"The gravekeeper's job is yours now. I have some advice for you, passed down by word of mouth from the previous gravekeeper and the one before him."
"First and most important, remember this: no matter what happens, don't leave this house at night!"
"Every gravekeeper who came to harm before did so because they left this house. As long as you stay here, no matter what happens outside, ignore it-even if you see corpses crawling out from under their gravestones and circling the house. All you have to do is wait for daylight. This house is the safest place in the entire cemetery."
"Also, if you accidentally leave the house and encounter anything strange or bizarre, pretend you don't know anything and that nothing has happened."
"If you can get back to the house, do so. If you can't, go to the nearest Evernight Church for help and tell the priest what happened to you."
"The Church of Evernight will take care of everything. Of course, that's assuming you can escape the cemetery alive."
"That's about it. I hope you can pass this job on to the next gravekeeper without trouble."
The gravekeeper recalled what his predecessor had told him when he handed over the job.
At the time, he had thought the man was exaggerating the danger, even deliberately trying to sound mysterious. But now he understood everything. Unfortunately, it was too late.
The gravekeeper turned stiffly, intending to return to the house, but the little girl's delicate hand gripped him like an iron clamp, leaving him unable to move.
Just then, the little girl's voice came from behind him:
"Mister, my mommy and daddy are over there. Why are you going back?"
"Do you hate me too? Don't you want to help me find my mommy and daddy either?"
"That won't do. You have to keep your promises. That's basic manners. Otherwise, you'll be punished."
The gravekeeper felt like dying. He hated himself for meddling just now.
"I forgot something," the gravekeeper said, turning to look at the little girl. He tried to smile, but the expression he managed was uglier than if he were crying.
"Can I go back inside and get it? I'll be back very quickly."
"No!" The little girl shook her head.
"You can't go back, mister. You won't come out again if you do."
With that, she forcibly dragged the gravekeeper forward.
Unable to resist, the gravekeeper could only follow his predecessor's warning and pretend he had noticed nothing as the little girl dragged him along.
"Jingle!"
"Jingle!!"
The bell rang again, and now the gravekeeper found it unbearably grating.
What made his heart sink even further was that the little girl wasn't heading out of the cemetery at all. She was taking him deeper inside.
Before long, they reached the farthest part of the cemetery, where he saw a person wearing a black cloak.
"Daddy, I finally found you!" the little girl shouted, then threw herself at the cloaked figure.
The gravekeeper seized the opportunity to turn and leave, but the next instant, the figure appeared in front of him.
A low, hoarse voice came from beneath the cloak:
"Thank you for helping my daughter find her way here. This is your reward."
A pale arm extended a ten-pound note toward the gravekeeper, but he nearly fainted.
More than a dozen transparent arms were growing from that arm, reaching out from different places. Some belonged to the elderly, some to children, some to men and some to women.
But every arm clawed and snatched at the gravekeeper.
Seeing that the gravekeeper made no move, the figure raised his head:
"What's wrong? Don't you like the reward I gave you?"
The gravekeeper's heart skipped another beat, and his whole body began to tremble.
He saw countless transparent faces beneath the hood. They constantly shifted and intertwined, sometimes several appearing at once, crowded together beneath the hood.
"Mister, please accept Daddy's gift!"
The gravekeeper felt someone tug at his clothes. He instinctively looked toward the voice, and his pupils contracted sharply as a chill of terror spread through his body.
The little girl looked just as she had before, but her body had become transparent. More importantly, her eye sockets were empty and pitch-black, and red liquid was flowing from her eyes, nose and mouth.
The gravekeeper swore that all the horror stories he had ever read put together were less frightening than this.
But for some reason, perhaps because he was too frightened, the gravekeeper actually reached out and accepted the ten-pound note.
Then he asked in a trembling voice, "I... can I leave now?"
"Of course. You can leave whenever you like."
The gravekeeper started walking.
"Tap!"
"Tap, tap, tap!!!"
He walked faster and faster with every step. Once he had left the cemetery, he broke into a run with all his might, as though some terrifying existence were chasing him.
Inside the cemetery, Wilt pulled back his black hood and muttered to himself, somewhat curious:
"Is the gravekeeper really that mentally tough?"
"The Potion has clearly been digested, which means he saw me as a Monster, but he still retained his basic reason."
"Is this what ordinary people's inner cultivation is like in the world of mysteries?"
Wilt shook his head and thought no more about it. He released all the souls inside him and said to them:
"Next, I'm going to send you into the cycle of reincarnation. Don't resist!"
Wilt took out the Sarira and infused it with Spirituality, then began activating it according to the Scripture of Deliverance from Misfortune.
"Hum!!!"
The Sarira emitted a golden light, and the golden light previously sent into the transparent souls lit up as well.
As the two lights reflected off each other, the transparent souls were completely suffused with golden light. Finally, they grew more and more transparent until they vanished entirely from the world, leaving only specks of golden light floating where they had been.
"Is this merit?"
Elsewhere.
"Gasp, gasp, gasp!!!"
The gravekeeper felt as though his lungs were about to burst, but he didn't dare stop running. Fortunately, he saw Evernight Church not far ahead.
"Bang, bang, bang!!" Loud pounding rang out at the doors of Evernight Church.
"Help! I saw a monster!"
Half an hour later, the gravekeeper had recounted his experience twice. The first time was to the priest, and the second was to some people who called themselves experts in such matters.
After listening to the gravekeeper's account, Dunn, captain of the Tingen City Nighthawks team, suddenly asked him:
"Where's the ten-pound note you accepted?"
"Could you let us see it?"
"The note!" The gravekeeper hurriedly took what he had in his pocket out.
"It's this..."
The gravekeeper fainted dead away, because what he had taken out was a sheet of white paper with a bloody red handprint on it...
The next day, in a forest on the outskirts of Tingen City.
A wealthy member of the middle class had brought his family there for an outing.
"Daddy, there's a strange person over there!"
The man looked in the direction his daughter was pointing and saw a Barbarian holding a wooden club and wearing a grass skirt. He seemed to be... dancing.
The man blinked in confusion, unable to react for a moment. Just then, the savage who looked like a Curly-Haired Baboon turned around and looked at them.
The man's eyes widened in disbelief. He saw something even more terrifying than a Barbarian.
The man's body and limbs were still normal, but his head was that of a black snake. It flicked its tongue and stared at them with an icy gaze.
"Quick! Let's go!" The man scooped up his daughter and hurried toward the edge of the forest.
His wife, who was walking toward them, asked in confusion, "Dear, what's wrong?"
"Run! There's a monster in the forest!"
To digest his Potion, Wilt caused all kinds of supernatural incidents in different places over the next few days. In return, the Monster Potion inside him was steadily being digested.
Today, Wilt had come to the banks of the Khoy River again, ready to continue digesting his Potion.