Chapter 261 Expansion of the Ghost Army

The dark rain from the underworld stopped.

Chen San looked down at his hands. Just a few hours ago, these hands were still mutilated, torn apart along with half a shoulder by a mutated hyena in the trenches of the Jianghuai defense line. He clearly remembered the pain of his bones being chewed up.

But now, the pain is gone.

His withered flesh was replaced by a layer of pure black mist that seemed almost tangible. He wore an ancient, cold black lamellar armor and held a soul-locking chain that emitted a chilling blue light. Far from being destroyed, he felt an unprecedented power surging within him. This was the power of a ghost immortal, unique to the laws of the Netherworld.

"Chen San killed seven first-tier demonic beasts in his lifetime, but died from being attacked by a second-tier demonic beast. His obsession remains, and his fighting spirit will never die."

A majestic voice echoed across the empty square.

Chen San looked up and saw a man in a dark gold imperial robe looking down at them from the towering Yama Palace.

Not only him, but in this deathly silent square stood thirty thousand other hunters like him, who had just fought their way out of the riot. In life, they were the lowest of the low, consumables in the Yellow Zone.

"You are ants in the mortal world."

Zhao Feng's voice was like muffled thunder, devoid of any pity, yet exuding an unquestionable authority.

"But in this netherworld, you have proven your right to exist. The cycle of reincarnation has been reshaped, and the underworld needs a sharper blade to cleanse the karma of the mortal realm."

Zhao Feng drew his Emperor's Sword and pointed it at the dark dome above his head, which led to the world of the living.

"From this day forward, you are no longer wandering ghosts, but black-armored Yin soldiers appointed by the Heavenly Dao."

"The demons of the mortal realm have grown iron skin, and their souls have also become distorted. After they die, their ferocious beast souls, mixed with too much malevolent energy and metallic turbidity, are too heavy to sink naturally into the underworld. If they remain in the mortal realm, they will quickly transform into Yin energy and pollute the earth's veins. Your task is to take the soul-locking chains of the underworld up there and forcibly pull those beast souls that are stubbornly clinging to the mortal realm from the earth!"

Thirty thousand ghost soldiers, transformed from mortals who died in battle, all raised their heads in unison.

There were no thunderous slogans, only 30,000 pairs of eyes that suddenly lit up with eerie blue flames, and a series of uniform clanging sounds of iron chains.

In their lives, they risked their lives against monsters for a few bottles of inferior repair fluid, never imagining that death would be such an absurd leap across social classes.

……

Ruins surrounding the No. 17 distribution center on the Jianghuai defense line.

Heavy rain.

A seven-man squad of lone hunters collapsed behind a collapsed concrete building, panting heavily. A dozen meters in front of them, an armored wolf, as large as an armored vehicle, lay convulsing unconsciously in the mud, black blood mixed with fragments of internal organs gushing from its mouth and nose.

The team paid a heavy price to kill this armored monster.

"Damn it, I can't cut through this sheet metal at all..." A young hunter threw away his high-frequency vibrating knife, which had already chipped and broken, and blood was streaming from his hand.

"Sharp weapons are useless. Its scales have already grown together with the tungsten metal; a head-on confrontation would be suicide."

The old captain coughed up a mouthful of bloody phlegm; the hydraulic rod of his heavy mechanical right arm was completely overloaded and beyond repair. In that last strike, he completely abandoned the blade's slashing motion, instead channeling the power of his bio-elemental energy into the hydraulic hammer of his exoskeleton, and slammed his fist into the demon wolf's skull.

The metal skull didn't break, but the high-frequency "hidden force" penetrated the armor and directly turned the wolf's brain and internal organs into a paste.

Physical attacks have indeed become more difficult, but human combat wisdom will not stagnate.

"Go and dig out the inner core, then retreat..." The old captain leaned weakly against the wall.

Just as the young hunter drew his dagger, preparing to pry open the wolf's mouth...

The surrounding temperature plummeted, and the raindrops condensed into tiny ice crystals in mid-air. A pungent, blood-red mist suddenly rose from the surface of the armored wolf corpse that had just died.

The mist didn't dissipate immediately; instead, like a heavy lead weight, it slowly coalesced above the wolf's carcass into a semi-transparent phantom of a demonic wolf. It didn't immediately attack the living, as the lingering soul that had just left the body was still in a state of chaos. However, the extreme resentment and chilling aura emanating from the phantom sent a shiver down the spines of all the hunters present, as if their souls had been frozen.

"This is... a malevolent spirit?" The old captain's expression changed drastically. Ordinary demonic beasts die and their souls go directly to the underworld, but this armored beast had absorbed too much resentment, making its soul too heavy to sink. If not dealt with, it would transform into a vengeful ghost that plagued the area within a few days.

Just as the old captain raised the few remaining talismans in his hand, preparing to grit his teeth and dispel the evil spirit,

Clang.

A crisp, ethereal clang of an iron chain suddenly rang out amidst the downpour.

The demon wolf's evil spirit seemed to have encountered some kind of natural enemy; its soul fire suddenly contracted, and it instinctively tried to escape.

Suddenly, a tall, black figure appeared in the shadows of the building.

It was a figure clad in ancient black lamellar armor. His feet hovered a mere inch above the ground, and he held a ghostly blue soul-binding chain in his hand. Facing the malevolent spirit that troubled even the living, the black-armored figure merely flicked his wrist casually.

Whoosh!

The dark blue iron chain, like a venomous snake emerging from its hole, instantly traversed a distance of more than ten meters, piercing through the blood-red mist without any hindrance, and tightly wrapped around the neck of the demon wolf beast soul.

Zizizi!

The Netherworld Laws attached to the Soul-Locking Chains have an absolute suppressive effect on souls. The demon wolf beast soul let out a silent scream, and wisps of green smoke rose from its body. The originally swollen Yin energy instantly withered, and it was dragged to the feet of the black-armored figure like a dead dog.

The ironclad law separating the living and the dead is vividly displayed at this moment. The physical body is given to the living, while the remnants of the soul return to the underworld.

The old captain stared intently at the figure in black armor. In the white light of the lightning, he could make out the pale face with a scar.

"Chen...Chen San?!" The old captain's tongue was tied in knots. He had personally buried Chen San's mutilated body in a pit on the back mountain the day before yesterday.

The Yin soldier known as Chen San slightly turned his face, and the ghostly blue flames in his eyes flickered.

"Old Captain, the beast's metal body and inner core are yours. But I have to take this overweight dead soul back to the underworld to report." Chen San's tone was as calm as if he were giving instructions for logistics.

The old captain swallowed hard, feeling as if his entire worldview was crumbling: "Are you... a human or a ghost now?"

"Ghost messengers." Chen San glanced at the gloomy sky. "The underworld has expanded its ranks. All the brothers who died in the yellow zone can choose not to be reincarnated as long as their fighting spirit remains. They can be given clothes and put to work directly."

Chen San turned around, holding the demon wolf's spirit, his figure slowly fading into the rain and mist.

Before disappearing completely, he left these stunned, unaffiliated hunters with one sentence.

"Don't be afraid to die. If you die, you'll just be killing in another place."

The rain is still falling.

......