72: Chapter 72 The Old Ghost Enters the Dream, the Ghost King Learns to Bite

Old Gengar pressed one hand onto Gengar's shadow.

Gengar's body was pinned to the ground, and its black mist was being peeled away bit by bit from the edges. It wanted to open its mouth to bite back, but its movements were always half a beat too slow.

Old Gengar's smile was very quiet.

Its movements were slow, but its fingertips were like hooks, peeling away the black shadow beneath Gengar's feet inch by inch.

For the first time, Gengar's face lost its playful expression.

"This old thing..."

Agatha walked into the office.

"Ghosts eat a lot, but they also need to know how to chew."

She raised her cane. The head of the cane was a piece of polished ghost bone, with purple-black light emerging from the bone patterns.

Lynn lifted his foot, but the ghost hands beneath him tightened, causing his body to lag by half a beat. Half a beat was enough for an assassin to strike.

The cane tapped the ground. Lynn's breathing suddenly constricted.

The air was still there, but his chest was gripped by a cold hand. That hand had grabbed the shadow cast by his lungs onto the floor.

Sabrina tried to stand up, but the ghost mist from the corridor surged in, wrapping around her ankles. Her pupils glowed with blue light, and tables and chairs were lifted into the air, crashing toward Agatha.

Old Gengar opened its mouth and inhaled; the furniture, still in mid-air, was dragged back to the ground by shadows.

Agatha looked at Lynn. "I despise people like you the most."

Lynn gasped for air, his eyes still cold. "Because I stole your job?"

Agatha laughed. "Because you are dirty, ruthless, and useful. The League curses you with their mouths, but in their hearts, they are afraid of you proving one thing."

She took a step closer. "The dirty work they've done, you do even cleaner."

The cane fell. Everything went black before Lynn's eyes. The office disappeared.

He stood in a graveyard. The sky was gray, the ground was wet, and tombstones lined up in an endless row. Every stone was engraved with a name.

The cleaners who died in Viridian Forest. The Electric-type soldiers in the scorched earth of Vermilion City. The major executed on Cinnabar Island. The security guard who fell in the corridor in Saffron City. And many others whom Lynn had sent to the battlefield.

From behind the tombstones, pale faces lifted up. "Why did we die?" "Why do you live?" "You speak of value, but where is our value?"

These voices carried genuine resentment. Agatha had taken the corpses Lynn had trampled over along the way and brought them into his dream to judge him.

Lynn looked down; an empty tombstone stood by his feet. The surface was smooth, missing only a name.

Agatha's voice came from the end of the graveyard. "Little brat, there is a spot for you too."

Ghost hands emerged from the mud, grabbing Lynn's knees, shoulders, and neck, trying to press him into that empty grave.

In reality, Lynn was still standing in the office, his face growing paler. Gengar let out a low growl.

Old Gengar lowered its head and bit the edge of its shadow. With every bite, a piece of black mist vanished from Gengar's body. This was an injury to the ghost's very core.

Sabrina rushed to the corridor entrance; the entire hallway had turned into a cold, gloomy tomb passage. Dead faces stretched out from the walls, whispering in unison. "Sleep."

Sabrina raised her hand, and blue light smashed several faces. But the ghost mist wrapped around her layer by layer, slowing her down with every step. She bit her lip. "Gengar!"

In the office, Gengar heard her. The purple-black light in its eyes flared violently.

Old Gengar pressed its head down first, like a master pinning down a young ghost that hadn't yet left its cage. Gengar was pressed close to the floor.

Anger bubbled up on its face. It had eaten its way from the corpse pit all the way to Saffron City, devouring fear, resentment, and the shadows of its enemies. But today, it was being pinned to the ground and taught a lesson by an older ghost.

In the graveyard, Lynn's knees were already buckling. The voices of the dead all around grew louder. "Kneel." "Lie down." "Leave your life behind."

Agatha's figure stood at the end of the graveyard. She wanted a quiet execution.

She wanted Lynn to be crushed to death in his sleep by his own mountain of corpses, then have Old Gengar devour his shadow. By daybreak, everyone would only see a cold corpse. Assassination should be quiet.

Lynn suddenly laughed. The graveyard fell silent for a breath. Agatha asked, "What are you laughing at?"

Lynn looked up, no regret in his eyes. "You chose the wrong person." "Chose the wrong what?"

"When the dead ask me 'why,' I have always been able to answer." He grabbed the ghost hand pressing on his shoulder, his fingers tightening inch by inch. "I only fear that they died in vain."

The black tide surged from beneath his feet, flooding over the empty tombstone and over those reaching corpse shadows. He couldn't be bothered to justify himself, nor would he beg for mercy.

He pressed the resentment, the corpses, and the questioning all beneath his feet. "They are dead." "I am alive." "The debts they left behind, I will spend them for them."

The graveyard shook. Agatha's laughter stopped.

In reality, Gengar also stopped struggling. It suddenly opened its mouth, not to bite Old Gengar, but to bite its own shadow that was being pinned down. Rip.

It tore off a piece of its own black shadow with its own mouth and swallowed it. Old Gengar's movements paused.

Gengar's body expanded, its grin splitting open again, darker than before. It understood. If its shadow could be peeled away, it would just eat its own first. What did pain matter? As long as it could eat it back, that was enough.

"Old thing." Gengar looked up, its voice hoarse. "Keep teaching." It bit back at the hand Old Gengar was using to pin it down. This time, a notch was bitten into Old Gengar's hand.

Sabrina also tore through the ghost mist at the end of the corridor, and blue light shone into the office. In the graveyard, Lynn stood up from his half-kneeling position. Agatha's first strike still remained. She was still suppressing the battlefield.

But her most steady blade had failed to kill Lynn. The Ghost King, pinned to the ground, had begun to learn how to bite the hand of the old ghost.

Agatha stopped smiling. This assassination had turned from a funeral into a hard fight.

The black tide in the graveyard rose higher and higher. The shadows of the dead were still reaching out, but their hands were pressed down by the black tide, gradually bending. Tombstones toppled over one by one, and the names engraved on them were swallowed by the mud and water.

Agatha's voice rang out from afar, carrying a chill for the first time. "You treat them as food too?"

Lynn walked forward, treading on the black tide. "They were always behind me." "When an enemy dies, it is my path." "When my own people die, it is my debt." "I will repay the debt, and I will walk the path."

At the end of the graveyard, a larger tombstone stood up, and Lynn's name appeared on it. Agatha finally appeared beside the tombstone, her shawl fluttering in the cold wind.

"I've seen many stubborn brats." Lynn walked to the tombstone and placed his hand on its surface. "Then today, you'll see one who can survive."

He tightened his fingers, and the tombstone cracked. In reality, Lynn's fingers also twitched.

Agatha's expression changed. Old Gengar sensed that Lynn was starting to wake up and immediately increased its strength. It pressed Gengar almost into the carpet and opened its mouth to bite off another piece of black mist.

Gengar's eyes twitched in pain, but it smiled. After swallowing its own shadow earlier, it felt like there was a knife inside its body. That knife was painful, but also very sharp.

When Old Gengar came to bite again, Gengar proactively pushed the piece that was about to be bitten forward. Old Gengar took a bite. At the same moment, Gengar bit down on Old Gengar's wrist.

The two ghosts were pressed together. Black mist and purple energy tore at each other, corroding a large hole in the carpet. The glass in the office cracked piece by piece, and cold wind poured in.

Taking advantage of this moment, Sabrina tore open the ghost mist in the corridor by half a meter. Blue light pressed into the office, shining on Lynn's face. Lynn opened his eyes.

His pupils still reflected the gray of the graveyard, but his breathing had stabilized again. Agatha's cane stopped in mid-air. "You woke up quite fast."

"That graveyard of yours cannot bury me." Lynn raised his hand, grabbed the ghost hand on his chest, and gave it a hard tug. The ghost hand broke off and turned into black smoke. He gasped for air, the taste of blood in his throat.

"Gengar." Hearing the command, Gengar's grin widened fully. It stopped dodging and crawled up along the opponent's arm. When Old Gengar pinned down its shadow, it bit off that piece of shadow; when Old Gengar tore at its mist, it swallowed the torn mist back into its stomach.

This fighting style was ugly, painful, and crude. But it started to work. For the first time, a piece was bitten out of Old Gengar's fingertip. Agatha looked at that notch, her expression darkening. "Unorthodox."

Lynn wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. "As long as it can bite people, that's enough."

Sabrina finally rushed into the office and stood by Lynn's side. Her breath was weak, but her gaze was cold. Porygon-Z reconnected half of the interrupted feed, and the screens on the wall flickered with the afterimages of the corridor, stairs, and the outer patrol teams.

Reinforcements had not yet arrived. Agatha had not retreated either. Both sides knew that the real slaughter had only just begun. But the situation had changed.

Lynn had stood back from the dream into reality. Gengar had transformed from a pinned prey into a mad dog biting the old master. A hole had been torn in Agatha's most beautiful opening.

The old woman leaned on her cane and laughed slowly. "Good. Then let me see how many bites you can last."

The shadows in the office surged up again. Gengar also smiled. "Come."

Lynn's back was soaked with cold sweat. The smell of graveyard soil from the dream still lingered in his nose, and every rise and fall of his chest brought a sharp pain. He knew that if he had been just a few breaths slower, he would have stopped breathing while standing.

Agatha had almost succeeded. Precisely because she had almost succeeded, she was even more dangerous.

Lynn raised his cane, pointing at her feet. "Sabrina, aim at her."

Blue light pressed down. Agatha's shadow was pinned to the carpet for half a breath. Gengar seized this half-breath and bit its entire mouth into Old Gengar's wrist.

Old Gengar finally retreated half a step. This retreat was small. But it allowed the shadows in the room to loosen by an inch.

Lynn drew in a breath of cold air and steadied himself again. This assassination was far from over, but he had already taken back his first breath.