The night was quiet, but the rain had not stopped.
The wall slowly disengaged from the "Fully Enclosed Turtle Shell Defense" mode, once again opening a gap between the top of the wall and the mountain rock. Chen Fan emerged from the passage and stood atop the wall, gazing out at the scene beyond.
He also constructed a Wind Tower and set it on the cave floor behind the wall.
This was a special city defense structure.
He had obtained the blueprint for this defensive structure from Weiwei's cave. Unlike ordinary city defense structures, merely building it required five hundred ghost stones plus any one of several materials such as a Wind-Sheltering Pearl or a Wind-Fixing Pearl.
By contrast, structures like the Arrow Tower only added other materials to their upgrade requirements after reaching Level 5.
Fortunately, he happened to possess a Wind-Sheltering Pearl, the very material required to build the Wind Tower—a pearl left behind by that mourning ghost chieftain.
"Impressive."
Chen Fan looked at the Wind Tower behind him. Standing nearly ten meters tall, it reached almost to the cavern ceiling—a remarkably tall structure.
It was not a stocky fortress, but rather a slender, elegant tower of pitch-black stone standing within the cavern, resembling a rapier on the verge of unsheathing.
It looked somewhat like a sentry tower, but noticeably far more refined.
The tower rose straight and true.
Its surface was inlaid with countless spiral and streamlined silver runes. These runes were not inert; they flowed slowly at all times, as though an unseen wind were perpetually blowing over them.
And atop the tower perched... a bronze eagle.
He didn't know quite how to describe the bronze eagle perched at the apex. He only felt that its gaze was piercing and domineering. The surface of its outspread, sleek wings was riddled with countless honeycomb-like apertures, and its eye socket was set with the greenish-white Wind-Sheltering Pearl.
The other socket was hollow.
It had only a single eye.
The next moment—
Chen Fan mobilized his will to guide a portion of the copper pipes from outside into the cavern, connecting the ghost fire to the Wind Tower via the pipes. This way, there was no need to inlay ghost stones separately to power the Wind Tower.
As the copper pipes activated, the runes on the tower's surface lit up.
Light surged like flowing water from the base to the top. Every honeycomb aperture on the bronze eagle's wings snapped tight in an instant, letting out a heart-chilling wail like the cry of a bronze eagle. Then, a visible, translucent gale of cyan wind roared out from the myriad openings!
It surged over the wall, blowing toward the sinkhole.
He could even see the falling rain shifting slightly under its force.
The wind was not overwhelmingly violent, yet it sent waves of chill through him as he stood on the wall, and the foul stench in the sinkhole was swept out through the canyon as a result.
"Over the top."
Chen Fan's lips twitched faintly as he watched the illuminated runes pulsing rhythmically along the Wind Tower's surface, looking like waves of light rushing from base to crown.
The Wind Tower basically had only two purposes:
Resisting a flesh worm ghost tide.
Blowing away foul odors.
It was essentially a support-type defensive structure. Yet not only were its construction requirements rather demanding, but its visual effects also far exceeded those of any building he currently owned. It hardly looked like a Level 1 Wind Tower at all.
Instead, it looked like a Level 5 structure with an imposing name like "Pavilion of Universal Attraction."
Even though it was plainly only a white-grade structure, he felt that once its level increased, it would surely gain other powerful effects.
It was just that...
Upgrading to Level 2 required one thousand ghost stones and another Wind-Sheltering Pearl. For the time being, he had no spare pearls.
By this time, the city gate had opened.
Monkey and the others slowly walked outside the wall. Looking upon the desiccated corpses of ghost creatures carpeting the sinkhole, they froze in place, utterly stunned.
The scene before them was by no means beautiful.
All the ghost blood had been absorbed by the Ghost Blood Patterns on the wall, leaving the corpses dried into mummies, which gave them an even more gruesome air than usual. If the area hadn't been lit by ghost fire and were instead shrouded in the hazy dimness of normal moonlight, with a few cobwebs and scuttling rats added in, it would be an unmistakable mass graveyard—the kind of place where even a man who had downed three bowls of wine would be jolted sober with fright.
Yet—
To Monkey and the others, who had grown up knowing that they would in all likelihood die in the jaws of ghost creatures one day, the scene before them was the most magnificent sight in the world.
No sunset over great rivers and mountains could compare to the extinction of all ghost creatures under heaven.
The monsters they had feared since childhood, the beasts they had fled from during the rainy season, now lay dead before them in heaps. The shock this sight brought was far more profound than ever before.
"Young Master..."
Sick Monkey propped himself on the God-Slaying Spear, limping out of the cave step by step. Standing in the rain, he looked around at the corpses blanketing the ground, then turned back to gaze up at Chen Fan, clad in hemp robes atop the wall. Sick Monkey's eyes gradually reddened with emotion, overwhelmed by feelings that were impossible to put into words.
He only felt that the Young Master truly possessed immense ability now.
He was already fully capable of carving out a domain of his own in this wretched world.
Earlier, Sick Monkey and the others had also peered out from other cliff openings forty meters above the ground, witnessing with their own eyes the moment the Meat Grinder was activated.
These past days, the camp's primary project had been the Meat Grinder.
Yet because it had never been activated, they had not known its true power—until the moment it roared to life, when they finally witnessed the awe-inspiring majesty of the Meat Grinder firsthand.
"What are you standing around for? Get to work!"
Zhou Mo drew his broadsword and was the first to charge into the heavy rain. Snapping out of their daze, the others drew their tools and rushed into the downpour as well—some digging out ghost stones, some collecting exotic treasures, some butchering carcasses.
The entire workflow was executed with practiced efficiency.
With a clear division of labor, this group had grown increasingly coordinated through their time together in the rainy season.
Only the crocodile had missed the Meat Grinder's activation. Completely unaware of what had transpired outside, it had spent the entire ordeal shivering in the deepest recess of the cave, clutching its head with its forepaws and hiding in the corner.
Now, seeing the wall lower, a flicker of bewilderment appeared in its lantern-sized pupils. Cautious and hesitant, it slowly stood up inside the cave, crept forward, and crawled out past the wall. Immediately, it was greeted by a breathtaking sight.
The ground outside was littered with ghost creature corpses.
Not a single one had survived.
The crocodile stared in disbelief at the scene, then turned its head toward Chen Fan standing on the wall. It snapped its gaze back to the corpses at the bottom of the sinkhole, then looked back up at Chen Fan once more.
It repeated the motion over and over again.
"Hey, what are you doing?"
Standing on the wall, Chen Fan took in all of the crocodile's little antics and couldn't help but chuckle. "You look like you're so anxious you're about to start talking."
This was the first time he had seen such humanlike emotion in Weiwei's eyes.
He had never imagined that he would one day see shock and disbelief—such complex, nuanced emotions—in the eyes of a crocodile.
And then...
That shocked expression gradually morphed into admiration and... the kind of look one directed at an absolute powerhouse.
"All right, go rest to the side. I'll roast some seafood for you in a bit."
Chen Fan stepped down from the wall, intending to personally inspect the giant octopus carcass, only to see the crocodile crawl all the way over to his leg. It rubbed its flat, rough head repeatedly against his trousers, its eyes brimming with excitement and fawning devotion.
Chen Fan's lips twitched expressionlessly. At that moment, a phrase popped into his mind: relying on a powerful backer.
He suddenly felt he understood why this fellow was so thrilled: having made such a formidable friend, it knew it would be protected from now on.
Did this creature... really not know that it wasn't weak at all?
At the bottom of the sinkhole.
Beside the colossal octopus corpse, Chen Fan inspected it from top to bottom. Soon, he spotted two pieces of ghost skin. They were identical to the one he had retrieved from Qianhou, somewhat rough to the touch.
There was text on the skin.
The writing on the first ghost skin read:
"Qianhu, hear my command."
"You are ordered to lead your subordinates across the Dead Sea, bring the ghost stones accumulated over the past year, and head south to reach the Jiangbei Wasteland. Search for a Mountain Skeleton Embryo at Nameless Mountain. If you cannot find one, rendezvous with Qianxi on the wasteland and await my arrival."
"So it really was one of the ghost king's four great subordinates."
"Qianhu..."
Chen Fan murmured the name under his breath and took a deep breath. Heading south to the Jiangbei Wasteland... What lay north of the wasteland? Only the sea. This ghost tide had truly crossed the ocean to get here.
And for the first time, he learned the name of that body of water:
The Dead Sea.
It sounded inauspicious.
Furthermore, the appearance of these creatures made it abundantly clear that ghost creatures inhabited the sea as well, and in no small numbers.
That single message contained a wealth of information.
"Search for a Mountain Skeleton Embryo at Nameless Mountain."
He glanced around at the high rock walls of the sinkhole. It appeared the Mountain Skeleton Embryo he had seized from Qianhou was exceptionally important to the ghost king. After losing one, the ghost king was looking for another. Was there really a Mountain Skeleton Embryo at Nameless Mountain?
Meanwhile, another of the ghost king's subordinates, Qianxi, was already waiting on the wasteland to rendezvous with Qianhu.
"Were two sentences really that hard to remember?"
Chen Fan mumbled softly, tucking the ghost skin into his tunic. Once you received and memorized an order, you were supposed to destroy the skin. Otherwise, if an enemy picked it up, wouldn't all the intelligence be completely exposed?
He turned his attention to the second piece of ghost skin.
"One hundred and eighty years have already passed; that person will never return."
"Go."
"Cross the Dead Sea and make landfall at Nameless Mountain. So long as you find a Mountain Skeleton Embryo, I shall credit you with great merit. Once I advance to ghost king, I will spare no effort in grooming you."
Chen Fan stood in place, expressionless and silent. It seemed the prospective ghost king held a certain wariness toward Nameless Mountain, and wouldn't have sent anyone here if not in desperate need of a Mountain Skeleton Embryo. One hundred and eighty years...
Long ago, had some prominent figure lived here?
Which meant that this sinkhole and canyon, which looked so much like a crater made by a hammer, might truly have been hammered out by someone?
Just what kind of figure would that have to be?
Still, there was good news.
Namely, the ghost king clearly had no idea Chen Fan was hiding here, nor who had slain Qianhou and Qiu Kui. The ghost king was entirely unaware of Chen Fan's existence. In that case, when the ghost king learned of Qianhu's death, he might assume Qianhu had fallen victim to an array left behind by that great figure before their departure, and would avoid approaching.
That would be the best-case scenario.
"Is a Mountain Skeleton Embryo really that valuable...?"
Chen Fan scratched his head, looking back toward the camp.
There was currently a Mountain Skeleton Embryo resting inside the ghost fire. Its primary effect was stabilizing the cavern, ensuring that the caves and passages excavated within the camp's boundaries carried no risk of collapsing. He hadn't expected it to be so valuable that even an aspiring ghost king found it difficult to obtain another.
Soon, however, he cast the thought aside.
Because he caught sight of something he loved.
Faint ghost qi drifted up from the octopus carcass, coalescing into two exotic treasures.
"Your buddy Qianhou dropped three items, and your mistress Qiu Kui dropped something as great as an altar. How come you only dropped two?"
"What a disappointment."
He picked up the two exotic treasures from the ground and examined them carefully in his hands. Their shapes were rather unusual this time.
One of them was a miniature circular incense burner holding three brownish-red incense sticks.
[Exotic Treasure Name: Ask-the-Heavens Incense]
[Exotic Treasure Grade: Green]
[Exotic Treasure Effect: Lighting one stick of incense allows you to ask a single question. After sacrificing a certain number of ghost stones, you will receive an absolutely correct answer. If the question cannot be answered, or if an insufficient number of ghost stones is sacrificed, the stick of incense will automatically shatter.]
"A fine treasure," Chen Fan murmured in praise.
An information-type exotic treasure was exceedingly suitable for him right now. He was trapped in this desolate wasteland by the rainy season. While he could solve resource problems on his own, he had zero communication with the outside world.
There was so much he didn't know.
He didn't even know whether Jiangbei City or Qi City had fallen.
Still, he had to be cautious when using this treasure.
Asking a question that was too simple wouldn't be worth it—a pure loss.
He had only three chances.
Yet if he asked something too difficult and the question could not be answered or he failed to sacrifice enough ghost stones, the stick of incense would automatically shatter, amounting to a complete waste.
As for what counted as an unanswerable question, he had a rough idea. Since the premise was that the incense would provide an absolutely correct answer, anything without an absolute answer would naturally be unanswerable. For instance... whether he could survive the rainy season.
When the Eternal Night would end.
Whether she loved him or not.
Questions of that nature.
He didn't use the treasure right away, deciding to wait a bit and check what the other exotic treasure was first.
[Exotic Treasure Name: White Jade Pendant]
[Exotic Treasure Grade: Green]
[Exotic Treasure Effect: When worn by an architect, slightly reduces the ghost stone consumption when constructing buildings.]
"Brilliant."
Chen Fan stood in expressionless silence.
A green-grade exotic treasure?
For an architect, he figured this could easily pass as a yellow-grade treasure.
The longer one lived, the more benefits this treasure would yield.
It was an unending stream of returns.
However...
For him, it wasn't of the slightest damn use.
He wasn't an architect at all. Even so, he hung the treasure around his neck. If nothing else, the white jade flat pendant was square, neat, and looked quite nice when worn. Once his marketplace was built in the future, it would need a grand opening to draw the eyes of neighboring factions.
He thought this exotic treasure would make an excellent centerpiece.
It would surely draw many architects into a bidding war.
It would also give him a chance to see what architects in this world actually looked like up close.
He was rather curious.
Chen Fan glanced around at Monkey and the others hard at work. Tonight was going to be a long haul; this battlefield was not so easy to clear, and sorting through and tallying all the spoils would take quite some time.
He had already figured out what question to ask.
Returning to camp, he bathed and changed into fresh clothes. Only then, feeling refreshed, did he sit back in the rocking chair atop the wall, preparing to light the incense.
He liked sitting on the parapet.
Looking down upon the camp he had forged with his own hands, he felt a surge of satisfaction even when doing nothing at all. Every corner of this camp had been designed and built with his direct involvement. This was his home.
His foothold in this world.
Chapter 86