Chapter 194 : Are There Ghosts?
Chapter 194: Are There Ghosts?
Her legs were practically broken from running.
“This is… the Dark Forest?”
Before her was no longer the monotonous wasteland of scattered rocks.
Instead, it was a wall formed by massive black trees—so dense that even light was completely swallowed.
Those trees grew in extremely unnatural ways. Their trunks twisted and coiled, their bark resembling the charred black of burned corpses. Every branch looked like a grotesque hand with swollen joints, clawing toward the sky.
Most terrifying of all, this place wasn’t just dark—it was far too alive.
Lilia narrowed her crimson eyes.
Whether it was an illusion or not, those hanging vines, bulging roots, even the bark itself were twitching.
Like skinned muscle fibers spasming under electrical stimulation.
*Squish.*
Somewhere in the distance, the sound of something bursting echoed, making Lilia’s scalp go numb along the deathly silent boundary.
“We’re… really going through here?” Lilia swallowed. “Look at this forest—it just screams ‘enter and die.’ This is cursed land!”
Bulara stood before that wall of black trees, her tattered maid outfit unmoving in the cold wind.
“According to route planning, passing through the Dark Forest is the shortest straight-line path to the Sighing Mountains.”
“Are you blind? Those trees are moving! Moving! What kind of normal plant grows like this?!”
Bulara turned her head—literally, without moving her neck.
“That is ‘Corpse-Faced Locust.’”
She said it in the same tone one would use to introduce cabbage. “A specialty of the Dark Forest. They are not plants, but fungal colonies parasitizing corpses. The twitching indicates they are digesting the previous batch of unlucky passersby.”
Lilia: “……”
“Digesting…” Lilia felt her stomach churn in rebellion. “Then aren’t we just delivering takeout if we go in? Screw this, we’re taking a detour! We have to detour!”
“His Majesty’s time limit is tight.”
Ignoring Lilia’s protest entirely, Bulara raised that hand—which could apparently transform into surgical tools or utensils—and precisely brushed aside a black vine attempting to coil around her ankle.
The moment it was touched, the vine recoiled like a snake, even letting out a squeaking sound like a mouse.
“If we delay, His Majesty will be displeased.”
Bulara glanced back at Lilia. In her dull gray eyes, there was actually a trace of eerie anticipation. “You wouldn’t want to be made into a specimen by His Majesty, would you, Senior?”
With that, she lifted her leg and marched straight into the writhing darkness like an emotionless bulldozer.
“Hey! Wait! You’re just going in like that? No detection magic? At least give people some mental preparation!”
Lilia jumped in frustration as she watched that figure quickly swallowed by the darkness.
The surrounding wind grew colder. Those charcoal-black trunks seemed to sense the presence of living flesh, their twitching accelerating. Some branches even began silently reaching toward Lilia.
“Damn it!”
Grinding her teeth, Lilia braced herself and rushed into that pitch-black maw.
The moment she crossed the forest boundary, the entire world changed.
If outside was a desolate mass grave, then inside was a morgue in operation.
Light was completely blocked by the layered canopy above. Only a few ghostly phosphorescent lights flickered atop the rotting leaf litter.
The air was thick like glue, mixed with the smell of rotting flesh, mold, and a cloying floral scent. Every breath made her lungs protest.
The ground beneath her feet was even worse.
Soft and spongy, sinking with a nauseating squelch, occasionally producing a *puchi* sound—like stepping on some juice-filled soft-bodied creature.
Lilia walked cautiously, wishing she could just hang onto Bulara’s back.
“Hey…”
She lowered her voice, staring at a tree tumor that looked eerily like a human face. “Aside from these man-eating trees, are there any other… things?”
“The other kind of things?”
“Like…” Lilia made a gesture only she understood, her voice trembling, “floating ones, semi-transparent ones, or ones with no legs… the kind that suddenly blow cold air at your neck?”
Having grown up under the banner of materialism, Lilia feared nothing—not even those three-story-tall Sludge Monsters earlier.
Except ghosts.
Bulara stopped.
In this deathly silent forest, her sudden halt made Lilia’s heart seize, nearly crashing into her rigid back.
“Yes.”
A single word shattered Lilia’s composure.
“I knew it!” Lilia nearly jumped, waving her dagger like a windmill. “I knew this damn place wasn’t clean! Let’s go, let’s go, retreat now! I’d rather swim across the Black Sea than take this route!”
Bulara didn’t move.
She stood beside a cluster of eerie green phosphorescent flames, her side profile pale under the sinister light. The arc of her mouth slowly widened, revealing a mouthful of sharp white teeth.
“This is the Dark Forest, the largest mass grave in the Demon Realm.”
Her voice echoed through the hollow forest, suffocatingly matter-of-fact. “For thousands of years, countless deserters, adventurers, and exiled criminals have died here. Their bodies were devoured by the locust trees, but their resentment could not dissipate.”
“According to data analysis, approximately three and a half resentful spirits float in every cubic meter of air here.”
Bulara extended her pale fingers and lightly grasped at the air, as if catching something invisible, then slowly clenched her fist.
“They favor fresh flesh the most, especially those like Senior… with vigorous life force.”
*Heh heh heh.*
Whether it was the sound of branches rubbing together or something from Bulara’s throat, it sounded unbearably eerie in this enclosed space.
Lilia felt a chill at the back of her neck, as if countless cold little hands were stroking her spine.
“D-don’t scare me!” Lilia’s voice cracked. The Conjoined Heart Lock ring in her hand began to heat up as she instinctively wanted to call for Hera—being mocked for life was better than being scared to death here. “I’m telling you! If His Majesty finds out you’re using ghost stories to scare me, she’ll definitely dismantle you for firewood!”
“I am merely stating facts.”
Bulara tilted her head, her dead fish eyes staring straight into the darkness behind Lilia. “And, Senior, don’t you feel it?”
“Feel what?” Lilia’s hair stood on end as she stiffly tried to turn her head.
“Something has been following us all along.”
Before her words even finished—
A shrill, piercing scream suddenly exploded from deep within the forest ahead.
“Ah—!!!”
The sound was sharp enough to tear eardrums.
From the pitch-black canopy above, countless red-eyed monstrous birds were startled into flight, flapping wildly and shedding large patches of rotting feathers.
Lilia was so startled she jumped half a meter into the air, her dagger nearly flying out of her hand and stabbing into Bulara’s forehead.
“What the hell was that?!”
She pressed tightly against a rather unfriendly tree, her heart nearly leaping out of her throat.
That scream just now…
was definitely not fake.
Bulara finally moved.
Her gray pupils shrank sharply. Her once stiff arms instantly mutated into two massive scythes, the lifeless puppet aura gone, replaced entirely by killing intent.
Her voice was cold as iron, her body slightly leaning forward like a fully drawn bow.
“Senior, time to get to work.”