Chapter 46: Terror Blade

Reaching directly for the long machete in the male corpse's hand would most likely result in death.

The bus suppressed Fierce Ghosts to the maximum extent, but that didn't mean a ghost's Killing Rule was rendered ineffective. Actively provoking a ghost would still get you killed.

Otherwise, with all the people and ghosts coming and going on the bus, this blade wouldn't have remained here for so long.

The "Gao Tian" inside the Pot had only safely retrieved the blade after performing a bizarre series of ritualistic movements on the male corpse.

These rituals must have had some suppressive effect on ghosts, allowing "Gao Tian" to secure the blade and retreat alive and unscathed.

The real Gao Tian now pulled out the Ghost Transformation Spear Tip from beneath his jacket. He plunged it straight into the back of the male corpse's head in the seat ahead, forcing the tip a few centimeters deep into its skull.

Gao Tian felt his heart nearly stop as he did this. He wasn't entirely sure if the prophecy within the Pot was absolute truth, or merely some deceptive illusion cast by a Supernatural Item. If this failed to seal the male corpse and instead enraged it, he would lose another life today.

Gao Tian's abruptly terrifying actions in his seat once again left Su Jiu and Ling Feifei, sitting in the rows ahead and behind, shocked beyond belief. Zhou Yan let out a bizarre yelp.

"Hey! Have you completely lost your mind?

"If you want to die, go find somewhere else to do it! Don't drag down the rest of the Apartment's residents with you!"

Gao Tian ignored him. After the spear tip pierced it, the male corpse in the front seat remained motionless. It maintained its dead state, showing no intention of turning around to kill anyone.

It seemed the prophecy in the Pot was initially proven correct.

He had already replayed "Gao Tian's" actions in his mind a thousand times over. Seeing this, he hesitated no longer. Moving as fast as he could, he stabbed the male corpse once in the left shoulder, once in the right shoulder, and once in the back. Only after confirming four brand-new holes had been punched into the otherwise intact body did he stop. Stowing the spear tip away, he pressed his hands together and gave a pious bow to show repentance.

'Would these movements actually work?'

Su Jiu covered her mouth tightly, cold sweat pouring down her face as she watched Gao Tian. She had no idea why he was doing this, nor what he would do next.

Gao Tian paid no mind to the stares and confusion of the other three. Now that the sealing ritual on the male corpse was complete, he should be able to safely take that Rusted Longblade from its hand without suffering any backlash from a Fierce Ghost.

Even though Gao Tian himself had no idea what the underlying principle behind it was.

He stood up, reached directly over the male corpse's shoulder, and wrapped one hand around the hilt of the blade. He gave a hard tug, trying to yank the rusted sword out of its grip.

The male corpse's grip was already immensely strong. Coupled with the fact that its body had maintained this posture for far too long, a portion of its palm had fused with the longblade, making it incredibly difficult to pull free.

Gao Tian didn't dare use too much force, terrified of touching any other part of the corpse. He tried a few times from his awkward angle, a light sheen of cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. Finally, the motionless blade began to loosen slightly. Throwing his entire body weight into it, Gao Tian managed to rip it from the corpse's grasp, tearing off a layer of its skin in the process.

After losing the rusted blade, the male corpse in front remained completely still, as if the four holes in its back had successfully suppressed it.

"You lunatic. You actually pulled it off."

Zhou Yan muttered to himself from the back row as he watched this unfold.

As a resident who had completed two Green Text Missions and possessed some basic common sense, he naturally knew the longblade in the male corpse's hand was highly likely a Supernatural Item. But what sane person would target it? The corpse was obviously a trap. Who would dare touch it?

To his surprise, Gao Tian's seemingly suicidal actions had actually succeeded. He had acquired the longblade without triggering the male corpse's Killing Rule. No one could watch this without going green with envy.

Ling Feifei comforted him from the side:

"Honey, don't worry.

"There will definitely be other ghost passengers getting on board in a bit. Since these ghosts don't fight back, let's see if we can snatch items from the other ghost passengers.

"We'll just grab a better one when the time comes."

Zhou Yan glared at Gao Tian in the front row with sheer jealousy and nodded.

"Yeah, let's do that."

In his heart, he completely looked down on Gao Tian, a newcomer who had just entered the Apartment. If that guy could pull it off, why couldn't he?

Meanwhile, having obtained the Rusted Longblade, Gao Tian held it in his hands and carefully rubbed its surface.

After he claimed the Human Skin Gloves from the Chat Group, a package had genuinely appeared outside the Apartment. It contained a pair of thin, film-like gloves that didn't look like they were made of human skin at all.

When Gao Tian tentatively put them on, the gloves completely melded into his skin and vanished. A stream of information flowed into his mind: the rules for using the Human Skin Gloves were incredibly simple. As long as the user placed both hands on the Supernatural Item to be appraised, all known information about that item would automatically enter their brain fifteen seconds later.

Now that he had secured this long machete, Gao Tian directly activated the Human Skin Gloves, resting both hands on the blade.

A moment later, a stream of information truly lit up in Gao Tian's mind:

[Terror Blade]

Effect: Sacrifice one human life to dismember a ghost.

Origin: Unknown

Note: None

...

This was the effect of the Terror Blade.

Simple, yet terrifying.

Activating it required killing a living person.

With such a harsh price came astonishing power. Even though ghosts were immortal and indestructible, a single strike from the Terror Blade could chop a ghost straight into mincemeat.

The Terror Blade's effective range was approximately within ten meters.

Moreover, the living person chosen as the Terror Blade's sacrifice did not need to consent.

Gao Tian stared at the longblade in his hands. Even though he had prepared himself mentally, he was still somewhat shocked.

The blade itself... oozed malevolence from every angle. To actually demand a living person as a price.

Yet its immense power was beyond question.

At the very least, it was definitely better than the pure negative effects of the Ghost Transformation Spear. Gao Tian carefully stowed the long machete away. He now possessed a primary weapon to fight against ghosts; he wouldn't have to run around various supernatural dungeons wielding that incredibly abstract Ghost Transformation Spear anymore.

Having handled the matter of the male corpse, Gao Tian began to observe the situation inside the cabin.

They were still about three minutes away from the next stop.

A pitch-black silhouette sat in the driver's seat. The swinging of its arms clearly indicated it was turning the steering wheel. It looked no different from a normal driver.

Save for the fact that its hands were made of wood.

The entity steering the bus up front was actually a humanoid wooden puppet. Manipulated by invisible threads, its arms and fingers were incredibly nimble, capable of executing every motion a human driver could.

The puppet driver itself did not count as a passenger.

Although the bus's only restriction was that passengers couldn't kill one another, no one was suicidal enough to tentatively attack the driver. No one even dared to approach the driver's seat.

Right then, Gao Tian suddenly thought of something else.

Could his actions just now be closely observed as a prophecy in the Pot by the Gao Tian of the next timeline?

Which would mean that while he was appeasing the male corpse with that bizarre ritual and successfully retrieving the blade, another pair of giant eyes from an unseen world outside the bus had been watching him all along. Just like how he had originally stood outside the Pot, staring at the bus within?

If so, it meant Gao Tian was trapped in a self-looping temporal vortex. Every iteration of Gao Tian performed the exact same actions, marching toward the exact same ending.

Gao Tian instinctively wanted to raise his head and look outside the bus.

He wanted to see if those giant eyes outside the Pot were still gazing at his ant-like self inside the cabin.

But the moment he thought to look up, Gao Tian restrained himself. He kept his gaze fixed straight ahead, refusing to act like the "Gao Tian" from the previous timeline.

As much as possible, he needed to change things slightly in every temporal loop.

He was no puppet of fate, no actor on the stage of time and space.

At the very least, in this cycle of time, Gao Tian had forcefully suppressed the urge to look up, thereby changing it.

With a creak, the bus began to decelerate as it approached the next stop.

At some unknown point, the bus had carried everyone into a boundless wilderness. Even though its four wheels were still driving on a paved road, Gao Tian saw countless human silhouettes mounted on wooden stakes in the fields beyond. As the night wind blew, they swayed back and forth, emitting a rustling sound.

Those were all scarecrows.

It seemed they had arrived at a paddy field.

However, the number of scarecrows in the fields outside the road was simply far too massive. A casual glance revealed hundreds, if not thousands, of them.

Would a normal farmhouse construct thousands of scarecrows in its fields?

This was definitely not a normal place. Less than ten minutes after they had boarded, the bus had driven out of the city center. That time frame was absolutely impossible; they had quietly been brought into the Inner World by the bus.

"Scarecrow Dock, arriving soon.

"Passengers who need to alight, please organize your personal belongings. Please exit through the rear doors."

The mechanized female voice stuttered intermittently from the somewhat malfunctioning old-fashioned PA system.

Gao Tian tightened his grip on the Terror Blade in his hand. He watched the front doors of the bus creak open, casting a long shadow inside. A passenger was boarding.

The red numbers on the screen indicating the passenger count jumped to 6.

The one boarding at the Scarecrow Dock was a sluggish old woman. She had a hunched back and leaned on a walking stick, appearing to struggle immensely with every step.

From her appearance, she looked no different from a normal old woman.

Were it not for the Black Cross planted upside down in her head.

That cross was over half a meter tall and embedded extremely deeply into the old woman's skull; it had certainly pierced entirely through her cranium. The moment she stepped inside, the other end of the cross scraped against the ceiling of the Supernatural Bus, producing the sound of colliding metal.

Gao Tian and the others didn't dare breathe as they watched the old woman slowly trudge down the aisle. Although the bus would suppress every Fierce Ghost within the cabin, who knew whether the ghosts would actually follow the rules? They were immortal and indestructible; what did it matter if they actually killed someone?

The old woman with the Inverted Cross embedded in her head fixed her murky gaze in Gao Tian's direction, walking straight toward him.

Clack.

On the red-lettered screen at the front of the bus, the passenger count had barely hit 6 before it suddenly jumped to 7.

Before the old woman even took a seat, a new passenger had boarded.