Chapter 86: Infant Spirit
Just then, the shrill wailing of an infant tore through the entire lair. Lin Huai looked down quickly, only to see the stillborn baby inside the coffin—its body a mottled, bruised purplish-black—slowly opening its eyes. Its blood-red pupils fixed directly onto her, and its tiny mouth stretched wide, unleashing an ear-splitting scream.
The moment that cry rang out, Lin Huai felt as though thousands of long steel needles were piercing straight into her skull. Her head throbbed with such blinding intensity she thought it would explode. Clutching her temples, she sank to her knees in the dirt, gritting her teeth against the agonizing pressure as muffled groans slipped past her lips.
Around her, the other players reacted the same way. Every survivor collapsed, holding their heads, rolling in the sand, and crying out in torment.
It was a psychic attack!
Because Peace and Violence drove a delicate broadcast information van and lacked direct offensive strength, his job during team fights was to guard Milk Tea Seven Parts Sugar and her ambulance. The two vehicles sat parked quite a distance back from the main cavern.
Even from that far away, the sound reached them, and Lawyer He felt a heavy, sickening throb pulse through his skull.
Fortunately, being further from the center meant the mental shockwave was far less brutal than what Lin Huai and the vanguard were enduring. Enduring the pounding in his temples, Peace and Violence shoved himself off the steering wheel, stumbled into the rear cabin, and planted his boots before the main terminal.
He pushed his glasses up his nose. If the cry was a psychic assault delivered through sound waves, his communications rig might just be able to drown it out.
Working on instinct, his fingers flew across the control panel, toggling several high-output switches. In an instant, the heavy air-raid sirens mounted atop his van wailed to life. The piercing mechanical howl rose higher and higher with every passing second, steadily drowning out the baby’s shrieks.
As the blaring siren overwhelmed the psychic noise, the splitting agony in Lin Huai’s head finally loosened its grip. Pushing herself up from the dirt, she moved to slam the coffin shut and trigger its Yin energy purification.
Realizing its cries were being drowned out, the surrounding horde of green-skinned ghost infants dissolved into swirling red orbs of light and merged together in mid-air.
Before everyone’s eyes condensed a tiny Infant Spirit, its pale body painted with glowing, crimson curse runes.
Lin Huai glanced down at the motionless corpse in the coffin, then up at the hovering spirit child. A flash of realization hit her: this was a true Infant Spirit!
Whenever an unborn child died prematurely—whether through accident, miscarriage, or abortion—or passed away shortly after drawing its first breath, its soul became an Infant Spirit.
Because their parents never provided rituals of salvation or a proper resting place, their spirits were left with no anchor. Unable to step into reincarnation, they accumulated endless, burning resentment. That grudge granted them terrifying power, yet they were doomed never to grow up, drifting forever between heaven and earth like rootless duckweed.
Infant Spirits were a truly unique existence—neither human nor ghost, neither god nor demon. They existed as a strange intermediate state of being.
Wandering freely between the Yin and Yang realms, they existed entirely outside the Six Paths of Reincarnation. No rules of gods or underworld spirits could bind them.
In other words, Infant Spirits were immortal!
They simply did not answer to the laws of life and death!
Lin Huai understood these spiritual rules intimately, but the surrounding players had no idea. Assuming this was simply another phase of the fight, they unleashed their weapons the second their headaches faded, firing everything they had into the air.
Yet whether it was enchanted mithril rounds or pulsed golden energy blasts, every shot passed right through the child’s glowing silhouette, causing no damage at all.
Dragon Emerging from the Sea stood frozen in shock. “Boss, what is that thing? Our attacks aren’t touching it! Should we sound the retreat?”
Lin Huai looked at the Infant Spirit hovering quietly above them, its form still stabilizing. Her voice turned low and grave: “Brother Long, lead everyone outside first. I’ll handle this Infant Spirit myself. Let me give it a try.”
Dragon Emerging from the Sea frowned, deep concern flashing across his face, but he didn’t argue. He raised his arm immediately, signaling every vehicle to back out of the lair.
Milk Tea Seven Parts Sugar was terrified. As the convoy retreated, she called through the radio: “Brother Long, is Sister Bone Ash really staying behind alone? What if she gets hurt?”
Dragon Emerging from the Sea glanced at the small silhouette in his side mirror, his tone calm and steady: “We won’t pull back too far. Just stay right outside the perimeter so we can move in if she needs backup.”
Old Wang stroked his stubbled chin, his medical background kicking in. “Have some faith in the Boss. The physical body of that child is already locked inside her jade casket. If you ask me, its spirit won’t be able to lay a finger on her.”
At critical moments, Old Wang’s sharp doctor’s instincts always proved surprisingly dependable.
Inside the hollow cave, the engines faded into the distance. Only Lin Huai and the Infant Spirit remained, watching each other in the dim light.
Because the child had never completed its birth, it could only wail; it knew no words. Its tiny limbs were so stiff it couldn’t even roll onto its stomach.
Looking at the floating form, Lin Huai’s expression softened into gentle warmth. She spoke in a soothing, motherly tone: “See? Everyone has left. No one is going to hurt you, little one. You don’t need to be afraid.”
She tapped the smooth stone edge beside her. “Look here. Big Sister’s coffin is so spacious and pretty. Wouldn’t you like to climb inside and take a rest?”
Reaching deep into her inventory, Lin Huai rummaged through her supplies until she found an unopened tin of milk powder and a clean baby bottle. Mixing the formula with purified water from her vehicle’s tank, she gave the bottle a gentle shake and offered it forward. “Come have some milk, little one. It’s sweet and warm.”
At the sight of the bottle, a flicker of light returned to the Infant Spirit’s hollow, dark pupils. Its small mouth smacked twice in curiosity. Drifting through the cold air, it floated obediently toward Lin Huai’s outstretched hands.
Lin Huai set the bottle inside the green jade casket. Without a moment of hesitation, the small spirit drifted down after it.
Thud!
The heavy jade lid slammed shut, sealing the interior completely.
The gentle sweetness dropped from Lin Huai’s voice, replaced by her usual crisp, authoritative tone: “Initiate purification!”
Her coffin possessed the natural ability to cleanse the foul resentment and malevolence woven into dark entities. Infant Spirits were born as the purest souls in creation; it was only bitter abandonment that twisted them into horrors. Once the malice was stripped away, the spirit would return to its untainted state.
A cleansed Infant Spirit would slowly mature over the years inside the spiritual wood. Once it reached the age of fourteen, its soul would be whole enough to enter the cycle of rebirth and live a true human life.
The layers of grudge clinging to this spirit were exceptionally thick—far heavier even than the fiends she had faced in the Hungry Ghost Path—so the cleansing process would take some time.
Looking around the now completely quiet, empty bone cavern, Lin Huai let out a long breath of relief.
Trial rewards would only be calculated and distributed after everyone exited the instance, so there was no point in lingering. Climbing back into her hearse, she guided the vehicle out of the canyon. Regrouping with Dragon Emerging from the Sea and the rest of the squad, they turned their wheels and sped straight toward the northwest, heading for the true Ghost Mother’s Lair.
Meanwhile, back in the unseen system network, Old Hei of District 44, Zone 444 was currently being cornered by a furious mob of fellow system assistants.
Inside the internal administrator chat:
[District 01, Zone 001 – Third Sister]: @Old Hei of District 44, Zone 444, do you think it’s appropriate for an official system assistant to meddle in player duels like that?!
[District 23, Zone 233 – Orange Seat]: Exactly! How is that fair play?! Thanks to your little interference, my zone’s number-one and number-two seeds were both slaughtered! My end-of-month performance bonus is completely ruined! @Old Hei of District 44, Zone 444, you’re paying me out of your own pocket!
