At high noon, under the blazing sun, when the yang energy was at its peak, Serena Feng and Prince Nolan finished their preparations. The group rose and moved forward, instinctively shielding the three gravely wounded men in the center.
As the only woman in the team without martial arts, Serena ought to have been protected in the center too—but she refused. "I can take care of myself," she said.
With Snow Wolf by her side, Serena was confident that as long as she didn’t rush ahead like a fool, trying to play the hero, she’d be fine—and so far, that was exactly the case.
Just a dozen steps from Ghost Forest, everyone slowed down in unspoken accord. Snow Wolf, breaking its earlier silence, began howling at the forest, its fur bristling and shaking. Not only did it refuse to go forward, it kept backing away.
“Don’t be scared, we’re here.” Serena soothed Snow Wolf, gently stroking its fur.
“Wolves and dogs are especially sensitive to those kinds of things. This Ghost Forest probably does have something truly unclean lurking inside, so everyone be careful,” Sean Xuan warned, face grave. Years of wandering the martial world had taught him more about ghosts and monsters than Prince Nolan or Serena.
There were several such mysterious places in the martial world, where countless people had perished—no one could offer any explanation except ghosts and gods.
"Yeah. Keep an eye on Snow Wolf," Prince Nolan replied, casually tossing the job of protecting the wolf to Sean.
Sean didn’t want to bother with it, but since Prince Nolan was clearly focused on protecting Serena, he had no choice. He waved Snow Wolf over, signaling it to follow him.
Snow Wolf knew there was no way around entering the forest, so it clung tightly to Sean’s leg, trying its best to look cute and win his protection.
"Let’s go in." Prince Nolan and Sean took the lead, Serena followed close behind, and the Eighteen Riders guarded the rear.
The moment they stepped into Ghost Forest, sunlight vanished overhead, plunging everything into a gloomy gray.
As soon as she entered Ghost Forest, Serena felt a bone-deep chill creeping up from her soles, spreading through her whole body. Her hands stiffened involuntarily, her fingers tightening around her gun as she raised her guard and scanned all directions.
"Don’t you have a map? Couldn’t you have picked a normal route for us?" Sean’s brows were scrunched tight—usually so cool and reserved, even he was starting to get annoyed.
There was no helping it—Snow Wolf’s anxiety was so palpable, and its constant trembling made Sean uneasy too.
Sure enough, before Prince Nolan could respond, ranks of ghostly corpses dressed in Former Dynasty official robes suddenly dropped from above, lunging toward them...
Snow Wolf let out a piercing scream. Sean instantly drew his sword, and the moment its tip touched a ghost-corpse, there was a loud bang—the corpse exploded, sparks flying in midair. Sean flipped back dozens of meters, barely avoiding the blast.
Of course, the falling ghost-corpses weren’t just a handful—they came in waves. Prince Nolan, Serena, and the Eighteen Riders faced one after another as more appeared before them.
These ghost-corpses dropped from the sky, legs bound together, arms outstretched. Though nothing suspended them, they floated forward effortlessly, not needing to walk. Whenever a blade struck one, it exploded with a bang—after the sparks, not even a trace of ash remained.
Snow Wolf was shaking all over with fear. Seizing a moment when Sean was distracted, it bolted over to Serena and the three gravely wounded men, curling its huge body into a pitiful ball beside them.
"Don’t be scared, don’t be scared, it’ll all be fine soon." Serena fired her pistol as she comforted Snow Wolf.
Moments like this showed the advantage of a handgun—Serena didn’t have to wait for the ghost-corpses to get close; she could destroy them from a distance, with no fear that the explosions would harm her team.
These ghost-corpses weren’t all that dangerous, but Prince Nolan and the others couldn’t keep fighting forever. As Sean battled on, he realized their internal energy was draining rapidly in this forest: "These ghost-corpses never seem to decrease. If they keep swarming us, we’ll be the ones who die in the end."
"Are these things really ghosts?" The Eighteen Riders sensed something was off—the explosions didn’t seem to destroy the falling corpses, just made them vanish for a while.
"This place is creepy, and those ghost-corpses aren’t like ordinary zombies—they really do seem like ghosts. Maybe we should try blasting the grove open and see if sunlight can get in." Serena stepped back, concealed herself, and quickly opened her Smart Med-Pack, pulling out a box of thunder-blast grenades.
"Sean, Prince Nolan, you two try blasting a hole in this grove with the thunder-blast grenades." Serena didn’t know much about formations or whether these ghost-corpses were real monsters, but her plan was simple: blow things up first and ask questions later. Luckily, they’d brought plenty of grenades.
The floating ghost-corpses were troublesome but not hard to handle. Prince Nolan and Sean quickly grabbed thunder-blast grenades, lit the fuses, and hurled them...
Boom... boom... Trees nearby were blasted apart, a huge pit opened up, but no sunlight broke through. The ghost-corpses floating in midair weren’t fazed by the grenades.
"It’s no use." Prince Nolan stopped throwing grenades. As much as they didn’t dare go wild with explosions in a graveyard, they couldn’t afford to waste their thunder-blast grenades either.
"Maybe if we time it right, we could throw a grenade up above." Serena glanced around, finally fixing her gaze on the canopy overhead.
The sun was blazing, yet this little grove seemed shrouded by an invisible dome—no sunlight could penetrate, and the chill was bone-deep.
"Difficult!" Prince Nolan and Sean spoke in unison.
Getting a thunder-blast grenade to explode in midair at just the right moment was no easy feat.
They had to precisely calculate the timing of the explosion, plus the force and speed of their throw. If anything was off—even a little—it would waste a grenade, or worse, blow themselves up.
They all knew how powerful these grenades were—if one exploded in their hands, not even Serena’s medical skills could save them.
"We have no other choice. These ghost-corpses just keep coming." With the Eighteen Riders and Prince Nolan working together, the ghost-corpses exploded again and again, but more kept appearing—they had no idea when it would end.
If this kept up, even if the ghost-corpses didn’t kill them, they’d collapse from exhaustion or freeze to death.
"Let’s try—we can’t stay trapped here." The place was so cold and eerie that even Serena, a woman, felt uncomfortable; after a while, even Prince Nolan was unsettled, the rotten smell in the air making his head swim.
Prince Nolan and Sean exchanged a glance, understanding each other instantly. In the next moment, Prince Nolan sheathed his sword while Sean stepped forward to shield him from danger.
Handling twice the usual number of ghost-corpses was tough, but Sean managed for the moment.
Prince Nolan knew Sean couldn’t keep it up for long, so he quickly withdrew from the fight, grabbed a thunder-blast grenade, and lit the fuse...