Chapter 119: Ghost Bride
Hungry Spirit Blue Knight rubbed his chin, staring at the smoking crate. “Why don’t we go take a closer look? Could it be that opening the chest just summons a wave of monsters, and once they’re dead, the trial is officially cleared?”
Before the words had even left his mouth, the thick black fumes began to part. From the depths of the open chest, a spectral woman draped in a magnificent wedding gown slowly floated into the air.
Old Wang spat a curse under his breath. “Holy hell! A ghost bride! This is pure nightmare fuel!”
Flash Delivery Yellow Knight went pale, dread written across his face. “Oh man… the scariest movie I watched as a kid was about a ghost bride. This is way too creepy…”
The phantom before them wore a grand, flowing crimson wedding gown. Her hands were folded delicately in front of her waist, her pale fingers slender and tipped with long, vivid blood-red nails.
She drifted silently in mid-air, her back straight and graceful. A pair of exquisite red embroidered slippers peeked out from beneath her hem as she drifted forward, treading gently over the snowflakes suspended in the frozen air.
A bright red veil completely covered her head, its crimson tassels swaying with every subtle movement.
If she weren’t a terrifying Ghost King, the scene would have looked almost poetic—a stunning bride walking through the winter wind.
The ghost bride came to a halt roughly five meters away from the squad. Slowly, she raised her right hand, extending a single, slender index finger. Her crimson nail swept back and forth across the frozen crowd.
“The one I point to,” her voice drifted out, thin and icy, like frost scraping against an eardrum, “shall be… the faithless scoundrel who deserves to die!”
The moment the last syllable dropped, that pale finger snapped forward, pointing squarely at Lin Huai!
Lin Huai’s heart leaped into her throat. Almost simultaneously, she triggered the greatsword on her back, the heavy blade humming as it prepared to strike!
Yet she was still a fraction of a second too late.
The instant her declaration ended, the ghost bride dissolved into a streak of red lightning. Her fingers curled into vicious claws, their tips lengthening into jagged talons wrapped in foul, pitch-black venom!
The greatsword swung downward with a thunderous roar, but it cut only through an empty afterimage.
The poisoned talons, reeking of rot and blood, tore straight toward Lin Huai’s face!
If those venomous claws scratched her skin, the toxic Yin energy would surge straight into her heart!
Adrenaline flooded Lin Huai’s veins. Kicking off the snow with both boots, she sprang backward, spinning her long scythe in a tight, desperate wheel to deflect the lethal strike.
Clang!
A piercing screech of steel rang through the blizzard, sending bright orange sparks flying across the ice.
Dragon Emerging from the Sea raised his rifle, firing a burst of gleaming mithril bullets. “Cover the Boss! Move!”
The entire squad unleashed their arsenal at once, desperate to peel the ghost bride off Lin Huai.
Yet despite the storm of lead and blades raining down on her, the bride moved as though she existed in another plane of reality.
Mithril rounds passed harmlessly through her shimmering form, and swinging blades merely cut through residual trails of ghost mist.
Her hollow, frozen gaze stayed locked on Lin Huai, like two iron spikes driven into her soul. Her boundless, ancient resentment was meant for one target alone.
“Faithless scoundrel… A debt of blood can only be repaid in blood!”
Her voice echoed with hollow fury, her form flickering wildly through the air. Every flicker brought her a step closer to Lin Huai’s throat.
Lin Huai knew that dodging blindly would only drain her stamina. The raw power of a Ghost King far exceeded normal limits; she had to expose a weakness!
Forcing herself to breathe steadily, she let her adrenaline sharpen her focus instead of clouding it.
As she parried another vicious strike, she caught a subtle detail: no matter how violently the ghost bride darted through the gale, the crimson veil over her head never drifted or fluttered. Her face remained completely hidden beneath the silk.
A sudden spark of inspiration flashed in Lin Huai’s mind.
Instead of retreating in a straight line, she began circling wide across the snow. Using the swift, flanking maneuvers of SF Express and Yellow Knight as visual cover, she tossed a sharp signal toward Old Wang and Sister Cai.
“Old Wang, drop an Iron Wall Talisman to stall her! Sister Cai, hit her with Heavenly Thunder on my mark!”
Neither hesitated. Old Wang hurled a talisman paper into the air, erecting a shimmering, translucent wall that temporarily halted the bride’s forward charge. A heartbeat later, Sister Cai slapped an intermediate Heavenly Thunder Talisman onto her spear tip, calling down three blinding bolts of lightning that struck the ghost bride directly from the dark clouds, pinning her in place.
Now!
Lin Huai’s eyes blazed. Instead of stepping back, she lunged forward!
Shooting across the snow like a loosed arrow, she swept her long scythe in a rising arc. The razor-sharp crescent tip slid cleanly beneath the edge of the red fabric, hooking the silk with millimeter precision.
With a powerful flick of her wrists, Lin Huai tore the crimson veil from the ghost bride’s head!
The cloth flew into the swirling blizzard, dissolving instantly into black smoke before vanishing into thin air.
“Aaaaggghhh—!”
A blood-curdling, ear-splitting shriek shattered the silence of the wilderness!
The moment the veil was torn away, the violent aura surrounding the ghost bride collapsed into chaos, deflating rapidly like a punctured balloon.
Her shriek twisted into a pitiful, agonizing wail, as if the loss of that simple silk cloth had stripped away the core anchor of her existence.
Lin Huai gave her no time to recover. Knowing the opening would last only a second, she put her entire weight into a finishing swing.
A vibrant, crackling purple light erupted along the curve of the scythe blade.
“Your resentment ends right here!”
Before the words faded, the glowing blade tore through the freezing air, slicing clean across the bride’s curling torso in a devastating horizontal cut!
There was no deafening explosion—only a clear, crisp chime, like fragile glass shattering on stone.
The ghost bride froze mid-air. Starting from the waistline, her body fractured into millions of glowing red motes, drifting away on the winter wind like cooling embers.
With her destruction, the heavy, suffocating resentment that had blanketed the road melted away into nothingness.
Lin Huai planted the butt of her scythe into the snow, dropping to one knee as she sucked in deep, ragged breaths. Cold sweat ran down her temples, freezing instantly against her skin.
No wonder survivors in her previous life had spent small fortunes hiring elite mercenary teams just to crack open high-tier chests. Facing a profound stone chest alone, without coordinated teamwork, would have been nearly suicidal.
Yellow Knight dragged his sleeve across his sweaty forehead, still trembling. “Holy crap… Boss, you’re an absolute monster! How did you even pull off a win against that thing?”
Jiangzhehu Inheritor patted her chest, exhaling a shaky breath. “I was terrified we were going to get wiped out right here. Boss, what made you think to rip off her veil?”
Lin Huai caught her breath and pushed herself up. Glancing at the empty snow where the chest had finally stopped smoking, she replied calmly, “Just an educated guess. Ghosts are forged entirely out of mortal obsessions. If you figure out what they are clinging to, you can find the key to unraveling them.”
Sister Cai spun her red-tasseled spear with a satisfied snap before stowing it away. She looked at Lin Huai with open respect. “It truly takes someone like you, Boss. Only someone who understands the rules of these spirits could hold the rank-one title on this server. If it were just the rest of us fumbling in the dark, we wouldn’t have survived the week.”
Dragon Emerging from the Sea nodded in agreement. “In a trial system like this, deep knowledge of underworld lore is the ultimate advantage. You have my complete respect, Boss.”
Lin Huai simply smiled, walking over to inspect the loot.
Inside the profound stone chest, basic survival supplies were stacked to the brim. There was also a rich pile of Yin energy crystals and Yang energy crystals. Lin Huai gathered the gems and distributed equal shares to everyone on the spot.
Among the rare materials, she kept only the structural blueprints and the specific items she needed for her hearse—such as the Blood Jades and Memory Crystal Orbs. Gathering the remaining rare components in her arms, she moved to hand them out to the group.
Dragon Emerging from the Sea immediately raised a hand, stepping back. “Keep them, Boss. You’re being far too generous. We came out here to back you up, but you did all the heavy lifting. We can’t take your core materials.”
Sister Cai shook her head as well. “He’s right. Honestly, we barely did anything; you practically soloed the boss.”
Old Wang chuckled, pocketing his share of the crystals. “Don’t sell yourself short, Boss. We’re bound to run into more high-tier chests down the road, and we’ll need everyone’s help to open them. Think of these crystals as an advance payment so I can book your help when it’s my turn. I’m running low on energy stones anyway, so I’ll happily take these, but keep the rare crafting gear for yourself.”
