Free Web NovelChapter 603: Chapter 509: Cultivating Gu (Happy National Day, Daily Update of 10,000 Characters Begins)
After searching around, he couldn’t find any trace of the handcuffs; it seemed they were taken away by the ghosts, just like the previous deceased competitors’ Magic Artifacts.
This place was not safe to stay for long, so Yang Xiao returned to the small courtyard at the west end of the village, where the girl numbered 127 still lay on the ground.
The Ghost Fishing Net was still in Yang Xiao’s hands; what followed was a waiting game, an excruciating process where he remained vigilant, dreading the terrible ghost might suddenly appear from somewhere.
About half an hour later, the dilapidated courtyard behind him suddenly made a noise—to be precise, from the broken house within it. Accompanied by a burst of blue light, the ground began to tremble, and the whole world became unstable.
The dark sky above, like a cracked eggshell, showed many fissures through which one could see a gray and foggy space filled with mist that seemed alive, struggling and surging, crazily seeping into the world where Yang Xiao was through the cracks.
His pupils suddenly constricted; this mist and the strange space behind it felt eerily familiar to Yang Xiao... it seemed to be the world he had unintentionally traversed into, the same place where that ferocious ghost lived.
Before Yang Xiao could think further, a wave of blue halo from the broken house in the courtyard enveloped him completely, along with a beam of light shot toward the girl on the ground. Moments later, a horrifying scene unfolded; the girl’s clothes began to turn transparent, then her skin, her flesh, her bones... In merely a few seconds, or even less, Yang Xiao, on one side, felt as if he was witnessing an ultimate surgery surpassing all the surgeons in the world—he could clearly see every single blood vessel and muscle fiber on the girl’s body appear and then disappear.
As the girl completely vanished, a huge sense of panic fell upon Yang Xiao; it was his turn now...
He could distinctly feel being watched by an irresistible force, being locked on; his fate would be the same as the girl’s!
This force didn’t make him feel extremely endangered; it was more like an impolite probe, as if under its power, his body, even his soul, his memory, had no secrets left.
The blue halo slowly crept over his entire body, and just as this force intended to delve further to dissect him, Yang Xiao suddenly felt the Drama Robe on his body turn ice-cold, and another force of crimson halo slowly unfolded along his physique. freewebnøvel.com
The forces of crimson and blue tangled with each other, waxing and waning, engaging in a covert battle; yet, Yang Xiao, as the master of this body, could do nothing to interfere. The Drama Robe was fighting on its own, and this struggle soon attracted the attention of another entity.
A vague and chilling force from afar noticed him. Yang Xiao could not move his body, but out of the corner of his eye, he caught a terrifying sight—the invading gray mist was starting to converge towards him.
As the gray mist rushed in, it swallowed up most of the fishing village in an incredibly short time. Only when the fog grew closer did Yang Xiao notice that the buildings engulfed by the mist were decaying and crumbling at a visible rate before collapsing silently.
And that wasn’t all; what truly terrified Yang Xiao was that, within the thick fog approaching him, he could vaguely make out a ghostly figure.
The ghost moved stiffly, slowly, as if an old man on the verge of death, yet it was incredibly fast. Within a few breaths, it was only about twenty meters away from Yang Xiao, making a "grating" sound that made one’s scalp tingle.
Fortunately, at this moment, the battle between the forces of crimson and blue had reached its climax. The blue was slightly dominant, but the spreading crimson from the Drama Robe had enveloped Yang Xiao so tightly that not even air could pass through. If Yang Xiao could see himself from another perspective, he would notice that his entire being had been dyed blood-red, and the parts of him exposed to the outside, his face, head, and hands, all showed a silky delicate texture, faintly glowing with a blood-red luster.
His body became heavier and heavier, and in the moment just before the gray mist was about to touch him, the ground beneath his feet collapsed; Yang Xiao plunged downward.
By the time he regained consciousness, he was lying on a cold concrete floor, with a Paper Lantern hanging overhead, casting a dim, faint light as it swayed.
His pupils gradually focused, and Yang Xiao slowly got up. The surroundings looked familiar—a wooden chair and an old wooden desk with a broken bamboo basket beneath it. And when he turned his head, behind him was an old wooden door.
It was the same passage he had entered through; now it seemed he had come out... He looked himself up and down, finding that all his injuries had healed. Clenching his left fist, he realized that the fingers that had been severed were now regrown.
It was a shame he couldn’t bring the Ghost Fishing Net with him; he remembered that it was wrapped around his left arm before he was bound by the blue force.
"Congratulations on passing the qualification exam. You can now go rest. I know you have many questions, but don’t ask; we can’t answer them anyway. Anyone leaving from there will have that part of their memory erased,"
a mechanical, synthesized voice from the old iron loudspeaker above said, hard and cold, "However, it’s not absolute. A very small number of people retain some fragments of memory, but I can tell you clearly—that’s not a good thing. Some of them will fall into intense self-doubt because of those memories, even attracting some terrifying and unimaginable, unnecessary trouble."
"Now please leave, the passage will close in 5 minutes. Put on your mask, it’s your ticket to your next match."
