With a muffled thud as the fist connected with Zhan Lan's abdomen, it was as if something had suddenly vanished; the furrow in her brow eased slightly, and her entire body sagged toward the ground. Zheng Zha caught her with his remaining left arm. The small woman’s eyes were tightly shut, her face ashen white, and black blood incessantly trickled from the corners of her nostrils and mouth.

“Zhang Jie! Keep an eye on our surroundings, please.”

Zheng Zha roared, quickly laying Zhan Lan down. In the stunned silence of the two men watching, he swiftly stripped off her shirt. He then drew his dagger and began to slowly slice open her belly.

As Zhan Lan’s skin parted, a gush of black blood poured out, bringing with it fragments of shredded flesh and organ tissue. Zheng Zha took a closer look: a significant length of her intestine was mangled and ruptured, and several other organs appeared to have been assaulted, bleeding profusely from multiple sites.

Daring not to touch the other organs, Zheng Zha pulled a hemostatic spray from his storage ring and saturated the most severely bleeding intestinal tear. He then tightly bound her waist with bandages. Only then did Zhan Lan’s terrifyingly pale complexion regain a hint of color, but her breathing remained shallow, as if she were on the very verge of ceasing to breathe entirely.

Zheng Zha took a deep breath and stood up. Before he could speak, he saw that the area was suddenly packed with onlookers—ordinary citizens, standing frozen in shock and horror, having witnessed the entire process of him dissecting Zhan Lan’s abdomen. Zhang Jie and Qi Tengyi stared at the crowd, utterly bewildered.

“What’s going on? How did so many people suddenly appear?” Zheng Zha asked Zhang Jie, confused.

Zhang Jie was equally perplexed. “I don’t know. People just appeared all around us suddenly, and then more and more kept coming, just like it’s ten past ten on a normal day, with pedestrians everywhere… Could it be that we’ve eliminated the main entity of the Curse?” Zheng Zha paused, placing Zhan Lan down gently. “Impossible, right? I didn't receive any reward points… Wait, did you guys hear anything?” “A sound?” Zhang Jie and Qi Tengyi immediately strained their ears, but apart from the murmur of the crowd, no other sound reached them. Just as they were about to question Zheng Zha, a faint, low, gurgling sound—kekekeke—threaded itself through the crowd’s noise. This sound began to grow louder, and a monstrously tall, ghastly pale woman slowly rose from amidst the people.

“Ah!” Qi Tengyi shrieked in terror, while Zhang Jie and Zheng Zha simultaneously raised their assault rifles, leveling them at the massive, pale figure that continued to rise.

The surrounding pedestrians seemed completely oblivious to the towering white specter. In fact, when the rifles were pointed in their direction, the people near the muzzle quickly became congested and panicked. Conversely, every pedestrian that brushed against the giant pale woman let out a cry and collapsed to the ground. Yet, the crowd seemed unable to see her, causing even greater chaos as more and more people fell.

The colossal woman, towering over ten meters high, began to crawl towards the four of them with a horrifying, rapid kekekeke sound. As she rapidly closed the distance, a tremendous boom erupted, and a bullet descended from above, piercing the specter’s skull and slamming into the ground, vaporizing several pedestrians along its path. The immense force instantly shattered the woman’s head, and the people pierced through didn't even manage a whimper before dying tragically.

Zheng Zha gritted his teeth fiercely. “Fire! Ignore the people around us! It keeps growing larger, and it seems killing one person allows it to absorb that soul. Fire! Scare the crowd away if you have to!” With that, he was the first to squeeze the trigger of his assault rifle.

Hearing this, Zhang Jie and Qi Tengyi also opened fire, yet even so, the enormous ghost began to slowly heal, reforming like dissipating mist. Except for the initial Gauss-class spiritual sniper round which dealt massive damage, the subsequent spiritual bullets from the assault rifles seemed unable to inflict lasting harm. Soon, it had fully reconstituted itself and was once again crawling towards them.

Another massive boom sounded as a Gauss-class spiritual sniper round struck, completely blasting away one of the giant ghost’s legs. At this moment, the entity was only about seven or eight meters away from the four of them.

“Qi Tengyi! Take Zhan Lan and run! Get as far away as you can, and do not attack it casually! Zhang Jie, go clear out or… or kill all these civilians! If the police arrive, delay them as much as you can… It’s eleven o’clock; we have one more hour until we can return to the ‘Main God’ space! No one die!” Zheng Zha rapidly issued his orders. Before Zhang Jie or Qi Tengyi could move, he surged toward the giant specter. Taking advantage of its slightly hindered movement, he threw a punch with his left fist, smashing viciously into its other thigh. The storage ring truly lived up to its reputation as a ghost repellant. Upon impact, the specter’s pale thigh instantly dissolved. The storage ring's field was indeed a potent weapon against spirits, its mere touch inflicting immeasurably greater damage than ordinary spiritual ammunition.

Zheng Zha then darted around, firing his assault rifle continuously, peppering the colossal ghost with bullet holes. In contrast, the giant spirit’s movements to swing its arms and grab seemed incredibly slow in his eyes. As long as he was careful not to be touched, this massive specter posed no real threat to him.

Boom! Another deafening sound echoed as a Gauss-class spiritual sniper round struck again, shattering the ghost’s head once more. Zheng Zha seized the opportunity to obliterate its left arm with a single punch. At this point, the entire giant ghost appeared utterly defenseless; if they could just hold on for a moment longer, even destroying it seemed possible.

(We can win! We definitely can win… huh?) As Zheng Zha prepared to use the storage ring for another attack, a pale, bluish arm suddenly erupted from his back, accompanied by the face of a ferocious, ashen-faced woman emerging over his shoulder. The warning instinct flared only a split second before he felt every muscle, all internal energy, and all vitality being drained from him where the arm touched his body. Gradually, his entire form began to turn white and blue, and the assault rifle slipped from his numb fingers to the ground… Jump to