Chapter 200: Tail
At the innermost side of the hall, in a corner near the stage.
The figure in uniform was the first to break free from the chains, escaping the shackles that restrained it.
However, there was no trace of joy on the figure’s face; it remained as lifeless as ever, showing no intention of celebrating its escape.
Its line of sight never deviated, staring sinisterly at the evil ghost statue at the main entrance, as if ready to devour it alive.
After all, in the eyes of these audience members, the evil ghost stone statue was also a blurry light shadow, indistinguishable from the one that had previously destroyed the piano—practically identical.
Just as the uniform audience member was about to leave its seat.
A pair of grayish-white hands silently brushed over its shoulder, then tightly gripped its throat.
From the moment the audience members first laid eyes on the evil ghost, death had already lurked by their side, merely biding its time, waiting for an opportunity.
And now, the opportunity seemed to have arrived.
In this brief instant.
Not only was the uniform audience member attacked by surprise; similar events occurred in nearly every corner.
Under equally or even stronger supernatural power, the audience members had almost no ability to resist. Dozens of figures collapsed inexplicably, lying motionless like corpses, emitting no sign of life.
This movement quickly drew the attention of the other figures in the hall.
They searched everywhere, trying to find the killer hiding in the darkness.
However, these audience members found nothing, only discovering that the hall now inexplicably held several hundred more “companions.”
Though these additional companions remained completely still, the aura on their bodies was identical to theirs.
For a moment, these unthinking things were all bewildered.
But by the time the audience members regained their senses, they found that the surrounding environment had completely changed.
The antique music hall had vanished, replaced by a strange space filled with black smoke.
The audience members’ line of sight had shifted away for just that instant, and for the stone statue, that moment was enough.
Without exception, every audience member in the music hall had been imprisoned in this black smoke space.
The audience members showed little reaction to this change, merely searching around, trying to find the attack target that had vanished once again.
The next moment.
The evil ghost stone statue they had been fixated on appeared of its own accord, not emerging from the surrounding black eyes, but from the seemingly unremarkable ground beneath their feet.
One by one, palms covered in cracks crawled out from underground, seemingly ghost hands, yet somehow different.
The ghost hands’ palms looked as if they had been severed from corpses, while these palms appeared to have been taken from the severed limbs of the previous stone statues.
Not only did each ghost hand vary in size, but they also bore wounds of all sizes.
However, this did not hinder the evil ghost’s control over the ghost hands; the moment these arms emerged from the darkness, they lunged at the nearest figures.
Compared to Zhang Qian’s stingy act of summoning just a few ghost hands at a time, this stone statue was undoubtedly far more generous.
The sheer number was such that some lucky audience members even got seven or eight ghost hands each.
There was no suspense whatsoever.
The outcome of the confrontation had long been predetermined.
In almost an instant, countless audience members fell within the black smoke space.
Their bodies in the music hall also fell silent, collapsing limply to the ground.
After a long while, the music hall’s floor was covered in corpses.
The audience members’ deaths were extremely gruesome: some looked as if scorched by flames, their corpses like charred coal; others as if gnawed by wolves, covered in bite marks of varying sizes; still others showed no visible external injuries on their corpses, only a bruise on their necks…
But this was only part of it; many more audience members were grabbed by several ghost hands and torn into pieces of varying sizes.
However, such injuries were not fatal to them.
Or rather, after transforming into fierce ghosts, unless they could be suppressed back into humans, there was nothing in this world that could kill them.
Given some time to clear the supernatural power from their bodies, these audience members could still recover and move again.
But the evil ghost figure paid no attention to these trivial matters.
Passing by the hundreds of figures lined along the aisles on both sides, the evil ghost slowly approached the stage under the glow of firelight.
Compared to those stone statues with hands covering their faces and stiff movements.
This evil ghost stone statue showed no trace of eeriness in its actions; even its gestures faintly resembled Zhang Qian’s.
As the stone statue with the longest gestation period, it was perhaps only one opportunity away from truly growing into its complete form—
Killing Zhang Qian.
At this moment, the evil ghost’s movements suddenly paused, as if struck by a sudden inspiration, giving birth to this idea.
It was as if a door had been opened, with countless thoughts flooding its mind.
It, which had always acted on instinct, had finally become a true anomaly.
However, this change did not affect the stone statue’s actions.
It merely paused for a moment before continuing toward the stage.
In short order, it had already reached the damaged piano.
The musical sound was eerie, but listening for a moment offered no help in leaving this place.
After all, to leave this hall, one had to conceal their identity, use an audience member’s token, and open the correct portal.
And the evil ghost clearly did not know this.
Thus, the surrounding stone statues immediately sprang into action; with their vast numbers, they turned the entire hall upside down in moments.
Many seats were directly uprooted for blocking the way, yet still no change occurred.
The main entrance they had come through was already open, but beyond the portal was only a pitch black aisle.
No way out?
The evil ghost tilted its head slightly, then abruptly yanked the fierce ghost from inside the piano.
A shower of metal parts flew out, adding more wounds to the already riddled fierce ghost.
But the evil ghost stone statue paid no mind, gripping the music ghost by the back of the neck with one hand and pressing its eyes against the nearby statue.
In an instant.
A stone statue with a hollow upper body appeared out of thin air.
Another eerie musical sound drifted through the hall at that moment, echoing in harmony with the sound from the evil ghost’s hand.
The two pieces were nearly indistinguishable, except one was always half a beat slower.
“Bang!”
A headless corpse crashed to the ground, leaving only one tune in the hall.
The hollow stone statue paused, then stripped a piece of clothing from a nearby audience member and offered it up.
……
After a long while.
The hall returned to silence, with only the occasional twitching corpses recounting the recent horror.
Yet in this silence, a fiery red phantom suddenly flashed by, then rushed at extreme speed into the still-open portal.
