground, then struggled with her hands clutching her head.

The gray-robed man waved a hand indifferently, and the gray shadow burst out of the woods again, attacking Bai Ling's teammates.

The team members tried to fight back, but the gray shadow was incredibly fast, twisting and dodging amid bullets and blades of all kinds. Every strike hit an enemy precisely in the heart.

In less than a minute, all of Bai Ling's teammates were dead, leaving only her lying on the ground, gasping for breath.

"To think I'd run into a newcomer with such high spiritual sensitivity. With you, it won't matter even if the other sacrifices aren't fresh."

The gray-robed man walked up, grabbed Bai Ling by the hair, and carefully studied her face as though assessing the freshness of an ingredient.

"Help... me..."

Still weakened by the shriek's effects, Bai Ling could barely make her cries for help audible.

"Hmm, this reminds me of an old saying. How did it go again... Oh, you can scream your throat raw, but no one will come to save you. Why don't you try shouting 'raw throat'?" the gray-robed man said mockingly.

Capturing a high-grade sacrifice like Bai Ling had put him in an excellent mood, so much so that he even made a rare joke.

"Raw... throat..." Bai Ling actually called out.

It was unclear whether the shriek had left her delirious or she had simply given up in despair.

"Ha ha, hahahahahaha!" The gray-robed man seemed amused and burst into uncontrollable laughter.

He had long since learned that the people from the Consortium, the Black Blood Society, and the Adventurer Group had already entered the depths of the forest. Only a few independent teams remained nearby.

Under these circumstances, even if someone really did stumble upon them, it would only mean a few more corpses.

Suddenly, a sound came from the bushes nearby.

The gray-robed man's laughter cut off abruptly.

Pop!

A girl's head suddenly popped out of the bushes. She blinked at the gray-robed man and Bai Ling, looking delighted.

"Hey, I told you I wasn't lost! This is the place!"

Then a doll girl in a Gothic outfit, with a huge scythe on her back, swaggered out, dragging a pitch-black coffin.

It was Lilia.

She looked around curiously, then turned to the gray-robed man gripping Bai Ling's hair. "Were you the one laughing just now? What's so funny? Let me hear it!"

"Who are you? No, what are you?!" Unlike the carefree Lilia, the gray-robed man had let go of Bai Ling and taken a hostile stance the instant she appeared.

"I'm not a thing!" Lilia curled her lip in distaste.

"Whatever you are, you aren't part of the 'player' faction, are you?" The gray-robed man stared at the doll girl, his tone wary but fairly amicable.

"I'm only interested in 'players.' There's no need for us to fight. How about we pretend we never saw each other?"

"Who exactly are you? Why are you hunting players?" Lilia spoke these words at Lin Yuan's telepathic prompting.

For now, this member of the Diving Club did not seem to consider himself a player. Instead, he was considerably friendlier toward an eerie being like Lilia.

So Lin Yuan decided to stay hidden for now and see whether he could draw out more information.

"We work for the Crawlers," the gray-robed man said slowly.

"Crawlers? What are those?" Lilia continued questioning him.

"You don't know? No, you aren't one of the Sunken Folk. What exactly are you?!" The gray-robed man's tone suddenly changed. Without waiting for Lilia's answer, he beckoned with a finger, and a gray shadow lunged out of the forest, driving straight at Lilia's heart.

But Lilia was a wooden doll, so this attack did not pierce straight through her as it had the others.

After sinking into Lilia's chest, the gray streak left a large hole and did not come back out.

Lilia frowned, reached into the hole, and fished out a fat gray caterpillar.

"What the heck is this?"

She pinched it with her hand, snapping the caterpillar into two pieces.

"Aah!"

The gray-robed man screamed. He, too, split in two at the waist, as though a giant had pinched him apart.

Just then, one of the gray-robed people standing behind him hurried over and fused with the first, who immediately returned to normal.

The gray caterpillar on the ground recovered along with him and hastily darted into the woods.

"Hmph, didn't expect that, did you? All these people I brought are my puppet bodies. I can revive once for every body I have! And with such a serious wound, how much longer can you last?" the gray-robed man said in an eerie voice.

Lilia froze, then looked at him with a little sympathy.

"What? Your revivals have a limit?"