Proofreader & Editor: Lotas
The gloom was so thick it overshadowed the darkness. Yang Jian was clueless about what was around him. He could hear nothing, see nothing.
Even his Ghost Eye, which could penetrate darkness, was rendered useless, like being blinded, at this crucial moment.
It seems the Ghost Eye hadn't fully awakened. Dealing with this situation was still a struggle.
Or perhaps, under these circumstances, not just the Ghost Eye, but anything less than fully operational was going to struggle.
As Zhao Kaiming had said, the fierce ghost was just a piece of the puzzle. Now, Yang Jian might be facing a complete puzzle or one nearly finished.
"Tap, tap, tap."
The sound of leather shoes against the ground suddenly broke the silence.
After half an hour of waiting, just as Yang Jian decided to expose a flaw deliberately, something finally stirred.
"It's approaching me," Yang Jian sharply turned towards the direction of the sound.
Even though he couldn't see anything, he could vaguely sense that the entity was no more than ten meters away from him.
And the distance was closing rapidly with each step.
Five meters, three meters… it seemed almost within reach.
Yang Jian felt as if he could touch the ghost with an outstretched hand.
"Should I make a move?" Cold sweat broke out on his face as he struggled with the urge to lunge forward with the coffin nail in his hand.
"No, I can't be sure it's the ghost just by the sound of footsteps. If I nail a ghost baby like last time, wasting a chance, I might end up trapped here."
Biting his teeth, he resisted the impulse to act rashly.
He decided to wait for the ghost to make the first move. He couldn't afford the consequences of failing again.
Just one meter away, the footsteps suddenly stopped.
It seemed the ghost was standing right before him.
"Stopped?" Yang Jian clenched the coffin nail tightly, his heart wavering.
Should he make a tentative attack?
However, in the place where the footsteps originated, there was no ghost, just a pair of eerie leather shoes that stopped right in front of Yang Jian.
The real ghost had always been standing behind him, as motionless as he was.
The footsteps were a lure.
Yang Jian used himself as bait to draw out the fierce ghost, and the original ghost used the leather shoes to create footsteps to lure Yang Jian.
At this moment, Yang Jian didn't realize this. Had he known, he would have been terrified.
"No, a probing attack is pointless. Wait a bit longer."
His caution and multiple encounters with fierce ghosts helped him narrowly escape a disaster.
After another moment of waiting.
"It's not attacking me?"
Yang Jian's nerves were stretched to their limit. He realized the ghost in front of him had fallen silent.
Nevertheless, he was ready to plunge the coffin nail into the ghost's body at the first opportunity.
But that chance never came.
The footsteps, a mere meter away, stayed silent for a long while.
After ten minutes of stalemate, the footsteps sounded again.
"Tap, tap, tap."
Within the murky gloom, a pair of leather shoes moved on their own, circling around Yang Jian.
He focused intently on the direction of the footsteps, his head turning along with them.
Yet he still didn't strike.
At this moment, he began to suspect something was off about these footsteps, much like when he faced the headless ghost shadow, deliberately using bait to lure him into acting.
The moment he showed a flaw would be the instant the fierce ghost struck.
"These footsteps are a trick…" Yang Jian was sure of it, feeling the atmosphere grow more sinister.
The missing ghost, the footsteps encircling him, the impenetrable gloom.
Everything was shrouded in immense terror.
Despite meeting the conditions for the fierce ghost's attack, it never appeared. Yang Jian almost wished it would, so he could finally act.
But such a deadlock couldn't last forever.
Just as the gloom began to seep into Yang Jian's body, something stirred nearby.
A blackish-green, rotting hand, reeking of decay, suddenly reached out from beside the footsteps and grasped Yang Jian's neck.
It was cold, rigid, and terrifyingly strong, as if it could snap his neck in an instant.
"It's here? The footsteps were indeed a bait."
Yang Jian's attention was wholly on the footsteps, so when they moved to the right, the attacking hand came from the left.
And the real ghost was so close, lurking right beside him.
Although he was a step slow to react, in that instant…
Yang Jian's Ghost Eye flared open.
The Ghost Realm activated.
He tore open the gold foil wrapped around the coffin nail and grabbed the ghastly arm with one hand, stabbing towards its body with the other.
His movements were swift, but before the coffin nail could strike, another blackish-green hand grabbed his wrist, thwarting his attack.
But with the Ghost Realm activated, Yang Jian successfully enveloped the entity behind him.
The gloom vanished in an instant, the surroundings drenched in blood-red, restoring his vision.
A figure in burial clothes, its face a numb, blackish-green, stood beside him.
"Zhou Zheng?"
Yang Jian's eyes narrowed at the sight of the ghost, but before he could react, Zhou Zheng's jaw split open, revealing dark, menacing teeth lunging for his head.
One bite would have taken off half of Yang Jian's head, sealing his fate.
He struggled, only to find his arm holding the coffin nail unresponsive.
Numb, he couldn't even feel its presence.
"That finger?"
Yang Jian noticed a particularly withered finger on the ghastly hand, pierced into his wrist.
It had immobilized his hand.
"There's something else."
Just as Zhou Zheng was about to bite off his head, a grass rope fell from Yang Jian's body, wrapping around the ghost's neck, attempting to hang it.
But the ghost rope failed.
It could only make the ghost stand on tiptoes, unable to fully suspend it.
Though it didn't achieve the intended result, it eased the crisis.
The ghost's teeth, mere inches from his face, were held back by the rope around its neck.
Surviving the first wave of attack, Yang Jian barely held on.
As planned, even with perfect control of the ghost shadow and the suppressed awakening of the Ghost Eye, he was only qualified for one round against a ghost of this level. Without additional means, he was still doomed.
The ghost's teeth could bite through the Ghost Realm, easily devouring half of his head.
"Drip, drip~!"
Yang Jian's body gradually turned black, droplets like thick ink falling from him.
The ink coalesced, forming a headless ghost shadow that slowly rose from the ground.
The shadow took the rusty coffin nail from Yang Jian's hand and slowly stabbed it towards the source ghost.
"You lose," Yang Jian gasped out the words.
With the headless ghost shadow under his control, acting as an extra hand, as long as he withstood the first attack, victory was near.
The plan was still going smoothly.
But just as Yang Jian was about to succeed…
He felt a moment of haziness, as if his consciousness blurred.
Then he snapped back to clarity.
Suddenly.
The ghost vanished.
The surrounding gloom seemed to recede, and the Ghost Realm, no longer suppressed, spread over a hundred meters.
"What happened? Where's the ghost?" Yang Jian was stunned.
"My injury… is gone?"
He found his arm movable again, but then noticed the arm previously pierced by the withered finger had no wound.
A phone recording sounded from a nearby classroom: [Yang Jian, when you receive this voice message, my plan will have succeeded. It's in the school. Can you handle it?]
Hearing this, Yang Jian's eyes widened in shock, a chill spreading through his body.
He rushed into the school, picked up his phone, and checked the satellite-positioned mobile left by Zhao Kaiming.
Especially, he glanced at the time on it.
"Impossible."
Yang Jian's expression was more horrified than if he'd seen a ghost.
The time had gone back forty minutes to when he first arrived here.