Chapter 38 Luring the Phantom

The impact range of the ghost bugs was much larger than Shen Lin had imagined. When he approached that street, he saw bugs emerging from not far away like a geyser, resembling a fountain entirely made of bugs.

The threat of the ghost bugs lay in their sheer numbers. Once their population multiplied to the point of blanketing the globe, with the main body hidden among them so that no one could find it, the ghost bugs would become an extremely troublesome incident.

However, for the present moment, they were not yet much of a trouble.

Dark red brilliance surged and erupted outward in all directions. The world seemed to flip upside down, with Shen Lin as the center.

Shen Lin's ghost domain barely expanded to the vicinity of the bug piles.

The conceptual ability of the Inversion Ghost was simply too strong—terrifyingly so.

Ultimately, the Ghost Apparition's abilities had limitations. When wielding a ghost's power of this magnitude, not only would the ability be significantly weakened, but each use would also accelerate the degree of the Ghost Apparition's awakening far more severely than ever before.

*I cannot take it step by step; I must resolve this quickly,* Shen Lin told himself. He could feel the bloodthirst of the Ghost Apparition at every single moment. Once this incident was over, he had to begin mastering a second ghost, or else he would soon become a sacrificial victim to the Ghost Apparition's awakening.

A massive number of bugs began to wither under the shroud of the Ghost Apparition. The Inversion Ghost's ability was truly overwhelming; even though it had already been weakened in Shen Lin's hands, it was still beyond what an ordinary-tier vengeful ghost could endure.

The fountain-like eruption of bugs temporarily slowed, as if struck by some degree of impact.

Shen Lin had a realization: the sub-entities of this creepy thing were connected to the main body. The main body split into sub-entities, and the sub-entities underwent secondary division, continuing endlessly.

Yet, every single bug was ultimately a part of the main body. The death of a massive number of bugs would inflict a certain amount of damage upon the main body. Just as the Starving Ghost was inherently capable of locking onto the coffin nails that threatened it, the ghost bugs instinctively sensed a crisis from Shen Lin and chose to go dormant.

Bypassing the ghost bugs, Shen Lin walked forward slowly. The streets here were soaked in wither, as if they had weathered the polishing of time. It was obvious that the Inversion Ghost had been here before and had once affected this place.

At a bus stop, Shen Lin discovered a corpse. It was a male corpse, in his thirties, with an unremarkable appearance.

His manner of death was fundamentally different from those caused by the Inversion Ghost; he had not been reduced to ashes, but instead displayed symptoms of bleeding from the seven orifices, which was very similar to the condition of the deceased in the expedited photographs provided by Headquarters.

He had triggered the rule of a certain ghost.

Shen Lin's eyes narrowed slightly. This pointed to several possibilities.

The first possibility was that the Inversion Ghost and that ghost had a time difference, and that ghost had killed him before the Inversion Ghost arrived.

This was a relatively logical guess.

The second guess was somewhat terrifying: that ghost had killed this fellow inside the Inversion Ghost's domain, emerging victorious in the confrontation between vengeful ghosts.

This hypothesis made Shen Lin's mind tense up. If a ghost of this caliber truly existed, their operation this time could be described as having a ten percent survival rate and zero chance of living.

A ghost capable of suppressing the Inversion Ghost was simply unimaginable.

Shen Lin noticed a somewhat shattered wristwatch on the corpse, with the time frozen at twelve-ten.

The subconsciousness born from crisis told him that this might be extremely important. If such a ghost truly existed, he needed to seize this moment to grasp any possible clues, groping for the rules blindly like an elephant in the dark, and make preparations early on.

Moving forward, he discovered all sorts of corpses. The people here had died in various ways, clearly indicating that many vengeful ghosts were mixed among them.

One of them instantly drew Shen Lin's high attention: a female corpse. Judging by her astonished expression, it looked as if she had died of fright. More than half of the female corpse's body had vanished, and it continued to disappear even after Shen Lin spotted it.

At the edge of the corpse was a speck of green light, like a firefly in the dark night, rapidly devouring the corpse.

*Keep away, rapidly keep away.*

Shen Lin recalled the vengeful ghost within the Inversion Ghost's domain that could devour the Ghost Apparition. He had never seen its appearance, but the ability to make ghost candles burn instantly from a great distance was truly horrifying.

Information on that ghost was pitifully scarce to Shen Lin at present. Fortunately, its rules seemed very harsh; even during his daring attempt back then, he had not been attacked.

Continuing forward to escape that bizarre corpse, Shen Lin pressed on with his exploration.

He attempted to find the boundary of the Inversion Ghost's domain and do something about it.

The layout of the entire commercial street was similar to most commercial streets. Dongchuan City itself did not rank very high among the nation's cities, lingering near the bottom of Tier 3. The commercial street here had been newly constructed for tourism, specially referencing the bustling layouts of several Tier-1 cities.

Shen Lin's steps were extremely cautious. He was exerting every effort to observe all directions; in this ghost place, you never knew when a vengeful ghost might suddenly pop out.

"Found it!"

Near Zhongshan North Road, Shen Lin felt a familiar ghost domain for the first time. The Ghost Apparition itself had a slight palpitation; similar abilities gave it a special resonance with the Inversion Ghost.

Fortune favors the bold. The special nature of the Ghost Apparition allowed Shen Lin to evade that ghost.

So, this time, he planned to reverse the roles.

He was going to make the remaining half of the street trigger the rules!

The trigger rule of the Inversion Ghost was: attempting to do normal things within an inverted world.

This logic was originally very rigorous, because an inverted world was only known to be created by the Inversion Ghost, and its ghost domain inherently matched this rule.

However, after the Ghost Apparition successfully transformed into the Inversion Ghost, a special variable was added to this rule.

Because the Ghost Apparition could similarly invert the world!

As the old man said, you must use magic to fight magic.

If the Inversion Ghost's inverted world, much like the Ghost Painting, could inherently contain vengeful ghosts, then Shen Lin intended to develop this ability to its absolute limit.

Use vengeful ghosts to balance vengeful ghosts, and find a way to trap the majority of vengeful ghosts within the Inversion Ghost's inverted world. This would increase the smoothness of their operation by over eighty percent.

Dark red brilliance activated. From the critical boundary of the Inversion Ghost's domain, the inverted world belonging to the Ghost Apparition began to spread like one building block stacked upon another!

The special brilliance flashed by, blanketing an area of about one kilometer. Five seconds later, Shen Lin withdrew his ghost domain.

The degree of the Ghost Apparition's awakening was simply too high; he could not recklessly use the power of the vengeful ghosts. One kilometer at a time was already the limit, and he needed to repeat this action ten times to completely blanket the entire commercial street.

Hum~

Like a tremor originating from the earth itself, in Shen Lin's perception, an invisible layer of brilliance seemed to expand. After the expansion of the Inversion Ghost's domain, the previously flickering commercial street displayed a brightly lit phenomenon.

Looking from afar, it seemed as though building after building rhythmically turned on their lights.

Beneath that picturesque scene lay an indescribable horror.

*It worked!* Shen Lin smiled.

He needed to act quickly! No one could be certain what kind of accidents might occur during this process.

Since the power of vengeful ghosts could not be used frequently, he casually found a bicycle. With his current physical fitness, riding such a thing for a whole day would not make him feel tired—after all, what kind of fatigue could you expect from a body close to that of a corpse?

Ten kilometers, ten expansions. It took Shen Lin five minutes to complete all of this. This efficiency was quite swift, and he needed to ensure everything was covered comprehensively.

Headquarters' operation was very prompt, having evacuated civilians before the incident fully erupted. The official explanation given to the outside world was a terrorist attack caused by a bomb, allowing Shen Lin to operate with completely untied hands.

When he returned to the original starting point where he had stood with Xiong Wenwen and the others, Shen Lin narrowed his eyes as he looked at the city that was gradually growing brightly lit.

The real world was plunged in darkness with no lights in sight, whereas the Inversion Ghost's inverted world was naturally brilliantly illuminated.

This was entirely logical.

If you looked closely, however, you would find all the unreasonableness in it: the flickering lights converged into a river, yet despite being not far from Shen Lin, they failed to cast any illumination upon his figure.

The entire city was thoroughly divided into two halves. The commercial street was now an absolute forbidden zone for the living, a realm where mortals must not enter.

Shen Lin could not perceive what was happening inside the Inversion Ghost's domain, but it undoubtedly must be a fierce battle.

What needed to be done next was to wait. They needed to wait until the Inversion Ghost's domain finished expanding; when that ghost completely shrouded the entire commercial street, it would be the moment for them to make their move.

At that time, over eighty percent of their troubles would be cleared away, but Shen Lin was equally clear on what they were about to face.

If they encountered anything inside, it would represent a terror that even the Inversion Ghost could not suppress.

Yet this was their inevitable path; the Ghost Staircase incident had to be resolved as soon as possible.

Shen Lin turned around and strode away.

*Let the bullets fly for a while~*