Chapter 268: [Rotten Bones and Resurrected Flesh] Voodoo Guild
Master Gao looked over, his brow tightly furrowed.
The ghosts surrounding Bai Cha grew ever more numerous.
She felt a surge of discomfort as well; after all, Liu Ruyi couldn’t possibly shield her completely.
It was merely that these specters had refrained from taking action against her for the time being.
Reaching out her hand, Liu Ruyi rested it upon her shoulder.
The icy chill instantly made Bai Cha want to cough.
However, this successfully prompted several of the specters to retract their glares.
“Master Gao, when these children are disobedient, they simply need a lesson!”
“Master Gao!”
The voices of the specters around them grew increasingly sharp and shrill.
Master Gao indeed realized that he was no match for the players working in unison.
His expression darkened slightly, and he abruptly unfurled the umbrella in his hand.
The instant the black umbrella opened, Master Gao vanished into thin air.
Sensing that something was amiss, the players instinctively made to retreat.
However, the room’s door slammed shut in a split second, and the entire house began to undergo a transformation.
Everything around them vanished, leaving only a sea of tattered umbrellas floating in midair.
Some of these umbrellas were much like Liu Ruyi’s—completely unable to be opened.
Red rain began to fall from the sky.
The Tai Sui in Bai Cha’s hand immediately tried to bolt out in excitement, only to be clutched tightly by her.
“Without my order, stay strictly above my head.”
Naturally, the Tai Sui was unwilling.
However, Bai Cha had already raised her left hand.
It was fox borrowing tiger’s terror, but it worked.
The Tai Sui obediently morphed into a black umbrella.
Bai Cha even stepped closer to Liu Ruyi’s side, drawing her beneath the umbrella as well.
Liu Ruyi glanced at her, then lowered her gaze to look at the umbrella in her own hand.
“Just stand there obediently,” Liu Ruyi said. “With me around, they won’t touch you.”
Bai Cha naturally knew she had secured a backer, but well… she still had to clear the game in the end.
These specters grew tormented and contorted in the falling rain, yet their power surged as a result.
The players were encircled layer upon layer, with only Bai Cha standing outside the perimeter.
How could this not make eyes turn red with envy?
“Sister Ru-yi, are we going to kill all these people?”
“What? You want to save them?”
Liu Ruyi looked at her with a meaningful glint.
“Not at all. I’m just afraid the casualties on your side will be rather severe.”
Even as she spoke, a flash of golden light flared from Chen Mi’s hand, striking one of the female specters and blasting off half of her body.
A harrowing shriek instantly rang through the skies.
The remaining half of her body was still being dissolved by that golden power.
Liu Ruyi’s brows knitted together.
“So what are you trying to do?” Liu Ruyi asked, her gaze fixed on Bai Cha with a complex intensity.
“How about I destroy this instance, and you all follow me?”
Bai Cha’s face was pale, yet her eyes remained exceptionally calm.
“What a grand tone.”
Liu Ruyi’s expression chilled as well.
“Follow you? Can you even keep us in check?”
Bai Cha glanced at the umbrella above her head, then looked back at Liu Ruyi.
“Shall we try?”
Liu Ruyi remained silent.
Bai Cha didn’t press her either, continuing to observe the battlefield.
Over on the other side, Song Shi-fan suffered a lapse in vigilance and was pierced cleanly through the chest and abdomen.
For the players, the rain overhead was excruciatingly painful, severely impairing their ability to fight.
Among their group, only Chen Mi moved with effortless ease.
It was as if he felt no pain whatsoever; without even using anything to ward off the rain, the specters barely dared to approach him.
This man’s strength was formidable.
Finding a moment of leisure, Chen Mi turned his gaze in Bai Cha’s direction as well.
His eyes first swept across the black umbrella in Bai Cha’s hand, before finally settling squarely on Bai Cha herself. He then flashed a smile at Bai Cha and walked toward her.
Bai Cha observed him with a tranquil gaze.
Chen Mi halted three paces away from them.
“Hello. I come from the Voodoo Guild. Do you know Yu Zhenzhen?”
Bai Cha’s eyes remained completely impassive, as though she didn’t recognize the name at all.
Chen Mi chuckled softly.
“The Voodoo Guild welcomes your arrival.”
Having said that, he stepped aside, seemingly intending to refrain from interfering in the instance’s affairs any further.
Yet, as an eliminated player, what gave him the confidence to be so certain he could clear the run?
Bai Cha was not in a particularly good mood.
Her fingers lightly tapped against the umbrella disguised by the Tai Sui.
“You can move now.”
She held no intention of using the Dodder Vines in this instance.
The Tai Sui joyfully released a massive tangle of black threads, greedily absorbing the energy within the rain.
Simultaneously, the specters discovered that these black threads had sprouted inside their own bodies as well, causing their power to rapidly wane.
Liu Ruyi was no exception. She looked down at her own body, then cast a deep, piercing glance at Bai Cha.
“You really are bold,” she said. Sensing the looming threat of destruction, the specters let out a collective, bloodcurdling shriek.
Bai Cha felt her head buzz violently, and a wave of dizzying disorientation rushed over her.
The surrounding space began to fill with crowds of people.
They were all those faceless figures, packing the entire instance almost instantaneously, squeezing so tightly that it was hard to breathe.
Apart from the Tai Sui continuously dancing through the air, Bai Cha was unable to deploy any other powers.
She could barely catch sight of the other players amidst the dense throng.
Squeezed in place, Bai Cha raised her head with considerable effort.
Black threads cascaded down from above, binding the people surrounding her.
Bai Cha didn’t have the Tai Sui kill them, merely using the bound figures to form a protective wall around herself.
The moment this was done, the surrounding pressure seemed to lighten significantly, and the crowd parted to reveal a path.
Master Gao, holding his black umbrella, walked up before her, his gaze extraordinarily frigid.
“Do you have any idea what you are doing?”
“I don’t. I just want to leave.”
Master Gao choked on his words.
“As long as you stood there obediently, you could have left in the first place! But what on earth are you doing?!”
Bai Cha blinked.
“Then what are you trying to achieve by telling me all this now?”
Master Gao fell silent.
He raised his eyes to glance at the umbrella in his hand.
The rib of the umbrella he held was perpetually broken.
It didn’t hinder his ability to use it, yet it was always damaged.
“When I was young, I was a teacher,” Master Gao said somberly.
“A female student falsely accused me, claiming I violated her. I was sentenced to twenty years.”
He looked at Bai Cha, his eyes a complex mix of revulsion and something else entirely.
“After that, I spent all my time repairing my own umbrella. I tried explaining to everyone, tried proving my innocence, but no one believed me.”
Up until his death, he had never managed to await the outcome he desired.
“Every single umbrella in that room came to be in the exact same manner.”
Every umbrella was ruined by rain of the same nature, incapable of being restored.
“Originally, when I saw Liu Ruyi’s umbrella—though it couldn’t be considered fully repaired, it was undeniably much better than before—I had already decided that I would definitely let you go.”
Master Gao’s anger flared up once more.
“Look at you! What are you doing?!”
“But as long as this instance exists, every single one of you can only ever live in the rain.”
Bai Cha’s gaze was dead serious.
Master Gao’s momentum faltered all at once.
“I don’t know why I ended up here,” Master Gao let out a sigh.
“At first, I thought I had arrived in the Underworld.”
Yet this place was merely a cage.
“But if I leave this place, where else could I possibly go?”
A good question.
Bai Cha was curious as well.
