Chapter 244 241: Ghost in the Fog!

Chapter 244 241: Ghost in the Fog!

When the fog underwent its first upgrade, spatial vortexes appeared at random throughout the Fog. These vortexes were not just for show; they were teleportation traps that could send you off to a different part of the valley in a heartbeat.

Now that the fog was strengthened for the second time, something even more ominous began to occur.

This time, the upgrade affected the shadows of the living beings caught in its misty grasp! n(-O/-v--e/.l./B)(1-/n

All around the Shadow Valley, shadows started to detach from their owners and began to rise up from the ground. It was a sight that would send chills down anyone's spine. It was like watching an entire graveyard come alive.

Val wasn't exempt from this strange occurrence. Thanks to the heavenly eye skill, despite facing ahead, his eyes focused on the cave that was not so far away from his current position, he saw his own shadow twitching and distorting on the ground beneath him. It was an eerie spectacle.

Gradually, the shadow began to rise, as if pulled by an invisible string. It detached from the ground and lifted into the air, glitching and twisting until it no longer looked anything like him. Rather, it had morphed into something truly terrifying.

'What the heck has my shadow turned into?'

What was once a simple, dark outline of his form had now transformed into a ghostly figure. It was a dark, shapeless entity that looked like it came straight out of a nightmare. It looked as unfathomable and bottomless as the abyss itself.

This thing didn't do anything after appearing behind him. It only stared at him with its dark, hollow eyes menacingly. One thing to note was that despite Val running at full speed, he wasn't able to leave the menacing ghost in his dust. It was stuck to him like glue.

'I am in some deep shit.'

Despite not doing anything to harm Val, its mere presence caused Val's sixth sense to flare up to an unprecedented degree. Throbbing sensations spread throughout his body once every second. Even with the passage of a couple of seconds, they showed no signs of receding. Quickly, Val's back was drenched in sweat.

'What am I doing wrong?'

Val had never faced such a creature before.

He had no idea how to handle this unknown adversary.

However, he knew that such unexplainable entities usually needed to meet certain conditions before they could commit murders, but that also meant they couldn't kill before that. Thus, he dared not make a rash move.

He also didn't stop moving. He was worried that if he stopped, the ghost would fulfill the condition to kill him in an instant.

In another part of the foggy expanse, a level 65 beast was in the same shoes as Val. It felt a haunting presence behind it, and when it turned around to confront it with a threatening look on its face, the fog parted just enough to reveal a grotesque visage.

A ghostly face stared back at the beast with eyes filled with a malicious hunger.

Their eyes met, and the beast froze as if its gaze held the power to paralyze its hapless victims.

The beast was overcome with fear and lost control of its bladder. It was so terrified it pissed itself.

Then, before it had a chance to flee or even understand what was happening, its body convulsed due to locking eyes with the menacing ghost for a second too long.

Blood began to ooze out of the beast's eyes, nose, and mouth. With one last shudder, it fell to the ground, its eyes now a vacant stare, devoid of life and full of disbelief. It died without knowing why!

Simultaneously, a low-level shadow devil was way too close to escaping the fog using its unique skill set.

Just as freedom from the fog was within its grasp, the menacing ghost haunting it made its move.

With a flick of its wrist, a spike, made from the same eerie material as the fog itself, shot up, piercing the low-level shadow devil through its chest. The poor devil let out a guttural scream as it was lifted off the ground, impaled gruesomely by the spike conjured by the menacing ghost effortlessly.

The shadow devil's eyes rolled back into its head, and with that, it too joined the growing list of casualties, claimed by the fog and its menacing ghostly inhabitants.

With his Heavenly Eye skill providing him a 360-degree unobstructed view of his surroundings, Val saw the harrowing end granted to both the beast and the low-level shadow devil by the ghosts in the Fog.

He also noticed a bunch of other things.

"From what I've seen so far, it's safe to say that if a person who has been running stops in the fog, he wouldn't be attacked and killed by the ghosts," he thought as he came to a halt.

Upon stopping, Val took some time to think, going over what he'd witnessed and arriving at two additional important conclusions

They were both related to the ghosts' killing conditions.

The first was that they would kill their targets if they made the mistake of turning around to face them. The second was that those who were close to escaping the fog's boundary would also meet a grim end, just like the low-level shadow devil that had almost succeeded in using its unique skills to break free.

Both these realizations were concerning. After all, he only had one skill that could possibly identify the ghost haunting him and list out its strengths and weaknesses but it required him to look directly at the entity with his own eye. Against the menacing ghost, it was a risk he couldn't take without facing certain death. Basically, this skill, which had often been useful, was now rendered completely ineffectual in this dire situation.

Moreover, his initial plan to reach the teleportation circle for a quick escape was now also proven to be another path leading to an untimely death.