Chapter 409: The ruins (7)

As Mo Ze Chen was crying over the loss of his dagger, Lin Fan once again came forward to inspect the walls.

He could tell that the laws inside the walls weren't normal and there was a familiar feeling that came from them. As he analyzed them more, Lin Fan realized what that familiar feeling was.

He couldn't tell before because he didn't spend that much time on it, but now that he was carefully looking at it, he could see why these laws were special.

It was because it wasn't just a single law that was inside these walls, it was a combination of different laws, just like how Lin Fan combined laws. But even without combining these laws, he could tell that they were already stronger than their current realm.

Not to mention that based on the different objects in the surrounding areas, it was easy to tell the age of these ruins were in the five figure number. For these laws to still be this strong after decaying for who knows how many years, it really was hard to imagine just how powerful they had been when they had just been placed.

Then again, there was the fact these laws were contained in every single building of this city that was several dozen or even over a hundred square kilometers wide. To have that much power to imbue all these buildings with these laws, whoever did it definitely wasn't simple…

After seeing this, Lin Fan patted Mo Ze Chen on the shoulder before having him put away the scraps of his dagger and heading out. There were still plenty of things in these ruins that they needed to explore, there was no time getting stuck on a single thing. Not to mention the giant glowing tree that was right in the center of the city.

Once they were out of the building, they once again hid in the corners of the building since there were still the ghosts that were patrolling the streets.

But this time, while they were hiding, Lin Fan waved his hand to bring out a rat.

This was one of the puppets that Brainy controlled, but it wasn't one that had been converted from a corpse. Rather this was a living being that was infected by Brainy's parasite seed.

After bringing out this rat, Lin Fan released it and had Brainy control it to run around the city. The moment the rat ran through the streets in front of the ghosts, it was like they had suddenly sensed something as they all turned in the direction of the rat that was running through them.

There was only a second of hesitation before they all suddenly started dashing in the direction of the rat. The speed that they ran at was surprising because before this, they had only been walking around at a snail's pace, but now they were making a mad dash at the rat.

It was a good thing that this rat was still a spirit beast and could run faster than all of these ghosts. But that wasn't the only reason, it was also because most of these ghosts didn't have the same muscles as they did when they were human,so it was hard for them to run.

When they ran, it almost looked like children that were learning to run for the first time.

Lin Fan had Brainy control this rat into running a circle around the entire area that they were currently in until it had drawn in all the ghosts that were walking around. After drawing all of them in and creating the horde, it left a large gap in the streets of the city.

Mo Ze Chen's eyes lit up when he saw this and when he was planning to make a run for it, Lin Fan grabbed him and brought him back to the ground.

Mo Ze Chen rubbed his butt in pain as he looked at Lin Fan with a confused gaze and asked, "Brother Lin, why did you do that?"

Lin Fan didn't bother answering him, he didn't even bother turning to look at Mo Ze Chen on the ground. Rather he was completely focused on the horde that was chasing the rat.

Once he was certain that he had pulled in every ghost and hadn't missed a single one, he had Brainy slow the rat down until the ghosts were finally able to catch up to it. The ghost that was in front pounced right at the rat and grabbed it in both hands.

Then without any hesitation at all, it brought its mouth down onto the rat, biting right into its neck.

However, there was no blood that came out, there was only a white glow that appeared from the neck of the rat that slowly flowed into the mouth of the ghost that bit into it.

After the first ghost bit into the rat, there were others that followed it and they all bit into the rat, causing a flow of white light to come out of the rat and into their mouths.

Mo Ze Chen was shocked when he saw this and he couldn't help asking, "What's happening?"

In front of them, as the ghosts bit into the rat and sucked that white light out, the rat was slowly aging. As it got older and older, its vital signs became weaker and weaker until they completely disappeared.

Once they disappeared, the white light that was coming from the rat stopped.

After this, the ghosts released the rat and went back to their wandering. Some of them stayed in the same location, while others wandered back to the location that they had come from.

It was only after they had gone away that Lin Fan said, "They were sucking away the rat's life force."

Mo Ze Chen revealed an even more shocked face as he asked, "Life force, they can do that?"

Life force was a very powerful and mystical thing, it was something that was very hard to manipulate since it dealt with the natural fundamental laws in this world. After all, all things were destined to die and to go against that meant going against the will of the heavens. Without being strong enough to do so, one could never touch life force.

While sucking out life force seemed easier than gaining life force, it was just as hard because one had to have the ability to manipulate life force to do this. If they could manipulate life force, they could also take the life force of others to live longer, which was just as heaven defying.

So the taboo of the heavens was anything that allowed the increase of lifespan.

That was unless it was something like pills which didn't technically increase lifespan, but rather just increased the current lifespan.

There was something called the absolute limit for people and unless they broke through with their cultivation, they wouldn't be able to break that limit. Life force manipulation dealt with that limit which was set by the heavens themselves for each person which meant that it was going against the heavens.

Pills didn't give you life force, it drew out the remaining life force that you had, which brought you closer to your absolute limit since most people couldn't live to reach that absolute limit. So what pills gave you was drawing out the life force that was already inside of you, but you couldn't access because of various different reasons.

Lin Fan didn't answer this as he continued looking over the ghosts that had just attacked the rat.

There was no change for the ones that had arrived late and couldn't touch the rat, but for the ones that had actually laid their teeth into the rat, he could clearly see that they were filled with more vitality compared to before.

Lin Fan fell into thought once again before raising his hand to bring something else out.

There was another rat that appeared in his hand, but unlike the last one, this one had eyes that were misted over.

Lin Fan released this rat just like with the other one and it ran to the ghosts that were wandering in front of him. However, this time, the ghosts didn't act the same way as before.

Even after the rat ran a circle around them, these ghosts didn't react at all to the rat.

Lin Fan knitted his brows before giving Brainy a command in his mind.

Brainy received this and gave orders to the rat who immediately jumped up to attack the ghost that was in front of it.

The ghost didn't react at first, but when the rat was about to hit it, it suddenly raised its hand to smack the rat to the ground. With just a single smack, the rat exploded to pieces, leaving bloody chunks all over the ground, but not a single one of the ghosts cared about it. Even the ghost that had smacked it into a bloody paste ignored it as they continued wandering around.

Mo Ze Chen also noticed the difference this time and he asked, "Brother Lin, why didn't they chase it this time?"

Lin Fan was lost in thought for a bit before saying, "It's life force. That one was a dead corpse turned into a puppet and the first one was a living beast that was being controlled."

Mo Ze Chen knitted his brows before asking, "You're saying that these ghosts react to life force?"

Lin Fan just gave a nod without saying a thing.

It would have been hard for them to explore these ruins before with all these ghosts wandering around, but with this discovery, it suddenly became much easier.