n the spectral glow of the Soul River's disappearance, the air grew still. The last flickers of river lanterns dissolved into motes of cold light, leaving only silence in their wake.
Then the system's voice echoed, flat and mechanical—but beneath it, something cold stirred.
"Ding! The slaughter of ghosts by human players has enraged the Ghost King. He descends in wrath. Prepare to resist the Ghost King's Clone."
The message repeated. Once. Twice. Three times.
Then came the scream.
It didn't come from the system.
It came from the sky.
The earth trembled as the air split open. A ragged fissure tore through the heavens above the square at the city's edge, and from that rift descended the Ghost King Clone.
It was a grotesque monolith—ten stories tall, wrapped in tattered burial shrouds that crawled like worms in the wind. Faces flickered across its shifting surface—some crying, some screaming, others utterly empty.
Its "eyes" were hollow recesses, leaking cold mist. Its voice wasn't a voice at all, but the collective agony of the dead, stitched together into a single, echoing wail.
"You defiled the gate. You burned the forgotten. You will answer with blood."
Some players had arrived before Wang Xian's group, and were already hurling glowing talismans and spectral weapons—purchased with precious event points—into the storm of death that was the Ghost King Clone.
None of it seemed to slow it down.
And yet... the creature bled. The health bar at the top of the system interface crawled downward—inch by excruciating inch.
"Let's go," Wang Xian said. His voice was tight.
The others followed, their faces set.
They joined the fray with items bought from the Zhongyuan Festival event shop: blessed amulets, lightning-callers, soul-severing blades.
Each tool cracked and fizzled with arcane light as it hit the Ghost King Clone, carving into its ever-shifting form.
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Every hit chipped away at the wailing nightmare—but slowly. Painfully.
The damage was real, but so was the cost.
Then it retaliated.
The square went dark, as if the stars themselves recoiled.
The Ghost King Clone raised its malformed arm, and from beneath the cracked stone plaza, thousands of ghostly hands erupted. Some were skeletal. Some still had rotting flesh. All were cold as the grave.
They grabbed. Clutched. Raked.
Screams followed. Dozens of players were dragged under the earth in a heartbeat before the ground closed again, leaving no trace but bloody fingernails and claw marks in stone.
Wang Xian gritted his teeth as the hands raked across his armor.
-100 HP
Not lethal. But the feeling... that cold, wet, clammy drag...
It wasn't the damage that rattled people.
It was the violence of memory those hands pulled from you.
Other skills followed. They weren't made to kill, not directly. They were made to unmake your mind.
🌪 Tornadoes laced with moaning skulls swept through the plaza, flinging players into walls, stunning them. One man began vomiting violently, screaming at things no one else could see.
👅 Tongues, long and slimy and reeking of rot, slithered from the mouths of floating hanged ghosts and wrapped around the throats of players. Most screamed. Some... didn't.
👰 Sedan chairs appeared from the mist—old, bloodstained, swaying to music that shouldn't be playing. When a player was pulled into one, they didn't always scream. Sometimes... they laughed.
A woman's laughter rang out, high-pitched and broken. Then silence.
She didn't respawn.
"Keep attacking!" Wang Xian roared.
His party was holding steady—for now. The buffs Cheng Yao provided were keeping them just above death's reach.
"Don't look it in the eyes!" he called to Feng Luoli, who had begun to freeze mid-cast.
"There are no eyes!" she shouted back.
"Exactly!"
Despite the terror, they fought on. Spell after spell. Talisman after talisman. HP dropped. MP vanished. Blood soaked the ground—real and digital.
Su Jin gritted her teeth, sweat slicking her brow. Her hands trembled after every incantation.
Xue Fangfei muttered curses under her breath with each swing of her blade, but her bravado had cracked.
Even Cheng Yao, usually bubbly and untouchable, had gone pale. She clenched her staff so tightly her knuckles had turned white.
And then... it happened.
After two hours, the Ghost King Clone staggered.
Its entire form shuddered like a rotting tower of souls, and a sound like a thousand funerals screaming in reverse tore through the sky.
"I… will… return…"
The creature collapsed into dust and ash.
Gone.
The health bar vanished.
Ding! You have defeated the Ghost King's Clone. You are eligible for rewards based on total contribution.
Silence.
No one cheered.
Not this time.
Players backed away from the ash-strewn plaza, blood still dripping from their armor, eyes wide and unblinking.
Some knelt and whispered prayers. Others stared at their hands as if they didn't recognize them.
And some—those touched by the sedan chair, the tongues, the eyes—sat down quietly and never spoke a word.
Wang Xian exhaled slowly.
That had been no ordinary event boss.
That had been a warning.
And the Ghost King's final words still echoed in his bones.
"I will return."
He believed it.