Chapter 161: The Outcome Is Decided

Gao Tian had suffered devastating losses in tonight's massive battle.

The Supernatural Die had seen all three of its favorable sides completely shattered.

The Urn had failed its containment, releasing the Woman in the Rain trapped inside.

His Ghost Luck had truly been stretched to its absolute limit carrying him.

After the Artist was dragged into the Mirror World, he inexplicably froze and crashed for eighteen seconds. When he finally managed to recover, the only abilities he could activate were basic killing effects. His most crucial Final Decree refused to trigger no matter what. He couldn't even draw a single psychological pollution rule; otherwise, Gao Tian would have been brainwashed into an idiot even if he survived.

The Woman in the Rain pretended not to see Gao Tian, insisting on picking a solo fight with the Artist first. The Urn kept time, making the coin spin continuously without stopping.

Gao Tian rested for a moment. Right now, what worried him most was Old Man Sun in the city center.

Despite this old man boasting to the high heavens, he had guaranteed more than once that he could contain the King of All Ghosts, Xu Yuan.

Every operation and plan of the Supernatural Disaster Bureau tonight had been centered entirely around bringing him face-to-face with Xu Yuan. Even if half the population of Shanghai City died and the entire Bureau was uprooted in the process, they had to ensure Xu Yuan was delivered right in front of Old Man Sun.

But looking at it now, the gap in strength between Xu Yuan and Old Man Sun wasn't actually that wide. They could still trade blows.

Old Man Sun couldn't possibly kill him with a single strike the moment they met.

Furthermore, in the final glance Gao Tian caught outside the mirror, Old Man Sun's ultimate move—the Fengdu Avici Gate—had been forcibly shut by the Artist and neutralized by the shrewd Xu Yuan. Meanwhile, Xu Yuan had just unleashed his ghost domain, the Myriad Phenomena Incineration Furnace Realm, his momentum and morale at their absolute peak.

As one grows the other wanes; as the righteous faded, the demonic surged.

Even without the Artist's harassment, how was Old Man Sun supposed to withstand Xu Yuan's earth-shattering attack at the very height of its momentum?

The old man had always seemed a bit unreliable. He wouldn't actually crash and burn, would he?

Lying on the sofa, the more Gao Tian thought about it, the more uneasy he felt. No matter how he looked at it, Old Man Sun had been thoroughly analyzed. Xu Yuan had a much higher chance of winning.

Trying to check the battle's progress in the city center via television or the internet was out of the question. With the fighting in Shanghai City escalating to this extent, power and internet had been cut off long ago.

Even if there were electricity, no reporter would run over there to broadcast live. Inside Xu Yuan's ghost domain was a terrifying purgatory capable of melting even steel and concrete. Ordinary people catching even a glimpse from afar would be melted into a pile of rotting meat, if they didn't die outright.

Right now, the only way to confirm the outcome of the battle was to return to the city center and see for himself.

Of course, if Xu Yuan had won, going back now meant running straight into him carrying Old Man Sun's corpse—essentially courting death.

Gao Tian had done too much for Old Man Sun in the Mirror World. Xu Yuan wasn't a fool; he likely already knew of his defection.

While locked in fierce combat with Old Man Sun, Xu Yuan naturally wouldn't come looking to settle accounts. But once Old Man Sun fell, every remnant and traitor of the Supernatural Disaster Bureau inside the Magic City barrier would find it impossible to escape death. Xu Yuan would hunt them down one by one to clean house.

When the nest is overturned, no egg remains intact.

However, if things really reached that point, whether he returned to the city center or left the Living Apartment made very little difference.

Even if Gao Tian didn't return to the city center, Xu Yuan would surely come looking for him with Old Man Sun's corpse in hand. He shouldn't harbor any illusions that the Apartment could block Xu Yuan; if he wanted to get in, he would always find a way.

After weighing his options, Gao Tian made a risky decision: he would head back to the city center to witness the final outcome with his own eyes.

If Old Man Sun won, great; if Xu Yuan won, then he would simply resign himself to his fate.

Sitting inside the apartment, completely ignorant of the situation outside while waiting for either Old Man Sun or Xu Yuan to knock on the door—that feeling of surrendering himself entirely to destiny was simply too awful.

Even if it meant death, Gao Tian chose to face it on his own terms.

Having made this decision, he pushed open the door and stepped out into the misty rain, walking through the ruined, utterly deserted alleyways.

At this hour, all public transportation—taxis, buses, and subways—was completely paralyzed. The internet on mobile phones was cut off, making it impossible to even rent a shared bike to reach the city center.

The good news was that as Gao Tian walked down the street, the pitiful sliver of Ghost Luck hovering above his head inexplicably began to gather anew.

In every corner of this city, at every single moment, people were dying. Some unlucky soul in a nearby residential building must have been killed by a ghost, providing him with that negligible trace of Ghost Luck.

Though he didn't have much Ghost Luck hovering above his head, it was barely enough to activate the Black Leather Shoes.

Just like that, the pair of shoes carried Gao Tian into the air. Sweeping over the horrifyingly devastated city blocks below, he vastly accelerated his journey back to the main battlefield, gazing toward the horizon. Truth be told, the site of Old Man Sun and Xu Yuan's battle was quite easy to find.

In the distance lay an abrupt expanse of gray flatland. Within a ten-li radius, not a single high-rise building remained. It looked as if the area had been sheared away by some terrifying, monstrous force, forming a stark contrast with the prosperous, towering skyline of the Magic City around it.

Because Xu Yuan had just unleashed his ghost domain there, every building in the entire city center had been reduced to ashes.

This terrifying, apocalyptic might was practically comparable to the impact of a nuclear explosion.

In a state of blind rage, Xu Yuan was a walking, infinite nuclear bomb.

A tiny piece of good news: regardless of who won the battle, it should be over by now.

Because in the distance, the purgatorial ghost domain radiating that ominous red light had vanished.

Either Old Man Sun had contained Xu Yuan, or Xu Yuan had already killed Old Man Sun and saw no further need to maintain his ghost domain.

Propelled by the Black Leather Shoes, Gao Tian continued flying toward the city center.

Along the way, the ground beneath his feet had turned a deathly ash-gray. Only a few broken walls that hadn't had time to burn completely still harbored dark red flames burning deep within the earth's fissures.

The closer he got to the city center, the thicker the gray smoke scattered across the sky became, reaching a point where breathing grew suffocating.

The hundreds of buildings in the city center had been swallowed by the ghost domain and reduced to ashes in the blink of an eye, and the resulting fog and dust had become unimaginably dense.

The sky had been torn apart; no longer blue, it was dyed a chaotic, murky yellow by the thick layer of ash.

The once bustling city center was now a silent wasteland. Skyscrapers had been reduced to broken walls with exposed steel and shattered concrete, their former glory vanishing in an instant. On the streets, vehicles were twisted and deformed, their shattered glass mixing with the dust to form a desolate scene. The air was thick with the pungent, suffocating stench of smoke and ash.

Even the waters of the Huangpu River had been instantly evaporated, exposing a potholed, exceptionally unsightly riverbed.

Bizarrely, amidst this vast expanse of ruins shrouded in gray fog, only the Oriental Pearl had been left behind. Completely undamaged and standing in stark contrast to its surroundings, its towering spire pierced straight into the sky.

For reasons unknown, when Xu Yuan unleashed his ghost domain, he had deliberately spared this single building, causing it no harm whatsoever.

As Gao Tian flew closer, he spotted a charred, hunched figure sitting cross-legged at the very top of the television tower, one leg resting horizontally and the other dangling in the air.

That terrifying purgatory of a battle had completely burned his military overcoat to ashes. Every inch of his skin was a sickly, scorched yellow, and many of his wounds no longer bled blood, but oozed a dark red, magma-like liquid that refused to extinguish.

Had Gao Tian not seen it with his own eyes, he would have found it hard to believe a human could endure such a horrifying blow with mere flesh and blood and still survive in human form.

Old Man Sun sat at the very pinnacle of the Oriental Pearl, quietly smoking the Tobacco Pipe in his mouth while contemplating life.

How lonely it is to be invincible.

He casually blew out a long string of smoke rings. Behind him, a completely charred corpse was casually impaled on the iron spire of the Oriental Pearl pointing toward the sky. It hung motionless, like an insignificant dead dog.

Seeing this scene, Gao Tian's heart stopped beating for a full ten seconds—and that was no exaggeration.

Shocking.

Sitting here, waiting for him, was Old Man Sun, not Xu Yuan.

The sacrifices, the deaths, the wave upon wave of lives laid down.

It was all for this very moment.

The outcome was decided.

Old Man Sun had ultimately come out on top.

The old man had lived up to his boasts. He had gone through numerous twists and turns, hung by a thread, looked utterly wretched, and fallen into desperate straits.

Yet, the one sitting here in the end was still him, Old Man Sun, wasn't it?

"Scenery like this isn't something you get to see every day."

Sensing someone flying in from afar, Old Man Sun slowly turned his head, lowered the Tobacco Pipe in his hand, and looked in Gao Tian's direction.

His eyes had turned ash-white, as if covered by a thin film.

He was blind. He couldn't see. His eyes had been burned out by the ultra-high temperatures while resisting Xu Yuan's ghost domain.

Yet, so what?

All of it was worth it.

"The Shanghai City S-Level ghost incident, codename King of All Ghosts, Xu Yuan, has been successfully contained."

"Ghost hunter 0104, Old Man Sun, calling headquarters. Re-confirming."

"The Shanghai City S-Level ghost incident, King of All Ghosts Xu Yuan, was successfully contained five minutes ago. Mission ended."