Glancing at the medallion, Sevrin casually slipped it into his robe pocket.
Then, he pulled out the jade box containing the Soul-Binding Cocoon.
According to the old man, this box contained a sealed evil ghost responsible for the annihilation of everyone at this outpost, an extremely dangerous entity.
But it was exactly this danger that piqued Sevrin's intense interest.
He wanted to release it.
As for the old man's instructions to hand the box over to the Demon-Slaying Bureau's headquarters for processing, Sevrin felt there was no need for such trouble. Since it had to be dealt with anyway, he might as well put it to good use: feeding it to the Kiyou Grotto to unlock a new building would be far more valuable.
With this thought, Sevrin strolled out of the warehouse and onto the open ground outside, then abruptly tore the talisman from the jade box.
HISS~~
Following a faint, almost imperceptible shriek, an extremely gloomy and sinister atmosphere instantly saturated the air around Sevrin.
But upon sensing this malevolent energy, he let out a slightly disappointed sigh:
"After all that fuss, it's only a Vengeful Spirit level ghostly entity. I thought you'd be more formidable."
That being said, judging by the turbulent, foul aura surrounding him, this ghost, while still at the Vengeful Spirit rank, was clearly much stronger than Asell. It had likely reached the peak of the Vengeful Spirit level.
"Hahaha, no matter. Let me see what new tricks you'll bring to the table."
Laughing aloud, Sevrin, whose face was now deathly pale and mottled with corpse spots, suddenly levitated thirty meters into the air. Dense, dark, and intense clouds of Resentful Slaughter energy erupted from all over his body.
Simultaneously, a ferocious, savage, and constantly roaring invisible Vile Slaughter manifested within the dark void surrounding him.
ROAR!
The moment this Vile Slaughter appeared, it acted like a demonic wolf that had been starving for a century. It roared as its senses caught a trail, rapidly flying toward the ground and circling the area with predatory speed.
It was searching for the unknown vengeful ghost that had escaped the jade box and was now hiding somewhere in the shadows.
As the Vile Slaughter prowled, it let out a series of erratic, rasping cackles, as if mocking the other ghostly entity's cowardly attempts to hide.
Such blatant provocation naturally enraged the evil ghost.
In the next moment, a sound like ten thousand tiny serpents or centipedes moving rapidly, a continuous SKITTER-SKITTER-SKITTER, abruptly erupted from the fissures and cracks across the arena floor beneath Sevrin.
But when Sevrin looked down at the sound, he saw that what was slithering within the cracks wasn't snakes or insects, but countless, blood-slicked, severed fingers, so many he couldn't even count them.
These myriad fingers writhed and pulsed like larvae as they squeezed out of the earth. Upon emerging, they rapidly assembled themselves like building blocks, knitting together into dozens of horrifying humanoid forms, some appearing female, some male, others like children or elders.
Once these hundreds of people slowly rose from the ground, they simultaneously tilted their heads back. With eyes whose pale grey pupils were made of fingernails, they glared fixedly at Sevrin floating in the air. Using a cacophony of voices, they spoke in a singular, vicious unison:
"You deserve to die... you deserve to die... you deserve to die... you deserve to die... you deserve to die... you deserve to die..."
These invisible, hateful curses acted like tangible poison arrows. Leaving the mouths of these hundreds of people, they instantly merged into a river, hurtling toward Sevrin's position with staggering speed.
SWOOSH!!
Because the torrent traveled so incredibly fast, Sevrin was completely engulfed before he could react, submerged in a boiling ocean of malevolent intent.
Under the impact of such frenzied malice, let alone an ordinary person, even a martial artist with an iron will would have their mind corroded and their soul dissolved in an instant, turning into a mindless husk.
But Sevrin, submerged within the torrent of malice, remained miraculously unscathed. In fact, he absorbed every drop of it. Then, his form began to twist and expand eerily, suddenly bursting into ten thousand severed fingers that rained down to the ground, accompanied by the heavy dripping of blood.
Indeed, the moment this Finger-Ghost revealed itself, Sevrin had clearly seen its personal interface. In a single thought, he learned all its skills and pushed them to the highest level.
The ghost's personal interface was as follows:
[ Character Name: Unknown
Level: Ghost Path → Vengeful Spirit
Mastered Skills: "Ghostly Body, Soul Remains""Evil Fingers, Ghostly Cries""Red Dust Yin-Gathering (Damaged)"
Special Traits: [Level 2 Ethereal Body][Level 2 Ghostly Visage][Level 2 Demonic Fingers][Level 2 Malice]
Expert Shards: None ]
As the foundation for all ghostly entities, the "Ghostly Body, Soul Remains" naturally required no further explanation. This ghost's true ultimate skills were the two major Ghost Path occult arts following it: "Evil Fingers, Ghostly Cries" and the fragmented "Red Dust Yin-Gathering".
The former allowed a ghostly entity to split itself into a vast number of severed fingers, each carrying a portion of its own conscious thought, which would then swarm the enemy like a horde of insects.
Beyond this victory through numbers mode of attack, this occult art also allowed for the independent control of a small number of fingers for intricate, precise tasks. This control was so meticulous that the fingers could be used like building blocks to assemble various forms of people, beasts, or objects.
Furthermore, as long as the surrounding Yin Qi remained, each severed finger could continuously and unnaturally split and proliferate under the influence of the "Evil Fingers, Ghostly Cries" technique.
As for the "Red Dust Yin-Gathering", it was an entirely new method for absorbing Yin energy, distinct from both the "Demonic Land Yin-Gathering" and the "Gradual Submersion Yin-Gathering".
Those two methods focused on absorbing sinister Yin energy from demonic lands and deep mountains, respectively.
The Red Dust method, however, focused on absorbing the poisonous Yin aura accumulated within the mortal world, the Red Dust.
And just as the Demonic method allowed a ghost to manipulate the myriad evil energies of a demonic land, and the Submersion method allowed a ghost to conceal its presence and vanish, this Red Dust method also granted a ghostly entity a certain, treacherous ability.
That ability was the capacity to refine and store the Malice and Ten Thousand Hatreds of the Red Dust from human hearts, then channel them into a river of energy to bombard a foe.
However, no matter how bizarre or powerful these skills of the Finger-Ghost were, they now all belonged to Sevrin.
Consequently, when the ten thousand severed fingers he had manifested fell to the ground, they too began to knit together, rapidly assembling into blurred humanoid forms. They gathered into a squad and shouted back at the hundreds of people formed by the Finger-Ghost:
"You're the one who deserves to die... you're the one who deserves to die... you're the one who deserves to die... you're the one who deserves to die..."
SWOOSH~~
In an instant, the invisible, angry curses from the hundreds of Sevrins converged into a torrent of Malice, roaring as it struck the crowd of Finger-Ghosts, who were completely stunned by what they were witnessing.
BOOM!
The vast, ruined arena was instantly and entirely submerged in a surging, boiling sea of Malice. Because of this Malice, every sight became blurred and distorted, looking like an oil painting that had been splashed with water.
As a fellow practitioner of the Red Dust Yin-Gathering, a pure torrent of Malice naturally couldn't truly harm the Finger-Ghost.
But what if the torrent of Malice released by Sevrin wasn't so pure?
In truth, while engaging in that shouting match with the Finger-Ghost, Sevrin had silently pushed the "High-Level Primal Breath Yang-Refining Method" he'd stolen from the Demon-Slaying Bureau elder to its peak, elevating his occult realm to the [Astral Travel] stage.
The so-called Astral Travel involved the projection of the Yin-Spirit.
Those who are pure Yin with no Yang are ghosts; those with a mix of Yin and Yang are Yin-Spirits; and those who are pure Yang with no Yin are Yang-Spirits.
When an ordinary person dies and their soul leaves the body, they become a ghost. But for a practitioner whose soul is not yet pure Yin and not yet full Yang, it is called a Yin-Spirit.
To put it plainly, a Yin-Spirit is a type of ghostly entity possessing a clear, intelligent mind and Yang magical power. Because a taoist or sorcerer's mind is steadfast and their physical shell still exists, their intent does not dissipate and they do not fall into madness, allowing them to remain in the mortal realm without falling into the cycle of reincarnation.
Naturally, even after the Yin-Spirit left the body, it could still consume Yang Qi to cast techniques. Although the power would be significantly weaker than when the Yin-Spirit resided within the physical shell, it was still a step above a soul-restraining sorcerer.
In short, a projected Yin-Spirit existed as a middle ground between a soul-restraining sorcerer and a Yin-Spirit remaining within its body.
While engaging the Finger-Ghost in their shouting match, Sevrin decided to employ a two-pronged strategy.
His physical shell (ghostly body) continued to trade blows and engage in a tug-of-war with the Finger-Ghost. Meanwhile, his Yin-Spirit (soul) projected itself from the body. It continuously consumed yellow talismans to cast Fire Spark Curses, Exorcism Charms, Nightmare-Banishing Spells, Five-Thunder Spells, and Demon-Subduing Curses, various anti-ghost talismanic arts mixed into the torrent of Malice to subject the Finger-Ghost to an unending barrage of explosions.
As a result, for a time, the entire underground arena was completely blanketed by golden-red talisman fire, deep blue lightning, and spirit-shaking thunderous roars, thoroughly cleansing the original gloomy, ghostly atmosphere of the area.
Subjected to this kind of treatment, the Finger-Ghost naturally suffered immensely.
A single or even a few talismanic spells wouldn't have been enough to truly hurt it; it would just lose a dozen or twenty fingers. But when ten or twenty, or even more, spells bombarded it every single second, the nature of the situation changed completely.
Quantity leads to quality.
Under Sevrin's dual offensive, the Finger-Ghost began to retreat steadily.
Not only did the area of the arena it controlled shrink significantly, but the rate at which it absorbed Yin Qi to produce new fingers gradually fell behind the rate of its losses.
In simple gaming terms: the Finger-Ghost's health regeneration could no longer keep up with its rate of health loss.
At this rate, the Finger-Ghost's defeat was only a matter of time.
But even so, Sevrin was not satisfied.
"Too slow, too slow," Sevrin's Yin-Spirit, hanging invisibly and incorporeally above his ghostly body, whispered. "I've already consumed over a thousand yellow talismans, and yet this Finger-Ghost still hasn't been taken down... Hmm, I need to cut off its source of Yin Qi."
With this thought, the invisible Vile Slaughter that had been prowling the arena immediately followed his intent, darting toward the dozens of blurred humanoid forms in the distance that were shrouded in Malice and raging thunder-fire.
"I've always been curious: if a monster capable of constant regeneration had its head chopped off, when its head grew a body and its body grew a head..."
Gazing from afar at the invisible Vile Slaughter speeding toward the Finger-Ghost's remains, the characters for Naeaie faintly flashing on its transparent soul surface, Sevrin's Yin-Spirit muttered, "Which head of that monster would be the master?"
Faster than words can tell, like a sinister hyena, the invisible Vile Slaughter crept up to the Finger-Ghost's side. It immediately opened the grotto's doorway, violently devouring a volume of severed fingers equivalent to four or five people, and then bolted away instantly.
As that mass of fragmented Finger-Ghost remains, consisting of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of fingers, fell inside the Kiyou Grotto, they immediately began to writhe and crawl around frantically, like headless flies.
But with the battle raging on, Sevrin had no inclination to study them. He immediately cast spells across space, beginning to bombard the fingers crawling about.
At the same time, multitasking with ease, he continued to direct the invisible Vile Slaughter to launch sneak attacks.
As time steadily passed, the Finger-Ghost was eventually worn down by Sevrin until less than half a person's worth of it remained.
SWISH!!
The invisible Vile Slaughter surged forward once more, devouring the Finger-Ghost into the Kiyou Grotto in a single gulp.
In that same instant, a phantom image identical to Sevrin appeared within the Side Hall of the grotto, amidst the scattered ash.
This phantom was the manifestation of Sevrin's consciousness within the grotto.
Looking at the mass of Finger-Ghost remains, which were now somewhat listless due to being cut off from their supply of Yin Qi, he grinned and said:
"What's wrong? Not so tough now, are you? Weren't you acting all tough just a moment ago? Hmm."
Then, before the Finger-Ghost could react, hundreds of yellow talismans began to appear all around Sevrin.
Once manifested, these talismans ignited without fire, transforming into streaks of fire and lightning that slammed down violently, bombarding the cluster of dying fingers.
BOOM!
The entire Side Hall shook violently.
The Finger-Ghost was dead.
With that, Sevrin finally acquired his third Expert Shard since arriving in this world.
"Strange, truly strange," Sevrin muttered, somewhat puzzled. "When I killed Huin and Asell, I got two shards. This time, I killed the Finger-Ghost, which was clearly stronger than both of them combined, and yet I only got one shard. Tsk, how exactly is this calculated?"
Unable to figure it out for the moment, he simply stopped thinking about it and began to focus on the Kiyou Grotto.
"So this... is the so-called Soul Remains."
Holding a pitch-black spinal segment that only someone in a ghostly state could see and touch, Sevrin muttered, "How am I supposed to feed this to the grotto?"
While he was pondering, a red scroll spread across a black table about 30 meters away trembled slightly, and a dazzling light suddenly erupted from it.
"Eh?"
Sevrin followed the light and saw that wisps of radiance emerging from the scroll were condensing from ethereal to solid form, becoming a line of brilliant, small characters:
「 Grind the bone to powder, use as a brush, paint onto the scroll, fill the gap. 」
"The meaning of this..."
Sevrin slowly shifted his gaze back to the soul remains in his palm. "Is that I need to grind this spine left by the Finger-Ghost into powder, and then use it as pigment to paint onto that scroll?"
After considering it for a moment, he decided to give it a try.
A while later.
"Where should I apply it?"
Holding a pile of blackish-grey dust on the desk, Sevrin evaluated the vast empty spaces on the scroll, muttering, "I can't tell which part is which at all. Forget it, I'll just smear it anywhere."
With that, Sevrin boldly pushed the pile of dust onto the scroll, preparing to start painting.
But before his finger could even make a couple of strokes, the pile of dust instantly liquefied into ink and began to move across the scroll on its own.
This left Sevrin feeling both annoyed and amazed. He couldn't help but mutter:
"After all that, you're actually automatic. Heh, and here I was racking my brain trying to figure out where to paint. Screw it then."
Having said that, he watched quietly as the ink on the scroll moved like a serpent across the paper.
A moment later, to the right of the small rectangular pattern representing the Side Hall, the ink had traced a slightly larger circular pattern.
Beside this pattern, three small characters were inscribed:
「 East Forest Garden 」
"East Forest Garden. Sounds a bit like a park. Tsk, feels a bit underwhelming."
Clicking his tongue in disappointment, Sevrin looked up at the main hall in front of him.
Then, he saw that the black smoke filling a doorway at the far end of the hall, toward the left, had vanished without a trace.
In its place was a narrow, long stone corridor.
Without much hesitation, Sevrin's figure blurred. He crossed the 330-meter distance in a flash and flew into this newly revealed, narrow corridor.
After another 300 meters, he reached the end of the passage.
As Sevrin pushed open the bronze door at the end, a vast and desolate wilderness met his gaze.
It was called a Forest Garden, but within Sevrin's line of sight, there wasn't a single respectable tree to be seen.
There were only scattered patches of withered yellow grass and cracked earth crisscrossed with ravines.
In short, it was a scene of desolation and silence.
"Is it because there's no one to maintain it?"
Sevrin stepped onto the wasteland. As he walked slowly, he looked around, hoping to find anything out of the ordinary.
But he was disappointed.
Sevrin walked for about ten miles.
Aside from a few scattered pieces of completely rotted and splintered deadwood and several crooked steles with faded and incomplete inscriptions, he found nothing of value.
However, although Sevrin was growing impatient, an intuitive ripple within his mind told him:
Persist a little longer; if you keep moving forward, there will be a reward.
Sevrin knew very well that this was a mysterious inspirational ability generated by the intersection of his Level 2 Wild Nature and Level 2 Intuition.
He suspected that neither trait would have this effect alone. But having both led to a mutual influence that sparked a miraculous reaction. That vague ripple was the result of this reaction.
"Ah well, since I have nothing better to do, I'll keep going and see what happens."
With this thought, Sevrin suppressed his impatience and continued.
After another five or six miles, he finally saw something entirely different from dead trees, dry grass, and broken steles.
Specifically, hundreds, even thousands, of soldier corpses. They were clad in deep-black heavy armor and held various weapons. Though clearly deathly and still, their bodies were undecayed and unrotted.
At first glance, they looked like a group of defeated soldiers who had all perished in a catastrophic battle.
They lay silently across the vast wasteland before Sevrin. Ninety-nine percent of them were in a damaged state, missing arms, legs, heads, or with broken waists.
Only a sparse few remains managed to keep their limbs intact.
Yet, even so, the armor and weapons on these corpses were riddled with cracks and holes, a truly piteous sight.
But this was only what Sevrin saw; the actual truth of what had happened had long since vanished into the mists of history.
"A field full of corpses... what value could they possibly have?!"
Sevrin furrowed his brows in annoyance, but he still walked into the field of remains, looking left and right, hoping to find something useful.
Perhaps martial arts manuals or secret techniques, or failing that, even some gold or silver.
But his investigation left him disappointed.
Forget manuals and techniques; after wandering for a while and searching a dozen corpses, Sevrin couldn't find so much as a single copper coin.
However, he did make a surprising discovery: these so-called remains... were actually non-human.
No, that wasn't quite right.
It would be more accurate to say that these remains were like a series of robotic entities.
Earlier, from a distance and obscured by the withered grass, Sevrin couldn't see clearly. But getting closer, he realized the truth.
Inside the gaps and ruptures of these remains, there were no flesh, muscles, or tendons, only complex and precise mechanical devices.
Furthermore, the connections between these mechanical parts weren't colorful wires or electrical circuits. Instead, they were jade-like stones of various shapes, sizes, and colors, each engraved with incredibly intricate symbols and patterns that looked both mysterious and ancient.
Not only were there runes on these jade stones, but the surrounding machinery, whether intact or broken, was also inscribed with runes, though they were far fewer and more sparse than those on the stones.
Moreover, the precise machinery visible inside the ruptures was not entirely made of metal. Instead, materials like bone, wood, ceramics, and even stone dominated, with metal making up only a small fraction.
"What is this? Ancient robots? Clockwork puppets?"
"But regardless, these robots are all damaged now. What use are they to me? Sigh, truly a waste of time."
Shaking his head, Sevrin sighed and began to walk slowly out of the field of remains.
But after a few steps, as he passed a burly, half-faced corpse clutching a massive cleaver-like blade, the remains suddenly snapped their eyes open and sat up rapidly.
"Ah?!"
Sevrin's pace halted instantly as he stared at the half-faced remains that had sat up. "You... you can still wake up? Is it because I got close enough and you were activated?"
The half-faced remains turned their head toward Sevrin upon hearing the voice.
In the next moment, it quickly pushed itself off the ground, dropping to one knee before Sevrin with a loud thud. It spoke in a muffled, heavy voice:
"Kiyou Grotto Demon-Subduing Vajra Sanj Unit 0, pays respects to the Master!"
"...Very good. Quite spirited."
Secretly pleased to have gained a subordinate out of thin air, Sevrin said with a face full of smiles, "I want to know: is the reason you acknowledge me as Master because of the Naeaie Mansion's high-level Fire Seed Plan?"
"Reporting to Master," the Demon-Subduing Vajra said in a deep voice. "This subordinate has lost all past memories. I do not know what the Fire Seed Plan is; I only know that you are the Lord of the Kiyou Grotto, and therefore, you are this subordinate's Master."
"Alright then," Sevrin clicked his tongue. "Looks like there's no way to learn about the events of the Naeaie Mansion back then for now. Oh, right..."
He then pointed to the fallen Demon-Subduing Vajras scattered in every direction. "Among your companions, are there any others who haven't been scrapped like you? Can you find them? It's too much trouble for me to walk over and activate them one by one."
"Reporting to Master," the burly Vajra said respectfully. "This subordinate can locate and activate all Demon-Subduing Vajras that have not been scrapped. Please wait a moment, Master."
With that, it turned and sprinted in a specific direction, leaving a trail of afterimages and sonic booms. Its speed was actually no less than Sevrin's own.
This meant the hundreds of remains in this wasteland, in terms of martial arts, fist techniques, and physical strength, were very likely... not weaker than Sevrin.