Chapter 543: The Seventh Ghost: Blache the Fearful Ghost!

The Abyss Mode, as it was called, denoted an encounter in the dungeons with a cohort of monstrosities coalescing from the rifts of an alien dimension.

To the common run of players, such an eventuality could scarce be deemed anything short of an outright calamity.

Yet, by the very same token, it betokened a grand challenge.

These unilateral incursions of abyssal demons consisted, for the most part, of the lesser breeds among their kind, whose strength had moreover been considerably spent in the violent sundering of space required to manifest; thus, should ordinary players possess a modicum of prowess and coordinate with their fellows, the slaying of these fiends remained within the realm of possibility.

For the present, however, the reception remained largely indifferent—partly because a multitude of souls were thoroughly engrossed in watching the live broadcast of the Celestial Set synthesis, and partly because no player had yet been chosen as the target of an unprovoked demonic invasion.

As for seeking out trouble with these monsters of one’s own volition...

At this juncture, those within the game who had successfully navigated the trials of Awakening were few and far between, and with the Mechanical Tau proving an insurmountable blockade, none would naturally presume to court the malice of the abyssal demons.

It was precisely at this hour that Gu Tingyun had departed to fuse his Celestial Set, leaving Vice Principal Xiao of the Haotian Academy and his cohorts to trail behind in bewildered observation, utterly neglected for the time being.

Suddenly, his gaze caught the screen of Elder Yu nearby, where a colossal altar carved with the likeness of a demonic head had manifested.

The fiend upon the altar possessed rubicund, blood-shot eyes and four horns protruding from its brow; at a single glance, even through the intervening glass of the screen, one could feel a wave of utterly malignant aura rushing fiercely at the senses.

"What in heaven's name is that?!" Vice Principal Xiao let out a grotesque cry.

"An Abyssal Altar," Elder Yu replied, his countenance hardening into gravity. "It appears someone has encountered an abyssal demon; I am watching the live transmission."

"A transmission?!" The several figures following in his wake were left entirely perplexed.

"Mm..." Elder Yu, with a solemn visage, endeavored to explain, "It is akin to a Thousand-Mile Shadow-Projecting Spell; whatsoever they perform, we, seated here, may discern with absolute clarity through the medium of this artifact."

One could see the title of the broadcast room inscribed above: "A pug party encounters an abyssal demon by chance; delving into the truth of the fiend."

The player in question was a denizen of the Yuanxiang City, somewhere in his thirties, who had been beset by the abyssal demon whilst adventuring in a party with his comrades.

"The Abyss... a demon?!" In his capacity as the Vice Principal of the Haotian Academy, he was a man of no small erudition, yet he had never in his days heard tell of such things existing in the world.

Setting all else aside, the very words "Abyss" and "Demon" carried a literal freight of perilous portent, to say nothing of the view of that supremely malevolent altar upon the screen.

"What manner of thing is this?!" The group stared fixedly at the altar on Elder Yu’s screen, their eyes unblinking.

Near the altar, a terrifying silhouette cloaked in rampant flames was gradually transitioning from a phantom state into solid reality.

Even across the screen, the visual perception was intensely authentic; it was a humanoid demon some two or three times the height of a mortal man, bearing immense horns upon its head, its ash-pale skin as unyielding as tempered steel.

It erupted with scorching conflagrations, and even from a vast distance, one could nearly scent the pungent odor of brimstone; the dreadful heat vaporized the moisture of the earth, rendering it precisely like a wandering, living volcano!

The handful of players broadcasting had scarce drawn near when they felt a wave of oppressive heat strike their faces, the terrible temperature roasting their skin to a flushed crimson; even without the display of statistics, it was patently obvious that their vital forces were rapidly diminishing.

It could be observed that it did not run at all; as though taking a leisurely stroll in a quiet courtyard, it crossed the intervening space in a mere few strides to stand directly before the player.

Ere it had even raised a hand, that monstrous pressure had already stifled the breath in their throats.

"This... this..." Vice Principal Xiao and the other elders who had newly entered the establishment were struck nearly senseless, their eyes filled with utter incredulity. "How can this be...?! Is this truly a demon?!"

As if in response to his very thoughts, the demon swept a single hand aloft, and a dark-red magic circle abruptly kindled within the heavens.

In the subsequent heartbeat, a streak of fiery light was seen tearing through the sky!

A small meteorite descended from the heavens, crashing violently into the earth.

The terrifying shockwave swept away everything in its vicinity with irresistible force; a player who failed to evade in time let out a wretched shriek on the spot, buried beneath the meteor and reduced to flying ash by the searing flames.

Amidst a chorus of startled cries and the ensuing panic, one of the Launchers drew an anti-tank gun from his storage space and discharged a shot!

Whoosh!

With a sharp, piercing whistle that rent the air, the demon merely tilted its frame, and the projectile grazed past its flank!

"It evaded?!" The player stared at the scene, entirely dumbfounded.

The demon seemed to pay little heed to these players; it appeared to be absorbing the rich energy saturated in the surrounding air to replenish its own form, which had been excessively depleted by the transit through space.

About its person, a vast multitude of fire spirits gradually congregated; they were as scorching as spheres of pure flame, drifting and swaying beside the demon, floating toward the nearby players like apparitions.

Before long, the demon extended a single palm, and a massive cloud of fire drifted toward the player who had initiated the attack.

Concurrently, a long intonation issued from its maw, and the bizarre red magic circles in the sky multiplied in number.

"Flee! Flee quickly!"

A deluge of meteorites fell from the sky like a shower of falling stars!

Such a horrific spectacle was enough to cause those watching the broadcast to feel a sudden breathlessness, even across the divide of the screen.

The sky full of small meteorites rained down, and in the next instant, the earth was utterly ruined, everywhere marred by immense craters, a landscape of complete devastation and ruin!

Virtual reality suffered none of the constraints of the original game's singular, small-room maps, nor did it need to accommodate the limitations of ordinary mortal players by providing a golden marker prior to the meteor's descent; it could perfectly materialize the true prowess of the abyssal monsters, and thus the visual impact it delivered was naturally puissant beyond measure.

By this time, the several players who had come to explore were entirely annihilated.

"What... what manner of monster is this?!" Vice Principal Xiao cried out, losing his composure.

Our cultivation world was already on the brink of ruin, and now such a terrifying monster has appeared?!

How are we, the cultivators, to contend with this?!

When did our world ever give rise to such monstrosities?!

One despairing thought after another lingered stubbornly in their minds; would this world allow them any means of survival at all?

Just at this juncture, someone in the shop suddenly shouted, "The Owner has gone to challenge the abyssal monster!"

"The Owner has started a live stream! It is in Room XX001127!"

"What?! There is someone who would actively provoke such a beast?!" The several vice principals and elders of the Haotian Academy, who had only just returned from the Celestial Ruins, were utterly dumbfounded; could there truly be someone who would willingly court the wrath of so formidable a monster?!

Presently, they observed Elder Yu switch to another broadcast room, and indeed, there appeared a man clad in a dark-blue robe, gripping a slender short sword that flashed with a magical, almost dazzling radiance, who had likewise arrived before an altar.

The locale bore an extreme resemblance to the architectural style of the altar where the previous party had stood; it seemed to be the very same one (the Abyss map of the Behemoth).

Upon the immense platform stood various peculiar structures alongside numerous corpses, and apart from these, there remained only this strange youth holding the short sword.

"The Owner did not purchase the Celestial Set?!"

"The Owner's weapon is exceedingly peculiar!"

The crowd fell into an animated discussion.

"That is the Level 40 pink short sword: Kalu’s Teaching - Windbreaker; the Owner has already reinforced it to +12."

"The Owner's equipment is far too grand... to reinforce a relic short sword to such an extent, is he not afraid it will shatter?!"

Meanwhile.

"Has this youth perchance lost his senses?!" Vice Principal Xiao exclaimed, his eyes glued to the screen.

"From which clan does this youngster hail? Does he value his life so little?!" With Gu Tingyun currently absent to fuse his Celestial Set, there was evidently no one to offer them an explanation, leaving the group drenching in sweat from anxiety.

"What manner of spell is this youth employing? I have never witnessed the like!"

Beside the broken altar, the skeletal minions had long since been cleared away.

Within the screen, Fang Qi first enveloped himself with the Afterimage of Keiga and the Ghost Step, as a somber silhouette of a Ghost God materialized behind him.

Subsequently, a phantom resembling a red, malevolent demon descended beside the altar: Kazan of the Destruction.

How could the cultivators who had newly returned from the Celestial Ruins have ever beheld such things?! They held their breath, staring fixedly at the screen.

Soon, they witnessed the phantom of the demon slowly gaining clarity in front of the altar.

Fang Qi took several swift strides within the crimson array, advancing toward the vicinity of that emerging silhouette.

Chanting softly beneath his breath, he summoned the phantoms from the netherworld.

The emerald specter of the ghost: Bremen the Erosion.

The violet specter of the ghost: Rasha of the Plague.

The icy-blue specter of the ghost: Saya of the Frost.

As if originating from the underworld itself, a massive, singular skeletal wing unfurled behind Fang Qi, and within the pitch-black shadows loomed another ferocious and terrifying phantom: the Sixth Ghost, Kalla of the Dark Flame.

These overlapping ghostly specters converged, transforming the ground before him into a virtual wasteland of death!

The aura radiating from their forms was utterly terrifying, seemingly no less formidable than that of the abyssal demon itself.

At that very moment, the silhouette of the abyssal demon before him had completely solidified, having evidently crossed entirely from the void into this realm.

"This young man... what on earth is he trying to do?!" The newcomers from the Haotian Academy watched the scene unfold, utterly dumbfounded.

Not only them, but the viewers watching the live broadcast were also struck by a wave of inexplicable bewilderment.

In the next instant, Fang Qi thrust the short sword in his hand violently into the overlapping ghostly arrays before him.

The heavens and earth suddenly plunged into darkness, and the once-stony ground seemed to dissolve into a murky, black swamp.

Beneath the pitch-black morass, ripples of death undulated, as though some horrific entity was about to reveal its true form from the depths.

Vice Principal Xiao suddenly rubbed his eyes vigorously: what was he witnessing?! He saw a terrifying monster, appearing as if from a bottomless abyss, slowly emerge from the swamp!

Even just the upper half of its skull already completely filled the entire screen!

"What kind of skill is this?! How have we never seen it before?!"

"This looks like an Awakening! The Soul Bender's Awakening!"

The audience watching the live stream, both in reality and across the bullet commentary, broke into a frenzy of wild exclamations.

Awakening Skill: Summoning the Seventh Ghost, Blache the Furious!

Blache the Furious: An ancient creature of the abyss formed from the condensation of human greed, one of mankind's negative emotions.

Legend holds that if someone can master the power of two ghosts, they can undo the seal from the depths of the swamp and release Blache. An animalistic phantom possessing a corporeal form even grander than the Behemoth, it normally slumbers within the miasma of death created by the Grim Reaper, tasked with capturing wandering spirits and locking them within the quagmire.

Those spirits it cannot capture are known as ghosts.

Blache harbors immense hatred for these uncatchable phantoms, and whenever it witnesses a ghost appear, it always desires to consume it. Yet, it has never succeeded. Giga utilized this very trait; after summoning numerous ghosts into the enemy lines, he would call forth Blache to swallow all adversaries whole.

Everyone present watched as a terrifying, sky-devouring maw opened wide, and then, in a single bite, swallowed everything upon the earth!

"This man..."

"How can such a terrifying individual exist in this world?!"

"Where is the demon?!"

Vice Principal Xiao and several other elders stared blankly at the screen, their minds completely overturned.

How could this person be so incredibly powerful?!

How could he be so terrifying?!

To actually be able to summon such a horrific monster to fight for him, could anyone else under heaven possibly be his match?!

A few minutes later, someone finally explained to them what a video game truly was.

"...Quick! Let us hurry and purchase membership cards!"

"We must go on an adventure to the continent of Arad as well!"

Postscript: Does anyone still remember the old days when you couldn't beat the Abyss, and in the end, the entire map was flooded with meteors, or the Steel Pipe Man filled the map with black pillars?

If I recall correctly, the earliest Abyss did not have various APCs (humanoid monsters); after the skeletons appeared, there was only a single Abyss monster, but it was incredibly difficult to defeat.