Chapter 41: Game Reset, Rules Changed

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Bai Tianxiong released his contracted female ghost and attached it to the little cat-child’s body, twisting and deforming its limbs to inflict torment.

In doing so, he also triggered a death rule and was enveloped by the power of the rules.

An ordinary person would have exploded and died instantly.

Yet a gray-white, semitransparent figure emerged from his body, taking the tearing force of the rules in his place.

Guo Sheng’s eyes gleamed with interest. “Your Bai family actually possesses such a method?”

The Bureau of Supernatural Affairs had a thorough understanding of the ancient families, yet it had never known that the Bai family possessed a way to resist the power of the rules.

“It isn’t a method of the Bai family. It’s a special ghost I contracted by chance. It can block the power of the rules for me once.”

Bai Tianxiong was reluctant to use it. This ghost could only be used one time, which amounted to a single-use chance to save his life. If he failed to contract the little cat-child, the loss would be far too great.

“Contract with me, or you’ll die.”

To force the little cat-child into submission, he intensified his methods.

Crackling sounds rang out from the little cat-child’s entire body.

“Ah!”

The little cat-child shrieked and struggled desperately, but under the female ghost’s control, it could not move.

“Let it go!”

Xia Tianqiong clenched his fists, desperately wanting to kill the three men right then and there.

But he could not. Killing them would trigger the rules, and besides, he might not even be able to defeat them.

He had no means like Bai Tianxiong’s for resisting the power of the rules.

Guo Sheng turned his gaze toward him. “Mr. Xia, just let him try. You have no way to contract it anyway.”

“I may have no way to contract it, but you can’t treat it like this. This is the cat-demon ghost’s domain, after all. If you accidentally kill its avatar and trigger some rule, things could become very troublesome.”

The more powerful a ghost was, the more numerous and bizarre the death rules it commanded. A ghost that possessed its own domain required even greater caution.

The information Xia Tianqiong possessed came from his previous life and was not necessarily complete. It was entirely possible that one careless action might trigger some unknown rule.

Guo Sheng felt that he had a point and looked at Bai Tianxiong. “Be careful. Don’t kill it.”

Bai Tianxiong frowned slightly and gave a bitter smile. “Section Chief Guo, you shouldn’t have said that out loud. Now that you’ve said it, how am I supposed to force it to contract with me?”

Without the threat of death, ghosts generally would not contract with humans.

Although he continued speaking aloud, he secretly ordered the female ghost to be even more ruthless with the little cat-child.

“You’re about to kill it!”

Xia Tianqiong watched as the little cat-child’s body twisted and deformed. Its shrieks gradually weakened, and soon it stopped struggling altogether.

Bai Tianxiong, however, remained unconcerned. “A ghost’s body is condensed from netherworld power, not flesh and blood. It only looks that way. An injury like this will merely cause it to lose some netherworld power. It won’t die.”

“It’s only the weakest of the cat-demon ghost’s many avatars. It may not be the same as an ordinary ghost.”

“Impossible. Trust me—I have plenty of experience with this.”

Bai Tianxiong spoke with confidence, but Guo Sheng and Liu Ya’s expressions suddenly changed.

“The netherworld power is rapidly dispersing. It looks like it’s dead!”

As Liu Ya spoke, the enormous cat eyes in the sky suddenly turned blood-red and fixed themselves on the people in the courtyard. The fury within them was unmistakable.

“Meow!”

“Meow!”

“Meow!”

Cat cries rang out from every part of the ancient town. Immediately afterward, the voice of the cat-demon ghost descended from the sky.

“Game reset. All cats, go capture these three mice. Kill them, and the game ends.”

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As the voice appeared, three enormous silhouettes emerged across the red canopy of heaven. On closer inspection, they were images of Xia Tianqiong, Guo Sheng, and Bai Tianxiong.

The three of them had come into contact with the little cat-child, so the cat-demon ghost had identified them all as the culprits.

At the same time, their bodies began to change. They had originally been cats, but in an instant, they became mice.

Within the ghost domain, every other mouse-person transformed into a cat-person at the same time.

In other words, the three of them were now the only mouse-people. Everyone else was a cat-person.

The rules of the game had changed, and the people hiding in various corners immediately erupted in cheers. As long as those three were killed, everyone else could leave the game alive.

For them, this was excellent news.

Bai Tianxiong stood there in a daze, then walked over to inspect the little cat-child. “I never expected it to be killed so easily, much less that its death would trigger a rule.”

Guo Sheng glared at him, his expression dark beyond measure. “The ordinary cat-people aren’t much of a problem, but if the more than two hundred cat-demon avatars come after us, we may not be able to hold them off.”

The avatars varied in strength. The real problem was their sheer number. There were only three mouse-people, putting them in extreme danger.

Bai Tianxiong was stunned for a moment. “We can kill ordinary cat-people and turn into cats. If there are no mouse-people left, perhaps the game will end.”

“The rules of the game have already changed. The previous rules may no longer apply.”

Xia Tianqiong looked at Bai Tianxiong with disgust. “It was already stated clearly. Once the three of us—the mouse-people—are killed, the game ends, and there’s no time limit.

“In other words, this is the final round. Even if you kill the cat-people, there will be no next round, and you won’t turn into a cat.”

“Then what are we supposed to do?”

Liu Ya was still a cat-person and therefore faced no danger. “There are more than two hundred ghost avatars, aren’t there? If we can contract with even one of them, perhaps we’ll have a chance.”

Bai Tianxiong hurriedly agreed. “Exactly. Let’s try capturing the other avatars. Mr. Xia, if you know anything else, share it with us. We’ll have a better chance if we put our heads together.”

Xia Tianqiong frowned and remained silent. Now that the rules had changed, he had no idea what to do.

Nothing like this had happened in his previous life, so naturally, he had no way to deal with it.

Suddenly, a figure leaped onto the top of the wall.

The others turned to look. It was another avatar of the cat-demon ghost.

Then came three, five, ten… More and more avatars appeared atop the walls and along the rooftops.

There were more than two hundred avatars in total. Aside from the dead little cat-child, every other avatar had gathered there, surrounding the entire courtyard.

Guo Sheng’s expression grew solemn as he realized the danger. “Don’t panic. The four of us can join forces. We still have a chance to fight our way out.”

The avatars included men and women, young and old, each with different appearances and expressions. The only thing they shared was the anger burning in their eyes.

“Kill them!”

“I want to eat their flesh and drink their blood!”

“Meow! Let’s attack together!”

Someone shouted, “Let’s attack together,” and every avatar leaped into the courtyard in unison.

Two female ghosts emerged from Guo Sheng’s body.

One had a deathly pale face and wept tears of blood. Whenever it saw an avatar, blood immediately began to flow from that avatar’s eyes, robbing it of sight.

The other was drenched from head to toe, as though it had just climbed out of the water. Its hair was long and soaked, and it could simultaneously entangle more than a dozen avatars, binding them tightly.

Guo Sheng alone was capable of holding one side of the battlefield.

Bai Tianxiong had only one female ghost. By possessing its targets, it could inflict devastating damage upon their bodies.

Xia Tianqiong’s life-risking ghost had yet to awaken. The only ghosts he could currently use were the Mirror Ghost and the Inn Attendants.

He released eight Inn Attendants and stationed them around himself to prevent the avatars from surrounding him.

The Inn Attendants could only make their opponents temporarily lose focus by patting them on the shoulder. But they were merely wild ghosts, while most of the cat-demon avatars were fierce ghosts or evil ghosts. Their victims remained dazed for no more than one or two seconds.

Xia Tianqiong also did not dare absorb the cat-demon avatars into the mirror space.

When he had possessed the life-risking ghost, dealing with even a single fierce ghost had been difficult. Now he had no life-risking ghost, and he had also released the Inn Attendants. The Mirror Ghost alone, even after creating countless mirror avatars, would struggle against a fierce ghost, let alone an evil ghost.

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However, the Mirror Ghost did have one useful ability. Its ghost art, “Mirror Replication,” could manifest a large number of mirrors.

As long as one of those mirrors reflected a person, it could copy a mirror avatar.

The replicas had no attack power and could not control anything, but they could perfectly imitate Xia Tianqiong’s movements and expressions.

He immediately created dozens of mirror avatars and scattered them throughout the courtyard.

They were not meant to kill enemies, only to draw their attacks.

This greatly eased the pressure on the others. Both Guo Sheng and Bai Tianxiong cast astonished and appreciative looks in his direction.

As a cat-person, Liu Ya could not participate in the battle directly, or she would trigger a death rule.

Fortunately, the cat-demon avatars could not attack her either.

She stood in the middle of the three men, but she was not idle. Raising her hand, she released a mass of invisible vapor that flowed one by one into their bodies.

Xia Tianqiong immediately felt refreshed. His mind reacted faster, and his body moved with greater speed. The calf that had been clawed earlier instantly lost all sensation of pain, and the bleeding quickly stopped.

That was not all. Even the Inn Attendants and the Mirror Ghost grew excited, as though they had been injected with stimulants.

Clearly, this was a ghost art with both healing and enhancement effects.

No wonder the three of them had previously been able to withstand the cat-demon ghost’s true body head-on. It turned out they had Liu Ya, their support healer.

The slaughter became fierce from the very beginning. The cat-demon avatars attacked by biting and clawing.

The wild-ghost and fierce-ghost avatars were still manageable. Their claws had to make contact with the body to leave wounds. The evil-ghost avatars, however, did not need to touch their targets.

From several yards away, they could simply swipe their claws through the air and slash a person from a distance.

Even with eight Inn Attendants shielding him, Xia Tianqiong was clawed several times. Fortunately, the wounds were not severe, and Liu Ya was there to stop the bleeding, so he suffered no serious harm.

“I can’t hold out much longer. Can someone help me?”

Bai Tianxiong was in the worst condition. Less than two minutes after the battle began, wounds covered his entire body.

His female ghost had tremendous killing power, but it could only deal with one opponent at a time. No matter how quickly it moved, it could not cope with the endless stream of cat-demon avatars. The evil-ghost avatars were especially formidable, making defense impossible.

“Mr. Xia, send a few of your Inn Attendants over and help take some of the pressure off me.”

“I can barely protect myself. How could I spare the energy to help you?”

Xia Tianqiong refused without hesitation.

The eight Inn Attendants were under relentless assault. Their bodies were slashed again and again, causing them to lose enormous amounts of netherworld power. If this continued, they would soon collapse and vanish.

“Things have come to this. Don’t blame me, everyone.”

Bai Tianxiong suddenly raised his hand and threw a thick hemp rope into the air. The rope straightened instantly.

He seized it, and his entire body was pulled into the sky before disappearing from sight. Only his voice drifted back down.

“Sorry, everyone. I can only leave first.”

“Damn it! He actually has a Sky-Piercing Rope!”

Guo Sheng was both shocked and furious. They had already been struggling to deal with so many avatars, and now that one more person was gone, the danger would only increase.

Then he remembered that Xia Tianqiong possessed a teleportation ghost art and could leave at any time as well.

“Mr. Xia, you mustn’t leave. You and I can join forces—”

Before he could finish, Liu Ya suddenly interrupted him. “Section Chief Guo, he’s gone too.”

Guo Sheng turned his head. The space beside him was completely empty, and the eight Inn Attendants that had been blocking that area had vanished as well.

“Hah. If I die, I die. Xiaoya, remember to tell the organization that those two were responsible for my death—especially Mr. Xia. He’s definitely no ordinary person. Don’t let him off easily.”