50: Chapter 50: The Rewards of the Demon Suppression Division, the Merging of the Three Ghost Domains, and the Army of Rule-Based Ghosts?

Chapter 50: Rewards from the Demon Suppression Division, Three Ghost Domains Merging, Rule-based Ghost Army? Tianxin Pavilion, Third-Floor Private Room.

Lu Zhanyou was even thinner than Lin Ye had imagined, with high cheekbones and sunken eye sockets; the traces of not closing his eyes for four days were written all over his face.

But his back was straight, like a javelin planted in a chair.

"Sit."

Lu Zhanyou pushed a cup of tea over. "Let's fulfill the promise first. A large flat apartment in the central area of Qingzhou, three hundred square meters, has already been transferred to your name. Then three million in cash will arrive today. In addition... this is your Three-Star Challenger Badge."

He placed a metal badge on the table, and immediately pushed over three more things.

A thumb-sized black jade box, with densely packed array patterns carved on its surface.

"Soul Box. After recognizing its master with a drop of blood, it can store a wisp of your soul origin. In case of an accident one day, theoretically, you can reshape your physical body with this wisp of origin. I say theoretically because the resources required for reshaping are astronomical, but having it is better than nothing."

A yellowed talisman paper, with cinnabar-drawn patterns, and one corner of the edge scorched.

"This is a Death-Substitution Talisman, which can ward off a fatal injury. Don't mind that it looks worn out; the stock of this thing in the entire country does not exceed twenty sheets."

The last one was a silver-white ring, with hair-fine runes carved on the inner circle.

"Telekinesis Ring. This is a good thing that a little girl accidentally brought out from the Psionic Plane when it first opened three years ago, but she has already sacrificed her life now..."

He took a deep breath. "This thing can materialize mental power. In addition, it comes with a small spatial storage of about three cubic meters, which is enough for you to hold equipment and daily necessities."

Lin Ye took the ring, put it on his left index finger, and a flash of silver light automatically fitted it to his finger.

On the surface, he remained calm, but inwardly he was secretly startled.

Soul Box, Death-Substitution Talisman, Storage Ring.

Any of these three things picked out casually could not be bought with money. Lu Zhanyou was really going all out this time.

It was not only a reward, but also a statement.

He was afraid other provinces would come to poach people.

"Thanks." Lin Ye put the things away. "Is there any clue about what I asked you yesterday?"

Lu Zhanyou pulled a document out of his briefcase, unfolded it, and spread it on the table.

It was a detailed map of Qingzhou and its surrounding areas, with six or seven locations marked in red ink, and the Ghost Domain level and current status noted next to each.

"Currently, four Level-5 Ghost Domains, seven Level-4 to Level-5 Ghost Domains, and over a dozen below Level-3 have been investigated around Qingzhou. You also know the battle situation in the provincial capital; all high-tier challengers have been deployed there, and manpower cannot be spared to clean up these low-tier Ghost Domains for the time being."

He raised his eyes to look at Lin Ye. "If you are interested, pick one."

Lin Ye's gaze swept across the map and finally stopped at a red dot circled three times on the western edge of Qingzhou.

"What is going on with this one?"

Lu Zhanyou glanced at it. "The situation in that place is special. Three Ghost Domains, one Level-3 and two Level-4, are currently in a state of impending merger. The Demon Suppression Division Research Institute predicts that after the merger, the level will directly jump to Level-6 or even higher... I have already arranged a team to prepare for a surprise cleanup before the merger, but the priority is ranked behind the provincial capital defense line, and it is estimated that we have to wait another three days."

"Three Ghost Domains merging?"

Lin Ye raised his head; such things were rare. "What is the specific situation?"

Lu Zhanyou turned a page of the document. "The strongest among the three is that Ghost Domain, and there is an abandoned ancient town in the central area. Two reconnaissance teams went in, and only one person came back, who was still a psionic detector."

"What did he say?"

Lu Zhanyou read the original report: "The time in the ancient town is wrong. Standing at the entrance, he saw that the rain in the town was flying backwards, from the ground up to the sky. The leaves changed from withered yellow to green, then back to tender buds, and then turned into tree seeds. He said he saw a figure, and when that figure walked forward, it was backwards, but when it retreated, it was normal. He didn't dare to go in and waited at the entrance for twenty minutes. When he withdrew, he found that four hours had already passed outside."

Lin Ye's eyes condensed.

Rain flying backwards, leaves growing in reverse, figures upside down front and back, inconsistent time flow rates inside and outside.

This...

"It is related to time?"

"The Research Institute also makes this judgment, but currently there are no more..."

As he spoke, he pulled out a fist-sized crystal fragment.

Entirely pitch-black, with dark red lines densely covered on the surface, exuding an aura of extreme gloominess and coldness.

"This was brought out from that Ghost Domain."

Lu Zhanyou pushed the crystal over. "It was picked up at the entrance by the psionic detector of the reconnaissance team at that time. The Research Institute has analyzed it; it contains a high concentration of time-attribute evil Qi, which is extremely corrosive to low-tier challengers. One-star and two-star people who touch it will definitely have evil Qi enter their bodies and experience different symptoms."

"After being studied, this thing has been locked in a safe. If you are interested, you can take a good look at it."

After saying this, Lu Zhanyou froze all over.

Because Lin Ye was already holding the crystal in his hand, looking at it back and forth as if he were examining an ordinary stone.

Lu Zhanyou's pupils dilated slightly, and his voice was a bit dry: "...Evil Qi entering the body. You hold it in your hand and feel nothing?"

"Nothing."

As soon as his voice fell, the zhulong seal on Lin Ye's wrist suddenly let out a low hum.

Golden light overflowed from his cuff, like a fierce beast that smelled its prey, suddenly wrapping around the black crystal.

Immediately afterwards, a warm current was extracted from inside the crystal, surging along his arm into the zhulong seal.

The speed was so fast that Lin Ye himself didn't even react in time.

Deep in his Dantian, the golden vortex formed by the Temporal Divine Power suddenly accelerated, as if it had been fed a bite of the purest power of origin. The rotation speed of the entire vortex was a notch faster than the results of several hours of bitter cultivation last night.

At the same time.

A blurry image was reflected in his mind...

[Zhulong closes its eyes, and heaven and earth fall into eternal night.

Opening its eyes again, the eternal night actually began to flow backward, retreating from late night to dusk, and from dusk to noon.

Closing eyes makes night, opening eyes makes day.]

The ability unlocked in the third stage, controlling the flow rate of day and night?

"No way..."

Lin Ye sighed inwardly.

I saw the dark red lines on the surface of the black crystal rapidly dimming. A few seconds later, with a snap, the crystal shattered into several pieces of waste stone.

And the zhulong seal on Lin Ye's wrist lit up by another section.

The outlines of the two front paws behind the dragon body became increasingly clear.

Only the dragon head and horns were missing for the third stage to be completely activated!

Lu Zhanyou's expression was like looking at a monster.

"Um..."

Lu Zhanyou wanted to ask about the Classic of Mountains and Seas, but after thinking about it, he decided against it.

He had already preliminarily confirmed the extraordinariness of the Classic of Mountains and Seas World.

But now was not the time to discuss this; there was something more important.

Lin Ye pushed the waste stones aside, his mind already calculating rapidly.

He could now use time-stop five or six times, or even more times, within a minute, each lasting two seconds.

In life-and-death combat, two seconds was just the time of one or two breaths.

It had not been tested in actual combat, and the side effects were still unclear.

When practicing before, just continuously urging it three or four times caused his mental consumption to be so great that his temples were throbbing.

Intuition told him that if he took this order, he must fight and resolve it quickly.

The longer it dragged on, the greater the risk of his mental power hitting rock bottom.

But the benefits were equally huge.

The time-attribute evil Qi remaining in this waste stone could make the Temporal Divine Power grow significantly. If there was really some kind of time origin in that Ghost Domain, after swallowing it, the improvement of the Temporal Power would probably not be a matter of one or two sections.

This risk was worth taking!

Thinking of this.

"Elder Lu, I'll take this order."

Lu Zhanyou was silent for two seconds. "When are we setting off?"

"Now."

The two walked out of Tianxin Pavilion.

Driving Chen Miaomiao's Porsche.

Lu Zhanyou drove personally, while Lin Ye sat in the passenger seat, laying the zhulong staff horizontally across his knees and closing his eyes to rest.

The car drove out of the urban area and headed all the way west along the provincial highway.

The road conditions were even worse than going to Heqiao Town yesterday. The potholes on the asphalt road surface were corroded beyond recognition by the evil Qi spreading from the Ghost Domain. The farmland on both sides was largely desolate, and occasionally a few deserted farmhouses could be seen, with dark windows and door panels crooked to one side.

Lin Ye opened his eyes and suddenly remembered something.

"Elder Lu, let me ask you a question."

"Speak."

"Rule-triggering ghosts should have records inside the Demon Suppression Division, right?"

Lu Zhanyou's hand holding the steering wheel tightened imperceptibly. "Why are you asking this?"

"Just asking casually. I met one yesterday and got a bit curious." Lin Ye didn't mention the matter of the Knocking Ghost.

Lu Zhanyou didn't pursue the question either, but his expression clearly became a bit more serious. "Rule-type ghosts have special research archives inside the Demon Suppression Division: Mirror Ghost, Thirteen-Step Stairs, Back-to-Back, Silent Ghost... anyway, there are many, and there are also some extremely rare ones."

"Can you let me see the archives?"

"Are you interested?"

Lu Zhanyou turned his head to glance. "I can arrange it for you later. There is someone named Nanzhi in the Demon Suppression Division intelligence group who is specially responsible for sorting out these abnormal archives. I'll have her connect with you later."

Lin Ye nodded, keeping the name in mind.

Can the one that knocks be collected? Can the one that looks in the mirror be collected?

Can the one that counts stairs be collected?

Perhaps, he could form a rule-based ghost army of his own!

Outside the car window, the sky was getting dark.

A large patch of dark gray clouds hovered in the sky ahead, as if someone had wiped a dirty rag across the sky.

Below the clouds, three overlapping dark red halos could be vaguely seen; those were the psionic projections of the three Ghost Domains devouring and fusing with each other.

The car drove down a gentle slope, and a motorcade appeared ahead.

Military trucks, armored vehicles, ambulances, and several black off-road vehicles sprayed with the logo of the Demon Suppression Division were parked in a fan shape in a temporarily cleared open space.

Two cordons were set up around the periphery of the open space, and a fully armed soldier stood every ten meters.

Outside the cordon, hundreds of people were densely crowded, including men and women, old and young. Some were holding luggage and squatting on the ground, while others stood on tiptoe and desperately peered inside the cordon.

Some people sat directly on the ground and cried out loud.

"Let me in! My son is still inside!!"

An old woman with gray hair tightly clutched the cordon and refused to let go. Several soldiers half-persuaded and half-dragged her outward. The old woman's fingers were strangled with deep red marks by the cordon, but she just wouldn't let go.

"Are the comrades inside really capable? It's been three hours, batches going in and batches coming out, and everyone who comes out looks like that. Can you save people or not?"

A middle-aged man holding a little girl crying so hard she was out of breath shouted toward the inside of the cordon.

On the other side of the open space, seven or eight challengers gathered together, either squatting or sitting.

Some lowered their heads without speaking, some were wrapping bandages around their arms, and others simply lay on the ground covering their faces with hats, their chests rising and falling violently as if they had just been fished out of the water.

A two-star challenger squatted on a pile of gravel with his hands hugging his head, his fingernails full of unwashed black blood scabs.

Standing next to him was a female challenger with blood-seeping gauze wrapped around her shoulder, whispering to report the situation to a person looking like an officer.

"...It's not that we didn't risk our lives, Team Leader, the time flow rate inside is simply wrong. When we went in, it was 9:00 AM, and it felt like we had walked for less than half an hour inside. When we withdrew, the time outside was already 2:00 PM. Moreover, the further we went inside, the greater the deviation in the time flow rate, and Zhang Tao he..."

The female challenger choked up when she said this: "Zhang Tao stepped into a time-flow anomalous zone. We watched with our own eyes as he took a step forward, and then his entire body's movements suddenly became slower than a snail. He wanted to withdraw, but the time in that area seemed to be locked dead by something; he took a step out, and his foot never landed until he died."

Lu Zhanyou pushed open the car door and got out. The officer and several challengers raised their heads simultaneously, and upon seeing his shoulder insignia, immediately straightened their bodies.

"Director Lu!"

"How is the situation?"

Lu Zhanyou walked over in big strides.

"Three hours ago, the merger speed of the Ghost Domains suddenly accelerated. The merger originally expected to take three days to complete will now be completely fused in at most six hours. We previously sent three teams to take turns trying to break in, and all of them were blocked near the entrance. Two challengers suffered severe time-difference injuries, and one... sacrificed his life."

Lu Zhanyou's expression sank a bit. "What about the evacuation?"

"Residents within a five-kilometer radius centered on the Ghost Domain have all been evacuated, but there is still a civilian rescue team that entered the vicinity of the Ghost Domain yesterday afternoon to execute a mission and is currently out of contact, totaling twelve people..."

Speaking of this, the officer glanced at Lin Ye behind Lu Zhanyou. When his gaze swept over the Three-Star badge on Lin Ye's shoulder, his brows furrowed imperceptibly.

Three-star?

He brought just a three-star over?

He knew that Lu Zhanyou wouldn't do things without certainty, but look at the current situation.

Three Ghost Domains were about to merge, and even the assault team led by a four-star was beaten back. What use could a three-star be?

Lu Zhanyou ignored his gaze, turned to look at Lin Ye, and asked, "What do you think?"

Lin Ye didn't answer.

He was staring at the area ahead, where the core projections of the three Ghost Domains were clearly visible in his psionic vision.

One purple, one red, one gray—three halos revolved around each other at an extremely slow speed.

A large area of overlap at the edges had already fused into a turbid dark red.

And in the center of that most intense halo, Lin Ye perceived an extremely faint fluctuation.

It was of the same origin as the black crystal he swallowed just now, but a thousand times more intense.

The zhulong seal on his wrist was slightly warm, and the Temporal Divine Power in his Dantian spontaneously accelerated its rotation speed, like a shark that smelled blood.

"No need to wait six hours."

Lin Ye withdrew his gaze. "I'm going in now."

At this moment, everyone saw...

At the entrance of the ancient town, a half-withered old locust tree stood in the middle of the road.

Its leaves were growing in reverse.

The withered yellow leaves floated up from the ground, turned back to light green in mid-air, turned back to tender buds, and finally shrank back to the branches.

A dead dog was lying under the tree.

The dog's corpse was rotting in reverse, rotting from white bones back to flesh and blood, from flesh and blood back to fur, and finally rolling over to stand up and running backward into the depths of the town...