Chapter 98: Thousand-Faced Wraith

Rover stopped, pausing for a beat when he saw Jonathan. His expression carried a hint of confusion, but he didn’t really care.

His gaze locked onto the goddess statue with that crazed expression, his nerves tightening like a drawn bowstring.

“System, how many Omni Points do I have right now?”

[Ding! As of now, you have 3,750 Omni Points.]

“Upgrade [Soulbinding Chain].”

[Ding! Payment successful. Remaining: 3,250 Omni Points.]

[Ding! Beginning upgrade… Upgrade successful.]

…

[Soulbinding Chain]

[Type: Arcane Artifact]

[Level: 03]

[Special Effects:

Soul Strike: Capable of attacking and binding souls. Soul Enslavement (Unlocked after collecting 100 Soul Points): Can bind and enslave a soul. Success rate depends on the owner’s [Spirit] stat.]

[Soul Absorption: Absorb 1,000 Soul Points to unlock a new function.]

[Upgrade requirement: 5,000 Omni Points.]

….

Rover glanced at the chain’s info panel, his fingers twitching.

Clink-clank! Clink-clank!

The chain instantly coiled around his hand, radiating a terrifying chill, as if it were forged from ice.

Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting!

The warped, eerie piano kept playing, pressing the atmosphere down until it felt suffocating.

Jonathan swallowed, watching the scene with a mix of disbelief and discomfort.

The killing aura pouring off Rover didn’t lose to the statue behind him in the slightest. Both were icy, both were saturated with murderous intent so heavy it was terrifying.

Even though Jonathan was jealous of Rover, he couldn’t deny it now.

Rover was truly too strong.

Just his presence alone was enough to make Jonathan tremble with fear.

Crack!

A sound like snapping bone rang out. Every shadowy figure seated in the church pews turned to stare at Rover.

Even the ones in the very front twisted their heads a full 180 degrees, locking onto him.

Rover felt a chill as countless pairs of eyes fixed on him, but he wasn’t afraid.

He only feared things he didn’t understand, things he couldn’t touch.

If he could touch it, then he didn’t need to be afraid.

On the floor, the blood slowly crept toward Rover.

He frowned, sensing it wasn’t just blood. Something far more horrific was mixed into it.

He lowered his head.

Inside the blood was another world, countless souls screaming as if they wanted to claw their way out.

“Damn it,” Rover cursed under his breath and immediately hopped up onto a pew.

The spirits around the pew surged at him like smoke, swarming him from all sides.

“Get lost!” Rover shouted, snapping his arm as the chain lashed out.

BANG!

The chain whipped like a cruel lash, cracking into the smoke around him.

Woo! Woo!

Agonized wails erupted as the smoky shapes instantly dispersed.

But the spirits didn’t seem afraid at all. They kept rushing him, wave after wave.

Rover grinned, and that grin slowly twisted into something crazed.

If the chain hadn’t worked, he would’ve been genuinely afraid, scrambling to run.

But it worked.

It was the perfect counter to the souls here, and the realization made him unnaturally excited.

BANG!

The chain cracked through the air, the lash carrying an explosive pressure.

The spirits didn’t even get the chance to touch him before they were shredded by the chain.

He didn’t use [Eye of Truth], because this was the perfect chance to farm more Omni Points.

If he activated [Eye of Truth], these souls would probably scatter and flee.

Just like he’d expected, the system notifications began ringing nonstop. Fueled by that, Rover grew more and more exhilarated, the chain-whip in his hand constantly smashing apart the souls that lunged toward him.

He pushed toward the pulpit while slaughtering everything around him.

Jonathan’s mouth fell open, full of disbelief.

In the place where he had felt the most despair, Rover was treating it like a game.

Watching Rover’s smile, Jonathan felt a bone-deep chill.

Jealousy? No.

He didn’t even seem qualified to be jealous anymore.

If it was luck once, maybe twice, people could still envy it easily.

But when luck came countless times, people could no longer feel envy, and what replaced it was inferiority and despair.

Rover wanted to keep charging forward, but the swarm of souls was like dense fog, almost endless, continuously surging at him.

Although killing them would earn him a huge amount of Omni Points, there were simply too many, so many that he was starting to struggle to hold out.

Rover gritted his teeth. Even though he didn’t want to, he had no choice but to use that thing.

“Eye of Truth.”

Whoong!

The moment the Eye of Truth appeared, a surge of holy light spilled out, enveloping an area within ten meters around Rover.

WHOONG!!!

As the light swept through, every soul surrounding him instantly turned to ash.

Rover sprang up onto the rows of seats above, but at this moment…

SPLASH! SPLASH! SPLASH!

“What the hell?!”

In the instant his body was suspended in midair, a bizarre creature like a gigantic fish, fused together from countless writhing souls, burst out of the pool of blood below.

“AGH!!!”

Rover screamed in agony as that freakish creature bit clean through his waist, and then…

BAM!

It dragged Rover into the pool of blood. Even though the layer of blood was less than a centimeter thick, it was like a bottomless ocean.

A little blood splattered up, and then the surface fell silent again.

Jonathan saw this, and his face went from normal to deathly pale.

Just a moment ago, Rover had been fighting like a madman, like a wolf tearing through a flock of chickens, but then…

Everything happened so fast he didn’t even have time to understand what was going on.

Crack! Crack!

The statue moved, yet at the same time, Jonathan felt as if his body had been turned to stone, unable to move.

“Damn it!” Jonathan struggled with all his strength, but his body wouldn’t obey him, only kneeling silently on the ground.

Tap! Tap!

The sound of bare feet, slick with a bit of sticky blood, stepping on the wooden floor made Jonathan’s body tremble involuntarily.

Tap! Tap!

Even without looking, he knew the statue behind him was moving toward him.

Step by step, gently, as though the bizarre creature behind him was savoring the process of a predator, nibbling on his fear like an appetizer.

Crack! Crack!

A sound like bones snapping rang out, yet it also sounded a bit like the noise when you’ve sat too long, then suddenly stretch, trying to loosen your muscles.

Cold… too cold…

Jonathan clearly felt an icy sensation brush against his face.

A hand caked with dust and cold to the extreme gripped his chin, then slowly turned his head back, gentle, yet terrifying enough to make him feel like he was about to cry.

“Um… mm… ugh…” Jonathan wanted to scream when he saw that face, that eerie, insane grin right in front of him, but only broken sounds spilled from his mouth.

His soul was trembling. In his heart, there seemed to be some strange force controlling him, forcing his eyes wide, staring straight into that creature’s eyes.

At that moment, he felt as if someone were rummaging through his memories, reading them in secret. Countless images, even memories he had forgotten, or buried deep inside his mind, were all read by that creature.

Then, a dreadful sensation blanketed his entire body.

Tears, snot, and drool poured out. His eyes slowly rolled back, and the bloodshot veins in them faded away.

Jonathan sensed something horrifying, but he didn’t know what it was. He only knew he was about to die.

Feeling death slowly drawing near while being unable to resist was a kind of torture.

This was the second time he had reached those final moments before his life completely dissipated.

Suddenly…

BAM!

From the pool of blood on the ground, a shadow shot out. Its eyes shone with green light, and the grin on its face was madness incarnate, not losing in the slightest to the statue’s grin.

“You bastard!” Rover, drenched in blood, roared, “Your hell can’t hold me!”

He charged toward the podium at a terrifying speed, his eyes filled with frenzy.

The statue was also startled by Rover’s return. It slowly released Jonathan, whose body slammed onto the floor, motionless as if already dead.

Rover leapt high, the chain winding tightly around his fist, and then he swung with all his might at the statue.

“Die!” Rover roared like a beast.

The statue tilted its head and smiled. It reached out, and Rover’s body suddenly froze in midair, as if a video had been abruptly paused.

Rover jolted, trying to move, but he couldn’t.

Crack! Crack!

The statue moved toward him. Its face pressed close to his, so close he could smell the stench of a rotting corpse, like ten dead rats shoved straight into his nose.

An eerie smile spread across the statue’s face, forcing Rover’s eyes to stare straight into its eyes.

Rover felt his memories being read in secret, but he couldn’t stop it or resist.

The statue didn’t stop. It even went deeper into Rover’s inner world.

And then, the statue suddenly realized it was standing in a strange space like a corridor. On the floor and walls, the corridor was covered in red roots like blood vessels.

It was a little confused, looking around.

Suddenly, it saw a bizarre figure standing at the end of the corridor.

A body covered in blood and blood-red roots, its face nothing but smooth skin, without anything at all.

That’s right, it was the Thousand-Faced Wraith.

A tear suddenly split open on that face, revealing a mouth filled with bloody teeth and tentacles stretching outward.

A strange voice echoed from the Thousand-Faced Wraith’s mouth.

“Looks like… he just sent me a very wonderful gift.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep