Chapter 166: Ghost Transformation

If ghost transformation were truly enough to suppress Xu Yuan, Gao Tian would have used it long ago during the fierce battle between Old Man Sun and Xu Yuan. He wouldn't have dragged it out until now.

But it didn't matter anymore. Things had already reached this point. How much worse could they get?

The only reason he had spouted those words to provoke Xu Yuan right before dying...

...was simply that he was about to die anyway. He just wanted to act like a big shot one last time.

Watching Old Man Sun and Xu Yuan fly back and forth across the sky, destroying several buildings and evaporating the entire Huangpu River with casual gestures, all while lightly mocking each other's combat strength—that was what true big shots looked like. Gao Tian had watched them with intense envy.

His final lines before his death had been a pretty good imitation, hadn't they?

When Gao Tian committed suicide with the Ghost Transformation Spear, he hadn't forgotten to activate the Time Coffin.

Honestly, the vision he'd seen in the Future Urn had been incredibly cool. His own corpse had flown into the sky, pointing one finger at the heavens and another at the earth. Just what kind of ability had he gained to act so arrogantly?

The actual level of his strength was unknown, but his posturing was absolutely top-tier.

With these thoughts, Gao Tian's dying consciousness slowly crumbled, until the very last trace of it faded from the mortal world.

The next time he opened his eyes, he would be a ghost.

Watching Gao Tian turn into a corpse right beside him, Xu Yuan's gaze lingered on the tip of the spear used for the suicide.

The Ghost Transformation Spear?

So he wanted to turn into a ghost after death to fight me?

Xu Yuan instantly understood.

Following this realization, his raging anger slowly subsided. Paying no further attention to Gao Tian's corpse, he turned his head and walked away.

No wonder he had dared to say such things right before he died. It seemed he had no intention of coming back.

Ghost transformation was irreversible. Once someone became a ghost, they could never return to being human.

A foolish act. The kid just wanted to make one last gamble before his death.

But what was the point? Even if he became a ghost after death, he would only possess a single Killing Rule.

If ghost transformation could truly solve every problem, why hadn't Old Man Sun turned into a ghost to fight him?

Atop the Fangzhu Tower stood the colossal King of All Ghosts. Countless human heads writhed across its form, monitoring all directions as they waited for the barrier in the sky to dissipate.

Xu Yuan's paramount task right now was to wait for the barrier to vanish in ten minutes, allowing the external reinforcements to charge into Minghai. Then, he would control the Artist to annihilate those overconfident ghost hunters in one fell swoop, crushing the world's resistance forces entirely.

Gao Tian's corpse still lay on the ground. From this towering height, it looked like a tiny black dot.

There were no signs of ghost transformation yet.

Xu Yuan couldn't even be bothered to pay attention to him anymore.

Right at that moment, Gao Tian's stiff, pale fingers twitched slightly.

It looked like a sign of awakening.

This was the omen that preceded a ghost transformation.

Although Xu Yuan had absolutely no interest in paying attention to this ant, there were simply too many faces on his body. Every face retained a shred of its own consciousness, and there were always a few disobedient ones peering down to check on the ruins beneath the Fangzhu Tower.

To make matters worse, Xu Yuan possessed exceptional eyesight; he could clearly see everything happening thousands of meters away.

Gao Tian's arm began to spasm faster and faster. The entire corpse started to twist in a bizarre, highly unnatural posture.

It looked like a dying spider dancing upon the earth, an incredibly unsettling sight.

This scene made Xu Yuan feel inexplicably irritable.

It was just a measly Fierce Ghost.

To maintain his absolute focus and prevent Gao Tian's wildly thrashing corpse from interfering with his judgment, Xu Yuan casually activated a gravity-related Killing Rule. He extracted a pile of construction debris, dirt, bricks, and steel rebar from the nearby high-rise ruins, hauled it all over, and dumped it onto Gao Tian's dancing corpse.

One thick piece of rebar in particular plunged straight down, pinning Gao Tian's corpse firmly to the earth like a squashed mosquito. Even if he became a ghost, he wouldn't be able to crawl out.

Suddenly, a strange thought entered his mind. A thought that shouldn't have existed.

Could it be that this kid really awakened some bizarre ability after death and is going to counter-kill me?

The thought was somewhat laughable. Truly.

When he was alive, Gao Tian had been a very weak ghost hunter. Even if he maxed out his potential after death, he would only be an A-Level Fierce Ghost.

Even if he somehow became an S-Level, Xu Yuan wouldn't care. He had merged with tens of thousands of rules, possessed the abilities of three S-Level Fierce Ghosts, and had even consumed Old Man Sun's corpse.

An ordinary S-Level Fierce Ghost couldn't withstand a single blow from him.

Yet, despite rationalizing it this way, the feeling of unease in Xu Yuan's heart only deepened.

It was strange. He was clearly the one holding the overwhelming advantage, the one with victory firmly in his grasp.

Why would he be constantly distracted by a Fierce Ghost that wasn't even A-Level?

Right at that moment, the pile of construction debris he had just dumped from the Fangzhu Tower—pressing down on Gao Tian's corpse like a small mountain—began to tremble, spilling off to the sides. Even the thick piece of steel rebar anchoring Gao Tian's entire body to the ground let out an agonizing groan as it began to shift out of place.

This proved that a weight of over a dozen tons could no longer suppress the ghost Gao Tian had become after his death.

Staring at the dancing corpse that could break out from beneath the pile of construction debris at any second, Xu Yuan fell into brief contemplation.

With such terrifying strength, it was definitely B-Level or above. There was no doubt about it.

He made a prompt and decisive choice, rendering himself invisible and hiding high in the sky. He would wait for Gao Tian's corpse to burst out from beneath the mountain of rubble, then immediately launch a sneak attack, completely obliterating this dancing corpse in less than a second.

To think that a King of All Ghosts, an existence surpassing the S-Level, would be this cautious and wary of a suspected B-Level imp.

However, Xu Yuan didn't find it humiliating in the slightest.

A lion uses its full strength even when catching a rabbit.

Face? What did 'saving face' even mean? Could you eat it?

During his battle with Old Man Sun, he had continuously possessed the bodies of new ability users, fleeing and dodging among the horde of ghosts like a beaten dog. At the time, Old Man Sun had mocked him as the King of Clowns, but he hadn't taken it to heart at all.

He was the one standing here at the very end, and that was all that mattered.

Harboring this mindset, the massive body of the King of All Ghosts abruptly vanished from the Fangzhu Tower. Zooming out, whether in the sky above or on the devastated earth below, not a single trace could be found of Xu Yuan's mountain-like form comprised of tens of thousands of human heads.

Accompanied by a terrifying rumbling sound, the thousands of tons of concrete and brick below were instantly blasted away by a horrific, freakish strength.

Gao Tian's bloodstained corpse shoved aside the reinforced concrete pinning it down and launched into the air above the Fangzhu Tower.

At this moment, his appearance was ghastly. More than half of his body had been pierced by the crushing rebar and concrete, and his head had been smashed flat, caved in with a deep dent. The blood on his body had clotted into pitch-black chunks, blending together with his tattered, ruined clothes.

The corpse of 'Gao Tian' began to ascend rapidly and unconsciously, seemingly searching for Xu Yuan—who had been sitting at the highest level of the Fangzhu Tower—to seek revenge.

A ghost formed after someone's death would indeed be influenced by their final obsessions in life. Gao Tian's last memories before dying had been entirely about Xu Yuan.

Therefore, the very first thing Gao Tian did after death was look for Xu Yuan. This was completely normal.

Soaring into midair, 'Gao Tian' somehow came to a halt. He suddenly hovered in place, pointing one finger at the sky and one finger at the earth. Looming above the center of the burning ruins of Minghai, his jaw tilted upward slightly as he struck a posture of unparalleled arrogance and declared coldly, "Above the heavens and below the earth, I alone am supreme."

All of a sudden, without any warning, Xu Yuan's colossal, mountain-like body appeared right behind the halfway-posing 'Gao Tian'.

Killing Rule: Final Decree.

When all of Xu Yuan's faces looked at the same living person, every single ability on that person's body would become completely nullified.

This was equally effective against a ghost's Killing Rule.

As the tens of thousands of faces on his body collectively stared at the completely defenseless corpse of 'Gao Tian' before him, Xu Yuan knew that this battle was already over.

There was no longer any suspense.

No matter what Killing Rule Gao Tian had acquired after death, it was suppressed in an instant. He would be annihilated before he even had a chance to use it.

Next, Xu Yuan directly activated his second rule.

The Killing Rule of the Woman in the Rain—

New World.

It dragged the corpse of 'Gao Tian' into the New World. It could be absolutely anywhere; even Xu Yuan himself had no idea where the space beneath the Woman in the Rain's umbrella led to.

Regardless, whether it was a human or a ghost that went in, they were essentially never coming back.

The corpse of 'Gao Tian' had been on stage for less than three seconds before it was sent packing. It vanished entirely into thin air.

The battle was over.

It was far too easy.

After getting rid of 'Gao Tian', Xu Yuan realized he had been overly cautious. It was just a Fierce Ghost around the B-Level; he had devoured tens of thousands of those on his own body.

Still, there was definitely nothing wrong with having such an attitude. Caution was the parent of safety. In this supernatural world, absolutely anything could happen; those who were too arrogant wouldn't live very long.

In the end, he never even found out what 'Gao Tian's' Killing Rule actually was.