Feng Tian offered no reply to Kuang Feifan’s question. He tucked the compass away, fixed on a direction, crouched low, and shot forward using the power in his legs. In the radius of his flashlight beam, they could see countless shadowy figures shifting ahead of them, most of them standing upright.

Only then did Kuang Feifan understand why Feng Tian had bent low: nearly all the standing figures were reaching out with pair after pair of blackened hands toward them. If they had remained standing, they would have met them face-to-face immediately. But this did not mean they avoided intimate contact with the swarm of ghouls.

At least, with Feng Tian leading the way, they forced their way underneath the ghouls pressing toward them. Their bodies brushed past the decaying flesh, and their nostrils were overwhelmed by a sickening stench. Soon, both men felt a throbbing pain in their heads, their vision swimming in waves, and tears involuntarily flooded their eyes.

Of course, this wasn't a reaction to being overly frightened; it was purely the physiological response induced by the overwhelming fumes. However, Feng Tian and Kuang Feifan didn't let the ghouls pass unscathed. While squeezing through the mass, whenever they encountered ghouls that were little more than thigh bones held together, the pair would generally kick them apart or smash them, causing them to topple over.

Since there were so many ghouls packed tightly together, one collapse often triggered a chain reaction, bringing several more down with it, which inadvertently eased the pressure on the two men. But there were a few unfortunate instances where the fallen ghouls tumbled directly in their path forward. These creatures felt no pain; their sole interest was the two living men, and a fall directly onto their location was a godsend to them.

If Kuang Feifan and Feng Tian hadn't been so quick and agile, they surely would have been bitten by their gaping maws. Compared to the standing ghouls, the greatest threat actually came from those missing limbs, crawling on the ground with their residual appendages. These creatures were like black rats hidden in the darkness, liable to dart underfoot at any moment.

Even more terrifying, they showed no intention of merely grabbing them to eat; the moment contact was made, they lunged straight for the neck to bite, especially when encountering one or two that could scuttle quickly. It was fortunate that the ghouls seemed to lack sight, but conversely, their hearing and sense of smell were clearly extremely acute. If Feng Tian hadn't had the flashlight, the two men might not have been able to evade the ghouls converging on them from all directions.

The closer the swarm gathered, the more numerous the ghouls seemed to become. No one knew how many more lay hidden in the surrounding darkness, but this density also began to reveal its advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantage was clear: with such a large mass of ghouls ahead, it seemed impossible for them to completely tunnel through.

At any moment, they were surrounded on all sides by clawing, snarling ghouls. But the advantage was also evident. Both men were nimble, bending low to weave underneath.

This caused the ghouls reaching for them to always be half a beat too slow. Furthermore, as they continuously shoved over the unsteady standing ghouls, many of the crawling ones, unable to grasp the pair, began to snarl and bite at each other. Occasionally catching a glimpse under the flashlight beam, they only saw a few ghouls tangled together, one taking a bite out of another, a chaotic melee.

“Too many cooks spoil the broth, or in this case, too many ghouls cause chaos,” Kuang Feifan spat, muttering quietly. Still, such scenes were the exception. Most ghouls continued to grin, revealing rotted, incomplete teeth, tracking the pair’s movements, looking as if they were drooling over a freshly found delicacy.

Seeing their tenacity, Kuang Feifan felt that he and Feng Tian were just two rabbits being hunted. Because of this, neither man considered giving up. No matter how many ghouls appeared within the flashlight’s beam ahead, they pushed forward, dodging and weaving, carving a path through the creatures.

At this point, they had no time to analyze their own feelings. Fear and disgust had been replaced by numbness. Their vision was filled only with monstrous ghouls, and the visual impact had long since faded, leaving only mechanical maneuvering, frantically blasting through layer after layer of the spectral horde.

One might say that the boundless darkness served as the best sanctuary. If they had been in a confined space with boundaries at this moment, they would surely have been cornered by the dense throng of ghouls. After an indeterminate time, they noticed that the number of ghouls appearing before them was gradually decreasing.

They were no longer packed together in a dense black mass; sparse gaps began to appear. However, this was not entirely good news for them. With fewer numbers, the ghouls became more agile, and there were a few instances where they barely managed to dodge an incoming claw.

Kuang Feifan called out worriedly, “If this doesn't work, find something to kill me first. I don’t want to become food.” He wasn't speaking casually. The thought of being caught, torn apart by these grotesque ghouls, and then gnawed into pieces by countless mouths filled him with a sense of inescapable despair.

Feng Tian’s hands and feet never stopped moving, and he grumbled, “I wanted you to do that to me first, but here’s the bad news you haven’t heard yet: I’ve lost my sense of direction.” Perhaps distracted by speaking, Feng Tian suddenly felt his forward momentum stall, as if something was pulling at his side. He turned his head to see a ghoul that barely resembled a woman, clutching the strap of his messenger bag with hands like withered bones. In that brief pause, another ghoul that had been crawling on the ground lunged forward, grabbing Feng Tian’s ankle with both hands.

Immediately, Feng Tian felt a force like a steel clamp, rendering him unable to move forward. The female ghoul clinging to the bag strap was slightly less threatening, but the one gripping his ankle took the opportunity to lift its head and snap its jaws toward Feng Tian’s lower leg. Feng Tian was horrified.

Before he could react, a foot stomped down from above. The thick sole ground the ghoul's head directly into the floor. As the force increased, there was a distinct smack.

This sound of fragmentation made Feng Tian’s heart clench involuntarily. He never imagined Kuang Feifan would actually bring his foot down so hard. But just as that one was dealt with, the other female ghoul wasn't finished.

Its grip on the strap never loosened, and its whole body pressed closer. Unlike the others, this female seemed to tilt its head back, sniffing Feng Tian’s scent with an almost intoxicated focus. Kuang Feifan had no time to analyze the female ghoul's intent.

He reached out and shouted to Feng Tian, "Flashlight!" Feng Tian lifted his hand and tossed it over. Kuang Feifan caught it with both hands, pivoted it, and swung hard, smashing the heavy base of the flashlight into the female ghoul’s head. With a sickening crack, the ghoul's head was knocked away by the force of his swing, tumbling like a golf ball, rolling twice in the air before disappearing into the darkness.

Instantly, a jumble of chaotic sounds rose from the darkness, seemingly that the severed head had struck other ghouls and was now being fought over. But just as Kuang Feifan straightened up curiously to listen to the commotion, the ghoul holding Feng Tian’s bag strap—though decapitated—was not entirely dead. On the contrary, having lost its sense of smell to navigate, it began to thrash wildly, releasing one claw from the strap and wildly flailing its arms, as if trying to grab the person carrying the bag or the one who had struck its head off.

Kuang Feifan sensed a vicious gust of wind pass by and reacted instinctively, but it was slightly too late. That spectral claw swept toward him like the Nine Yin White Bone Claws. He managed only to take a reflexive step back to evade, relying on the sound of the wind alone.

Although he wasn't slashed squarely, Kuang Feifan felt a sudden chill on his side, like being pricked by a sharp shard of ice. He shone the flashlight down and touched the spot; his palm was instantly slick with blood. Only then did he feel a searing, fiery pain in his waist.

He hadn't expected the ghoul's thin, pointed fingers to be able to slice through his waist, cutting through his clothes and flesh in one swift motion. Though he couldn't gauge the depth, blood was flowing freely. Kuang Feifan let out an involuntary groan, clutching his waist as he sank to his knees on the ground.