Chapter 70: Evil Ghost
After closing the group chat, Lin Huai suddenly remembered something important.
“Oh, right, Little Bone, do you know what a Black Tortoise Dragon Bone is? Where can I find that kind of material?”
Little Bone gave a confident nod. “I’m the Bone-Picking Child. There isn’t a single bone in this world I don’t know. You want a Black Tortoise Dragon Bone, Sister Lin? Just wait here a moment. I’ll go fetch it for you.”
Lin Huai sat up on the bone bed. “Little Bone, you can just tell me where it is, and I’ll go get it myself. I shouldn’t trouble you so much.”
Little Bone shook his head firmly. “A living person cannot set foot in that place. If you go in, your flesh will melt, your bones will turn to dust, and then you’ll break your promise to give me your third vertebra! Don’t worry, Sister Lin. I’ll be back before you know it.”
Having no better option, Lin Huai lay back down to rest, quietly waiting for him to return with the dragon bone.
Before long, the sound of frantic, hurried footsteps echoed outside. Little Bone came sprinting into the cave, clutching a curved segment of bone that gleamed like polished white jade.
His pale, milky eyes were smeared with a dark stain, turning murky and pitch-black. Shoving the white jade bone into Lin Huai’s hands, his voice was tight with panic: “Sister Lin, here is the Black Tortoise Dragon Bone! Put it away and get out of here right now!”
Lin Huai sprang up from the bed. She slipped the dragon bone into her inventory, her heart clenching at his state. “What happened, Little Bone? Why have your eyes turned black? Is there danger coming?”
Little Bone shook his head, pushing her toward the mouth of the cavern with all his strength. “Just run! Don’t worry about me. My eyes will clear up in a few days.”
He shoved her again, desperate. “Danger is coming, but I’m not the one in trouble—you are, Sister Lin! Run! Hurry, get out of the Mass Grave and back to the highway!”
Lin Huai had no idea what was happening, but she knew better than to ignore a direct warning from a local NPC. She gave Little Bone a hasty goodbye and sprinted out of the cavern.
The moment she stepped out, she froze. In the western reaches of the chasm, an enormous pillar of pitch-black mist surged violently into the gray sky. Dark, roiling energy twisted in the air, radiating a suffocating chill that made her skin crawl.
The dark vapor expanded across the valley at terrifying speed. Little Bone took one glance at the sky and waved his skeletal hand. A bright orb of white light formed instantly, lifting both Lin Huai and the green jade coffin into the air, carrying them swiftly toward the upper rim of the sinkhole.
“The crack into the Hungry Ghost Path has burst open!” Little Bone shouted from below. “The evil spirits have broken loose! I’m sending you up first!”
Lin Huai did not even have time to shout back before she was propelled upward.
She knew better than anyone just how brutal the entities of the Hungry Ghost Path truly were.
She could not help but gaze back toward the pillar of black fog. In her previous life, she had met her bitter end right in that very spot.
So the Hungry Ghost Path was sealed deep beneath the Mass Grave all along.
Carried by the glowing sphere, Lin Huai rose rapidly, wind whipping past her ears. Instinctively, she reached out and pressed her palm against the cold lid of the jade coffin beside her, drawing a strange sense of comfort from the stone.
Down below, the dark mist churned like an enormous living beast. Faint, blood-curdling shrieks began to pierce the heavy air, echoing off the stone walls.
“Faster…” she whispered under her breath. As if responding to her plea, the jade coffin hummed softly within the sphere of light.
When her boots finally hit solid dirt along the rim of the pit, the protective orb dissolved into thin air.
Looking back down, she saw that most of the Mass Grave was already swallowed by the rolling black cloud, as though the underworld itself were devouring the canyon. The fresh corpses she had dumped over the edge earlier dissolved into pale bone dust within seconds, melting seamlessly into the sea of mud.
A bitter, freezing wind swept up from the abyss, sending violent shivers down her spine.
She had to leave immediately.
Lin Huai patted the side of the casket, allowing it to float steadily above the roof of her hearse.
Inside the crater, the black mist grew denser by the second, rapidly wiping out all visibility.
Lin Huai grabbed the handle of the driver’s door, ready to dive into the cabin, when the sharp, brittle sound of cracking bones snapped right behind her.
A raspy, guttural growl drifted through the swirling mist: “Such fresh, warm blood… the sweet scent of a living mortal… it smells so delicious…”
Lin Huai whipped around, her chest tightening instantly.
Less than five meters away, a horribly twisted figure had appeared without a sound. It limped forward with an unnatural, staggering gait, every joint in its body bent backward in reverse.
The monster vaguely kept a human silhouette, but its skin looked as though it had been violently flayed away, exposing dark crimson muscle fibers that twitched and pulsed rhythmically.
Its limbs were twisted at sickening angles that defied anatomy. Its fingers and toes had grown into long, jet-black talons that dragged across the rocky ground, carving deep grooves into the dirt with an ear-grating screech.
Most terrifying was its face: the eye sockets were completely hollow, devoid of flesh or bone, filled only with two swirling clusters of sickly green spirit fire.
Its jagged maw was split all the way back to its ears, revealing rows of pale, needle-sharp fangs. Thick, rancid drool dripped continuously from between its teeth, hissing and smoking as it burned into the dead grass on the ground.
It was a flesh-devouring demon from the Hungry Ghost Path!
This horrific fiend had actually clawed its way out of the planar rift!
“Hiss—!”
The demon let out an ear-splitting shriek. In that exact instant, its twisted lower legs slammed into the earth. Its staggering frame vanished, exploding forward in a blur of blood-red afterimages, its razor talons lunging straight for Lin Huai’s heart!
The speed was unbelievable!
Startled as she was, Lin Huai did not panic. Endless life-and-death battles had burned combat instincts deep into her muscle memory.
Refusing to take the strike head-on, she dug the tip of her boot into the dirt and arched her spine backward in an extreme bridge maneuver, narrowly letting the filthy claws graze harmlessly past her chest.
As the strike tore the air above her, she could feel the burning shockwave sting the fabric of her coat.
Rolling backward with the momentum, her right hand flashed toward her pouch, pulling out a thick sheaf of paper talismans and hurling them forward without checking their types.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
The bright yellow papers flew like whistling daggers through the gloom.
The second they collided with the black miasma surrounding the fiend, they detonated with deafening cracks. Golden lightning and blazing fire erupted simultaneously, blasting the demon until its raw flesh was charred black.
Riddled with the concussive force, the monster’s movements ground to a halt under the freezing pressure of an immobilization charm.
“Roar!”
Its charge faltered. Black vapor flared wildly around its limbs as it fought to dissolve the talismans’ golden bindings. Yet instead of raging, the demon threw its head back and laughed with raspy delight:
“Your flesh truly is magnificent! I’ve tasted it before, you know! The moment you stepped into this graveyard, your scent called to me! Give up, little girl—don’t struggle! You’ve already died by our jaws once before!”
The golden light holding the demon began to crack and fade at a terrifying pace. But that brief opening was all the time Lin Huai needed.
Instead of turning to flee inside the armored hearse, she took a heavy step forward, facing the monster head-on!
Her left hand snapped shut in the empty air. A pale, luminous glow coalesced, and her two-meter-long war scythe materialized firmly within her grip.
At the same moment, a massive astral greatsword condensed high above the demon’s head, its glowing tip aimed straight down at the creature’s skull.
Hearing the demon’s mocking words, the truth finally snapped into place.
The rift to the Hungry Ghost Path had not opened by coincidence—it had opened specifically to hunt her.
Little Bone’s sudden rush of memories from their past lives had clearly been triggered by the nearby presence of this realm.
These abominations from the Hungry Ghost Path remembered everything. This beast not only recalled the taste of her flesh and blood, but it also recognized the massive jade coffin resting above her roof.
