The air was terribly humid; even breathing felt unnatural.
Following the direction the Village Chief pointed, they found a relatively open path. Everyone walked slowly, not just observing their surroundings, but meticulously inspecting every crack in the rocks. The soil in the hollow was soft, and the dampness and cold seeped through their shoes. The female teacher suddenly exclaimed, “Look!”
Ahead, the ground was covered in cracks. Coffins lay exposed on the surface, circle within circle, exuding an unsettling aura everywhere.
From this point onwards, a mist began to appear, and under the refracting light, the coffin surfaces glowed with an eerie sheen.
Coffins were typically buried underground. This sight of them laid out, both inside and outside, was somewhat horrifying.
Kou Tuo, being experienced, directly took the female teacher’s hand.
Of course, he wasn’t taking advantage; she didn’t pull away either. The mist was increasing at a visible rate. Everyone instinctively grabbed the hands of those around them to prevent getting separated, losing a teammate, or gaining a ghostly teammate.
They didn’t all hold hands in a single line; they primarily formed groups of two or three for ease of movement.
While visibility was still barely clear, Zhou Qi’an quickly scanned the surroundings. The landscape centered around the hollow was very monotonous. Aside from these coffins, he didn’t see anything else particularly special.
He said in a deep voice, “Open the coffins.”
Having come this far, they certainly couldn’t give up.
As for which one to open, there were no clues in the mist, so they could only try one first. If they all opened it together, even if there were taboos, only one or two unlucky ones would die.
Knowing they had no choice, everyone stepped forward one after another, stopping before a coffin on the outermost edge.
This coffin had no nails, and the nearby ones were the same. This at least indicated that the path forward most likely lay in opening the coffins.
Zhou Qi’an took a breath: “I’ll count to three, and we’ll open it together.”
“One, two…”
When he counted to three, several pairs of hands worked together to lift the coffin lid.
Some individuals clearly had selfish intentions, their movements a half-beat slower. Just as they felt guilty about being discovered, everyone’s gaze suddenly focused on Zhou Qi’an.
He was opening the coffin in a very peculiar posture, his back consistently bent, performing an upward lifting motion as if he were about to kneel.
Even now, Zhou Qi’an hadn’t lifted his head; instead, he buried it even lower, bowing deeply: “My apologies for the disturbance. Forced by survival, I humbly ask for your understanding.”
After speaking, he continued to bow three times.
Perhaps this devout attitude worked, because the terrifying mist concentrated around him was indeed lighter than around others.
“…”
Only the first person to try it had some effect. When later players tried to bow again, it had no effect.
Kou Tuo smiled without humor: “Mr. Zhou, remember to say something next time before you do anything.”
Zhou Qi’an said earnestly, “Respect comes from the bottom of my heart. Why should it be spoken aloud?”
“…”
Everyone’s attention was quickly drawn to the scene inside the coffin.
This sight was not unfamiliar to Zhou Qi’an; it was similar to the ancient corpse that had flowed out of the instance. The corpse also had blurred facial features, snow-white skin, and the rhythm of water flowing around it, making it seem as if it were still breathing.
But what made the players’ scalps tingle the most was that this corpse was very close to them, as if floating on the coffin.
“It’s two layers.” Ying Yu extended his finger to probe, his bold action startling the female teacher to move away.
Tapping his fingertips, a very hollow and light echo resonated.
This was a two-layered coffin. The corpse was on top, and there was space in the layer below.
Ying Yu thought for a moment: “The Saintess was executed tied to a wooden stake. The cursed wooden stake might have been buried with her.”
Female teacher: “Are you saying the wooden stake is hidden in the next layer?”
Ying Yu nodded.
He withdrew his hand after speaking, with no intention of going further.
To have survived this long, no one present was foolish. With so many coffins now, they couldn’t just open them blindly like a lucky draw.
Although the Saintess was said to have died from exposure, she had killed so many people. Constantly nourished by death energy over the years, her body might have recovered significantly. It would probably be difficult to determine the Saintess’s coffin by the degree of burns on the body.
Zhou Qi’an then spoke calmly, pointing out something everyone had overlooked: “The Saintess was pregnant before she died.”
These corpses, to the greatest extent possible, replicated their state before death, which was undoubtedly a clue.
There were a total of forty-nine coffins.
Currently, opening only the first layer seemed to be a controllable risk. But who knew if they would encounter reanimated corpses?
No, experience told them it was highly likely. Just like minesweeper, opening the first layer was a matter of luck, for better or worse. Opening the second layer would have a much higher risk factor, perhaps even certain death.
They had to find the Saintess through the first layer first, lock onto her coffin, and then open the second layer.
The current problem was whether to open the first layer together, as they just did, or to split up.
The young girl whispered, “Let’s open them together.”
Her tone carried some uncertainty. She felt that the game rules wouldn’t be kind enough to allow them to easily distribute risk.
Suddenly, the girl’s gaze became somewhat strange. She noticed Shen Zhiyi, who had almost no presence since entering the hollow, pull Zhou Qi’an closer, subtly shielding half of his shoulder in front of him.
The young girl immediately became alert.
Could there be some danger they hadn’t noticed?
Almost instantaneously, some mottled black dots appeared in the mist. These black dots swept over like locusts.
They were too fast to run away, and there wasn’t enough time to use items.
She instinctively dropped to the ground; the mottled black dots seemed to be mostly in mid-air.
With Shen Zhiyi blocking him, Zhou Qi’an didn’t feel anything.
Kou Tuo had an automatically activated defensive item on him, but his expression quickly changed. It wasn’t because he was injured, but because the other hand he was holding… the female teacher’s hand felt lighter.
The moment he turned his head, he found he was holding a severed hand.
Kou Tuo’s face instantly sank.
“Ah!” The next second, the female teacher’s scream came. A seemingly invisible vortex existed in the mist, sucking her inward.
Everyone hesitated not, wanting to flee.
With something like this happening, everyone knew the female teacher probably wouldn’t survive.
But just when everyone had deemed her certain to die, a figure suddenly moved.
Shen Zhiyi appeared in the female teacher’s original position. Streaks of black energy emanated from his palm, and he forcibly pulled her back before she was completely sucked away.
The terrifying suction from behind briefly disappeared. Perhaps not expecting to survive, the female teacher, in her surprise, forgot to use a healing item. Blood flowed profusely from her severed hand. When she finally remembered to stop the bleeding, she quickly opened her mouth: “Thank…”
She was interrupted after only one word. Shen Zhiyi said coldly, “Go open the coffin.”
The female teacher froze.
“It’s not easy for a corpse to reanimate if you open the coffin.”
“I…” Suddenly meeting those even sharper, greyish-white eyes in the mist, the female teacher swallowed her words.
She truly excelled in this aspect. Probably due to her presence-reducing skill, even the scent of blood from her severed hand was easily ignored.
Shen Zhiyi then looked at the young girl. Without him needing to say anything, the latter trembled and ran to open another coffin.
The corpse-raising ground contained only female corpses. If a person of the opposite sex were to strip and inspect them, terrifying things would likely happen.
The small black dots temporarily disappeared, but everyone was still shaken.
Zhou Qi’an, as a novice, humbly asked, “What were those things?”
Shen Zhiyi didn’t speak; someone else would explain in detail.
Indeed, Ying Yu spoke: “The death energy in Fengshui Village is quite strong. You can think of the wrongfully deceased as mindless spirit-eating worms that want to escape but have lost their sanity. Under the blessing of death energy, they constantly erode space over the years.”
Zhou Qi’an immediately thought of the black giant cocoon he saw in the mountain hollow during the funeral. They were probably now in the central area surrounded by these spirits.
Cracks had appeared in the surrounding space. A slight misstep, and the group could be torn to shreds.
Ying Yu directly provided a solution: “Try not to let the black dots gather. First, buy time for opening the coffins.”
When he finished speaking, most everyone had weapons and items in their hands.
Except for Zhou Qi’an.
He was considering what to use.
Holy artifacts were not suitable. The white silk could easily drag him into the vortex. That left only the staff. As he waved a thin stick like a noble lord, black dots reappeared in the mist.
Zhou Qi’an gestured, his posture a bit unnatural.
“I need to get used to this. Every time it comes down to the wire, it’s always others protecting me.”
For example, when facing the evil god, everyone collectively guarded his back.
“…”
The female teacher meticulously examined the corpse with one hand.
With a pale face, she lifted the corpse’s clothes and reached in to feel the abdomen. The soft, slippery sensation sent chills down her spine several times.
Pregnancy varied from person to person; some didn’t show much of a belly until late pregnancy. It was unknown how many months pregnant the Saintess was before she died, but it was always better to check carefully.
When her hand moved slightly higher, the corpse suddenly moved!
In just one breath, the corpse in the coffin actually sat up.
“Ignore it.” Shen Zhiyi was dealing with the black dots, but his peripheral vision caught this scene: “Keep looking.”
His voice inexplicably had a calming power. The corpse’s movements were still relatively slow. The female teacher gritted her teeth and ran to the next coffin.
Before opening the coffin, the female teacher couldn’t help but look back at the sitting corpse, finding that its movements were becoming more exaggerated. As time passed, the corpse’s rigidity rapidly decreased.
On the other side, the young girl was also conducting her search. Like the female teacher, the corpse came to life when she was almost finished examining it.
The more coffins opened, the thinner the mist became. Now there was almost no mist.
The players could clearly see the source of the black dots. In the void, there seemed to be their nest, where a large number of black dots gathered.
Having narrowly escaped being swallowed by black dots, Xu Gui stumbled a few steps, asking urgently, “Did you find it?”
“Still looking.”
The female teacher was drenched in cold sweat, speeding up her movements.
After examining about twenty corpses, the female teacher suddenly felt a noticeably protruding belly: “Found…”
Before the joy could show on her face, the woman in the coffin sat up at a speed several times faster than the other corpses.
Female teacher: “She…”
“She woke up too fast.” Zhou Qi’an, nearby, also saw this scene and interjected.
The joke didn’t dispel the fear. This corpse was clearly different from the others, exuding an extremely sharp killing intent.
The female teacher retreated instinctively at the first moment. Logically, she should have seized the moment the Saintess reanimated to seamlessly smash open the coffin’s hidden layer.
But a voice in her heart told her: If you get any closer, you will die.
All the corpses were dressed in uniform white robes.
One second she was sitting in the coffin, the next, the blurry-faced woman had moved to the edge of the coffin. She didn’t leave the coffin, and the eerie atmosphere made one feel suffocated.
The white robe moved without wind, bare feet and black hair. From the moment she reanimated, the sacred aura around her could not be dispelled. But beneath the pure white, snow-like skin, a tyrannical body seemed to be writhing.
The mist in the air around her swirled like slender snakes.
Kou Tuo: “No doubt. It’s definitely the Saintess.”
Such a strong sense of oppression; no one would believe she was just an ordinary small monster.
Since the Saintess’s awakening, all the other female corpses nearby began to converge on this spot. Creaking sounds continued to be heard. The corpses in the unopened coffins actually pushed open their own coffin lids, all coming to “life” in an instant.
Everyone quickly gathered together, knowing there was only one path: concentrate fire on the Saintess, or rather, stall the Saintess and find a way to break the coffin.
As long as they could sprinkle the holy water on the runes, everything would end.
The idea was good, but the practical execution was extremely difficult, and they also had to consider the space cracks during the process.
The female teacher even delivered some bad news: “The Saintess’s belly is moving.”
This meant they might have to face another small ghost at any moment.
As everyone’s faces paled, Zhou Qi’an took a deep breath and spoke somberly: “In our past interactions, there have been some unpleasantries.”
“But at this point, no one can hold back… We must use our strongest methods. There’s only one chance.”
Yes, only one chance.
He specifically emphasized the “strongest methods.” All powerful ultimate moves are followed by a period of weakness. If they failed in one strike, surrounded by forty-nine corpses, they would have no strength left.
The Saintess seemed to sense that Zhou Qi’an was the core of this team.
A strong sense of crisis made Zhou Qi’an immediately want to close the distance with his teammates. However, the Saintess attacked first.
Her snow-white, pale body blurred, as if dissolved by water.
“Watch out!”
The female teacher was facing Zhou Qi’an’s direction. His face changed dramatically, and even Kou Tuo, usually calm, now looked as if he had seen something terrifying, his eyes wider than usual.
Following their gaze, Zhou Qi’an lowered his head and saw a row of wet footprints in front of him, very small and narrow, only half a print.
It was as if someone had tiptoed by.
The footprints disappeared right in front of him.
The next second, an intense feeling of suffocation came; it was the sensation of drowning.
Weapons were useless. Zhou Qi’an struggled to open his eyes and finally made out the blurry outline of a water person.
The corpse-raising ground was so damp it could rain, yet the Saintess could control water vapor to this extent.
“Damn it…” Zhou Qi’an’s vision was blurry.
He was surrounded by an invisible barrier, as if trapped in a jar made of water, separated from the others.
Holy artifacts.
Definitely not suitable.
The Saintess’s main body was still sitting on the coffin. Even if he brought them out, they probably wouldn’t be of much use. The white silk and staff were the same.
Caught between a rock and a hard place, Zhou Qi’an suddenly gritted his teeth, hardened his resolve, and heavily struck the side with his staff. The water vapor barrier around him was easier to shatter than the water phantom in front of him. After recovering a little mobility, he actually started moving towards the black dots.
At this moment, even if the other players wanted to help him, they were powerless. The first reanimated corpse, completely unannounced, pounced. And there were those black dots appearing intermittently. Just dealing with these was troublesome enough.
No, actually, there was one person who had energy to spare.
Shen Zhiyi glanced at Zhou Qi’an. He had almost instinctively wanted to act, but when he saw Zhou Qi’an actively moving towards the black dots, his gaze suddenly changed.
This was an attempt to use the spatial裂缝 (rift) to wear down the water vapor trapping him. The only thing he could rely on was the holy artifact to momentarily deter these black dots, thus escaping.
The risk involved was extremely high.
Yet, the crisis seemed to excite Zhou Qi’an a little, as if the feeling of being on the brink of death could activate his vitality more.
Shen Zhiyi’s gaze deepened, as if he had completely made up his mind.
He couldn’t let this death-defying behavior continue.
Just as he moved towards Zhou Qi’an, the latter’s gaze dared not leave the Saintess for a moment, struggling to force out a few words: “Wait for me to shout, shout ‘Unity is strength,’ then charge.”
Everyone’s mouths twitched.
Even in this situation, he was still thinking about blowing the horn of counterattack?
“Unity…”
Zhou Qi’an, simply by talking, tried to momentarily forget the feeling of being drowned by the mist.
When the players attacked the Saintess, her control over the water vapor would inevitably weaken, and his hope of escaping would be greater.
He even deliberately said it for the Saintess to hear: “Everyone’s going to attack you, don’t just focus on me.”
Once he was free, he would have a chance to use the holy artifact to counter-kill the Saintess the moment everyone else held her back.
Zhou Qi’an’s palms were covered in a thin sweat. Only after getting closer did he realize how unpredictable the spatial rift was, a seemingly endless abyss.
The black dots seemed to sense something and actively flew towards him. Zhou Qi’an wasn’t sure how much the holy artifact’s deterrent effect would work, but he had no other better choice.
“That’s the strength…”
Everyone was ready for a desperate fight. Kou Tuo knew the importance of morale and quickly added in a low voice, “Not one less.”
At least the belief in everyone surviving was present at that moment.
The Saintess sat motionless at the edge of the coffin, her icy expression tinged with mockery, as if looking at an overconfident ant.
Just as they were about to make their desperate move, without warning, a fierce wind roared from the sky.
The entire sky above was a oppressive black, like the void before an impending apocalypse. The wind was so strong that everyone couldn’t open their eyes. Only Shen Zhiyi and Ying Yu vaguely saw the true form of the black shadow. It came from the spatial rift, suspended in mid-air like a mirage.
It was a manor.
Black energy in the howling wind wrapped around Zhou Qi’an’s limbs. He was uncontrollably swept by the wind towards the phantom.
“Strength, strength, strength, strength~~~~~~”
The last word, due to the strong wind, became a trembling echo, a layered sound.
The unlucky person at the center of the storm heard the system prompt:
[Conditions met]
[Guest of the Manor identity automatically activated]
[Xun the Wealthy’s fake son, you have been lucky yet unfortunately discovered by the mistress of the Liangye Manor, who is currently hunting.]
“!!!”
Zhou Qi’an suddenly remembered Shen Zhiyi’s repeated warnings: other wandering spirits might spill into this instance.
The moment he was swept away, the fierce wind gradually subsided. Kou Tuo barely opened one eye.
There was no smell of blood around, meaning no one should have died.
The next moment, Kou Tuo’s pupils contracted: “Where is he?”
Where was the person who told them “unity is strength”?!
__
Author’s Note:
Zhou Qi’an: Ms. Shen, I’m gone. Please speak up for me!
Ms. Shen: …
Zhou Qi’an: If you’re unkind, I’ll be unjust. You’ll regret this!
Ms. Shen: …
