The parking lot was utterly still. Pale light from the ceiling cast long, strip-shaped flares on the sleek, dark gray floor.
Reflected in the slightly curved windows of the cars parked on either side was the scene of Li Ang's confrontation with the Possessing Ghost.
"Leave his body, and I promise you won't die. How about that?" Li Ang said with a smile.
"Are you joking?" Shi Qingsong cracked a smile. "Do you know what dying feels like? At first, you feel a sweet oblivion, as if you're drunk and passed out. All around you is pitch black; you can't see, hear, or touch anything."
"Then, it's as if someone throws a bucket of ice water in your face. You wake up. Your sight, hearing, touch, and smell—everything returns, even sharper than when you were alive."
"But this is by no means a gift. You can sense light, but you can't lift your eyelids. You can feel yourself lying in the morgue's refrigeration unit—cold, piercing—yet you cannot move a single finger. The mortician sews up the wounds on your body with a needle and thread, and though you scream in agony, there is no response."
"Then... comes the cremation."
"In that narrow space, the flames are scorching—blue and pale. Every nerve burns, every inch of flesh dissolves. Only by multiplying all the pain of the world by thousands, even tens of thousands, could it compare."
"A pile of ash becomes the summary of your life."
Shi Qingsong's face showed genuine fear and trepidation as he trembled. "Do you think that's the end? No! No! Even after you leave your decaying flesh, you still can't escape!"
"You float in the air, only able to move within the places you visited after death. Those agonies dog you like flesh-burrowing maggots, gnawing at you. You watch the living, whom you cannot touch; you watch their joy and happiness."
"Every minute, every second, the resentment and jealousy inside your heart grow under the whip of boundless pain."
"There's no such thing as heaven, no such thing as hell! All that talk about the afterlife, the Six Paths of Reincarnation, it's all bullshit! All lies! Only emptiness, endless emptiness, that's all that's left behind for us!"
Shi Qingsong roared, expecting to see fear and dread of death on Li Ang's face, but the latter just nodded indifferently. "Oh."
Shi Qingsong squinted and said, "...Aren't you afraid? You'll be like me after you die."
"So what?" Li Ang laughed. "To most people, the infinite void after death might be terrifying. Wealthy capitalists will spend fortunes to find a peaceful afterlife. Unfaithful believers will intensify their prayers to their gods. National institutions will form research teams to study the very essence of death."
"Social unrest? Spreading panic? Pervasive religious fervor? Sorry, but to me, making the most of life is far more important than fearing what comes after."
Shi Qingsong's face stiffened. "I will never leave this body! It's mine, mine."
"Then there's no helping it."
Li Ang sighed. "I'm not very skilled at killing ghosts, you know. This might really hurt."
Shi Qingsong bared a smile. The veins on his face bulged, and the skin around his eye sockets darkened and sank. His eyes rapidly filled with blood, protruding like a fish's.
His normally square facial bones suddenly stretched, taking on a narrow, horse-like appearance, while his mouth expanded to its limit, the skin of his cheeks fluttering rapidly like two torn drumheads.
"ROAR!!"
Shi Qingsong's ghastly howl echoed violently through the underground parking lot. In an instant, the windows of a dozen or so cars on either side shattered.
Exploding glass shards flew through the air and then fell, weaving a mottled, brilliant light, like the dense curtain of water beneath a waterfall.
Car alarms blared in unison, sharp sirens wailed one after another, and dozens of headlights merged into a single glare, bright enough to sting the eyes.
Amidst the dazzling white light, a swift slicing sound rushed straight for Li Ang's head.
It was Shi Qingsong's hand-blade.
His palms were an iron-blue color, his cyan nails extending over ten centimeters, narrow and sharp.
Li Ang lightly adjusted his sunglasses and calmly stepped back half a pace. Simultaneously, he thrust his hands forward, attempting to block Shi Qingsong's wrist.
An overwhelming, unstoppable force transferred from Shi Qingsong's palm. Li Ang's hands were instantly wrenched aside, and his body involuntarily crashed toward the vehicle on his right.
Just as he was about to hit the car door, Li Ang pushed off the ground with his left foot. He used the momentum to leap upward and to the right, his feet striking the aluminum car door multiple times in quick succession. This dissipated the impact, allowing him to slide gracefully onto the car roof.
"Up!"
Crouching on the car roof, Li Ang bellowed. He grabbed Shi Qingsong's wrists with both hands and yanked him toward the car door, as if pulling a stubborn weed from dry ground.
Shi Qingsong's arm, still gripped by Li Ang, slammed into the vehicle's aluminum alloy roof with a THUD, denting the metal shell.
"Die!"
As if incapable of pain, Shi Qingsong let out a venomous, shrill howl. Instead of pulling back his seized arm, he pressed his body against the car door. His other hand, now a blade, reached through the shattered window and stabbed ferociously upwards toward Li Ang.
The shriek of twisting steel was sharp and grating. The aluminum alloy car roof was no match for Shi Qingsong's fingernails; they sliced and tore through it as easily as frozen tofu.
Li Ang's expression was grim. He lifted his foot to dodge the knife-like nails, then slammed it down diagonally, firmly pinning Shi Qingsong's hand to the car roof with his sole.
With both hands pinned, Shi Qingsong could only roar in fury.
"ROAR!"
Li Ang roared back at Shi Qingsong, "Why are you yelling so loudly?!"
He then raised his foot and fiercely kicked the ghost's long, horse-like face, leaving a dark, grimy shoeprint.
Struck violently, Shi Qingsong reflexively staggered backward. Li Ang released his hold, leapt off the car roof, and delivered a hard knee strike to the ghost's chest.
"BANG!"
Shi Qingsong stumbled back several steps, his body crashing into the door of the car behind him.
Before Shi Qingsong could straighten up, Li Ang was on him. He grabbed his neck, dragged him out of the car, and slammed his head forcefully onto the ground with a THUD.
Li Ang held Shi Qingsong's hands behind his back, took off his sunglasses, and yelled at him, "Look at my eyes!"
Almond-colored pupils met the blood-red eyes of the Possessing Ghost.
The illusion activated instantly. Mist swirled, seemingly slowly yet rapidly enveloping the parking lot.
The next second, the parking lot scene was replaced by an active construction site. A yellow-brown asphalt spreader stood parked right beside Li Ang and Shi Qingsong.
"No! No!"
As if realizing something, Shi Qingsong began to struggle frantically, but Li Ang, his almond-colored eyes bulging, pressed him down firmly.
BANG!
The axle of the asphalt spreader suddenly snapped. Viscous, pungent asphalt poured down like a mudslide, engulfing both Li Ang and Shi Qingsong.
A searing pain, one that even death could not cool, revisited the Ghost's core. Like a panicked drowning person, it "crawled" out of Shi Qingsong's body.
The illusion vanished without a trace. Li Ang, panting heavily, pulled out a bundle of slender willow branches he had snapped from a tree-lined path on campus. He said softly to the Ghost, "Caught you."
SWISH!
The willow branches swept across, slicing the Ghost's form cleanly in two as easily as a hot knife through butter.
[Eliminated Possessing Ghost 1/1]
[Regular Mission "Aftermath" Completed. Reward calculation in progress.]
[Mission Reward 1: Player Privileges Upgraded. Personal Panel now available.]
[Mission Reward 2: 30 Experience Points for eliminating the Possessing Ghost. 45 additional Experience Points for mission completion.]
[Mission Reward 3: 100 Game Coin.]
[Mission Reward 4: Random Item (Ordinary Quality) x1]
[Player Overall Performance: S+. Game Coin and Experience Points earned increased to 160%.]
[Prompt: The Personal Panel is now active. You can check player stats and equipment information. You can also set a player nickname in the menu, which does not conflict with your player ID.]
[Prompt: The Marketplace section is now available. As the current version of the Killing Field game is still in beta testing, players can only purchase items from the Marketplace shelves. The Marketplace Auction House, Lottery, and Social Hall will be introduced in future versions. Please stay tuned!]
[Prompt: Current Experience Points: 120/100. Eligible to level up from Lv. 1 to Lv. 2. Leveling up grants one free attribute point. Do you wish to level up?]