Chapter 85 - 82: Since When Did Our Baijiang Have So Many Experts?

Chapter 85: Chapter 82: Since When Did Our Baijiang Have So Many Experts?

"Answering Manager Ying’s call?"

Through a brief conversation, Group Leader Song roughly understood the situation.

Old Yao, who had escaped, issued a request for reinforcements in a place called the Safe Zone. By making heavy promises in the name of the Countermeasures Bureau, he managed to rope in this group of reinforcements.

Although that was the explanation, Song Jianshen still had a clear grasp of reality. Confronting ghosts head-on was a highly dangerous task. If not for the push from the camp leader known by the codename Manager, there was no way this many reinforcements would have shown up.

"The Manager said there were ghosts to fight, so here we are. It seems we arrived just in time."

In the Nightmare World, the wind was a bit cold, blowing in gusts. However, it couldn’t extinguish the boiling blood in everyone’s hearts.

Normal Dream Descenders would flee from ghosts. But were they normal people? They sought out ghosts, chased after ghosts, and weighed themselves against ghosts!

A Dream Descender controlled a Witchcraft Flying Eye, observing the battlefield from afar.

"There really are a total of four ghosts.

"Among them, the Blood-colored Bus can continuously summon minor monsters. The Shadow Ghost can control a tide of shadow bugs that you absolutely cannot let touch you. The Paperman Ghost is the most bizarre of all, capable of turning external attacks into paper..."

He gathered intelligence and shouted it out to the Member Level bigshots at the scene. This, too, was a direct contribution.

Some Dream Descenders grouped up, wandering the edges of the battlefield to clear out the monsters summoned by the bus and the small bugs lurking in the shadows. The truly strong, however, drove straight into the heart of the enemy lines.

Xi Xue pierced the Butcher Ghost with a silver spear. But the Butcher Ghost was a ghost, after all. A mere piercing wound was just a minor injury to such an entity.

"Then I’ll just pierce it a few more times! Curse Art: Silver Blade!"

Xi Xue’s growing silver hair coiled to her left and right, unexpectedly transforming into two silver-white Knight’s Spears. She looked like an ancient knight wielding twin spears. Facing the tall, burly Butcher Ghost, she didn’t retreat a single step; instead, she pressed forward.

The spears thrust out continuously, tearing through the air and emitting waves of high-pitched shrieks.

CLANG!

The Knight’s Spear clashed with the Bloodstained Machete. The transferred Giant Power forced Xi Xue’s entire body to involuntarily retreat backward. However, as she flew back into midair, the two large Knight’s Spears scattered, transforming into numerous small Javelins.

The Javelins tightened as Curse Power compressed within them, launching at the moment they reached their limit. They resembled massive arrows fired from a ballista, whistling through the air across a distance of dozens of meters.

The Butcher Ghost simply couldn’t block such a dense, comprehensive attack. In the blink of an eye, it was pierced into a hedgehog, and its frantic sprinting speed consequently slowed down.

Xi Xue decided to abandon close combat with the Butcher Ghost altogether. She condensed her long hair again, shaping it into multiple two-meter-long arms. Supported by them, she looked like she was being carried by a giant spider as she sprinted wildly across the streets and between the buildings.

Her speed was even faster than the Butcher Ghost!

This was a kiting tactic! Yet, it very clearly suppressed a ghost head-on!

Even Xi Xue was a little surprised by her own strength. She thought, "Are ghosts actually this easy to deal with?

"It must be my astonishing natural talent.

"Of course... my Cultivation in the Safe Zone provided a tiny bit of very crucial help."

Elsewhere on the battlefield.

Li Wei’s eyes gleamed darkly. Dense hair grew over his body, every inch of his muscles bulged, and his teeth sharpened. This was the effect of his Lifebound Curse Object, "Werewolf Blood."

Although it was also only at the Complete Level, it was absolutely in the highest tier of that level. It could enhance his strength, speed, stamina, and even resistance. Now, he had fully stimulated the Curse Object’s power and developed an exclusive Curse Art: Werewolf Incarnation!

Endless power surged from his body. Li Wei felt that he was terrifyingly strong at this moment.

"If it weren’t for the Manager, and if I hadn’t Cultivated in the Safe Zone, my past self could never have imagined that someone in the Control Stage could possess such immense power—the power to directly confront ghosts!"

Forget the Control Stage; even if his past self could have stepped into the Refining Stage, he absolutely wouldn’t have had the confidence to clash head-on with a ghost.

But now...

BANG!

Li Wei stomped the ground fiercely, sending crushed stones flying. His entire skeletal structure had grown much taller. As he charged, he was like a heavy-duty freight train, stirring up a howling wind that made the scalps of nearby Dream Descenders tingle.

BOOM!

Humanoid monsters were sent flying horizontally, their bodies shattered from the impact. Li Wei charged straight into the Blood-colored Bus, wreaking massive destruction from within. He looked even more violent than Xi Xue.

Watching this made Group Leader Song’s eyelids twitch. "Where did this fierce warrior come from?"

One by one, the Safe Zone members took action.

Experts like Xi Xue, Li Wei, and Hair Ghost could fight ghosts head-on and even gain some advantages. Profound Sword was even capable of defeating and killing one. Besides them, Peaches, Bearded Old Wang, and other Member Level experts arrived one after another, with even more Safe Zone Dream Descenders joining the battle.

At this point, it was no longer a case of ghosts surrounding the Countermeasures Bureau camp. Instead, it was the Dream Descenders from the Safe Zone launching a hunting encirclement against the ghosts.

"Too powerful, they are far too powerful!"

Group Leader Song and his men also operated some of the camp’s weapons to Support them from the sidelines. However, Support was all they could do. The main forces on the battlefield were those few experts who suppressed the ghosts, displaying a tyranny that forced people to look upon them with awe.

"Just where did these experts spring out from?" he couldn’t help but wonder.

Someone remarked, "Those two wearing Witch’s Skirts should be experts from the Wizard’s House, but who are they?"

Xi Xue and Peaches were rookies—and rookies were just rookies, after all. Though Song Jianshen claimed not to be adept at combat, he was still an expert at the Peak of Control Stage. He merely hadn’t reached the Entry Level in any Curse Art, preventing him from clashing head-on with ghosts. In reality, he was considered a top-tier expert in the eyes of many Dream Descenders. What he paid attention to were naturally the masters and experts of other organizations.

Xi Xue and Peaches were both very young girls, and he didn’t recognize them.

"Perhaps they’re experts secretly trained by the Wizard’s House?" he mused.

As for the young man wielding a sword in the distance, Song Jianshen found him somewhat familiar. He thought for a moment and said, "It seems that guy is the disciple of the Master of Extreme Intent?"

"Since he’s the disciple of the Master of Extreme Intent, having such strength makes sense," another Countermeasures Bureau veteran noted.

"No," Song Jianshen said. "If I remember correctly, he’s the sixth disciple, the latest one taken in by the Master of Extreme Intent. He also seems to be a Dream Descender with rather shallow experience in Nightmares."

Logically speaking, he shouldn’t be this strong! Song Jianshen felt that either he had recognized the wrong person, or the Master of Extreme Intent had cultivated this disciple in secret.

Song Jianshen and his group could still understand unfamiliar experts popping out from the Wizard’s House and Extreme Intent Martial Arts Hall. After all, those were large organizations overseen by top-tier Extraordinary figures with complete inheritances. If these massive factions devoted all their resources to nurturing one or two rookies, they were entirely capable of elevating their strength in a short amount of time.

However...

Song Jianshen looked over at the black-suited Hair Ghost wielding a Ghost Object, and the exceptionally ferocious mysterious expert Li Wei, who had taken a Werewolf Incarnation.

"What about these two?" he wondered. "They seem to be purely independent Dream Descenders, yet I’ve never heard of them before. This doesn’t make any sense!"

Independent Dream Descenders didn’t have the backing of organizations, making their growth trajectories much clearer. From genius to expert, and then to a Refining Stage powerhouse—there had to be a process. During this process, they would inevitably encounter situations where they had to fight. Once they took action and were witnessed by others, their reputations would naturally brew slowly until fully erupting at a certain moment.

Yet, these two seemed to have popped out of thin air. Experts capable of fighting ghosts head-on were at the very apex of the First Refinement Realm. How could they be nobodies?

Not to mention... what kind of figure was this Manager who could rally such experts? He had never even heard of the codename "Manager" before this.

He thought to himself, "Since when did our Baijiang have so many experts?

"Could they be experts from other cities? But that’s impossible either."

Knowing certain secrets, he immediately dismissed the latter possibility. Still, these experts couldn’t have just sprung out from the cracks in a rock, right?

To the side, Old Cai hesitated to speak, only to swallow his words, then opened his mouth again. He actually did know Hair Ghost and the Manager. However, he didn’t dare say he truly knew them anymore. The last time they met, Hair Ghost definitely hadn’t been this powerful. And then there was the Safe Zone. Was the Safe Zone he knew truly the same place as the Safe Zone Hair Ghost spoke of?

Outside the camp, the Dream Descenders’ advantage continued to widen.

The Shadow Ghost’s insect tide was continuously divided, torn apart, and slowly devoured. The interior of the Blood-colored Bus suffered several severe traumas, causing its monster-spawning speed to drastically slow down. The Butcher Ghost’s body was riddled with countless javelins, its arms having been previously blasted apart; its healing speed had visibly decelerated.

As for the most bizarre Paperman Ghost...

Its figure suddenly became erratic. It actually bypassed the Wet-haired Ghost Object and flew straight toward the camp. The other three ghosts also seemingly awakened their self-awareness, suddenly becoming much smarter. The Butcher Ghost stopped chasing Xi Xue, charging instead at Peaches, whose speed was far slower. The bus ghost ignored Li Wei inside its body, slamming directly toward a distant squad of Dream Descenders. The shadow insect tide dispersed, turning around in an attempt to encircle and kill Profound Sword.

"As I suspected, there’s something wrong with these ghosts!" Song Jianshen clenched his fists. Normal ghosts couldn’t possibly appear in a small-scale Nightmare simultaneously. They came from other Nightmares and were being controlled by something!

Just moments ago, the ghosts were fighting purely on instinct. Now, each one acted like a human figure wearing the skin of a ghost, suddenly displaying Combat Techniques!

Veteran Refining Stage human experts could clash head-on with ghosts by relying on strength and wisdom. But a battle purely on instinct? A ghost could endure dozens of fatal attacks. What about humans? If they were killed, they would die! When ghosts also possessed Combat Techniques, humans couldn’t match them through force alone!

The tide of battle instantly reversed.

Several Dream Descenders were immediately plunged into peril. Song Jianshen and his men broke into a cold sweat, but they were also facing a direct crisis of their own—the now-intelligent Shadow Ghost had already infiltrated its bugs into the camp.

Inside the Safe Zone, Shi An’s eyes widened. "This feeling...

"I’m not mistaken!"

At this moment, he could very clearly feel a wave of malice hovering above. It was the exact same malice that had peered into the Safe Zone last time. Only this time, the wisp of malice clearly hadn’t discovered the Safe Zone. Using the Paperman Ghost as a vessel, it cast its gaze from afar, controlling several ghosts to form a tacit coordination.

"Destroy the Paperman Ghost!"

The Manager’s voice echoed in the minds of the members—Profound Sword, Xi Xue, Hair Ghost, Li Wei. They were momentarily stunned, but immediately lunged toward the Paperman Ghost without the slightest hesitation.

"Curse Art: Instantaneous... Phantom Step!"

Profound Sword crossed dozens of meters in a single step, his sword’s edge thrusting toward the drifting Paperman Ghost.

"Curse Art: Light Feather Step!"

Xi Xue’s movement speed increased even further. Her entire body leaped through midair, the long spear molded from her silver hair piercing the sky.

The Paperman Ghost drifted gracefully, dodging several of Profound Sword’s strikes. Its body then split down the middle, once again dodging Xi Xue’s javelin. It had no intention of fighting back, choosing only to blindly evade.

But suddenly, a peach-pink beam of light pierced diagonally, landing squarely on the drifting Paperman Ghost. The ghost’s figure froze in place.

This was Peaches’s Lifebound Curse Art. Her mastery of Curse Arts was relatively low, so she had squatted in a corner, secretly preparing for a long time before launching this utterly crucial strike. Even so, the peach-pink light beam could only freeze the Paperman Ghost for a split second.

But a split second was enough.

Pitch-black Curse Power erupted from the Paperman Ghost’s body.

However, Profound Sword’s blade and Xi Xue’s spear were faster. The Evil Eye Sword pierced the paper, and the shadow of a massive eyeball manifested, causing eyes to grow on the paper before erupting in a series of POP POP POPs.

Xi Xue even downed a Curse Power Potion, unleashing every ounce of strength in her body. As her silver Knight’s Spear stabbed down, dozens of sharp barbs burst out from the point of impact.

Attack!

Attack!

Attack!

Under this frantic barrage, the Paperman Ghost’s entire body was blown into pieces. Even now, the Paperman Ghost was still alive. Such was the terrifying Life Force of a ghost.

However, that malicious gaze could no longer linger. It unwillingly retreated.

The four ghosts also returned to normal.

Ten minutes later.

As Profound Sword brought down his final slash, the already battered Blood-colored Bus finally collapsed into a pile of shattered fragments.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. It left behind only a single Dream Curse Object as the crowd’s spoils of war.

"What a difficult battle that was," Xi Xue sighed.

Song Jianshen glanced at the reinforcement experts who were virtually uninjured, and a question mark slowly popped up over his head.

"What part of that was difficult?"