Chapter 252: 248 Hundred Ghost Night Parade

When people saw the final frame of the eerie video recording, they were filled with chills, for they had seen the countdown declaring their imminent death.

Anyone who watches this video will surely die after seven days!

Admittedly, the eerie video allowed people to temporarily escape mental pollution, but it did not remove them from danger; it merely moved them from one desperate situation to another.

This is not a Blessing, but a Curse!

At the same time people were watching this eerie video, other strange phenomena were simultaneously appearing throughout Taomu City.

On the foggy streets of the city appeared a tall woman visible only to young boys; she was stout and full-figured, taller than a single-story house, with sharp claws for hands, and beneath a massive sun hat was a pair of evil eyes that locked onto the soul, making one shudder with fear.

A masked woman on the street asked everyone she met whether she was beautiful, holding a pair of massive, blood-stained, rusty scissors; her question had no solution, and no matter how one responded or whether one responded at all, one could not escape disaster, for meeting her was already the beginning of a death sentence.

There was also the Yamato Nadeshiko with a demon's face growing on the back of her head, the hideous head that flew off its body to bite anyone it encountered, and the figures leaping in the dark sewers, among others.

The entire Taomu City fell into a hair-raising Hundred Ghost Night Parade; they appeared out of thin air, filled with malice toward humanity, bringing unique panic and disaster to the people.

For a time, all sorts of screams and wails erupted across Taomu City, one after another; people fell into a different kind of panic, as if the apocalyptic scene in the sky had become trivial by comparison.

"This scene... what is going on here?" Xin Junmao looked at a passerby whose mouth had been forcibly cut open by the Slit-Mouthed Woman, forced to become as "beautiful" as her, a trace of sympathy in his eyes.

Hearing this, the handsome mixed-race man standing before Xin Junmao remained silent; after a long while, he spoke gloomily: "I am certain that I cleared all the Advent Rituals. Logically speaking, no more Curses should be born, and even if there were, they shouldn't be intensifying like this."

As he spoke, Drake turned his head to look at Xin Junmao and said earnestly: "This was created by someone on purpose. No... it might not even be a person."

He Jia'an and Misaki Naomi found a Space Channel not formed by an Advent Ritual and returned to the Real World once more; upon returning to Taomu City, they found the city had become even more chaotic, filled with people fleeing and terrifying Abnormals wanting to harm humanity everywhere.

"What the hell?" He Jia'an was also confused; he was certain he had destroyed all the Advent Rituals in the Inner World's Kisaragi High School, so where were these living, running, cursed, god-defiling things coming from?

Could it be the Vampire hiding within Taomu City, forcibly creating disasters again?

Misaki Naomi was even more dumbfounded; after escaping the crisis-ridden Inner World, she found the Real World had also turned into another purgatory, and she didn't even know if she and He Jia'an could be considered to have "escaped."

Just as the two were puzzled, that familiar, eerie ringtone came from Misaki Naomi's pocket; the strange, sinister melody was more deafening than a death knell, making one's heart race.

Misaki Naomi tremblingly took out the phone from her pocket; when she saw that string of numbers from hell, she finally confirmed that she had encountered Mimiko's Curse once again.

She still hadn't shaken off Mimiko; her luck was only temporary.

He Jia'an also saw the evil reflection in the nearby restroom mirror; Hanako, who should have disappeared from the human world forever, had returned.

"Is everything I did just in vain?" He Jia'an's expression was dazed, a sense of powerlessness filling his entire body, so weak he could barely breathe.

Looking at the flickering clouds in the sky, where the shadow of an unidentified, massive object was looming, and hearing the shrieks from the horizon, a thought of giving up flashed through his mind for an instant: "Maybe I should just die like this..."

"He Jia'an!" A shout brought He Jia'an back from his descent to reality; looking up, he saw the companions of Matsumoto Gin from before his death had found him. After finally locating He Jia'an, these members of the Chosen Alliance impatiently questioned him about Matsumoto Gin's whereabouts: "He Jia'an, where did you go? Senior Matsumoto... wait, isn't that sword in your hand the Senior's!?"

Seeing He Jia'an carrying Matsumoto Gin's sword, and that the flesh-tubes grown from the Magic Blade had already deeply inserted themselves into He Jia'an's arm—clearly a sign of long-term use and deep binding—the hearts of all the Chosen Alliance members sank.

A bad premonition flooded the thoughts of every Chosen Alliance member; they had already guessed the terrible truth, but still holding onto a glimmer of hope, they asked again: "I'm asking you, where is Matsumoto Gin!?"

"He is already dead." He Jia'an shook his head, offering no further explanation.

Everyone fell into silence, but no one was angry at He Jia'an.

As Matsumoto Gin's confidants, no one understood Matsumoto Gin's condition better than they did; Matsumoto Gin was already not far from his death date, but they hadn't expected it to arrive so much earlier, and so suddenly.

He Jia'an sighed inwardly and asked: "What is the situation now?"

"As you can see, this city is about to be destroyed... no, if things go on like this, the entire Sakura Island, the entire world will be destroyed." A member of the Chosen Alliance, after regaining their composure, looked at the katana in He Jia'an's hand and explained.

This person seemed not to be explaining to He Jia'an, but reporting to the previous owner of this sword.

He Jia'an told everyone about his experiences in the Inner World, saying: "What triggered the birth of the 'Urban Legend' on Sakura Island is something called a Blessing. It can be seen as energy transformed from the negative emotions of all living things in the world. Under normal circumstances, it is like the air; although it accompanies us daily, it generally does not integrate into a massive force in reality to affect people.

But now there is an alien race called the Vampire, a creature that is roughly a blood-colored fluid. In order to transform the human world into an environment where they can survive, they used the Advent Ritual of the Thousand-Illusion Moon. This ritual inadvertently collected and synthesized a large amount of Blessings on Sakura Island, causing the accumulated Blessings to become a massive power, appearing in the human world using the content of 'Urban Legends' as a carrier, affecting human life.

I have already cleared the Advent Rituals in Kisaragi High School, but the Curses are still appearing. I deeply suspect that those Vampires are behind this."

"I understand. So the Vampires are behind this. Whether it is the Alien God attempting to break through the sky of reality to descend, or all these intensifying 'Hundred Ghost Night Parade' harming people around us, it is all their handiwork." A confidant of Matsumoto Gin from before his death nodded. "If we want to stop all this, the primary task is to eliminate the Vampires on Earth, right?"

"No." He Jia'an shook his head. His gaze swept over the wreckage on the ground, and he pointed to the sky, saying in a deep voice, "Compared to dealing with these Curses, we should actually find a way to banish the Thousand-Illusion Moon back to her world. Dealing with these Curses is meaningless..."

Speaking of this, He Jia'an's heart suddenly skipped a beat, thinking: "This style of using Blessings to escape the harm of Abnormal powers... I feel like I've seen it somewhere before."