Chapter 322 - 162: "Why Use an Ox-Butcher’s Knife to Kill a Chicken.

Chapter 322: Chapter 162: "Why Use an Ox-Butcher’s Knife to Kill a Chicken.

It was almost cute.

Too bad.

The City Wall was twenty meters high. A Flea Ghost might be able to try jumping over it, but it couldn’t jump too high. Jump too high, and the Anti-Air effect would kick in.

"Oh?"

Chen Fan suddenly raised an eyebrow, looking toward the dozens of Ghost Objects emerging from the gray fog, each carrying a white lantern. He was familiar with them—Mourning Ghosts.

They were very powerful.

The lanterns they carried could attack from a distance and would also split.

A single Mourning Ghost could split up to four times, resulting in a maximum of sixteen of them. It was a group of these very Ghosts that had once forced him to relocate. If he hadn’t managed to kill their leader in the end, causing all the others to perish along with it, he would have died.

It had been one of the greatest crises he had ever faced.

The next moment—

The patterns on the nearest Godslaying Cannon began to glow. A shell of crimson energy shot out, pierced through the downpour, and landed right in the middle of the Mourning Ghosts.

"BOOM..."

This time, there was a sound.

The ground began to shake.

Torrents of crimson energy shot out in all directions like pythons. The moment the Mourning Ghosts were killed, the excess damage rapidly spread outward.

A huge swath of the Ghost Objects clustered at the base of the City Wall was instantly cleared out.

"..."

Chen Fan’s expression was a little odd as he gazed at the devastating scene below. It wasn’t what he’d expected. He had imagined the Godslaying Cannon’s overflow damage would instantly wipe out the Mourning Ghosts *after* they had split.

But instead—

The Mourning Ghosts hadn’t split at all.

They were reduced to dust.

He looked at the detailed information for the Rebirth Tower on his Eternal Night Lord panel. Just as he’d suspected, something had changed.

-

「Unexpected Factors Nullified: 48.」

-

’The Rebirth Tower can stop them from splitting?’

’Does splitting count as resurrection?’

"Creatures killed by City Defense Buildings within the camp’s range will have their souls utterly annihilated, unable to be revived."

Chen Fan studied the line of text describing the Rebirth Tower’s effect. ’So the white lantern is the Mourning Ghost’s true body. That means each split isn’t really a split, but a resurrection after death? A case of one life becoming two?’

He wasn’t sure.

He didn’t know if the Rebirth Tower could counter all forms of splitting, or if it just so happened to perfectly counter the Mourning Ghosts’ specific ability.

But he had no way to run an experiment. So far, the Mourning Ghost was the only type of Ghost Object he’d encountered that could split.

An ability he had once found utterly terrifying...

Was now...

Easily dealt with.

’This must be what it feels like to grow stronger.’

"..."

Standing in the downpour, Chen Fan let out a long breath, then chuckled and started walking down from the City Wall, preparing to head back to Nameless Mountain. He hadn’t been caught in the rain for a long time, and the experience made him feel a bit nostalgic.

It was like achieving great success only to find comfort in a simple, familiar meal.

But...

The rain carried a biting chill.

’I shouldn’t stay out in it for too long, or I’ll catch a cold.’

Just then—

Deep within his soul, a building on the Eternal Night Lord panel suddenly began to flash with a yellow light. A feeling washed over Chen Fan, and he stopped in his tracks to look at it.

The Observatory.

The Observatory, the Mortal Realm’s only wonder.

The building had been silent for so long it was almost forgotten, but tonight, it began issuing repeated warnings.

Its Building Effect was:

「Can observe the movements of a Ghost Tide across a large area.」

Ghost Tides almost never formed during the dry season. But the rainy season had just begun, and one had already taken shape. Furthermore, for the Observatory to issue a warning, it had to be heading straight for the Mortal Realm.

Sure enough.

About the time it takes for a stick of incense to burn down...

A wind picked up.

Great swarms of Meat Worm Ghosts, like a tide, emerged from the eternal night, passed through the gray fog, and rolled uncontrollably straight toward the City Wall.

The Meat Worm Ghosts were shaped like balls of flesh.

They had no limbs.

The surfaces of these fleshy spheres were covered with several palm-sized human faces. Unable to control their own movements, they could only tumble forward with the wind, their path left entirely to fate.

The faces on these flesh-balls were initially cheerful.

But as the wind blew them into the Ghost Fire, their expressions twisted in pain.

And when they realized they were about to slam into the City Wall, their agony intensified.

SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT!

A continuous popping, like firecrackers, echoed as viscous green liquid burst everywhere. This highly corrosive fluid began to eat at the City Wall... it started to slowly corrode the City Wall... it tried its best to corrode the City Wall... and then... its corrosive properties were diluted by the rain.

It couldn’t corrode the wall at all.

The altar was never even triggered.

The Level 5 City Wall, simply by standing there in Jiangbei, was like an impassable chasm. It firmly held back the Meat Worms’ Ghost Tide—a tide whose appearance almost always signaled the destruction of a city—keeping it trapped outside.

"..."

Chen Fan stood on the City Wall, silently appreciating the scene below.

Humans were always like this.

They loved watching danger from a place of safety.

During the last rainy season,

When the Meat Worm Ghosts attacked, he had been in a frantic panic, desperately trying to save himself.

This rainy season,

The Meat Worm Ghosts attacked just as they had before, yet he could stand on the City Wall, as immovable as a mountain, quietly admiring the exploding "fireworks."

Normally,

Meat Worm Ghosts did indeed appear during the rainy season, but it was unlikely he would have encountered them the moment it began. A large part of the reason was that his Rainy Season Defense Line now covered a much larger area.

With a larger footprint, the chances of an encounter naturally went up.

With every self-destructing Meat Worm Ghost, a Ghost Stone would fall to the ground.

The scattered, viscous green liquid was completely absorbed by the Ghost Blood Patterns on the City Wall.

Only the empty skins of the Meat Worm Ghosts were left to fall to the ground.

"What a waste."

Chen Fan turned and looked at the busy Mortal Realm Members within his domain. He had a building called the Sacrificial Tower that he hadn’t used in a long time. Sacrificing Ghost Corpses there would yield various rewards.