Bai Ru aimed her flashlight at the corpses not far ahead, whispering, "You mean these are the source of the resentment?"

Gu Yi simply hummed, raising his flashlight. Instead of shining it on the ground, he swept the beam back and forth across the walls bordering the sewer, frowning. "Bai Ru, do you notice anything unusual about these walls?"

Bai Ru cautiously took a few steps forward, joining her flashlight beam with Gu Yi's to first illuminate the wall on their side. After observing intently for a while, Bai Ru indeed detected something amiss.

Many sections of the concrete sewer wall clearly bore signs of being plastered over a second time, as if hastily repaired after damage, though the new coating was quite crude.

Bai Ru relayed this observation to Gu Yi, who nodded slightly. "If I'm not mistaken, the material used in these patches is definitely not ordinary cement. It's now certain that this sewer isn't just haunted; this is deliberate ghost-raising, Yang Gui."

Bai Ru didn't know much about the dark sorcery prevalent in the Nanyang region and couldn't help but ask curiously, "What was mixed into those patches? What purpose does it serve?"

Gu Yi gently shook his head. "I can't specify the exact materials used, but there's one thing I know: powdered human bones and flesh, and they must come from bodies that died with deep grievances."

Bai Ru took a deep breath, her face growing pale. To say she felt no fear would be a lie, but what overwhelmed her was disgust for this kind of black sorcery. Frowning, she asked, "What's the use of that?"

Gu Yi also let out a breath before continuing, "Those plastered areas look chaotic, but they actually conceal a unique pattern inherent in dark sorcery, effectively turning this section of the sewer into a barrier—a 'Realm of Accumulated Vengeful Death,' or Ji Yuan Si Jie."

Bai Ru pressed him, "What does that mean?"

Gu Yi’s expression grew grim. "As the name suggests, any living thing entering this barrier will involuntarily be confused by the resentment contained within the materials forming the barrier on the walls, leading the intruder to do things that harm themselves, like... suicide..."

Bai Ru was startled. "Suicide? You mean the animal corpses before us—they all died by suicide?"

Gu Yi nodded. "More than that. Anyone who ultimately commits suicide here cannot have their soul leave this barrier; it remains trapped, transforming into pure resentment, becoming a tool to strengthen the barrier. As more lives perish within, the barrier grows stronger, subsequently devouring more life..."

Hearing Gu Yi's analysis, a question surfaced in Bai Ru's mind. "You said the barrier only leads life to choose suicide, but what about the cat we encountered earlier?"

Gu Yi turned his head, his expression strange, scanning the surroundings. Finding no immediate anomaly, he continued, "There is an unreliable rumor about this. It says the barrier has levels. When the resentment within reaches a peak, this unconscious mass of resentment will condense into a powerful Death Spirit, or Si Ling. And this Death Spirit only does one thing: proactively attack any life form approaching the barrier, devouring both the soul and the body."

Bai Ru asked doubtfully, "A rumor?"

Gu Yi shrugged. "Since no one has truly seen it, it remains just a rumor."

Bai Ru shone her light around again and suddenly noticed a problem, hesitantly asking, "Um... tell me, do spells lose their efficacy inside this barrier?"

Gu Yi froze for a moment, then his expression immediately sharpened. He said in a low voice, "The tracking paper crane is gone."

Bai Ru softly acknowledged this, and just as she was about to say something, the phone in Gu Yi's pocket suddenly rang, the sound piercingly harsh at that moment.

Gu Yi reached into his pocket, the caller ID showing Jiang Tao. He answered, "What is it?"

Jiang Tao's voice came through the line, "Brother Yi, Uncle Wu is awake. He wants to know the current situation with Principal Hao."

Gu Yi frowned, about to reply, when he felt a sudden icy gust rush toward him. At that moment, Bai Ru also sensed a shift in the atmosphere. In the darkness where the flashlight beam didn't reach, a black shadow seemed to pounce toward Gu Yi mid-air. She swiftly straightened her Demon-Subduing Rod and thrust it directly toward the shadow.

Without hesitation, Gu Yi ducked low and retreated a few steps, clearing space for Bai Ru to engage and resist at close range. He quickly hung up the phone and slipped it into his pocket, then brought the flashlight back up to illuminate the shadow attacking him. This sequence of actions took only seconds but showed incredibly synchronized teamwork with Bai Ru.

Bai Ru felt her Demon-Subduing Rod strike something solid. Just then, Gu Yi's flashlight beam illuminated the target: a dog with a rotten, deformed head. It was barely recognizable as a not-too-large Husky, but its eye sockets were empty holes, baring its teeth in a clear intent to bite Gu Yi's throat.

Bai Ru's staff had pierced directly into the dog's skull. She swiftly swung the rod sideways, flinging the dog—dead yet still biting—off the tip of the weapon.

Unexpectedly, this attacking dog seemed to be only the beginning. Behind it, the animal corpses closest to them began to stir one after another. Most of the animals' heads were deformed, leading Bai Ru to suspect their deaths were relatively recent. Their eyes were wide and bloodshot, and some still had rotten blood oozing from their noses or mouths. Their sole objective was to stand up from the ground and charge toward the spot where Bai Ru and Gu Yi stood.

Bai Ru couldn't help but be greatly astonished, her face shifting color. With no time to cast spells, she had to rely on sheer strength to sweep the charging animal corpses aside, shouting, "Has the Death Spirit truly appeared?"

Gu Yi was equally shocked. What his Inner Eye perceived were only masses of death energy. The scene resembled a zombie outbreak, but the strangeness lay in what caused this attack.

However, this was not the time to investigate the cause. Gu Yi placed his flashlight on the ground, pulled out a stack of Brightness Talismans (Guang Ming Fu), and scattered them into the air. Instantly, countless orbs of light illuminated the environment around them brilliantly.

Bai Ru continued to parry and deflect the attacking corpses while calling out, "Next time, please bring flares or glow sticks for illumination, okay?"

Gu Yi chuckled dryly and didn't reply. He took out Fire Talismans again, standing behind Bai Ru to support her with ranged attacks. Although some of the animal corpses were still dripping blood, and others were nearly reduced to dry bones, the environment wasn't particularly dry. Ordinary fire might struggle to ignite them, but the talisman fire shot out by Gu Yi instantly burst into flame, turning the corpses into ash in the blink of an eye.

After a fierce battle, the pair managed to fend off the entire wave of corpses. When no more bodies charged at them, they both let out a long breath simultaneously. Looking around, not a single intact animal corpse remained. They had completely cleared the corpses across a significant distance ahead of them in that one exchange.

Before they could catch their breath, Gu Yi suddenly spoke. "Take out your phones. Turn them off. Better yet, remove the SIM card too."

Bai Ru paused, asking strangely, "Why?"

Despite her question, she followed Gu Yi's instruction and removed her SIM card.

Gu Yi gave a wry smile. "I'm just guessing, but perhaps that call from Jiang Tao was the trigger for the last attack. Don't you think the way those corpses lunged was stiff and mechanical? They clearly weren't being controlled; it was more like an instinctive reaction to being attracted to us. If there were external manipulation, they should have been more agile, like that strange black cat before."

Bai Ru considered this and found some agreement with his analysis. If that group of corpses had been as agile as the previous black cat, retreating after a failed strike, they might not have been able to defend themselves. Thinking back, they had been in this spot for a while before the call came; aside from the black cat, there had been no anomalies. It was too coincidental that the corpses rose up to attack right after the phone rang.

However, the idea that a mobile phone could induce a corpse transformation was certainly new to Bai Ru. Gu Yi suspected that the electromagnetic waves emitted by the phone might resonate with certain principles within the dark sorcery. Bai Ru offered no comment. After all, Gu Yi had merely heard more about things like dark sorcery; he hadn't officially dealt with it before this, and Bai Ru, beyond knowing some basic dark arts, was completely ignorant of anything else.

But this ordeal didn't stop them from advancing; rather, it made them realize something. The fire formed by the talismans could burn the animal corpses to ash. If there was no external interference, they could handle the corpses attacking them within this barrier.

Relatively speaking, however, dangers still lurked in the shadows: first, the white figure that appeared in the darkness, the agile black cat corpse, and the unknowns surrounding this 'Realm of Accumulated Vengeful Death.' If Gu Yi was right, the fate of any living thing entering this barrier was sealed—death.

Now, illuminated by a large patch of Brightness Talismans, Bai Ru could clearly see the first plastered cement block about ten paces away from them.

She pointed to the cement and asked Gu Yi, "Does the barrier start from there?"

Gu Yi shook his head. "The scope of this barrier can extend quite far. The deathly resentment has permeated the surroundings since the moment we descended. However, this section right here is the true beginning of the Death Realm. That means, the moment we step past that cement block, we will likely face the hidden, mysterious power of this barrier head-on."

As they spoke, they suddenly noticed that the Brightness Talismans overhead were slowly dimming.

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