Chapter Sixty-Three: Within the Ghostly Marsh

It was precisely because Xiao Zi hesitated for that brief moment that a glint flashed in the sole remaining eye of the one-eyed man.

“He’s already on our trail!”

With that, he grabbed the only other ghost master left and fled.

“Trying to escape? How naive.”

Xiao Zi smiled, preparing to give chase at once. Yet he had barely taken a step when he was stopped by an invisible barrier. Activating the Blood Demon’s Eye, he observed the energy fluctuations emanating from the shield and traced them to a particular direction.

“You dare to court death!”

The voice was thunderous, laced with the mournful roar of Hell. At those words, a figure appeared in the direction he was watching.

The newcomer wore long hair, possessed Western features, and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

An outsider?

Just as Xiao Zi decided to teach this foreigner a lesson, another unexpected event occurred. A gust of wind arose from nowhere, sweeping across the land and stirring up a cloud of dust.

[The Gate of the Ghost Domain has opened. Host, please enter promptly.]

Following the system’s guidance, Xiao Zi looked toward the direction where the one-eyed man and his companion had fled. At that moment, a rectangular door materialized, filled with uncertainty and the unknown.

So this was the gate to the Ghost Domain?

Before he could react, the one-eyed man and the other ghost master rushed inside without hesitation. At the same time, all the surrounding energies began to stir, converging toward the mysterious door in the next instant.

Yet, just then, the door started to shrink, as if it were about to close.

Damn, so the opening window is extremely brief!

With no time for further deliberation, he activated his Ghost Shadow movement technique at full power and dashed toward the Ghost Domain gate.

By the time he reached the door, it had dwindled to the size of a fist. Xiao Zi grabbed it with both hands and, pulling forcefully, managed to enlarge it slightly before slipping inside.

“What the hell is that creature? It actually forced open the Gate of the Ghost Domain!”

Less than a second after he entered, the gate vanished entirely, leaving the others stunned and bewildered.

“What’s going on? It’s already closed? This isn’t quite what we expected.”

Thus, representatives from various factions around the world began sizing each other up, none willing to make the first move.

After all, entering the Ghost Domain wasn’t strictly necessary—their true objective was the primordial power within it. Two ghost masters and one strange entity had already entered. Once they obtained the domain’s source power, the Ghost Domain would surely collapse, marking the real moment for action and plunder.

Despite this, everyone adjusted their energy, preparing for battle at any moment.

Hidden in the shadows, a group of strange beings watched the assembly with eerie interest.

“What exactly is that odd creature? Have any of you seen it before?”

A cat-faced entity licked its paw and spoke.

“I’ve never heard of it, let alone seen it.”

“So, another quietly evolving existence. When it emerges, we should recruit it under the Demon Lord’s banner.”

Before the words could finish, another voice cut in.

“He will never join the Demon Lord.”

All the strange beings turned to see a man and a woman standing nearby.

The man sported an explosive brown afro, while the woman was petite and adorable, dressed in Lolita fashion, a picture of youthful innocence.

Both were well-known leaders among the strange beings, instantly recognizable by the others.

“Why not?”

“Because that one is far more interesting than you imagine.” The little girl’s face twisted into a bizarre smile.

Meanwhile, inside the Ghost Domain, the one-eyed man was stunned by what greeted him.

They found themselves in a vast space strewn with corpses. Yet the greatest surprise was the presence of numerous living people.

He had barely entered when someone approached him and asked, “What year is it? Which dynasty are we in? Has the Great Ling Dynasty fallen?”

“The Great Ling Dynasty?” The one-eyed man was taken aback.

Wasn’t the Great Ling Dynasty the last feudal dynasty of the Great Xia nation?

Looking at the man’s attire—tattered clothes, a long braid—it perfectly matched the dress of citizens from the Great Ling Dynasty as depicted in history books.

“The… the Great Ling Dynasty has been gone for over a hundred years…” For a moment, the one-eyed man was utterly lost, stammering his reply.

Hardly had he spoken when mocking voices rang out.

“Hahaha, didn’t you claim the Great Ling Dynasty would last forever? Yet it’s gone all the same.”

“Back then, who made fun of the fall of our Great Hong Dynasty? Now it’s your turn.”

“…”

He glanced at the speakers—people in various costumes, all seemingly ancient by their dress.

“On one-eye…”

A feeble, aged voice echoed. The one-eyed man turned to see the ghost master he had brought lying on the ground, barely clinging to life.

Moreover, the ghost master’s hair was now white, his face deeply wrinkled, as though he had aged decades.

The one-eyed man hurried over to help him up, but his hand passed right through.

He couldn’t touch him.

“What… what’s going on?” The one-eyed man was bewildered.

“Who were you just talking to?” The ghost master struggled to sit up, his voice weak.

The one-eyed man pointed at the group behind him. “Those ancients over there. Are your eyes failing you?”

“Leave that aside for now. Where have you been all these years?”

“What do you mean, all these years? We entered one after the other—you rushed ahead, just a second before me!”

“Ah? Do I look like someone who’s waited less than a second? And why haven’t you aged at all?”

“Enough talk. I think I understand. We must be in different spaces. The space you’re in is rather pec—”

Before he could finish the word “peculiar,” the ghost master dissolved into a cloud of ash and vanished completely.

“What… what’s going on?”

The scene left the one-eyed man dumbfounded. He scrambled to his feet, anxiously scanning his surroundings, utterly at a loss.

“Oh, we’ve been here so long that we’ve finally figured out a little about this place.”

The man from the Great Ling Dynasty who had questioned him earlier walked over and patted his shoulder.

“Actually, there are two spaces here. Every so often, new people enter, and they’re randomly assigned to different spaces.

Our space flows very slowly, while the other speeds up dramatically at intervals. Only contemporaries can see each other across the spaces.

You must have entered hundreds of years after me, though it’s only been two or three months here on my end.”

Hearing this, the one-eyed man was shocked. “Is that really something an ancient could explain?”

The Ling Dynasty man pointed to a filthy, unkempt Western man in a lab coat, huddled in a corner. “That foreigner belongs to some so-called scientific family. He told us, and he entered at the same time as I did.”

The one-eyed man looked in that direction and was instantly stunned.

Wasn’t that the renowned Western scientist Hollez from two centuries ago?

Rumor had it he invented something incredible that ultimately destroyed him.

How had he ended up here?