Worsening, Weakness Makes It Less Fearsome
Crackle... crackle...
The fuse burned rapidly, racing toward the detonation point. Prince Nolan stared unblinking at the fuse, and only when it reached the exact spot for explosion did he suddenly hurl the thunder-blast grenade high into the air.
The timing was perfect. With a deafening boom, the thunder-blast grenade exploded in midair—not a moment too soon, not a moment too late.
After the blast, it looked as if a chunk of the forest canopy had been gouged out. Sunlight poured down through the opening, dust swirling in the beam—a world completely apart from the gloom of Ghost Forest.
"Let's go!" Serena was overjoyed at Nolan's flawless success. She piled the remaining thunder-blast grenades onto the Snow Wolf's back, and the group charged toward the sunlight. The Snow Wolf ran fastest, and naturally drew the most attention from the ghost-corpses.
Serena shot down several ghost-corpses for the Snow Wolf, but even so, the wolf was blocked by one particularly cunning ghost-corpse. It seemed almost intelligent—drifting down from midair, pausing for an instant, then abruptly changing direction to lunge straight at the Snow Wolf.
"Snow Wolf, watch out!" Serena fired a shot, but the bullet passed into the ghost-corpse with no effect at all.
The Snow Wolf was especially sensitive to these specters. As the ghost-corpse lunged, the wolf spun around in an instant...
"Awooo..." With a leap, the Snow Wolf snapped its jaws around the ghost-corpse's legs. Instead of exploding and vanishing, the ghost-corpse writhed wildly in midair, letting out a piercing, squealing noise.
"Are these really ghosts?" Sean and the Eighteen Riders were more convinced than ever—maybe this place truly was haunted.
"We can’t stay here forever. We need to get out of Ghost Forest as soon as possible. The environment is too harsh—we can’t linger." The rotting stench made Serena feel like vomiting again.
"Use the thunder-blast grenades to open a path." Outside the pillar of light, ghost-corpses still drifted. It was obvious that as soon as they stepped out of the circle, the ghosts would attack again.
"Here you go." Sean handed one grenade to Prince Nolan.
Other than Prince Nolan, no one else was confident enough to throw the grenade at exactly the right moment.
It was a brutal test of nerves. If he were alone, Sean would have been confident—at worst, he’d just get blown up himself. But with twenty people behind him, he couldn’t gamble with their lives, especially Serena’s.
You could only throw the grenade at the very last second before it exploded—it was the ultimate test of nerve. Prince Nolan wasn’t nearly as relaxed as he looked. But...
He had no choice!
The grenade was lit; Prince Nolan didn’t move a muscle. Before, Sean and the Eighteen Riders hadn’t seen this up close. Now, watching in person, they realized how agonizing that moment truly was.
The fuse grew shorter and shorter, and their hearts clenched tighter and tighter. If Prince Nolan didn’t throw it in time, they’d be the ones blown up...
Terrifying!
Prince Nolan focused all his attention on the thunder-blast grenade in his hand, never glancing at anyone beside him. When the fuse burned to the final point, he didn’t hesitate for a second—he hurled the grenade, and at the same moment, the explosion thundered out...
Nolan felt a dull pain at the base of his thumb—a warm liquid trickled from his palm.
He’d thrown the grenade just in time, but it was a split-second late—the blast tore open the skin between his thumb and forefinger, staining his palm red with blood...
But Nolan acted as if he hadn’t noticed, his expression unchanged. He quietly hid his injured hand behind his back, flexed it open and closed until his fingers worked again, then motioned for everyone to move forward.
Sure enough, as soon as Nolan and Serena left the sunbeam, the ghost-corpses—hovering in midair, waiting for prey—swarmed at them. Luckily, Serena was still in the circle of light and fired her gun ahead of time, or else they really might have been overwhelmed by the ghosts.
The two circles of light weren’t far apart. When they rushed into the second, the ghost-corpses again shrank back in fear.
"We have to get out before dark." Sean looked up at the sun—it was already less fierce than at noon. If the sun set while they were still in Ghost Forest, there’d be nothing left to frighten the ghosts away.
"You can’t see the edge of Ghost Forest." Nolan, when no one was watching, wiped the blood from his palm and picked up another grenade.
"You don’t know how big Ghost Forest is?" Sean was surprised. "Don’t you have a map?"
Nolan shot him a cold look and sneered, "Do you really think the Former Dynasty would leak the mausoleum’s layout?"
"Then what’s the point of your map?" Sean blinked, accepting Nolan’s answer.
Even the old emperor probably never knew the mausoleum’s full layout—there was never any real map.
"The map only shows the route." After saying this, Nolan lit another grenade.
He wasn’t the legitimate Lan heir of the Former Dynasty; he couldn’t take shortcuts, only the most primitive route—step by step, following the map through the mausoleum.
That’s why he worried he might never return, and told William Wang Jinling that if he didn’t come back after half a year, William should summon the Prince of Jiangnan to the capital.
While Nolan and Serena were trapped in Ghost Forest, Lady Min was plotting with her subordinates, planning to leave the monastery quickly while Nolan was away from the capital...
A tiny monastery could never imprison a princess of the Former Dynasty!