Chapter 141: A Tape Made of Black and White Portraits, Time Rebooted

"Hey, are you leaving already?"

He Yuelian was startled at the sight of the Ghost Bride, who after killing the painter left the spot.

She looked toward where the painter had been, ran quickly over, and picked up the Coffin Nail that had fallen on the ground.

"This thing seems powerful; later I can give it to Zhang Hao."

He Yuelian held the rust‑stained Coffin Nail in hand, and only then, satisfied, walked outward.

Although the painter was dealt with by the Ghost Bride, at least she also obtained the Coffin Nail, so it wasn't entirely useless.

Meanwhile, on the other side.

After dealing with Ink Man, Zhang Hao set his sights on the assassin.

He also set his sights on the fleeing projectionist.

If the ghosts attached to Ink Man and the painter might aid the Ghost Bride, then the ghost of the projectionist could be something that might help Zhang Hao.

Zhang Hao's Black and White Ghost Domain is a Black and White Portrait, while the projectionist is a Black and White video.

If he can obtain the ghost in his hand and combine it with some of the Ghost Bride's supernatural aspects, perhaps Zhang Hao's strangeness level could change again.

"Fack!"

Inside the largest building in Florence, presumably a warehouse, various goods were stacked everywhere.

The projectionist, terrified, hid inside, cursing continuously; not far from him lay an old wooden cross, its purpose unknown.

He had previously fled to the city's outskirts, but unexpectedly still couldn't get out in the end.

No matter what methods he employed, he could never leave this increasingly strange Black and White city.

While the projectionist was hiding, distant Footsteps suddenly began to echo slowly.

"Is it here?"

The projectionist heard the Footsteps, his expression grew solemn; he moved to the window, sticking out half his head to observe the outside.

On the dim Black and White road, an unfamiliar procession was marching.

Four people dressed in Funeral Clothes carried a black Coffin slowly forward; atop the Coffin was a pallid figure, the very strange fellow who had just attacked them.

"That Coffin... it can't be the one the old man has, can it?"

"And those Coffin Bearers."

The projectionist watched the scene, feeling uneasy inside.

That being, whose nature—human or ghost—was unknown, attacked the Coffin Bearers as soon as it appeared.

Now the other side began to move, causing the projectionist to wonder whether the Coffin Bearers had already been killed.

The projectionist carefully observed those Fierce Ghost Coffin Bearers.

Those Fierce Ghosts, like the suddenly‑appeared figure before, wore white Funeral Clothes, their bodies gaunt as if they were desiccated corpses.

Each of them extended a hand, lifting the central Coffin high, looking extremely eerie.

Moreover, this gesture gave the projectionist an inexplicable sense of familiarity.

"That's the old man's Coffin‑carrying gesture!"

Thinking of this, the projectionist felt a chill down his spine; it meant he was now an Abnormal, otherwise seeing this scene would drive him mad.

Yet the next scene left him dumbfounded.

After the distant marching procession entered an intersection, it began moving toward this side.

"What's happening? Have they spotted me?"

The projectionist looked at the ground not far away; the old cross, looking like two broken planks glued together, was still there.

It was an extremely special cross, which the projectionist obtained during an early Supernatural Incident when he first became a Ghost Tamer.

The cross possessed the ability to block Fierce Ghost senses; as long as it is placed where a Fierce Ghost cannot see, it can deceive the ghost's perception.

Even within a Fierce Ghost's Ghost Domain, if the ghost does not see it, it cannot detect where it is inside the domain.

In fact, Zhang Hao truly had not detected the projectionist's location at that moment.

However, he could determine, via the Ghost Domain, where the projectionist had finally vanished.

Moreover, possessing the Black and White Portrait's Killing Rule that a back view guarantees Certain Death, he had just sensed someone triggering his Killing Rule.

Although he couldn't pinpoint the exact location, locating someone inside his own Ghost Domain was a piece of cake, wasn't it?

Accompanied by Zhang Hao's Gaze, countless Zhang Haos within the Black and White World began to look toward different places.

In mid‑air, Black and White Portraits fell one after another; using these duplicates' Gaze, Zhang Hao easily discovered the projectionist's presence.

Arriving at the warehouse of the building ahead, Zhang Hao glanced at its contents and quickly spotted the cross.

"Did that cross block my perception?"

Zhang Hao could sense a faint Supernatural Aura on the cross, but perhaps due to some reason, he couldn't perceive it concretely.

It must be that the cross itself has a self‑concealing ability.

"Don't kill me, I can help you!" the projectionist stared at Zhang Hao, saying in a deep voice.

"I know the locations of other kings; if you need, I can take you to find them."

"Besides those kings, there are many Supernatural Incidents; I also know where special Supernatural Artifacts are located."

When the projectionist saw Zhang Hao catching up, he did not flee.

Trapped in the Ghost Domain and unable to leave the city, the moment the cross failed, he realized that escaping normally was impossible.

To become a king, the projectionist naturally wasn't a good person; facing the risk of possible death, he decisively chose to betray his teammates.

"Other kings?"

Zhang Hao murmured softly, raising his head.

Now the painter should have been dealt with by the Ghost Bride, and the Fierce Ghosts on the Coffin Bearers had already been mastered by him.

In this situation, the Fierce Ghosts of the other kings probably wouldn't be of any help to him, right.

In the King Organization, the only one he still cares about now is probably the captain.

However, that thing is hidden deep, so there's no great need to deal with it.

"I still prefer the ghost on you."

Zhang Hao turned his head toward the projectionist, his emotionless eyes bearing a strange meaning, which startled the projectionist.

"Y‑you're not human, you're a ghost?"

"But why? Why can you speak?"

Although the king's definition of a living person is broader than the country's, Zhang Hao's bizarre scene still startled the projectionist.

Those eyes no longer contain any trace of feeling, I suppose.

After all, even the most mad king still retains some emotion now.

Zhang Hao gave no reply to the projectionist; as Zhang Hao approached, the projectionist quickly fell silent.

Unsolved Suppression took effect, and the projectionist was completely suppressed.

However, Zhang Hao did not use the Ghostly Servant to seize the Fierce Ghost's growth ability to command the ghost in the projectionist's body; instead, he employed the Ghost Domain's Ghost's Invasion on the projectionist's corpse.

For this ghost, he seeks to complete and enhance the Black and White Ghost Domain, not to increase the Ghostly Servant's Suppression Quota.

Zhang Hao has a premonition that when he pushes a certain method to the extreme, an incomprehensible change will arrive.

This premonition stems from some discoveries Zhang Hao made in Baishui Town.

He found that the Fierce Ghosts within the Seven Elders' bodies are not as many as imagined, yet they cleverly form a flawless attack method.

Of course, each ghost inside the Seven Elders has a high Terror Level, since even the strangest attack requires Terror Level as a boost.

For example, Meng Xiaodong's Infinite Invasion; the ghost she first commanded was certainly not a ghost that existed in the past or future.

The reason later Meng Xiaodong appears across a span of time, with each time point containing her, is that Meng Xiaodong refined this past‑and‑future invasion ability to a near‑ultimate concept.

Then there is Zhang Dong; Zhang Dong's Erase pushes Suppress Fierce Ghost to the extreme, so that under his suppression even a Fierce Ghost cannot endure and must become an ordinary object.

"If another world truly exists, I will have to find a way to forge an ultimate path."

Zhang Hao muttered, fully aware that if the world where Yang Jian resides truly exists, he would have no chance to slowly develop using the Ghostly Servant or Hungry‑Dead Ghost's abilities. Because Yang Jian's true form is a ghost infant, or a small Hungry‑Dead Ghost; feeding on ghosts to grow may not match the other's speed.

The only route Zhang Hao can ultimately take is to use a flawless Puzzle completion method to attain Yang Jian's power.

If the broken Fierce Ghosts are regarded as fragmented logical code, then Zhang Hao's envisioned ultimate route is a complete code without any bugs.

It's like Yang Jian's ten‑layer Ghost Domain, a Ghost Domain Yang Jian cannot open; only by overlapping two Ghost Eyes can that level be reached.

Once this Ghost Domain is opened, Yang Jian will exist at any time in the past or future, and can even bring people from the past to the present.

When the colorless Black and White Ghost Domain reaches its extreme, Zhang Hao doesn't know what will happen, but he knows that then, even using only the Black and White Ghost Domain against an enemy, he won't be weaker than the Seven Elders.

The Black and White Ghost Domain's Ghost's Invasion proceeds smoothly.

Even without the Ghostly Servant, Zhang Hao's own Terror Level alone is enough to crush the projectionist.

After all, the current strength of the Black and White Ghost Domain, by Zhang Hao's calculation, should be comparable to Yang Jian's seventh or eighth layer Ghost Domain.

The exact strength—whether seventh or eighth layer—Zhang Hao cannot determine, because the Black and White Ghost Domain's range Restart stems from the Ghostly Servant.

As for personal Restart, his Restart methods are simply too many.

The only judgment he can make is that the current Black and White Ghost Domain's strength is far higher than the Ghost Domain strength achieved back in Baishui Town when he fully activated the Hong Bai Shuang Sha Ghost Eye's Six‑Tenths of the Ghostly Power.

As the Ghost Domain continues its Ghost's Invasion, Zhang Hao also perceives new changes in the Black and White Ghost Domain.

The Black and White Ghost Domain seems to have acquired a fluid effect.

"This feeling is like a reel of continuously playing video?"

Zhang Hao was momentarily stunned, then quickly recovered.

If the previous Black and White Ghost Domain was a frozen Photo, then aside from Zhang Hao, the owner of the Ghost Domain, everything else invaded into black and white is merely the Photo's background.

No matter what Zhang Hao does, the background in the Photo remains frozen, unable to change.

Now the Black and White Ghost Domain is like a video reel, and Zhang Hao is the cameraman; the entire Black and White Ghost Domain is his photographic range.

Even the tiniest flower within this Ghost Domain is now recorded by the Ghost Domain.

"If the previous Ghost Domain was a series of Photos, then now it is a video assembled from those Photos."

"According to this principle, can I make everything in the Ghost Domain revert to a specific Photo moment?"

Zhang Hao looked at everything in the warehouse, never expecting that the projectionist's ghost would bring such a massive change to his Ghost Domain.

Although he previously also possessed the range Restart ability.

But that Restart actually rebooted himself; merely because of the Ghostly Servant's nature, Zhang Hao himself is a piece of Ghost Domain.

So he could Restart the Ghost Domain, yet this Ghost Domain cannot be precisely controlled.

In such a case, just like when Li Jun, Liu San and others operated within the Ghostly Servant's Ghost Domain, regardless of how the Ghostly Servant performed a range Restart, traces of Liu San's death remained in the Ghost Domain.

Now, that is a genuine Time Restart.

As long as the range Restart is activated, everything except gold—no matter what, even the dead—must return to the time point Zhang Hao desires.

Realizing this, Zhang Hao immediately began to try.

The Ghost Domain unfolded, each scene flashing through his mind like a rewinding video.

Soon, Zhang Hao locked onto a time point.

It was two and a half minutes ago.

At that moment, the projectionist had just been killed by him and used as a Puzzle completion, elevating the Ghost Domain to a level capable of range Restart.

As Zhang Hao's thoughts progressed, everything inside the Ghost Domain soon grew bizarre.

Like a black‑and‑white TV from the 80s or 90s playing a videotape that keeps rewinding.

Bizarre, terrifying, incomprehensible.

As the footage kept rewinding, it soon froze on Zhang Hao's image as he stood pondering.

"Indeed it succeeded, precisely returning to the desired time point."

Zhang Hao lifted his head and looked at this city that belonged to two and a half minutes ago.

"If my Ghost Domain range could cover the entire world, would that mean I could exist in the past and the future?" Zhang Hao thought to himself.

In fact, that possibility exists.

Back when he was in Baishui Town, Zhang Hao's Ghost Domain already covered the whole world.

Although in that world Zhang Hao's Terror Level reached a very high degree, the Fierce Ghosts there were only about sixty percent of this world's Ghost Power.

In the end Zhang Hao never managed to develop a range Ghost Domain that could perform a Time Restart, so he could never know whether this method would let him exist in the past and future.

Raising Terror Level can expand the Ghost Domain's range and intensity, but it does not enhance the Ghost Domain's abilities.

The projectionist in Baishui Town still cannot achieve the strength needed to complete the Black and White Ghost Domain.

"Covering the whole world is inevitable; for now, consider how to complete the next stage of the Ghost Domain."

The initial intensity of the Black and White Ghost Domain is equivalent to Yang Jian's sixth‑layer Ghost Domain, capable of altering reality; the Ghost Domain's trait is that everything invaded within it is forgotten by the outside world.

Later, as Zhang Hao rode the Ghostly Servant, it should have risen to a seventh‑layer Ghost Domain effect, though its range and intensity are far greater than the Ghost Eye.

As for the effect, it inherits the Ghostly Servant's embodied Ghost Domain trait, merging Zhang Hao with the Ghost Domain; as long as the Ghost Domain isn't suppressed, Zhang Hao can personally Restart without limit.

He can even apply the Ghost Power of his own Restart onto the Ghost Domain, achieving a range Restart.

Now that the Fierce Ghost on the projectionist has been completed, the Ghost Domain has turned from a single Black and White Portrait into countless Black and White Portraits, producing an effect similar to a video tape.

"If this trend continues, should I next find a way for the Ghost Domain to have the Ghost Power to walk out of the image?" he wondered.

Zhang Hao thought of this and involuntarily looked toward the direction where the ghost bride stood.

That kind of Ghost Power is the ghost painting's power, able to step from a portrait into reality; even a Photo can be treated by a ghost painting as a portrait.

However, Zhang Hao clearly cannot seize the ghost painting from the ghost bride, so he must devise another method.

"Aside from the ghost painting, what other Fierce Ghost has the ability to walk from a portrait into reality?"

"Shen Lin's ghost seems to possess Ghost Power that can emerge from memory."

According to the original story, when Shen Lin first met Yang Jian and his group, he used a portrait to make them remember Shen Lin, and then he entered the reality through their Ghost's Invasion.

However, the Black and White Portrait has a forgetting effect, which conflicts with the Ghost Powers of these two ghosts.

Zhang Hao closed his eyes, inexplicably nostalgic for the feeling when he used the Human Skin paper.

If there were Human Skin paper, Zhang Hao's attempt to develop Ghost Domain Ghost Power wouldn't be so troublesome.

The Human Skin paper would tell Zhang Hao where to obtain the Fierce Ghost that can complete the Ghost Domain's new ability.

"Besides the ghost painting and Shen Lin's ghost, Meng Xiaodong's ghost should also be able to do this, but Meng Xiaodong is still a bit early for me."

"Perhaps I should devise a way to obtain Human Skin paper; if another timeline truly exists, then Yang Jian would not exist in this world."

"And if a future Yang Jian does exist in this world, I should have been killed long ago."

Zhang Hao kept pondering, each possibility flashing in his mind.

He even considered another possibility: since he can now Restart time, he could make the Ghost Domain return to a specific frame among countless video recordings.

Could his future self also Restart time?

Thus, he wouldn't need to complete a new Puzzle for the Ghost Domain; he only needs to raise its intensity, and once his Restart time depth is enhanced enough,

naturally gaining the ability to pull his future self into the present. However, this Restart seems unable to send his past self forward, which may be a flaw, and he doesn't know whether his future self can fix it.

"It seems I'll need to use the Ghost Domain more against enemies in the future, thereby developing its applications."

The use of Ghost Power must be developed; many Fierce Ghosts become extremely bizarre after being ridden by a Ghost Tamer, essentially because the Ghost Tamer has developed their Ghost Power.

When a Ghost Tamer dies after a Fierce Ghost revives, the Fierce Ghost, while using Ghost Power, habitually mimics the Ghost Tamer's methods.

Although Zhang Hao currently possesses a lot of Ghost Power, he does not plan to use much of it.

After all, some rarely used Ghost Power cannot be amplified to great strength in a short time.

I was a bit off today, unable to focus; I wrote from past four o'clock to past ten o'clock to finish these two chapters, so the update is a little late.

(End of chapter)