Chapter 63 Collapse

His internal organs were damaged; Zhao Ziliang realized this. The agitation of the Ghost Skin had ultimately failed to provide complete protection, and he had suffered the impact of Shen Lin's ghost.

"Is this your plan? I admit it had some effect, but don't you think it's futile? My ghost protects me. To dare be so distracted while manipulating a reviving ghost—if you don't die, who will?" Zhao Ziliang did not miss any opportunity to mock Shen Lin.

He slowly tore open his heavily layered clothes, revealing his bizarre, ghost-like body.

"Allow me to formally introduce myself: Zhao Ziliang, codename: Half-Ghost!"

Half-Ghost Zhao Ziliang—names might be given in error, but monikers never are. This title alone spoke volumes. In the eyes of many, Zhao Ziliang was practically half-ghost.

"If you were truly as capable as you claim, you wouldn't be in this state right now. Protection? Is it really that complete? Then why are you vomiting blood? Are your internal organs failing?" Shen Lin sneered.

"A Controller is different from ordinary people. Many causes of death for ordinary folk do not apply to us. Do you think a mere internal injury can take me down? Too naive!" Zhao Ziliang retorted mockingly.

"Once certainly isn't enough. What about twice, three times, countless times? Even through sheer attrition, I can grind you to death." Shen Lin sneered.

Zhao Ziliang's expression was as gloomy as water.

Shen Lin had hit the nail on the head. No matter how far a Ghost Controller drifted from humanity, they still barely remained within the human category. Before becoming a complete anomaly, they were never truly not human.

Since he was still human, there was definitely a way to kill him.

When Shen Lin completely destroyed his internal organs, although it might not be instantly fatal, the trauma would be severe—severe enough to strip him of his ability to resist.

A Ghost Controller was still just a controller; once the head was twisted off, even the highest deities could not save them.

"That's just mutual exhaustion. My ghost will heal a portion of my injuries; you can't outlast me!" Zhao Ziliang said.

"And then? Under this kind of interference, how much of your ghost's restraint is left? Don't forget, you're tethered to two ghosts, yet you're using their powers so recklessly in this state. Aren't you afraid the precarious balance within you will completely collapse?" Shen Lin sneered. "Your ghost will devour you before I do."

"After you die, I will use my Ghost Domain to leave. Granted, my domain has been restricted, but your ghost's resurrection also takes time. That time will be enough for me to withdraw."

Zhao Ziliang fell silent, a wave of thorny helplessness washing over him.

The influence from the Ghost Staircase had not weakened at all during their conversation. Zhao Ziliang could feel the slow stabilization within his body, but the speed was agonizingly slow—he couldn't hold on for that long.

Wave after wave of agitation surged, only to be suppressed by him again.

Shen Lin's attacks continued.

Even after being filtered by the Ghost Skin, the power from the Inverted Ghost was enough to make things worse for Zhao Ziliang.

Accumulating more and more injuries, drop by drop, the pus all over his body even began to mix with blood, and the spike-filled teeth in his hands let out shrill, unceasing cries.

It seemed as though everything was getting better, yet simultaneously as though everything was getting worse.

Granted, Zhao Ziliang was powerful, but this snowballing disadvantage kept piling up. He felt like he was listening to the bell of death tolling closer and closer.

Shen Lin finally halted his actions. He felt a heightened, piercing pain in his chest—a pain far exceeding anything before, as if the Ghost Phase would begin its resurrection in the very next second.

Shen Lin knew very well that the Ghost Phase's resurrection was rapid. Perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow; he had at most one day left.

This forced Shen Lin to stop. His condition was abysmal, and intermittently maintaining this shattered Ghost Domain was already pushing his limits. He could no longer afford to casually use the ghost's power.

Yet at this moment, he could not display any weakness. Even if he had to fake it, he had to project the expression of someone holding all the winning cards.

The scene fell into a dead silence, neither of them moving.

Zhao Ziliang, who was continuously coughing up blood, cursed Shen Lin's eighteen generations of ancestors in his heart. The immediate situation forced him to make a choice.

He could no longer afford to drag this out. Just as Shen Lin said, the blockade of the Ghost Domain left him no way out; under these conditions, regardless of whether Shen Lin lived or died, Zhao Ziliang would perish.

The reality was stark. Sitting ducks met with certain doom; Zhao Ziliang knew he had to do something.

He had to take the initiative and attack.

The stabilization process of the ghost inside him had already achieved some results. If he focused entirely on controlling a single ghost, he could barely manage an attack.

This was a trade-off. Abandoning the suppression of the other ghost within him would worsen his physical condition—ghost erosion was no child's play.

However, the special nature of the Ghost Skin gave Zhao Ziliang room to maneuver. Protected by the Ghost Skin, although he couldn't use the other ghost, he wouldn't suffer catastrophic erosion immediately.

With a gloomy face, Zhao Ziliang slowly took a step forward.

He had no choice; he had to do this.

Zhao Ziliang's movement triggered Shen Lin's reflexive defense. He hurriedly retreated a few steps, watching Zhao Ziliang with a gaze full of wariness.

A distance of twenty or thirty meters was nothing to a Ghost Controller, normally something crossed in an instant.

Yet now, both of their bodies were plagued by varying degrees of trouble, turning this simple twenty-meter gap into a critical factor influencing their struggle.

"Just wait, I'll tear you limb from limb!" Zhao Ziliang threatened viciously.

Shen Lin scoffed.

"Tearing me apart with just your mouth? You can barely move—come over here first if you can."

Zhao Ziliang was so furious his nose was crooked, rage surging through his skull wave after wave. He had never felt so humiliated in his life.

Gritting his teeth, he completely released his suppression on the second ghost and strode forward.

By comparison, Shen Lin appeared much calmer. The opponent's panic proved that their situation was even worse than he had imagined—this was a good thing.

Anyone who played mahjong understood one simple truth: if your luck was terrible recently and you still insisted on playing,

minimizing your losses was equivalent to winning.

Just like Shen Lin at this moment. With things uncontrollably tilting toward the worst possible outcome, every tiny advantage was a blessing to him.

The Ghost Domain was still active. Though using the ghost's power was extremely taxing, he could still force himself to use it once or twice at the cost of accelerating his resurrection.

Zhao Ziliang's face was dark. With every step he took, the pus oozing from his body dripped with bloody froth. At a glance, the path he walked was stained with these traces, much like a snail leaving a trail.

The Ghost Skin provided Zhao Ziliang with thorough protection; the imbalance of the second ghost would not immediately consume him. As long as he dealt with Shen Lin and escaped before his own resurrection completed, he would have ample time to recuperate his body.

The losses from this operation were massive. The ghosts inside Zhao Ziliang were on the verge of full resurrection, and he wanted nothing more than to skin Qian Baijun and the Circle of Friends alive.

The Ghost Domain imposed too heavy a restriction on Zhao Ziliang; he couldn't use his other ghost, which meant he currently had zero countermeasures against the domain before him.

Time ticked away second by second. Shen Lin could feel the human skin in his hands worsening, and the Ghost Staircase, sensing something amiss with his body, grew increasingly uninhibited.

No one knew what a fully revived ghost was capable of.

Back then, the Ghost Staircase's preliminary control over Li Meng had laid quite a trap for Shen Lin. The primary reason Shen Lin was able to suppress the thing was that it had just taken over a human body and was still unaccustomed to it.

Moreover, Li Meng himself possessed no ghost of his own, leaving the Ghost Staircase with formidable abilities and nowhere to showcase them.

Shen Lin was different, however. He harbored the Ghost Phase.

If the Ghost Staircase completely took control of him, he would transform into an anomaly—an anomaly dominated by a ghost, directly controlling two ghosts at once.

If one added the Ghost Staircase's ability to influence other ghosts on top of this foundation, the terror level of this entity would be unimaginable.

The piercing pain in his body, the resurrection of the ghost, the erosion from the Ghost Staircase, the oppressive force coming from Zhao Ziliang...

Everything turned Shen Lin's mind into a chaotic mess. His remaining mental capacity could no longer process overly complex thoughts.

It was precisely at this moment that Zhao Ziliang was only a few meters away from Shen Lin. He took a deep breath and suddenly accelerated, charging forward like a hunting leopard putting everything on the line.

Zhao Ziliang was fast. In the blink of an eye, he reached Shen Lin, and his completely inhuman hands—or rather, claws—swung down toward Shen Lin without hesitation.

Shen Lin stood in place without moving, a detail that gave Zhao Ziliang a bad premonition.

At that exact moment, he keenly noticed that the Shen Lin about to be struck actually wore a trace of a sneer at the corner of his lips.

"Bang!"

A crisp impact sounded as Shen Lin's head was thoroughly separated from his body, scattering on the spot and transforming into a rotting corpse.

A smile crept up the corner of Zhao Ziliang's mouth. It seemed it was just all bluff. He admitted this opponent was undeniably thorny, but strictly thorny and nothing more.

He had won. It was a hard-fought victory.

Wait. Something felt off.

Zhao Ziliang looked around, only to find the entire world still enveloped in a dark red glow. This was a Ghost Domain—Shen Lin's Ghost Domain.

What was the meaning of this? Shen Lin was already dead; the domain should have vanished.

Worse than he had imagined? Shen Lin's ghost had revived ahead of schedule?

Trouble never came singly; Zhao Ziliang felt like he could crush his teeth in frustration.

Right then, he noticed subtle changes occurring in Shen Lin's corpse. Like a glitching television signal displaying various anomalies, it slowly dissolved and vanished right before his eyes.

He had been tricked! This wasn't the real body; from the very beginning, it had been a decoy. Missing one of his ghosts, Zhao Ziliang's judgment regarding everything inside the Ghost Domain had plummeted drastically.

Where was the real body then? Zhao Ziliang tried to scan his surroundings, finding no trace whatsoever. The backlash from forcibly using his ghost arrived with a vengeance; his internal organs felt like they were churning mountains and seas, causing him to collapse to the ground in agony.

Just a few meters to his right, Shen Lin sat slumped against the ground, looking thoroughly wretched, cold sweat dripping drop by drop from his forehead.

He was already at his limit, facing death at any second.

Tricking Zhao Ziliang was Shen Lin's final card; he had exhausted every last ounce of his means.

It was also at this precise moment that Shen Lin's Ghost Domain shattered inch by inch.

The imminent resurrection of the ghost meant he could no longer sustain the opening of the Ghost Domain, lest he be swallowed whole in the next second.