“What the hell is this?” Liu Dashao muttered, his spine tingling with cold fear as he stared at the grotesque scene before him. His legs felt as if they had cramped, and he couldn’t move another step.
Seeing the worsening situation, Zhang Enpu gritted his teeth, bent down, and tossed the Qin King Mirror aside. Then, raising his voice, he shouted at the two men, “What are you hesitating for? Hurry up and shut the coffin lid!”
At that very moment, the corpse underwent a strange transformation. Its once smooth and moist skin quickly withered, revealing rotting flesh underneath. The corpse began dripping thick yellow liquid from its body, and it started to shake violently, attempting to crawl out of the coffin.
Liu Dashao and Tian Guoqiang scrambled to shut the coffin lid. As it closed, they saw that the flower sprouting from the corpse’s skull had fully bloomed, resembling a crimson mouth lined with spines, with countless white, fuzzy tendrils writhing like white cocoons inside.
A wave of nausea surged through both men, and unable to bear watching any longer, they clenched their arms and slammed the lid shut with a thunderous bang.
Inside the stone coffin, a loud “thud, thud, thud” echoed ominously—clearly the terrifying corpse was struggling to push the lid open.
Liu Dashao and Tian Guoqiang pressed down hard on the lid, and Liu demanded of Zhang Enpu, “What the hell is inside that coffin?”
Zhang shouted urgently, “I don’t know either! We need to get out of here, now!”
As Zhang spoke, Liu Dashao suddenly noticed numerous pale, white objects surfacing from the blood pool, slowly drifting toward the octagonal platform where the three of them stood.
He couldn’t help but exclaim, “Damn it! What the hell are those things over there?”
Tian Guoqiang and Zhang Enpu turned to look. To their horror, the pale white figures were actually countless women wearing strange masks, lying in strange postures atop the surface of the blood. The white things they had seen were their round bellies, from which streams of black mist continuously spewed out. Their limbs bent at grotesque angles, paddling furiously through the water. These eerie masked women resembled swarms of fiddler crabs, splashing forward in a terrifying manner.
Zhang Enpu’s face turned deathly pale. He stammered, “Run… run! These are the Ji Nu—spirit medium women!”
Ji Nu!
At this moment, there was no time to ask Zhang Enpu about their origins. The situation had become critical—many of the Ji Nu had already climbed onto the octagonal platform, crawling rapidly toward the three men.
Their limbs twisted unnaturally behind them as they crawled, emitting puffs of black smoke, clearly not ordinary beings.
Liu Dashao shouted at Zhang Enpu, “Old Taoist, you go up first!”
Zhang knew this was no time to hesitate. He nodded, leapt onto the stone coffin, and steadied himself.
Liu Dashao held the coffin down while Tian Guoqiang climbed up to assist Zhang. Tian leapt onto the coffin and stood firm. Zhang then stepped onto Tian’s shoulder, used the momentum to leap upward, and grabbed hold of the hanging iron chain.
“Brother, your turn!” Tian shouted to Liu.
Liu Dashao quickly pulled the trigger, firing a shot that blew the nearest Ji Nu to pieces. Then he jumped up onto the stone coffin and shouted, “Qiangzi, you go up first!”
“No! Big Brother, you go first!” Tian insisted.
“Damn it! Are you arguing with me? Get up there now!” Liu roared furiously.
Tian nodded. “Alright, I’ll cover you from above!”
With that, he stepped onto Liu Dashao’s shoulder and leapt upward. But instead of moving forward, he straightened his body, hung from the chain, and performed a “hanging golden hook”—his feet locked tightly around the chain while his upper body flipped downward. Stretching his arms out, he shouted, “Quick! Grab my hands!”
By now, the Ji Nu had swarmed the platform in dense masses, their pale bodies covering every inch. Anyone falling down would be torn to shreds.
Liu Dashao fired his shotgun wildly, blasting the Ji Nu trying to climb up the coffin back into the blood pool. One Ji Nu was riddled with bullets, spurting out dark blue blood that smelled horribly foul.
The other Ji Nu, as if drawn by the scent of fresh meat, swarmed toward the fallen one and began biting into it furiously. Within moments, the Ji Nu was devoured by her own kind.
The ones who had eaten her became even more frenzied, quickly climbing toward the stone coffin.
As the saying goes: “Even the strongest fists can’t match a hundred hands; even a master can be overwhelmed by a pile of bricks.” No matter how skilled Liu Dashao was, and no matter how fast his gun was, he couldn’t hold off the endless tide of Ji Nu. Meanwhile, the monster inside the coffin was also stirring restlessly, constantly pushing against the lid as if trying to break free.
Liu Dashao took a deep breath, silently invoking “Taishang Laojun,” and then leapt into the air, grabbing tightly onto Tian Guoqiang’s hands. At that exact moment, the coffin lid was violently thrown open. The monster inside, its head split into four parts with blood-red flowers spewing out, slowly rose from the coffin. The flower bud in the center of its head twisted like a serpent’s tongue, hissing and crackling, sending chills down anyone’s spine.
Upon seeing the monster, the Ji Nu erupted into eerie screeches, as if recognizing their leader.
The monster slowly raised its head, the vivid flower rotating like a radar. Then it stopped, locking its gaze directly onto Liu Dashao.
Liu Dashao inwardly cursed and shouted, “Go!” With a twist of his waist, he flipped mid-air, grabbing onto the chain beside Tian.
In a flash, the flower in the monster’s head shot out like a missile. The bud burst open, revealing a grotesque, gaping mouth that snapped viciously at Liu Dashao’s backside.
Thankfully, Liu was quick enough to dodge just in time—had he been a moment slower, he would have been skewered by the monstrous flower. Missing its target, the flower twisted in midair along a bizarre trajectory and retracted back into the monster’s skull, quivering violently.
Suddenly, a strange sound came from the monster’s throat. As if receiving a command, the Ji Nu split into two groups. One group quickly retreated into the blood pool, swimming swiftly toward the opposite shore. The other group began forming a human pyramid below, stacking themselves one on top of another, climbing higher and higher like a tower.
Zhang Enpu and the others were shocked, never expecting the Ji Nu to possess such coordination and tactical ability. Liu Dashao kicked the topmost Ji Nu off the pile, but others quickly climbed up to take its place. This scene reminded him of ancient battles—countless soldiers charging up ladders to scale city walls, wave after wave, with corpses piling up beneath the walls.
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