Chapter 118: Black Stone Box
Lin Huai wanted to make another round of profit in a different district, but traveling between zones still carried serious safety risks. She needed to develop a foolproof strategy first.
By the time the hearse’s tires were swapped, the snow-clearing rollers mounted, and the anti-skid chains fastened, darkness had completely swallowed the road.
Still, with autonomous driving engaged, the hearse steadily clocked mileage throughout the night. Whether it was eight or ten in the evening made little difference to her.
Just as she was about to call Jiangzhehu Inheritor to brainstorm their inter-district trading plan, the Yellow Springs Road Guide sounded an alert:
“Shrine detected one hundred meters ahead. Would you like to pull over and offer a tribute?”
“Stop the car!”
Lin Huai hit the brakes without a second thought. While her inventory was already bursting with survival goods—making ordinary reward crates somewhat redundant—the shrines themselves held far greater value than routine supplies.
The altar ahead was carved from weather-beaten bluestone, rising only to Lin Huai’s waist.
She leaned down to peer into the alcove.
Sitting within was a small, stone-faced girl dressed in an elaborate lolita frock. Her clothes and skin were encrusted with jagged frost spikes, and an unshed tear hung frozen at the corner of her eye.
It was another altar deity Lin Huai remembered from her past life. Chuckling softly, she stepped forward, brushed the fresh snow from the stone, and took out cleaning tools to scrub every inch spotless.
Large snowflakes settled on her hair and shoulders, but she did not stop to shake them off. Instead, she retrieved an oversized outdoor canopy umbrella and secured it firmly over the altar to shield the little goddess from the blizzard.
Next, she pulled out an array of fine offerings from her spatial storage, arranging them on delicate porcelain dishes in neat rows before the shrine.
In her previous life, Lin Huai had been so dirt-poor that her offering to this frigid little deity had been embarrassingly meager. The girl had taken offense, denying her a chest and freezing her in place for ten agonizing minutes.
Having learned that bitter lesson, Lin Huai was exceedingly meticulous this time, aiming for perfection from the menu to the table setting.
Knowing the deity commanded ice powers, she set out rare winter-aligned ingredients. She added whimsical plush figurines to the corners of the stone slab and scattered crimson spider lily petals over the plates as an elegant garnish.
Her arrangement was nothing short of breathtaking.
Confident she had offered her very best, Lin Huai pressed her palms together, bowing with genuine reverence: “Honored Altar Deity, please grant me your blessing so I may reach the end of this road.”
The moment she spoke, a crisp, childlike voice chimed in the air:
“Oh, it’s so pretty! There’s even my favorite snow-skin mung bean pastry! Big Sister, you’re so sweet.”
“Since you put your whole heart into this, I’ll gift you a profound stone chest!”
“Next time we meet, Sister, don’t forget to bring me an ice-tear crystal~”
A deep obsidian chest banded in dark meteoric iron materialized softly at Lin Huai’s feet, and the bluestone shrine vanished into the falling snow. Lin Huai’s heart leaped with pure joy.
Combining both of her lifetimes, this was the very first time she had ever obtained a profound stone chest!
Chests of this tier guaranteed high-grade materials or game-changing relics.
Lin Huai was itching to crack it open right away, but when her scythe tapped the metal clasp, she paused.
“Right… inside a profound stone chest sits a Ghost King-tier entity…”
Facing a boss of that caliber alone in the dark would be an unnecessary gamble. After weighing the risks, Lin Huai chose to play it smart and rely on her squad.
She carried the heavy trunk into the hearse to stow it away, saving the grand opening for the morning light.
At dawn, Lin Huai summoned Dragon Emerging from the Sea and If You’re Bad, Practice More. With three of their strongest fighters working in tandem, bringing down a Ghost King should be well within reach.
Brother Long arrived armed to the teeth, clutching a heavy sniper rifle in his left hand and a modified submachine gun in his right.
Sister Cai leveled her crimson-tasseled spear, the gleaming steel tip aimed squarely at the dark, iridescent chest resting on the asphalt. “Boss, we’re set. Pop the lock!”
Lin Huai drew her war scythe, sliding the crescent blade under the iron latch. With a crisp click, the lid popped open.
A dense pillar of black mist erupted from within. Before the three could even glimpse what lay inside the trunk, the frozen rivers on both sides of the road began to boil. Hundreds of ferocious ghouls broke through the surface, roaring as they swarmed the highway.
These were not merely common wandering dead or bottom-tier road safety fiends. The surging horde was packed with mid-tier horrors—grotesque hanged corpses dragging their nooses, and shadowy chang ghosts leaping through the air.
Brother Long’s submachine gun was loaded with Yang energy rounds. Facing the massive wave, he unleashed a continuous, deafening spray of gunfire. The holy light tore through dozens of charging monsters, yet it barely made a dent in the endless tide.
Lin Huai’s eyes narrowed. Cracking a profound stone chest drew far more heat than she had anticipated.
“Yellow Springs Road Guide, deploy the defensive net—fire!”
A sweeping wave of golden energy scorched the asphalt, instantly vaporizing the front ranks of the charging pack.
Yet the riverbanks showed no sign of letting up. More fiends scrambled out of the dark water, screeching as they charged the vehicle.
Sister Cai snapped her spear forward, skewering three screeching phantoms with a single lightning-fast thrust. Her brow furrowed tight. “Boss! There are way too many of them to handle alone. Should we call the rest of the squad?!”
Lin Huai gave a sharp nod and pinged an emergency alert into the Elite Squad channel.
Within three seconds, bright flashes of light illuminated the road as the entire squad teleported in.
The moment they arrived and saw the massive horde pressing down on the trio, nobody wasted time asking questions. Weapons drawn, they slammed into the perimeter, carving an escape route through the mob.
Even Milk Tea and Cute and Sparkling took up positions, firing steadily at any strays that broke past the line.
While neither girl was built for close-quarters brawling, Brother Long had drilled them thoroughly on handling firearms, outfitting them with lightweight submachine guns and boundless drums of ammunition. They didn’t need pinpoint aim; their role was simply to lay down continuous suppression fire.
The swarm seemed limitless. Except for Milk Tea’s ambulance, which was kept sheltered in the middle, the squad drove their armored rigs forward and latched them together with steel winches, creating a sturdy defensive ring across the road.
The automated turrets mounted on each vehicle fired without pause, weaving an impenetrable wall of lead and light. Behind the barricade, the Elite Squad formed a tight circle, each warrior watching their partner’s blind spot while mowing down anything that slipped past the vehicle cannons.
Because all the vehicles were physically chained together, the ten-minute teleportation limit didn’t pull anyone away; the convoy stayed anchored as a single unit on the highway.
They held the line against the ceaseless waves for over half an hour. Finally, as the last batch of bloated corpses disintegrated into gray dust, the frozen river fell still.
They had weathered the storm, but not a single person dared lower their guard.
Right before them, the obsidian chest banded in black iron continued to billow thick, oily smoke.
The true master of the box had yet to reveal itself. It was far too early to breathe easy.
Yet after a full minute of dead silence, nothing crawled out of the dark interior. The chest simply sat on the cobblestones, puffing endless clouds of black fumes into the air.
Fastest Hand at SF Express lowered his gun, letting out an exasperated scoff: “Did this chest come with a lifetime chain smoker? Did the guy choke on his own cigarettes and die in there?”
