Outrageous, Absolutely Outrageous!!

The arrow towers atop the walls began to roar. Bolts ripped through the curtain of rain, striking true against the mourning ghosts that stepped into the camp's boundaries. Falling. Rising. Splitting. The mourning ghosts kept splitting into ever-greater numbers, and still more stepped into the camp from the gray mist beyond. They moved without haste, but their ghastly forms, sheer numbers, and eerie silence—broken only by the patter of falling rain—projected an immense, suffocating dread. ... "..." Chen Fan's brow furrowed. Standing upon the wall, he looked out across the perimeter. Mourning ghosts were converging from all directions, gradually swarming the entire camp. He doubted his two plots of farmland would survive the night. If only he could have mountains on three sides and need only a single wall. The defensive pressure would be vastly lower. Yet that was obviously impossible. Da Yu's village had been destroyed by ghost creatures leaping down from the surrounding cliffs. Kings descending from the heavens, furious and hideous. The next instant— A glimmer of white light flashed from the top of the Level 3 arrow tower beside him. Arrow Rain Storm activated. Countless bolts surged into the sky, then plummeted like bamboo thorns, blanketing the entire area before the wall. It cleared away a wide swath of open ground. The mourning ghosts had weak physical defenses; a single bolt through a vital spot was enough to kill one. However, their splitting trait completely made up for that flaw. *Thud.* By then, one of the lead mourning ghosts had reached the base of the wall. Its face was deathly pale and void of expression as it swung its white lantern and smashed it hard against the stone. Lowered, raised, and swung once more. Only as it raised the lantern a third time did a bolt pierce its brow. The moment it collapsed, the light of the white lantern in its grip went completely dark, and it split no further. Leaning over the parapet, Chen Fan peered down at the section of wall that had been struck twice. Two palm-sized craters had appeared. They posed no threat to the foundation—the wall was a full three meters thick. At this rate, it would take countless blows to bring it down. Yet... As more and more mourning ghosts pushed through the barrage of bolts and gathered beneath the ramparts, swinging their white lanterns against the bluestone, pockmarks spread across the masonry. From all four directions. The camp was encircled. Looking farther out, the mourning ghosts had even formed lines within the gray mist. Due to their vast numbers, their sluggish pace, and their refusal to jostle, they clustered in the mist outside like a traffic jam. And out in the Eternal Night beyond the gray mist, there were clearly far more of them. ... "Things are heating up." Chen Fan looked at the horde of mourning ghosts outside with a grim expression. There was good news and bad news. The good news: the mourning ghosts were quite orderly. They didn't rush or shove, nor did they clamber over one another's heads to scale the wall. They were well-behaved ghosts. The bad news: there were simply too many of them, and the walls were steadily being battered down bit by bit. Fortunately, he had saved plenty of ghost stones. His 845 ghost stones would be more than enough to see him through the night. The next moment— The four perimeter walls dissolved into phantasmal architectural projections woven from lines of white light, visible to his eyes alone. — "7 ghost stones required for this repair." — "Repair." As the projection solidified once more, the severed lines of white light reconnected. The craters smashed into the masonry by the mourning ghosts instantly vanished, restored to pristine stone. He had grasped the basic mechanics of repairs. The lighter the damage, the lower the repair cost. The heavier the damage, the higher the repair cost. Once the damage exceeded a certain threshold, repairing it would cost even more than building anew. Up on the walls, Quehou and the others had bound spears, broadswords, and other weapons to the ends of long wooden poles, thrusting downward relentlessly. These ghost creatures were low in tier, so even ordinary weapons could inflict some damage on them—though they certainly couldn't dispatch them with a single blow the way the bolts did. Chen Fan turned toward the altar within the camp. Since this structure was meant for mending injuries, he reasoned that the underlying principle ought to be the same. He repaired the walls using ghost stones. He healed injuries using ghost stones as well. In theory, shouldn't the altar be capable of repairing the walls? Today's free allowance had already been spent. Crushing several ghost stones in his hand, architectural projections of copper pipes materialized across the camp. They settled onto the ground and solidified, arranged in neat, orderly rows like an assembly line, linking the altar to the perimeter walls. *Click.* A faint, almost imperceptible sound resonated. A milky white liquid flowed out from the altar, traveling through the copper pipes all the way to the foot of the wall. *Thud.* Beneath the ramparts, a mourning ghost had just raised its white lantern and smashed it into the masonry. Before the newly formed crater could even settle, and before the lantern could swing again, the stone rapidly healed. "It worked!" Standing upon the wall, Chen Fan leaned forward to watch, a spark of excitement flashing in his eyes. It actually worked. That meant as long as the altar held sufficient ghost stones, his walls would mend themselves automatically. No manual input required. Furthermore, he sensed that the rate at which the altar consumed ghost stones was even lower than repairing the damage by hand. He crafted another section of copper pipe, connecting the altar directly to the ghost fire. That way, the altar would draw stones straight from the ghost fire. All he had to do was keep the ghost fire well-supplied, sparing him the hassle of running back and forth. He dubbed it... the "Automatic Wall Repair System." Unless some ghost creature possessed the power to shatter the wall with a single blow, he would remain utterly invincible until his ghost stones ran dry. Just then— *Rumble...* The roar of a collapsing wall echoed through the air. That was... The wall of the breeding farm had fallen. Like wild horses slipping their reins, the pseudo-human ghosts trapped inside came surging out, mingling with the horde of mourning ghosts and pressing toward the perimeter walls. "How could that happen?" Chen Fan's brow furrowed tightly. He had just been preparing to extend the altar's copper pipes to the breeding farm's walls. Given the strength of the mourning ghosts' attacks, there was no way that wall should have collapsed so quickly. A moment later, he understood why. A big one had arrived. Just beyond the camp's gray mist stood an aged, hunched mourning ghost holding an eerie green lantern. Its eyes were vacant, and the mourning ghosts passing by detoured around it, leaving a small pocket of empty space that made it stand out glaringly. Before anyone could react, the creature raised its eerie green lantern once more. A beam of eerie green light as thick as an arm shot forth, striking true against another section of the breeding farm's wall. A deep crater instantly gouged into the three-meter-thick stone. Then another beam of eerie green light blasted out, and that wall slowly gave way as well, collapsing into rubble. "Outrageous, absolutely outrageous!!" Chen Fan's face darkened, and his breath grew ragged. Once again, he felt the despair that had gripped him on the night the flesh worm ghost tide struck. This creature could completely obliterate an entire wall with just two blasts of green light. Even with an automatic repair system, he didn't have enough ghost stones to keep pace with destruction like that. He needed time to think. Yet the creature's eerie green lantern had no need for thought. Another beam of eerie green light shot forward, striking true against yet another wall of the breeding farm.