Chapter 148: City Center

The Ghost Infant's Killing Rule had fully activated. Over a dozen small ghost infants hatched from the meat mountain's belly, nearly hollowing out its massive body. They climbed all over it, tearing and biting at every inch of flesh, feasting to their hearts' content.

Ghosts might be immortal and indestructible, but the Fishing Ghost's mutilated body had scarcely regenerated before the countless ghost infants devoured it down to less than half its size again.

Its flesh and blood grew back far slower than the little ghosts could gnaw it away.

Gao Tian walked over to the Fishing Ghost's palm-sized face and made eye contact with it one last time.

The Fishing Ghost's Killing Rule had been stolen.

With this, the Shattered Face Ghost's capacity to hold three ghosts was completely filled.

They were the Memory Ghost, the Mirror Ghost, and the Fishing Ghost.

Beside him, the Ghost Infant's anger had yet to subside. She was still controlling the countless little ghosts darting in and out of the massive fleshy body. Gao Tian walked up to her and signaled that it was time to leave. "Alright, let's not waste time here."

"Ai Ning might have already set out down below. A long delay means trouble; let's get moving."

The Ghost Infant forcibly suppressed her fury. After calling off her attack, however, she looked toward the edge of the dark clouds and couldn't find an exit. "This alternate space must be the fisherman's hiding spot. Other than the fisherman, no one can freely enter or leave."

"We can't get down."

"It doesn't matter," Gao Tian said.

"In a moment, when you see a fishhook dangling down, just grab it. It'll reel us back down."

Having mastered the Fishing Ghost's Killing Rule, Gao Tian could not only reel people in from the outside with the hooks, but he could also use them to leave this godforsaken place.

With that, he ignored the Ghost Infant's gaze. He casually grabbed a fishhook descending from above and was lowered straight down from the dark clouds.

The descent felt like strolling through weightless outer space. His body plummeted continuously; he couldn't make out his surroundings as everything dissolved into howling, sweeping gales. In the blink of an eye, before Gao Tian could even react, his feet were planted back on solid ground. He had returned to the street they had been on just moments ago.

Across from him, the Ghost Infant appeared a split second later, similarly deposited onto the ground with a thoroughly bewildered expression.

'Well, at least I finally dealt with that troublesome Fishing Ghost...'

That was exactly what Gao Tian was thinking. But when he turned his head, he slammed face-first into a pale, festering, massive face. The space above him went black; he was already enveloped by a giant umbrella, shadows cast over him from all directions once again.

The tall woman slowly leaned down, holding her umbrella high with one hand. In her other hand, she grasped a relatively smaller umbrella, offering it toward Gao Tian. Her scarlet lips curved into a smile, signaling for him to take it.

Gao Tian's pupils shrank to pinpricks.

This Woman in the Rain was incredibly cunning. She had been waiting at their landing spot the entire time.

The moment Gao Tian returned to the ground, the Woman in the Rain raised her umbrella to cover him, simultaneously handing him a new one.

She hadn't given him a single chance to react.

If he accepted this umbrella, what kind of new world would he be dragged into?

If he took a hardline stance and adamantly refused it, what would happen then?

At the same time, because he was now under the Woman in the Rain's umbrella, Gao Tian could finally catch a glimpse of Sophia's true appearance.

She was a middle-aged Caucasian woman with a long face and a high-bridged nose. Bizarrely, the rest of her facial features were relatively normal; aside from her skin being entirely devoid of blood, as if she had been dead for a long time, she didn't look much different from when she was alive.

Except for her eyes.

Normal people only had two symmetrical eyes. Sophia had eight.

If that wasn't enough to make Gao Tian's blood run cold, those eight eyes—scattered high and low—were slowly floating and shifting around Sophia's head. Like planets bound by gravity, they drifted along their respective orbits to the back of her head before returning to the front.

'Did this woman treat her giant head as the sun and her eyeballs as the eight major planets?'

The sight was far too grotesque. Gao Tian felt like his mind was on the verge of snapping.

Seeing that Gao Tian showed no intention of reaching out for the umbrella, she extended her hand a little further, gesturing that it was prepared just for him.

The woman was surprisingly patient. She neither resorted to violence against Gao Tian nor subjected him to any form of mental control.

Gao Tian also remained perfectly still, refusing to reach out and accept the umbrella.

'This is very strange...'

'How on earth did all those victims disappear?'

'They're only taken away if they accept the umbrella from the Woman in the Rain. Does that mean as long as I don't take it, this stalemate can go on indefinitely?'

'From ordinary people to ghost hunters, someone must have tried to fight back after encountering the Woman in the Rain.'

'Yet there were no exceptions; every single one of them was taken away. To this day, not a single survivor has returned to tell the tale of refusing the umbrella.'

'If I persistently refuse to take it, what will happen next?'

Gao Tian was genuinely curious.

A few seconds ticked by, though they felt as excruciatingly long as half a century.

"Iiii—caaaaan—"

Before his eyes, the woman with the solar system revolving around her head leaned in closer, drawing near Gao Tian as she let out a slurred, drawn-out mumble.

It took Gao Tian a moment to realize she was struggling to speak Chinese, trying to communicate with him. "Iiii—caaaaan—"

"Leeeet—yoooou—seee... yoooour—deaaath—..."

"Doooo—yoooou—waaaant—tooo—seeee—..."

As the Woman in the Rain continued to close in on him, Gao Tian knew it was too dangerous to linger any longer. The experiment had to be cut short.

"Quando stellae moventur, genus humanum estinguetur."

Facing this terrifying monster, Gao Tian chanted the phrase imbued with magical power.

The next moment, he felt the space above him brighten. The umbrella canopy that obscured everything and the tall woman herself completely vanished. Only the icy raindrops falling from the sky remained, battering against his forehead and entire body.

Sophia had actually turned and disappeared, all because of that baffling phrase.

The Ghost Infant hadn't lied to him.

However, the phrase could only be used once. The next time Sophia pulled him beneath her umbrella, she wouldn't let him go so easily.

Gao Tian turned his head. The Ghost Infant had also just managed to shake off her Woman in the Rain and successfully return to reality.

It seemed she had also chanted the spell after being caught off guard and dragged under the large umbrella.

The person and the ghost, having just survived a disaster, hadn't even spoken yet. The Ghost Infant's head twisted at a bizarre 175-degree angle, looking past Gao Tian's shoulder, and she suddenly threw a hand up. "Oh no!"

From the corner of his eye, Gao Tian caught sight of Ai Ning across the street. While advancing, she had stumbled and crashed straight into the embrace of a tall figure that appeared before her. The suddenly materialized Woman in the Rain was about to lower her umbrella and drag the female ghost hunter inside.

Even if the Fishing Ghost had no interest in her, the Woman in the Rain killed indiscriminately. Three Women in the Rain had appeared on the street simultaneously; the Ghost Infant and Gao Tian had each dealt with one, but Ai Ning lacked the ability to do the same.

Once Sophia's umbrella came down, Ai Ning would never be able to get back out. Their escort mission would inevitably end in failure.

From this distance, Gao Tian wouldn't make it in time to lend a helping hand.

In a moment of desperation, without even thinking, the Ghost Infant triggered her position swap for the third time. In an instant, she swapped places with Ai Ning, who was on the verge of being dragged under the umbrella.

The next second, Ai Ning—still wearing a look of horror and confusion—was teleported to Gao Tian's side. Meanwhile, peeking out from beneath the gap of the Woman in the Rain's umbrella were the mannequin limbs that represented the Ghost Infant.

In less than 0.3 seconds, the Woman in the Rain completely lowered her large umbrella, tightly sealing off the world inside the umbrella from the world outside.

In her place, the Ghost Infant was taken to that new world.

In the moment before she disappeared, what was the Ghost Infant thinking?

Did she have any regrets? If life could start over and she became human again, how would she evaluate her two lifetimes?

Gao Tian had never been a ghost, so he didn't know.

Perhaps, just like in the movies, all the events of her life flashed before her eyes like a revolving lantern right before she vanished.

Or perhaps, the Ghost Infant had merely acted on instinct, and everything was over before she could even process what was happening.

A moment later, Sophia, hidden beneath the umbrella, hoisted it high once more. With a bizarre smile creeping across her scarlet lips, she slowly turned around and walked off in the opposite direction.

The Ghost Infant was gone.

The Woman in the Rain from across the street slowly turned back around. Having "saved" another person, she was very pleased. She decided to head over and take away the man and woman on this side of the street as well.

"Fishing Ghost!"

Gao Tian directly activated the fishhook's power. A cold gleam flashed through the darkness, snagging onto the Woman in the Rain. Sophia didn't offer a single trace of resistance; her massive body was hoisted rigidly into the air, flying skyward. She quickly shrank into a speck and disappeared from sight.

Of course, even though this Sophia had been dealt with, the Ghost Infant she had dragged beneath her umbrella would never return.

It was quite ironic, really.

The Ghost Infant's ultimate goal was to kill Ai Ning and all her colleagues.

Yet after coming all this way, she had vanished just to save her.

The rain falling from the sky gradually began to lighten.

The road ahead was now clear of obstacles. There were temporarily no other new ghosts on this block.

Gao Tian slowly walked over to Ai Ning, who was still rooted to the spot, panting. Pretending that this was their first meeting, he put on a joyful expression. "Did you escape too?"

"You scared me to death! On my way here, I only ran into corpses; I haven't seen a single living person."

"If you don't mind, let's travel together for the rest of the way."

Ai Ning looked a bit bewildered as she cast a glance at Gao Tian. According to the false memories implanted by the Memory Ghost, the Liberation Building had been entirely empty; right now was her very first time meeting Gao Tian.

"I too... It felt like I was just dragged into some ghost's Killing Rule, but then I was inexplicably let go."

Ai Ning's rationality was slowly returning. Her training compelled her to adopt the demeanor of a qualified ghost hunter. "Forget it, none of that matters now."

"Don't worry, I'm a ghost hunter. Just follow my lead from here on out."

"Even though there are many ghosts I'm not sure I can handle, traveling with me gives you a slightly higher chance of making it to the city center alive."

A slightly higher chance.

'Well, aren't you overly modest.'

Gao Tian couldn't help but chuckle inwardly. On the outside, however, he nodded continuously, acting as if hearing the words "ghost hunter" had drastically boosted his sense of security as an "ordinary person."

Pulling out her handgun and racking the slide, Ai Ning motioned for Gao Tian to follow her. "Stay behind me. If we run into any danger, leave me be and run for it."

"Huh? This gun hasn't been fired, so why is it missing half its bullets?"

"Forget it, it's not important. Let's find the camp of the other ghost hunters first."

Half an hour later.

The two of them passed through street after street.

Along the way, they encountered a few wandering spirits and wild ghosts, but they were relatively weak. Gao Tian didn't even need to help in secret; Ai Ning handled them all on her own.

The district ahead was deathly quiet. The number of corpses they encountered along the road steadily grew.

They were piled so high they nearly formed mountains of the dead, and the gutters along the streets were stained black with congealed blood.

This was the very core of Shanghai City. It was also the place with the fiercest battles, the flashpoint where the Supernatural Disaster Bureau and the Galan Society were fighting the hardest.

They had arrived at the city center.