The intense, short-term activation of the ghost’s power made Zhou Zheng, who had already been close to the ghost’s resurgence, look even grayer. His gaze was starting to drift, and even focusing his attention had become difficult.
“No. Just… buy those students some time. Give them a chance to escape. I… can’t hold on much longer. When I’m about to die, you run. I’ll hold it off alone.”
Bro, what are you going to hold it off with?!
Wang Liang’s expression sank. Interrupting the knocking pattern and avoiding being randomly selected by one certain-death rule after another was the correct decision.
But at most, that could only delay things. It was not a solution.
The situation was still extremely bad. How long could their suppression of the Knocking Ghost last like this?
And if he abandoned Zhou Zheng and ran, with Zhou Zheng’s current state, suppressing it alone, he might not even be able to stall it for two seconds. How was Wang Liang supposed to run?
Wang Liang had already felt it just now. At present, when he used Sadako’s supernatural power, he could only release curse-like attacks through those gray threads that only he could see, transform his phantom into Sadako, and then have her invade reality to attack.
But perhaps because the ghost’s supernatural puzzle was incomplete, he currently had no ghost domain!
Without a ghost domain, how was he supposed to get from the fifth floor of the teaching building out of the Knocking Ghost’s ghost domain, which was as large as the campus itself, in two seconds? Even jumping off the building and sprinting madly wouldn’t be enough.
Just as Wang Liang felt his head swelling with anxiety, his and Zhou Zheng’s expressions changed at the same time.
The Knocking Ghost, which had been pinned to the ground, suddenly emitted an extremely cold, sinister aura.
The next second, patches of corpse spots, large and small, began appearing simultaneously on the bluish-black strange hand pressing against the old man’s chest and on Sadako’s two deathly pale arms.
Those corpse spots even appeared in several places on Zhou Zheng and Wang Liang, who were some distance away, causing the skin and flesh near the spots to rot to a certain extent.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Wang Liang looked grimly at the corpse spots appearing on his arm and hurriedly retreated several steps.
The true body of Sadako’s supernatural power inside him also emitted a cold aura at that moment, resisting the corpse spots on his arm and slowing their spread.
But even if the resistance succeeded, the skin and flesh that had already rotted were difficult to recover. Right now, he did not have a Deceiver Ghost that could directly restore his body.
Zhou Zheng’s side was even worse. He was on the verge of the ghost’s resurgence, continuously releasing supernatural power, and now he was being eroded by the corpse spots as well.
At this moment, Zhou Zheng’s eyes were almost losing their luster. It felt as if he might die at any moment.
With the appearance of the corpse-spot supernatural power, the suppressed Knocking Ghost once again began to stiffly rise. Bit by bit, it forced up the suppression of the three ghost arms on its body. The direction of the supernatural confrontation had changed again.
The Knocking Ghost’s former self was Luo Wensong, one of the Seven Elders of the Republic era. Even though Luo Wensong had dismembered many supernatural powers before his death, the remaining supernatural powers were still formidable, not something modern ghost controllers could easily contend with.
The Knocking Ghost did not possess only the single killing rule of certain death upon knocking. It also had corpse spots and other supernatural powers and curses.
And when these supernatural powers existed together as one, becoming part of the Knocking Ghost’s supernatural puzzle, the overall quantity of supernatural power increased, and each individual supernatural power was strengthened as well. It was absolutely not as simple as one plus one equals two; it was far stronger.
Just now, the Knocking Ghost had merely relied on the sheer volume of its own supernatural power to withstand Zhou Zheng and Wang Liang’s suppression.
But now that it had actively released the corpse-spot supernatural power, Zhou Zheng, who was on the verge of ghost resurgence, and Wang Liang, who currently controlled only one crashed ghost, could no longer continue to oppose it.
One had to know that when Yang Jian confronted the Knocking Ghost in the original plot, he controlled the Ghost Eye, the Ghost Shadow, and the Ghost Hand, and had brought along the Ghost Child and a chopping knife. The Ghost Child was even carrying a dead man’s head that killed whoever it glared at.
Even then, during the head-on collision, Yang Jian still fell into a disadvantage and failed in the first clash.
Only in the second round did he use his ghost domain to suppress the Knocking Ghost, causing it to fall into a trap arranged with a gold box, and only by coordinating with the ghost chopping knife in a clever way did he manage to imprison it.
For Wang Liang at his current stage, being able to hold on until this point was already his limit.
Especially when he had not yet fully familiarized himself with Sadako’s supernatural power, and had gone straight into actual combat the moment he obtained it.
“Go!”
Zhou Zheng roared as if in a final burst before death. With the two-meter-long bluish-black strange hand extending from his belly, he forced himself to take several steps forward, intending to further suppress the Knocking Ghost.
But at this moment, the Knocking Ghost had actually completely recovered its ability to move. It directly reached out and seized the bluish-black strange hand pressing against its chest.
After being grabbed by the Knocking Ghost, the bluish-black strange hand instantly went limp like a boneless strip of flesh.
And Zhou Zheng, who had just charged forward, also instantly turned ashen-faced and powerlessly dropped to his knees.
Bro, was that even one second?!
After Zhou Zheng collapsed, the derived Sadako, whose hands were clawing at the Knocking Ghost’s face and shoulder, had also been eroded by the corpse spots to the limit.
The two arms of the derived Sadako were shattered into flying ash by a cold, sinister force. Immediately afterward, this derived Sadako that Wang Liang had summoned also completely turned to ashes and vanished without a trace.
Ghosts could not be killed. The real Sadako was still inside Wang Liang. The one outside was merely a supernatural product formed by him activating Sadako’s supernatural power and releasing a curse. It was only a derived Sadako.
Affected by the strength of Wang Liang’s supernatural power, the derived Sadako was stronger than an ordinary ghost slave and could even directly contend against some weaker malevolent ghosts. But she herself was not a true malevolent ghost. Now that she had lost the supernatural confrontation, she disappeared.
And on the corridor glass from which that derived Sadako had crawled out, Wang Liang’s reflection was no longer there.
This piece of glass could no longer be cursed again in the short term. He had to wait until the residual supernatural power on it dispersed first.
But that was not a major problem. After all, there was plenty of glass around that could reflect Wang Liang’s figure. Even taking out a phone and letting the screen reflect him would allow him to cast a curse and summon Sadako.
The real problem now was that this confrontation could no longer continue.
The Knocking Ghost at this stage was not something the current Wang Liang could deal with, especially when Zhou Zheng had gone down.
The situation had collapsed too quickly after the corpse spots appeared. Zhou Zheng had wanted to buy Wang Liang time to escape, to hold it off alone for a moment, but before Wang Liang could even let go, he had already fallen to his knees.
The reality was even worse than expected. It was probably not even one second.
The Knocking Ghost blocked the door outside. The corpse-spot supernatural power spread without restraint, and even the surrounding air now felt icy cold.
With an ugly expression, Wang Liang quickly retreated into the classroom.
He had wanted to step forward and fight, to struggle for a way out, but the confrontation with the Knocking Ghost was even more difficult than he had imagined. Now, it seemed he had sacrificed himself for others…
The fluorescent tubes in the corridor and classroom buzzed, then instantly went out.
An incomparably dense darkness was released from the old man on the ground, once again enveloping the entirety of No. 7 High School. Through the window, not even the slightest light from the distant city could be seen.
The ghost domain had opened again.
And the students from Wang Liang’s class had only just escaped to around the second or third floor. They, too, were enveloped within the ghost domain.
A flash of black light passed over the black-shirted old man sitting on the ground. In the next instant, he once again stood perfectly straight on the floor, his eyes deathly still. Just like when they had first seen him, he stood in the classroom, as if the confrontation just now had never happened at all.
Wang Liang’s retreating figure bumped into the lectern. Cold sweat dripped from his forehead.
Outside the door, the Knocking Ghost stared at him with those gray-white eyeballs, without the slightest trace of emotion. The shadow of death, together with the darkness, nearly drowned him.