Chapter 153: Me Fighting the Artist? Are You Kidding?

"Oh, right. Finally, there's one more thing.

"When Xu Yuan entered Shanghai City this time, he brought two S-Level Fierce Ghosts with him. A girl holding an umbrella, and a disgusting guy covered in heads.

"According to the plan, the Supernatural Disaster Bureau was supposed to handle those things.

"But they died too fast. The things buried underground might not even see use.

"So I might need you to lend a hand when the time comes.

"I'm not asking for much. After that Multi-Headed Ghost comes out, you just need to stall it for 60 seconds. Just 60 seconds. Once I cripple Xu Yuan with a few strikes of my staff, I'll come over and deal with it."

Right before hanging up the mobile phone, Old Man Sun suddenly added that, as if he had just remembered.

Gao Tian froze, hardly daring to believe his ears. "What?

"Are you kidding?

"Me, fighting the Multi-Headed Ghost?"

Fuck, the old man had to be joking.

He was thinking way too highly of Gao Tian.

Just as Gao Tian tried to confirm, Old Man Sun hung up the mobile phone. It seemed he had already set out.

When Gao Tian tried calling back, the automated voice only repeated that the number was busy. He couldn't get through to save his life.

That old bastard was probably terrified of a refusal and had directly blocked his number.

Gao Tian put down the mobile phone, his face looking exceptionally grim.

Of course, he knew deep down that he still held a trump card. By using the Ghost Transformation Spear to undergo ghost transformation, paired with the Time Coffin, he would have a full five minutes.

Although ghosts were immortal and indestructible, the Artist's abilities perfectly countered immortal creatures. It might just swallow him whole and turn him into a new part of its body.

The biggest variable right now was what Killing Rule he would awaken after his ghost transformation.

And, if the situation really deteriorated to the point where he had to face the Artist, whether he could survive for a minute. A whole minute of not getting eaten by the Artist.

Gao Tian's brain short-circuited a bit.

Whatever. That damn old man just did whatever popped into his head. In the worst-case scenario, if Gao Tian couldn't even last a minute, it wouldn't be too hard for the old man to suppress three S-Level Fierce Ghosts by himself, right?

Opposite him, Ye Jiu stretched out his back lazily. "Remembered who you are?

"Are you ready? Tonight's final battle is heading toward its grand finale. We should get moving too."

Gao Tian raised his head and looked at Ye Jiu.

It seemed this guy had known the inside truth of the double-agent operation all along. He had merely been playing dumb, watching Gao Tian act.

"There are about two hundred ghost hunters left in this camp. They're the very last remnants of Shanghai City's forces.

"It'll take about fifteen minutes to reach the Shadow Headquarters. By then, Old Man Sun should have just suppressed Xu Yuan. The rest of our job will be to contain the remaining evil ghosts of the Galan Society.

"These tasks are just as critical. Otherwise, even if we win tonight's war, the surviving Fierce Ghosts from the Galan Society will slip into residential buildings and continue their destruction, inflicting even more losses on the postwar reconstruction of Shanghai City."

His tone was incredibly casual. It was as if Old Man Sun's victory was already set in stone, and he hadn't even considered the possibility of the old man losing.

Gao Tian's face flushed the color of pork liver. "Uh, the old man asked me to help him stall the Multi-Headed Ghost for a minute.

"He guaranteed he'd finish off Xu Yuan within a minute and come help.

"You know about the Multi-Headed Ghost, right? The one with a lot of heads. It looks terrifying, but it's just bloated on the outside. It's not actually that strong.

"With your two hundred men... could you lend me a hand?"

Ye Jiu asked earnestly, "What's the grade of this Multi-Headed Ghost?"

In truth, he had already pulled out his mobile phone, connected to the internal network, and started secretly looking up the Multi-Headed Ghost's supernatural disaster grade and Killing Rules.

Upon finding the results for the Multi-Headed Ghost, the smile on Ye Jiu's face visibly froze. His expression grew extremely unnatural.

Seeing the shift in his expression, Gao Tian knew he couldn't hide it anymore and forced himself to say, "It's, uh... just a measly S-Level. It's not as scary as you'd think.

"It might only be a tiny bit stronger than the Woman in the Rain and Xu Yuan.

"The task Old Man Sun gave us isn't to contain it, just to stall it for a minute. 60 seconds. There are two hundred people in this camp. Everyone only needs to stall it for 0.3 seconds each.

"It doesn't sound that hard, right?"

Ye Jiu suddenly held up his mobile phone, his face dead serious, and pretended to talk to someone on the other end. He sprang to his feet, spun around, and sprinted away in the opposite direction. He acted as if he had just received an emergency mission.

No matter how Gao Tian cursed and hurled bottles at him from behind, Ye Jiu turned a deaf ear, his legs carrying him away faster than a rabbit.

Xu Yuan walked against the light. Dressed in a sharply tailored, dark haute couture suit, he looked as if he had stepped straight out of a banquet and into hell.

Dark red blood meandered beneath his polished leather shoes, reflecting a myriad of twisted corpses. He didn't pause for a second. His shoes tread through the viscous pools of blood, emitting faint but clear sounds in the silence to accompany this massacre.

His hands were stained with blood so thick it was clotted, making it impossible to tell if it belonged to him or his enemies. The expression on Xu Yuan's handsome face held a trace of faint disappointment beneath its apathy. His black cape swayed behind him with every step, making him look like a god of death descended from the heavens.

Shanghai City's steel-and-concrete structure, buried a hundred meters underground, was built to withstand a nuclear war or even a magnitude-8 earthquake.

Yet the ten-meter-thick steel security door was smashed through with a single punch by Xu Yuan, who had teleported to the entrance.

Then, after confirming that the living creatures beneath his feet were nothing but a pack of rabble who posed no threat to him, he took the elevator down a hundred meters. He unleashed a tempestuous massacre.

This building—the heart and final refuge of the Supernatural Disaster Bureau—hid a total of five hundred and seven people. Among them were high-ranking cadres like Minister Jin and elite ghost hunters. But in Xu Yuan's eyes right now, there wasn't much difference between any of them.

At his full power, his speed was so fast that the human eye couldn't track it. The vast majority of the humans in the underground facility didn't even have time to register what was happening before their heads were separated from their bodies, slaughtered by a black blur that moved like a hurricane.

As he descended, Xu Yuan didn't even bother activating a ghost domain or triggering any Killing Rules. It was a pure, overwhelming crush of stats.

Along the way, he encountered practically no decent resistance. A very tiny minority of ghost hunters managed to realize the facility was under attack, but the moment they raised their Supernatural Items to fight, the passing Xu Yuan severed their hands and heads, walking away without a backward glance.

"Completely pathetic.

"Barely a single ghost hunter from this generation meets the passing standard.

"They fall too far short. Have they really degraded to this level?"

On the final floor, cradling Minister Jin's severed head in his hand, Xu Yuan casually carried him and turned to leave the underground headquarters.

Having been a ghost hunter in life, Xu Yuan felt a deep, agonizing sorrow in his heart. Every generation was truly worse than the last. He had thought he might encounter some decent resistance, but looking at it now, it hadn't even taken him ten minutes. He had slaughtered the entire Supernatural Disaster Bureau.

He had stayed in the Inner World for thirteen years, giving the Supernatural Disaster Bureau thirteen years to grow. And all they had cultivated were these wine-skins and rice-bags.

"You can't even defeat me. How could you ever face the apocalypse of humanity?

"Giving you another twenty years would just be a waste of time. A useless organization like this is better off erased."

Riding the elevator back to the surface, he continued talking to Minister Jin's head in his hand. "Although your strength is lacking, your backbone is barely sufficient.

"You haven't begged for mercy yet, nor have you tried to run. I'll give you a little praise for that.

"For the sake of your rigid spine, I'll give you one more chance.

"Give me a list. A list of all the ghost hunter troops currently surrounding Shanghai City who came as reinforcements.

"As long as you're willing to hand over this list, I promise you: I will resurrect you in the form of a ghost. You will have a place in the future Ghost Nation."

Minister Jin, dangling from Xu Yuan's hand with only his head remaining, miraculously hadn't died yet. He still maintained his consciousness.

This was a secret art of the Galan Society. Even when a living person's head was chopped off, their life could be preserved. They could even have it reattached at any time.

"You can keep dreaming."

Xu Yuan had deliberately left a single windpipe intact, giving him the ability to speak.

Reduced to a mere head, Minister Jin clenched his jaw tightly, enduring tremendous agony. He tried his best to keep his tone calm.

This was his final dignity in front of a ghost.

"Once the barrier around Shanghai City falls, ghost hunter units from the entire country—the entire world—will have already assembled. Even if you people from the Galan Society flee into the Inner World, it will still be a dead end for you.

"Tonight, no matter how many of us die, the final victory will absolutely be ours."

Xu Yuan smiled.

It was a somewhat awkward yet polite smile. "Refusing a toast only to drink a forfeit.

"It seems you still haven't grasped the current situation, pinning your hopes on the reinforcements outside Shanghai City."

Ding.

The elevator had brought the man and the severed head back up to the surface.

As the elevator doors slowly slid open, Minister Jin's gaze landed on what was waiting for them outside. He saw a scene akin to a living purgatory—

A dense mass of Fierce Ghosts filled every inch of space, overlapping layer upon layer with no end in sight. They came in all shapes and sizes: some dragged their mangled bodies across the ground; some stood in bizarre postures with their limbs bent backward; some had no faces, only mouths slit all the way to the ears; some were towering giants, their heads nearly brushing the shadows of the high-rises; others were as gaunt as skeletons, with eerie green ghost fire dancing in their eye sockets.

Every ghost remained absolutely silent. Without Xu Yuan's command, not a single one dared to make a sound. Radiating suffocating malice, they stood like statues, transforming the entire plaza into a massive, hostile graveyard.

Held in Xu Yuan's hand, Minister Jin slowly lifted his face. His gaze swept from the bloodstains and severed limbs at their feet, traveling upward past the twisted appendages and pale faces, until it finally locked onto the distance.

Ghosts, ghosts, ghosts, ghosts, ghosts, ghosts, ghosts, ghosts, they were all ghosts. The sporadic sound of artillery fire had stopped. From what he could see, the once-prosperous metropolis of Shanghai had been completely packed with ghosts.

"Do you see it, Minister Jin?"

Xu Yuan raised his hand higher so he could see further. "Conquering Shanghai is only my first step.

"Next, I will lead my Ghost Nation on an expedition to the West, to Japan, South America, and North Africa.

"Until I turn the entire world into the territory of my Ghost Nation."