Kill The Old Ones!

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Stage 81 to 85 was a dangerous place, even for Ren.

It’s a massive graveyard filled with Vengeful Spirits. They were weightless and intangible creatures that could pass through solid objects and were capable of flight. They are also corrupted beings, meaning that they taint everything they touch.

The only safe zone in this stage is the spawn location where explorers arrive. It’s a small area located before the gates of the graveyard.

Even from here, the ominous and creepy atmosphere of the other side was already obvious. The gates were the only thing containing it there. Anybody who passes through it will be greeted with a horrifying air of resentment and corruption.

Explorers die here on a regular basis, and not because they underestimated the place—nobody arrives this far into the dungeons that confident and assured that they’d still breeze through the stages easily; it’s because this place is just that dangerous.

Vengeful spirits are sensitive to living beings’ life force, to be more specific. They could feel one from miles away, and when they do, they don’t just attack; they scream, alarming every fellow spirit in the graveyard and the swarm.

They do not siphon life force; they corrupt it. Their touch could decay life itself, wresting it away from the living. It doesn’t just affect the body and chakra; it also seeps into the target’s soul.

And depending on how strong the target’s willpower was, there is a possibility that they could turn into another vengeful spirit as well.

As for the environment, it is also dangerous on its own.

This graveyard was also hostile to life. It is permeated by the thick smog that obscures the senses and hides the vengeful spirits within. Everything here was dead and corrupted.

Additionally, spirits could innately perform possession. They could possess an inanimate object and mutate it into something terrifying. The dead trees might start walking and use their roots and branches as spears to skewer the target; tombs and coffins might claw their way out and begin pursuing the target to trap them within so the spirits could easily feast on them; wells would sometimes vomit out hair to entangle the target or release a geyser of inky water that could corrupt anything it touches.

Hairs, hands, ribs, eyes, and teeth—any of these could just randomly pop out of the ground to attack.

Hell, even the living target itself could also be possessed. Parties are sometimes forced to put each other down when this happens, which adds to the psychological nightmare of this place.

Nothing on the other side of the gates offers safety to whoever wants to enter. Which is why it is no wonder why many explorers die here on a regular basis.

This is what Ren faces right now.

That said, Ren wasn’t afraid—not of vengeful spirits, not of the environment, and not even of the idea of dying here. All he felt was anticipation. To him, this was a new way to test his skills.

So, he left the safe confines of the safe zone and pushed the gates open, expecting to be swallowed by the nightmarish environment he’s entering.

His figure disappeared into the thick smog; it’s as if he’s venturing to a land of no return, or the afterlife—one that’s completely different from what people used to imagine.

The moment he entered, he immediately felt a somber emotion pressing down on his chest. There was sorrow, unwillingness, regrets, and vengeance in the atmosphere that emanated out from all the spirits around here and has long permeated every square inch of this land.

The ground beneath him feels like it’s quicksand, the kind that would swallow him whole if he stood in place for a little too long.

Despite the thick smog, the air was dry. It carried the foul stench of rotting corpses.

Ren’s physical senses are highly restricted here, but his chakra isn’t. He was already expanding his sensory network as he walked around.

No vengeful spirit spotted him yet. Ren was cloaking himself, blending in with the surroundings. He does it through excellent chakra control—something that’s effortless to him at this point.

He did this not because he was scared of the vengeful spirits, but because he wanted to scout the area first and search for loot if there was some.

The idea might sound funny, but surprisingly—depending on luck, of course—this stage could generate some good loot.

Most of the dead that are buried underground had their earthly possessions with them. Some were buried with all, and others had only a careful selection of things that are valuable to them.

Vengeful Spirits had no use for these, and sure, some of these items might already be corrupted or possessed, but that’s no problem; they can still be sold. They just need to be purified first before they can be restored to their original state.

And because sometimes the vengeful spirits would just possess the coffins or the dead remains of the people buried in them, the valuables might already be scattered on the ground.

Those are what Ren was looking for.

And it didn’t take long before he started seeing some.

Jewelry, belongings, treasures, items, gears, weapons...some were deeply corrupted, others, not so much. Regardless, if Ren could recognize their value, they’d be going into his inventory.

As he roamed around looting, Ren occasionally saw, heard, and felt the presence of vengeful spirits around him. They haven’t been alerted yet. Ren was too good at concealing his presence and blending in with his surroundings.

He even stood beside one that’s blankly staring at an empty space, and he still wasn’t sensed.

This was one of the reasons why Ren wasn’t afraid to be here. Vengeful spirits don’t use their eyes to search for their targets, especially because some of them don’t have eyes anymore. A good portion of them don’t even have heads or an intact shape for that matter—an indication of how they died.

Vengeful spirits are sensitive to life force; it’s their innate ability. But in their corrupted forms and state, they really don’t think about enhancing or improving this ability of theirs.

That’s why they could easily be fooled by a simple camouflage.

That said, this won’t always work. These are ordinary vengeful spirits. Faced with Elites, Lords, and Bosses, Ren might not be able to get the same result.

But that’s a problem for another day. Right now, Ren was just looting as best as he could.

**

Eventually, the whole map was revealed to him thanks to his chakra sensing network.

The thick smog no longer obscured his vision. He could see where he was on the map and where every single vengeful spirit was. He was even able to see those that are flying and also the coffins that are buried underground.

Because of this, Ren was also able to discover which coffins still had some decent loot from those that didn’t. This allowed his looting to be more efficient.

Even as he dug to reach the buried coffins, the spirits ignored his presence. They weren’t bothered by his activity or the noise he’s making. They might be thinking that this was just another spirit being mischievious.

Ren found a lot of nice things in his looting session. He found old but corrupted gears and weapons that should fetch a decent price, expensive gems and jewelry, books written in languages he couldn’t understand, spatial pouches that still contain some valuable items, and more.

This was a rich biome, which means that Ren lucked out in the draw. And since he was here solo, all of this belongs to him; he doesn’t have to share.

The items he gathered just now would fetch somewhere around 500 to 600 million credits once he sold them all. And considering that this was just his first trip of the day, this was certainly not bad at all.

He’d earn billions of credits before the day ends.

This is the earning power of an expert dungeon explorer. Money was just numbers to them. That’s why everybody fervently chases after this job, not even deterred by the risks to their lives.

Ren scanned the map once more and checked if he missed anything.

He did, but most of the items he left behind were cheap. He didn’t think they’d be valuable enough to take up space in his inventory, so he ignored them.

This takes care of the looting portion of this run. Ren closed his inventory in satisfaction. He cracked his knuckles and was preparing for a beatdown when all of a sudden, an idea crossed his mind.

It made him thoughtful. He paused on the spot and allowed himself to think for a bit.

"Well...considering that I’m about to make a lot of noise, I might as well give it a shot and see if it will actually work," Ren thought to himself.

He walked to the very center of the map. He went into a stance, closed his eyes, and focused.

Not long after that, a strong chakra fluctuation erupted out of him, alarming the spirits nearby.

But before they could do anything, a large white lotus bulb appeared, covering Ren’s whole body.

One that happened to look very similar to the previous opponent he defeated.

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