Chapter 233 - 230: Soul-possessing Spirit

Chapter 233: Chapter 230: Soul-possessing Spirit

Guo Wei leaped back with a shout, startling everyone else in the subway car.

The person next to him, who was holding onto a handrail, happened to see him and Ding Yi approaching the girl.

Glancing from him to Ding Yi’s original position, they couldn’t help but think the kid had jumped an impressive distance. It inexplicably brought to mind some funny GIFs of startled cats.

Everyone in the car who heard the commotion looked over. However, most of them had been engrossed in their phones and had no idea what was going on.

But they had all clearly heard Guo Wei’s cry of "Ghost!"

Lu Li glanced around nervously. She had been wary when she first saw a man and a high-school-aged boy approaching her.

But now, a chill was running straight up her spine.

The moment the boy had cried out in panic, Lu Li thought she’d seen something dark in front of her in a daze. It vanished instantly, but thinking back on how ill she’d felt ever since boarding the train, she became increasingly certain that something was wrong.

When she looked at the man who had remained, his face was also pale.

Cold sweat beaded on Ding Yi’s face as if by magic, and he began to back away involuntarily.

It was true that he practiced Martial Arts to keep fit. With his current strength, even though his instructor had only taught him the basic Martial Arts Techniques of the Celestial Traveler’s Hall, he could handle several burly men without breaking a sweat.

’But this is a ghost! I didn’t study fucking exorcism!’

Seeing the man retreat, sweating, made Lu Li even more frantic. A wave of panic washed over her, the kind you feel when your last lifeline is slipping away.

"Wait, wait! Don’t go!"

She didn’t know what came over her, but she bolted from her corner by the doors, rushing toward Ding Yi, who had already backed up to a metal pole.

Ding Yi cursed internally, ’Holy shit!’

He saw the "ghost" surge toward him along with the girl. The creature’s front and back were terrifyingly different. While its back retained a vaguely human shape, its front was a grotesque horror—a roiling mass of what looked like liquid decay.

"Brother Ding, look out!!"

Hiding off to the side, Guo Wei didn’t dare get any closer and could only roar a warning to Ding Yi.

Ding Yi didn’t dare make contact with the ghost either. Thinking fast, he dodged around the pole, grabbed Lu Li’s clothes, and yanked her forcefully toward him.

After pulling the girl to his side, Ding Yi immediately took several large steps back with her, his eyes fixed warily on the terrifying entity positioned between the two sets of doors.

Guo Wei, not daring to get any closer, had already retreated from the doorway. Before he moved, he had also dragged the middle-aged man next to him away.

Ding Yi and Guo Wei could see it, and Lu Li had sensed something was amiss. The three of them were a nervous wreck, but to the other passengers in the car, the whole thing was just bizarre.

The middle-aged man whom Guo Wei had pulled away wrenched his arm free and immediately took two steps back. He didn’t curse, though; there was no point in starting trouble with someone who was probably mentally ill.

In fact, the other passengers were all staring at the trio, completely baffled. A few even glanced around, looking for hidden cameras.

At first, passengers had assumed the two men were perverts, and many had been on the verge of intervening to help the girl. But what happened next was just too bizarre.

Several people had seen the high-schooler leap back a great distance, screaming in terror. The other man looked like he’d seen a ghost, and the girl wasn’t reacting like someone trying to fend off a pervert.

’Are these three putting on a show?’

"Brother Ding, what do we do...?"

Guo Wei wanted to suggest they run for it, but he felt that fleeing would mean all his training at the Celestial Traveler’s Hall had gone to waste.

’How do we evacuate the passengers? Should I call the police?’

’He had absolutely no idea what to do.’

Ding Yi’s heart pounded, but he did his best to keep his breathing steady. He had the strange sensation of being stared at, as if the ghost-like thing before him was observing him.

’Is it wary of me?’

The thought surfaced in his mind.

Suddenly, an idea from the various novels and miscellaneous movies and shows he’d consumed over the years came to mind.

True masters of Martial Arts, with their abundant vitality, were said to be a natural counter to evil creatures.

"The next station is Junle Road Station. Passengers alighting at Junle Road Station, please prepare in advance."

The subway’s arrival announcement played. Moments later, the train came to a stop, and the doors slid open.

Just as Ding Yi was stuck wondering how to keep passengers away from this doorway, the "ghost," surprisingly, was the first one to dart through the open doors.

’Trying to run?’

Human and animal reactions can be strange. Even when you’re terrified, if one side in a standoff suddenly flees, the other’s instinct is often to give chase.

"Guo Wei, call the instructor, now! I’ll keep an eye on this thing!"

Before the words were even out of his mouth, Ding Yi shot out after it. He wasn’t trying to catch the ghost; he just had a gut feeling that he couldn’t let it out of his sight.

If the ghost was wary of a half-pint like him, then the instructor would definitely know what to do.

’And this ghost actually uses doors?’

...

Back in the car, while the other passengers were still bewildered, Guo Wei gritted his teeth and ran out too. He wasn’t as fast as Ding Yi, so he pulled out his phone to call for backup as he ran.

The DING-DONG DING-DONG of the door-closing chime sounded. A few dazed passengers who needed to get off at this station finally snapped out of it and scrambled out just in time.

’Call the police? Notify the subway authorities?’

’They didn’t even know what had just happened. Better not to get involved.’

Lu Li patted her chest, letting out a huge sigh of relief. ’Whether those two guys were just crazy and she was being paranoid, or there really had been a ghost, at least it was gone now.’

A seat had opened up. She walked over, sat down, and took out her phone to scroll through her feed.

The train stopped and started, passing six or seven stations. Waves of passengers came and went, and soon no one gave that little incident a second thought.

The announcement chimed again.

"The next station is Nanli Road Station. Passengers alighting at Nanli Road Station, please prepare in advance."

’Almost home!’

Lu Li put her phone away.

...

「Celestial Traveler’s Hall」

Mo Shaoge listened to the phone, his brow furrowed.

"What did it look like? Be specific!"

Guo Wei, phone in hand, stood at the subway entrance, but he couldn’t see a trace of Ding Yi anywhere. Hearing his instructor’s question, he quickly described the "ghost" he had seen.

"It was like no one else in the car could see it, just me and Brother Ding. Its back looked like a skinny man’s, but even that felt off, thinking back. The front... its front was completely inhuman, like a churning mass of black, rotting, writhing... stuff..."

Then, a thought struck him. Guo Wei looked at his right hand; it still felt cold and numb, and he couldn’t seem to put any strength into it.

"I even slapped it a moment ago. My hand passed right through its body, but I felt a slight bit of resistance at first."

On the other end of the line, Mo Shaoge and Mo Qingxue exchanged a look. They could both see a flicker of eagerness in the other’s eyes.

"Guo Wei, head back to the Hall. I’ll take care of the rest."

"Yes, instructor!"

...

「Shen City, Ying’s Desire Editing Society」

Cui Ying received a text from her boyfriend and immediately called him back for more details.

She made sure to ask about key details they might have missed. Beyond whether the Demon could float and what its methods of attack were, she also confirmed that when Guo Wei and Ding Yi spotted it, the Demon appeared to be threatening a young woman. She also noted Guo Wei’s description of his feelings at the time and the subsequent cold numbness in his arm.

Cui Ying organized all the information as quickly as possible and printed it out.

Back at her desk, Cui Ying rolled the paper into a scroll and sealed it. She reached out and tapped the glass of a picture frame on her desk. When a Technique Array symbol lit up faintly within the frame, she immediately shoved the scroll inside.

...

「Five minutes later, in the Qingzhen Secret Place.」

"FUCK!!!!!"

Qin Xiaoxia couldn’t help but curse as he read the special intelligence report.

His expression softened slightly when he read that Mo Qingxue and Mo Shaoge were in pursuit, and that one of their students—a confirmed Evolver—was supposedly tailing the suspected Soul-Host Spirit Mother Body. Even so, his face remained grim.

’If it really is a goddamn Soul-Host Spirit Mother Body, and it’s so decayed you can’t even see its front... just how many spawn has this thing produced?’

Mumu, Doudou, the Red Demoness, and Hama Pi had long since recorded everything they could remember about dangerous beings from other worlds in the form of Magic Pattern Scrolls.

Reading this report now and recalling the descriptions in those scrolls, even someone like Qin Xiaoxia couldn’t help but shudder.

’This time, there’s no other choice. We have to notify the Special Security Team!’

PS: First Chapter for Wednesday.