“Li Jun, we won’t be able to hold out much longer. An unknown upheaval has occurred in the Ghost Painting, and the Ghost Officer is suspected to have gone out of control. We could die here at any moment.”
The woman named Ah Hong was touching up her makeup while vigilantly watching her surroundings.
At this moment, the team was situated at a delicate point of balance between the Ghost Painting and the Ghost Officer, but that balance did not seem as though it could last much longer. The gray, murky condensation around them was slowly pressing in.
Ah Hong had not been applying makeup to herself just now, but to Liu San’s corpses. She had spread the paper-doll corpses across the ground like a canvas, doing her utmost to paint the place as it had first appeared.
But it did not seem that this could last long. Before long, the pigments on the corpses, along with the corpses themselves, turned into patch after patch of gray, murky condensation.
After all, Ah Hong’s makeup case was meant for applying makeup to the dead. Right now, she was merely borrowing the lingering supernatural power in Liu San’s paper-doll corpses and barely using it as paint.
“We can’t just wait here to die.”
A waxen-faced man was sitting atop a heap of tattered paper dolls.
“Most of my paper dolls in this Ghost Painting have basically been used up. There are also many paper dolls I’ve lost contact with. I don’t really care either way, but if the rest of you don’t hurry up and think of something, you really will be done for here.”
Liu San looked completely indifferent, as if none of this had anything to do with him.
“Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap…”
Su Fan stood off to the side, frantically pressing the phone in his hand. He was using so much force that the others could hear the sharp clatter of his tapping.
He stared at the screen while muttering under his breath. “Dead for sure… dead again…”
Li Jun was crouching nearby. The ground around him was covered in cigarette butts, and he still had one dangling from his mouth. No one knew what he was thinking.
Suddenly, without the slightest warning, the group was engulfed by a gray-white world.
Liu San’s expression changed.
“What’s going on?! Why did the Ghost Painting suddenly change? In its confrontation with the Ghost Officer, did the Ghost Painting suppress the Ghost Officer?”
Everyone stood up and brushed the gray condensation from their bodies, carefully observing the changes around them.
“Think of a way to contact Headquarters. This situation is not something we can handle. If the Ghost Painting and the Ghost Officer are restricting each other, then we still have a chance, but now…”
Liu San stopped halfway through his sentence.
Everyone knew what situation they were facing now. Once the Ghost Painting completely went out of control, all of Dajing City would be enveloped within the Ghost Painting’s ghost domain. There would be absolutely no chance of survival here.
But right now, this team had no idea what was happening outside. They could only move cautiously within the world of the Ghost Painting.
Time rewound to half an hour earlier.
Headquarters.
“Zhao Jianguo?! What did he do?! Activate the emergency plan! Notify all designated captains! Headquarters has fallen!”
The moment Cao Yanhua finished speaking, the entire Headquarters was instantly shrouded by a dark bluish-black ghost domain.
Headquarters was given no chance to react. The Starving Ghost’s ghost domain enveloped the whole place in an instant.
Cao Yanhua’s face turned deathly pale.
“The Starving Ghost is out of control. Elder Qin should already be on his way here. Evacuate all personnel! You can’t walk out of a ghost domain! Gather everyone in the shelter!”
“Li Jun and the others are still inside the Ghost Painting at this point in time. I hope nothing goes wrong with the Ghost Painting and the Ghost Officer…”
The underground shelter level.
Wang Xiaoming, Cao Yanhua, Shen Liang, and the others were sitting at the conference table.
“Professor Wang, what is going on? Why did the Starving Ghost suddenly go out of control? Did the coffin nail’s effect fail?”
Cao Yanhua’s complexion looked a little better. After all, he was currently one of the backbones of the entire Headquarters. He could not show weakness.
Wang Xiaoming, with dark circles under both eyes, looked at the data on the laptop in front of him and tapped at the keyboard.
“After Yang Jian returned from the Caesar Hotel, there was one person whose state became inconsistent with common sense. If ghosts did not exist, I might not have thought in that direction, but ghosts themselves are existences that transcend common sense. Therefore, I am eighty percent certain that Yang Jian has mastered some kind of ghost capable of altering people’s cognition or memories. Feng Quan is the best example.”
“If we continue with this line of deduction, then Zhao Jianguo was also attacked by this ghost at some point. Perhaps… some among us have also been attacked. It’s just that the medium has not been triggered, so there is no way to tell whose memories have been altered by the ghost.”
After listening, everyone’s eyes were filled with shock. They looked at one another and began discussing in alarm.
A terrifying unknown supernatural force could actually alter people’s memories without them noticing at all.
Cao Yanhua slammed the table and stood up. From the look of him, he nearly drew his gun.
“Everyone, quiet! Since we cannot tell who has been controlled by the ghost, the urgent priority is to resolve the Starving Ghost’s loss of control! We are now entering wartime alert. Anyone who dares disobey orders will be executed on the spot!”
At once, the entire room fell silent. Those who could sit here were all elites among elites. After Cao Yanhua’s roar, everyone came to their senses. Compared to the Starving Ghost, a supernatural force that modified memories was no longer the top priority in the current situation.
“The emergency plan has already been fully activated. Now, all ghost controllers at Headquarters will receive the message on their satellite phones. Remember, our current task is to keep communications open and provide intelligence support to the ghost controllers coming to reinforce us! You all know the Starving Ghost’s killing pattern. If necessary, we are the trail markers. We are the bait!”
At the same time, in a safe room on a certain underground level of the Moments Building.
“They woke me up early… Has that guy Ye Zhen come again?”
A hoarse, low voice drifted through the safe room. A withered, emaciated man with bloodshot eyes slowly climbed out of a coffin.
“Headquarters has fallen. The Starving Ghost is out of control. The Ghost Painting is near Dajing, and the Ghost Officer is inside the Ghost Painting. Considering the Ghost Painting’s ghost domain, that distance is far too close.”
The man was stunned after hearing this.
“Is that so… Truly extraordinary. Three S-rank fierce ghosts. That Elder Qin may not be able to withstand them. Forget it. I’ll make the trip. After all, I still have an agreement with Wang Xiaoming. I can’t not go.”
As soon as he finished speaking, wild winds rose inside the safe room. By the time the winds dispersed, the man’s figure had vanished as well.
Dahai City.
A young man stood on the rooftop, arms spread wide, looking down upon the masses below.
“At the summit of immortals, I stand proud above the world; where I, Ye Zhen, exist, so too does Heaven. A-Wu, there is no need to panic. Even if I, Ye, were to hold up the Ghost Painting with one hand, I could still subdue that Starving Ghost and the Ghost Officer. Watch this place well. I will go and return in no time!”
The moment his words fell, a crack split open in Dahai City’s dim sky. Sunlight spilled through the fissure and fell upon Ye Zhen.
“I depart, treading upon the sun.”
A-Wu stared in the direction Ye Zhen had left, his face dark with exasperation.
“What a fool.”
At the same time, responsible persons and designated captains from all over were rushing toward Headquarters in their own ways.
Everyone knew that once Headquarters fell and the horror revival began, no one would have the ability to bring this supernatural era to an end.