Wang Liang did not directly use the Slit-Mouthed Woman’s ghost domain to rush swiftly in a straight line toward the incident site between the two stations.
Instead, he followed the route ordinary people would take when riding the subway. His figure flickered eerily, blinking forward as he observed the surroundings along the way.
First came the first basement level, then he followed the stairs down to the subway entrance on the second basement level.
After arriving on this floor, Wang Liang could clearly feel the temperature in the air drop even more sharply, and the stench of corpses in the air also grew much heavier.
The subway platform doors leading in the direction of Shanglin Road Station were open, and waves of cold, gloomy wind carrying a thick corpse stench blew out from within.
The open platform doors were like the entrance to the underworld, leading to a realm of death, enough to make one shudder.
Various things were scattered across the platform—rescue-related tools and backpacks tossed casually on the ground.
Among them were even a few shoes that had come off, allowing one to sense the chaos that had occurred here earlier, the scene of rescue personnel evacuating in panic.
Seeing nothing particularly unusual, Wang Liang took out his satellite phone.
Without waiting for the other side to speak, he said, “Subway Line 16 incident. I’m taking action,” then hung up. With a sway of his figure, he appeared on the subway tracks, then continued flickering forward in the direction of Shanglin Road Station.
His speed was not fast, always maintaining the pace of moving twenty meters with each flicker.
After Wang Liang advanced along the tracks for some distance, he could see that the tunnel floor and walls were stained with quite a bit of blood.
There were even some rotten, crushed pieces of flesh and bodily remains scattered along the tracks, letting Wang Liang know that he was almost there.
After flickering forward another few hundred meters, Wang Liang finally saw a subway train stopped in the tunnel.
The subway’s outer shell was old and yellowed, covered in rust. The carriage exterior, once smooth, was now pitted with holes of varying sizes, and most of the glass in the windows and doors had been violently smashed.
Within sight, several corpses hung from the window ledges of the carriages, their clothes dyed with large patches of blood, their faces still bearing expressions of terror, as though they had seen something utterly horrific before death.
At first glance, how did this look like a subway train that had still been operating normally a month ago? It looked exactly like something that had been abandoned here for years.
Wang Liang’s faint, insubstantial figure flashed, instantly appearing inside the subway carriage.
Raising his eyes, he saw an entire carriage full of corpses lying sprawled about in all directions. There were more than ten people in just this one carriage, and the carriages ahead appeared to be in the same state. Not a single survivor remained.
According to statistics, the death toll in this incident had already exceeded a hundred. Judging by the fact that there was not a single survivor inside the subway and no one had even had time to flee, this fierce ghost was suspected of indiscriminate killing, and its killing speed was extremely fast.
If not for the fact that the fierce ghost here had temporarily been judged to lack the ability to roam, then based on indiscriminate killing alone, the danger level of this supernatural incident could have been rated as A-rank.
Even so, due to the excessive casualties—especially the death of the person in charge—it had been raised to B-rank.
Wang Liang crouched down to examine a corpse on the floor and discovered that the large bloodstains on its clothes had spread outward from near the chest.
He shifted the corpse into a proper position and immediately noticed the hideous bloody hole in the left side of its chest, piercing through its clothes and clean through front to back. The heart inside had vanished without a trace, and through the hole, he could directly see the carriage floor beneath.
As usual, Wang Liang straightened several nearby corpses and found that they all had one thing in common: their hearts had disappeared.
“This ghost’s method of killing is digging out hearts?”
At the very least, judging from the injuries on these corpses, that was the case. Other than the bloody hole in the chest and the missing heart, there were no other wounds on their bodies.
Wang Liang relaxed slightly inwardly. If it was merely a minor physical injury like having the heart dug out, then this unknown fierce ghost was not worth fearing at all.
That made sense. Ghosts that attacked consciousness and had no physical form were not so easy to encounter. In the original storyline, incorporeal fierce ghosts capable of attacking consciousness could be counted on one hand.
Tap. Tap.
Dull footsteps sounded in the dimness, coming from the carriage ahead. They rang out only a few times before falling silent.
Wang Liang turned his head to look at the connection between the two carriages.
In the darkness, a blurry black silhouette stood there stiffly, motionless.
With the support of the supernatural, Wang Liang could see that in the darkness, a man wearing a wrinkled suit was standing there, his eyes tightly shut, his face deathly pale. His body emanated a gloomy, haggard aura.
He was not alive, nor did he look like a ghost wielder. Then he could only be a fierce ghost.
Wang Liang stood up and faced the man suspected to be a fierce ghost.
Whoosh.
Just as Wang Liang turned his body fully toward it, the suit ghost suddenly crossed more than half the carriage and appeared eerily in front of him, nearly pressed face-to-face against him.
That pale, haggard dead man’s face was only a palm’s width away from Wang Liang, almost filling his entire field of vision.
And the suit ghost’s eyes, which had originally been tightly shut, abruptly opened at this moment. Its eyeballs were gray, its gaze hollow and deathly still as it stared straight into Wang Liang’s eyes.
Wang Liang’s body did not move. He merely tilted his head back slightly, his brows furrowing.
Not because he had been frightened, but because he was not used to being so close to a man—no, a male ghost.
He lowered his head to look at his chest. The suit ghost’s arm had already lifted and passed through the location of his heart.
Although the suit ghost’s attack had been sudden, Wang Liang, who had remained vigilant at all times, had actually reacted in that instant. He had even been capable of raising a hand to intercept the suited man’s arm after it teleported over and reached out to dig out his heart.
But he had not done so. Aside from tilting his head back slightly, he had done nothing at all.
Under normal circumstances, Wang Liang’s heart would already have been dug out by the suited man.
But Wang Liang’s body was currently in a faint, insubstantial state, existing within the Slit-Mouthed Woman’s ghost domain.
Once a ghost domain was opened, it could generally isolate the supernatural attacks of other fierce ghosts. It might even avoid attracting the attention of weaker fierce ghosts, because he was already in another space.
Especially since the suited man’s eyes had still been closed just now, making it unable to directly see Wang Liang through sight.
However, the supernatural power possessed by the suit ghost was somewhat strange. It could sense Wang Liang’s location even though he was inside a ghost domain.
But the intensity of its supernatural attack clearly had not reached the level where it could forcefully invade the Slit-Mouthed Woman’s ghost domain.
That ability to instantly move a certain distance did not seem like a ghost domain either. It was more like another kind of special supernatural power capable of short-range attacks, with an effect that allowed it to cross distance. At most, one could only say it had the potential of a ghost domain.
And being unable to invade the ghost domain meant that even if it could notice Wang Liang, it could not harm him.
Thus, at this moment, the suit ghost’s arm had simply passed straight through Wang Liang’s phantom-like chest, causing not the slightest injury.
From what he had seen so far, this ghost posed no threat to him whatsoever.
This also made Wang Liang in no hurry to imprison it. He even had the leisure, while standing face-to-face with a fierce ghost, to analyze this ghost’s abilities in his mind, trying to work out its exact rules so it might be useful in the future.
“It doesn’t seem to be indiscriminate killing. When it first appeared, it didn’t immediately attack me. Did I just trigger its killing rule? Was it standing up, or… facing it?”