Forgotten Photo Studio

Chapter 72 The Art of Dealing

"Click——"

The crack widened suddenly, and a charred bone claw gripped the edge. Accompanied by a teeth-grinding scraping sound, a head slowly emerged.

There was no skin or flesh, only stark white bones.

Two clusters of green will-o'-the-wisps burned silently in the empty eye sockets, like the solidified resentment in the eyes of the dead.

His jaw was dry and stiff, making a "click-clack" sound when it opened and closed, each sound like a blow to the heartstrings.

Oppression, coldness, malice... all rushed out from that skull at the same time.

Xu Yan's pupils shrank sharply. Although he had opened the gate to the underworld himself, he still felt that the sight was somewhat exaggerated.

This aura was unlike any other ghost he had ever encountered.

Even the strongest ghosts in the mortal realm are only at level E. The "fierce ghosts" mentioned by the contractors at the center are probably not even embers in front of it.

The drill arm remained frozen in place, sweat trickling down its forehead and dripping onto its tactical vest.

He had hunted countless ghosts in his life, and his Yang Sha Spear could even purify the most cunning E-level ghosts with a single blow. But at this moment, he had an absurd intuition: if this thing really crawled out of hell, then it must have started at the D-level.

The air was so heavy that even the sound of a heartbeat was jarringly loud.

Under the gaze of those green will-o'-the-wisps, the three contractors momentarily experienced the suffocating illusion of being "buried alive."

"Boss, look at the wall!" a team member shouted, his voice trembling.

As the beam of light swept across, it revealed that the walls were covered with chaotic, distorted, and overlapping shadows, far more than the three of them should have.

The shadows wriggled like living things, even trying to climb onto their pillars of light.

"Playing tricks!" Drill Arm suppressed his heart palpitations, aimed the Yang Sha Spear at a thick patch of shadow, and said, "Try this!"

"call out!"

The crimson beam of light, like a boulder thrown into still water, instantly stirred up a thousand waves.

The struck shadow let out a sharp howl, but the darkness of the entire darkroom seemed to be enraged and began to boil violently.

Even more fatally, the yang energy clashed violently with the yin energy of the shadow gate.

"Crack! Snap!"

The air was torn apart like glass, leaving several irregular black cracks.

A malevolent aura, ten times stronger than before, mixed with the stench of sulfur and the decay of souls, gushed forth from it.

"Fire! Concentrate your firepower!"

Finally overwhelmed by fear, the drill arm trembled and roared as it pulled the trigger!

The three Yang Sha spears simultaneously unleashed scorching streams of light, striking the skeletal demon.

It let out a painful roar, its body riddled with holes, and fragments of bone flying everywhere.

However, it was not "purified" and dissipated; instead, it seemed to be completely enraged.

It suddenly broke free completely from the crack, and despite its broken body, it pounced on the nearest team member with astonishing speed.

Meanwhile, more cracks appeared amidst the gunfire, and more bizarre, hellish monsters were trying to emerge.

The drill arm was horrified to discover that the reading on the energy indicator of his Yang Sha Gun was plummeting wildly, as if the energy of the gun itself was being greedily absorbed by those cracks.

The gun, which had been warm to the touch, was now ice-cold, and a layer of chilling frost even condensed in his palm.

Their equipment was not only ineffective, but it was also "betraying" them.

"It's no use! Captain! Our attacks are useless! They're multiplying!" the team member shouted desperately as he retreated and fired in disarray.

A monster resembling a skinned hound lunged at him from the side, nearly biting his arm, but he smashed it away with the butt of his gun. The monster rolled away and disappeared into the darkness, but its deep roar continued to approach.

The drill arm's heart sank to the bottom.

He realized he had made a fatal mistake. What they were facing was not a quantifiable "ghost," but a "port" leading to an unknown and terrifying world.

Their weapons, instead of shutting it down, are exacerbating the disaster.

The darkroom seemed to have become a pressure cooker that was losing its balance and about to explode.

The shadows on the wall coiled around them like seaweed, and the ground beneath their feet became soft and sticky. Countless whispers, howls, and snarls mingled into a symphony of destruction, assaulting their reason.

From the largest crack, the charred bone claw suddenly stretched out, and then the entire skeleton body shot out like a cannonball, heading straight for the nearest team member.

"Ah!!" The team member only had time to let out a short scream before being tackled to the ground.

The skeleton's charred fingers, like iron clamps, gripped his throat tightly. The ghostly flames in its empty eye sockets burned fiercely, and its jaws snapped open and closed wildly, biting down towards his face.

His tactical vest was easily torn, and blood was already seeping from his neck.

The drill arm's pupils contracted in extreme horror.

The center has a clear classification of abnormal entities: Level E is a vengeful spirit that can interfere with the mind; Level D can substantially interfere with reality and is comparable to a vengeful ghost; Level C can cause regional anomalies and is a symbol of disaster... And this thing in front of us, with its pure malice and almost solidified oppressive feeling, has definitely reached Level D, and may even have touched the threshold of Level C.

His brain was screaming; all his past training and manuals vanished into nothingness at that moment.

This isn't an arrest, this is... a sacrifice.

They are the sacrifices.

The Yang Sha Spear is more than enough to deal with E-rank enemies, but it is ineffective against D-rank enemies, only able to injure them, not purify them.

What made him even more desperate was that the skinned giant dog that emerged from another crack also exuded an aura no weaker than that of a D-rank dog.

Two entities of D rank or higher, plus a continuous stream of various evil spirits, at least at the peak of E rank, pouring out of the rift...

This isn't a battle, this is suicide!

Their weapons have become laughable toys here.

"Captain! Help..." The voice of the team member who was tackled was already distorted.

The drill arm didn't move. He couldn't move. Fear filled his joints like cement.

The skull's jaw opened.

The bones rubbed together, making a crisp sound.

It was aimed at the player's throat.

Bite it!

In this most chaotic and desperate moment, Xu Yan's cold and calm voice, like a scalpel, precisely cut through all the noise and reached the drill arm's ear:

"Drill arm. If you want to live, make a trade."

The drill arm suddenly turned its head and saw that Xu Yan was still standing in the same place, his aura almost blending into the darkroom, and those crazy hellish creatures ignored him.

The Jade Cicada's ability to conceal its presence proved invaluable at this moment.

He calmly assessed the disaster, like a detached bystander.

"What deal?!"

As he used the drill arm to deflect a small monster that lunged at him, he roared, his mentality on the verge of collapse.

"Give me the level-two access key to your center's internal database now." Xu Yan's speech was calm, yet carried an undeniable resolve. "Give it to me, and I'll shut it down. Don't, and you're dead. You only have three seconds to think."

"three……"

He didn't give the drill arm any time to bargain or consider the pros and cons.

Make the most fatal request at the moment when the other person is most vulnerable and needs him most.

(End of this chapter)