Chapter 146: Ghost VS Ghost

In an instant, Ai Ning vanished from where she stood, replaced by the severed, blood-stained hand of a mannequin.

At the same time, Ai Ning had already been teleported dozens of meters away, landing in the safe, illuminated area beneath a streetlamp.

The moment she was attacked by the Fierce Ghost's rule, Ghost Infant swapped places with her, taking the brunt of the Killing Rule in her stead.

Ghosts were immortal and indestructible anyway. Ghost Infant didn't care.

Back at the Jinhai Building, when Gao Tian activated the Urn in an attempt to contain Ghost Cave, Ghost Infant had used this exact trick, acting as a scapegoat to take Ghost Cave's place.

In the darkness, the severed mannequin hand lying on the ground slowly "grew" back into its complete form. Covered in black, bloody handprints, the mannequin crawled up from the ground in a stiff, contorted posture. The woman's face on the back of its head opened a pair of blood-red eyes and scanned the unlit, darkened stretch of the road. "Let me see just what kind of ghost you are."

Usually, it was the ghosts of the Galan Society who went around terrifying people. It was rare to find a ghost daring enough to try and scare her. Such an experience was a novelty, and she was determined to savor it. She hoped this entity would let her have her fill of fun.

But when Ghost Infant saw what was in front of her, the already rigid mannequin completely froze.

What... was this thing?

Meanwhile, standing in the distance, Gao Tian noticed Ghost Infant freeze in the darkness, obviously having spotted something.

She was locked in place as if her system had crashed, unable to move for a long time.

"Hey, what did you see in the dark? Move!"

Gao Tian had no idea what kind of thing had rooted her to the spot.

He didn't dare rush blindly into the darkness. The Wind Attendant Buddha needed to stay near Ai Ning to protect the female ghost hunter, just in case some passing wandering spirit tried to pick her off.

After a long moment, Ghost Infant turned her head with a loud creak, projecting a human voice toward Gao Tian. "A fishhook."

"A fishhook descending from the sky."

A fishhook?

For a second, Gao Tian didn't understand what she was talking about.

In the dark stretch of road, Ghost Infant tilted her head back, seemingly trying to get a clear look at where the fishing line attached to the hook plunging from the shadows led to up above.

The next moment, a tiny, glinting object shifted. It slid under Ghost Infant's chin and instantly hooked her. Before she could even react, the fishhook snared its target, and the line connecting to the sky yanked upward, rapidly reeling Ghost Infant into the air like a caught fish!

Just what kind of entity was this "angler" sitting up in the heavens? Ghost Infant was a top-tier enforcer of the Galan Society, a formidable ghost in her own right, yet she couldn't even withstand a single move from this thing.

Watching Ghost Infant vanish into the dark canopy of the sky, having become the angler's catch, Gao Tian began contemplating grabbing Ai Ning and running for it.

The members of the Galan Society were either gone or dead. There was no need to push on with this mission. Gao Tian even wondered if he should take Ai Ning back to the Living Apartment to hide for a while, waiting out the massive war in Shanghai City before emerging.

Even though they'd have to undertake Green Text Missions in the future, anything was better than dying tonight.

"Idiot, did you think I was dead?"

Before two seconds of thought could pass through his mind, Ghost Infant's angry rebuke rang out from the distance. A sudden change occurred: the mannequin that had been reeled into the sky abruptly broke free from the hook's control, dropping straight down to the ground like a kite with a snapped string.

Looking closely, the mannequin had lost its head. The fishhook had snagged Ghost Infant's skull, so she simply abandoned her head to temporarily escape.

It was a trick only a ghost could pull off. A living person would have died instantly.

The moment she hit the ground, Ghost Infant realized the shadows were the home turf of these bizarre high-altitude fishhooks. Standing there meant being nothing but a sitting duck.

Bearing her headless mannequin body, she scrambled on all fours, trying to retreat from the darkened road and run toward the illuminated spot where Gao Tian stood.

Gao Tian stood his ground and watched from the sidelines. Just as Ghost Infant had observed his deductive reasoning earlier, he now wanted to see exactly how many hidden cards Ghost Infant still had to play.

Surely a dignified supernatural entity of the Galan Society wouldn't get completely wiped out by some passing stray ghost in a random neighborhood before even encountering the Woman in the Rain or the Supernatural Disaster Bureau?

No way.

Just as Ghost Infant tried to escape the shadows, the invisible angler naturally wouldn't let her go so easily. Four or five glinting fishhooks materialized in the darkness simultaneously, surrounding Ghost Infant. They snagged her left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg, and torso respectively. No matter how many parts the mannequin discarded, it was clear that she was going to be reeled in this time.

These fishhooks were exceptionally insidious. Once hooked, it was impossible to break free. Victims were like fish out of water, stripped of any ability to resist, forced to ascend while utterly at the mercy of their captor.

With all five sections of her body snagged, Ghost Infant was doomed. Abandoning any part would be useless.

"Looks like you're really dead this time."

Standing in the light, Gao Tian's tone carried a hint of mockery.

The next second, out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the Wind Attendant Buddha, originally standing in the light, had vanished in the blink of an eye. In its place under the streetlamp was a severed mannequin hand snagged by a fishhook.

Meanwhile, the original Wind Attendant Buddha had been teleported into the darkness. It was instantly surrounded by the fishhooks and reeled high into the sky.

Halfway up, unable to bear the pressure, the Wind Attendant Buddha collapsed, dissipating into endless streams of wind.

"This trick again?"

Watching Ghost Infant, who was now reduced to a severed hand, "grow" back into a full body from that single appendage, Gao Tian knew she had triggered her "position swap" rule again.

Only this time, the swap was for self-preservation. She had sacrificed a Wind Attendant Buddha to save herself.

Regardless, although the result was pathetic, she had managed to survive by a fluke.

Otherwise, even an immortal, indestructible ghost would find it hard to come back down after being reeled up.

Having reeled in several empty hooks, the master of the fishing lines showed no intention of letting them go. The few remaining streetlamps along the street ahead and behind them began to flicker out one by one. The darkness was closing in on them from both directions.

It was about to encircle them completely.

Gao Tian looked up at the sky, trying to find where those towering fishing lines were dangling from.

If he could find the main body attached to the hooks, he could take the entity out using the Terror Blade or the Urn.

Bizarrely, the few fishing lines glinting in the dark seemed endless, stretching all the way to the very edge of the visible sky and piercing straight through the clouds. From this angle, it was impossible to spot any trace of what lay above.

"When you were attacked just now, did you notice any clues about this ghost?"

With the crisis steadily closing in, Gao Tian maintained his basic composure, quickly questioning Ghost Infant beside him to gauge a way out of this paranormal event.

"I couldn't find its main body. I just felt my body being reeled upward."

"The moment the hook snagged me, I couldn't muster an ounce of strength. If I had been reeled all the way up, I'd probably be like a fish on a chopping block."

Ghost Infant pointed toward the sky, in the general direction where the lines were dropping from, and activated her Killing Rule.

A moment later, she dropped her hand in defeat. "It's no use."

"I can't find this Fishing Ghost's main body. I can't spawn a ghost infant at all."

As the darkness pressed in, a glinting point of cold light drifted toward the two of them.

Gao Tian watched it, his mind racing. "Could it be that the hook itself is the ghost's main body?"

"If that's the case, then we're dead," Ghost Infant said.

"You saw it yourself, the number of hooks is limitless. It can drop five at once, and it can drop even more."

When the fishhook flew in front of them, ready to snag Ghost Infant once more, she was fully prepared. She reached into some unknown space and pulled out the Blood-Stained Notebook.

Moving as fast as she could, she scribbled in the notebook: 'The incoming fishhook did not snag me.'

'Instead, it hooked a corpse by the side of the road.'

Gao Tian had seen this Supernatural Item disguised as a notebook before.

During their game involving the Urn, Ghost Infant had used it to record entries, allowing her to distort reality to a certain extent.

Of course, the notebook itself was strictly limited. The distorted reality still had to conform to logic; she couldn't just invent wildly impossible scenarios.

The moment the Supernatural Item activated, the corpse of a woman in her fifties wearing a red fluffy sweater appeared right on the hook. It was the exact same nameless corpse Gao Tian had seen lying in the street earlier.

Feeling the weight, the line above quickly began to retract. It seemed the entity thought it had snagged its target this time and was reeling it in.

Watching the corpse being rapidly pulled into the sky, Ghost Infant raised her hand again, aimed at the corpse's abdomen, and triggered her Killing Rule.

The poor woman in the red sweater couldn't even find peace in death. Her abdomen quickly swelled up, tearing open as a ghost infant crawled out from inside.

It clung tightly to the corpse's thigh, pulled up into the dark night by the high-altitude fishhook alongside its "mother."

"I'll send a ghost infant up to see exactly what's going on up there."

Ghost Infant mumbled the explanation, sounding as if she were talking to herself, yet also speaking to Gao Tian beside her.

It was a viable plan.

Even though the fishhooks were a nuisance, as long as they followed the line to find the ghost's main body up above, they might just be able to finish it off.

Even if they couldn't, they would at least figure out exactly what kind of thing was sitting in the sky fishing for them.

This Fishing Ghost's Killing Rule was incredibly tricky. No wonder all the stray ghosts and wandering spirits in this block had completely vanished.

They had probably all been picked off by it.

Ordinary Fierce Ghosts lacked intelligence and would only mindlessly follow their own Killing Rules. They would never think to search for the Fishing Ghost's main body. In the end, they could only be played to death by the Fishing Ghost bit by bit, without the slightest ability to fight back.

Even an experienced entity like Ghost Infant had suffered a huge disadvantage upon first encountering the Fishing Ghost, a single misstep nearly sending her ascending to the heavens as well.

They watched the corpse carrying the ghost infant turn into a tiny black dot, continuously rising into the sky until it disappeared from sight.

"Did you find it?"

After waiting for about five minutes, Gao Tian couldn't hold back and asked.

Ghost Infant turned to look at him, her plastic face twisted into a grotesque expression. "Fuck."

It seemed she had sensed something, prompting a rare string of profanity.