Chapter 180: The World Behind the Door

A muffled knocking sound resonated in this dead‑silent environment.

In the darkness, at an unknown moment, it grew even more eerie.

"Dong dong dong!"

The spirit phenomenon from the Knocking Ghost spread boundlessly in all directions, as if mourning the living.

"Creak!"

After an indeterminate number of knocks, the darkness grew more oppressive, and the White Bone Gate emitted a sound at that moment.

Even Zhang Hao seemed unable to fully shake the gate and make it truly open.

Fortunately, amid the relentless knocking, the gate eventually opened a finger‑sized crack.

Through the crack, one could see a profound darkness behind the gate.

As the gate opened, the darkness began to encroach outward, and before long it enveloped the unknown land where the Yin Yang Lu lay.

Meanwhile, outside.

"Deputy Minister Cao, something terrible is happening."

Cao Yanhua had just finished arranging the Headquarters staff when she discovered that all the Ghost Tamers had vanished, and she was still anxious about it.

In an old mansion in Dajing City, a dark mist suddenly appeared.

The black mist swirled and spread everywhere.

"What's going on?"

All the officials disappeared; ordinary people cannot confront the Fierce Ghost.

Faced with the current situation, the Headquarters seemed unable even to investigate that mansion.

There are not few similar cases.

Around the world, some Spiritual Realms linked to unknown lands began to sprout black mist at this time.

These black mists, upon appearing, continuously eroded everything around, seeming to possess an extremely terrifying spirit phenomenon.

At this moment, the surrounding things were being affected by this darkness, changing toward some incomprehensible bizarre state.

The heads of Spiritual Affairs in various countries also keenly noticed this.

Although there were no Ghost Tamers, they could still monitor the situation via cameras and satellites.

They found that these black mists were oddly consistent, producing almost identical effects.

Zhang Hao was unaware of everything happening outside.

To him, this darkness posed no threat; in his perception, it was merely a spirit phenomenon.

As the darkness surged in, even the White Bone Gate was ripped open by the black mist at that moment, and the crack widened considerably.

If the previous opening was only finger‑sized, now it had grown to the size of a fist.

At this moment, Zhang Hao also opened his Ghost Eye.

The black‑white gaze pierced through the gate, viewing everything outside.

Beyond the White Bone Gate lay endless darkness, yet Zhang Hao could sense distinctions among those dark expanses.

It felt as if each region's darkness was linked to a different Spiritual Realm.

"No, that's wrong—every patch of darkness at the doorway corresponds to a White Bone Gate."

"There should be only one true source of the White Bone Gate; the one I face now, along with the White Bone Gates linked to these dark patches, are all derived entities."

"And the White Bone Gate I opened is changing more severely than my Precognition predicted."

Zhang Hao stared into the depths of the darkness, where he could sense a threat.

"It seems the Human Skin paper could not foresee the spirit phenomenon at the source of the White Bone Gate, causing slight errors in my Precognition."

The uncertainty of the spirit phenomenon was fully manifested at this moment.

Even at Zhang Hao's level, one cannot completely alter already‑occurred events through Precognition or similar means.

Some sufficiently powerful beings can shield you from any Precognition concerning them.

Moreover, such Precognition can be undetectable even to perception.

And at this moment, Zhang Hao attempted to use Ghost Domain Restart, treating the Ghost Domain like a film reel for looping.

However, regardless of how time is reversed, the opened White Bone Gate remains ajar.

The state of the White Bone Gate does not change with time.

Even if Zhang Hao returns to the past, he cannot close the White Bone Gate again.

In fact, this situation once occurred to Zhang Hao as well, but he was unaware of it at the time.

Meng Xiaodong, stored in a time segment, later learned of Zhang Hao's threat and even accessed Zhang Hao's past memories.

But whether that was a past memory or Meng Xiaodong returning to a past time node is hard to determine.

Although in Zhang Hao's perception, it is his own past memory.

For Meng Xiaodong, it counts as her invading a certain time in the past world.

However, she was intercepted by Zhang Hao and entered Zhang Hao's own memory.

At the moment Zhang Hao himself is stored in time, any spirit‑based method to assault the past is already useless to him.

The White Bone Gate's current condition is just like that.

It will no longer change because of the past.

Even if Zhang Hao restarts time and returns to a hundred or a thousand years ago, it will still remain open.

"Then, what about Precognition?"

Zhang Hao realized the past spirit phenomenon had failed and employed Precognition again.

The previous Precognition results relied on the lower world's foresight, so some deviation is understandable.

As a new image formed in Zhang Hao's mind, he stepped into the darkness.

However, strangely, Zhang Hao could feel that the dark world layer behind the White Bone Gate was definitely stronger than himself, belonging to the upper world.

Yet under these circumstances, Zhang Hao actually succeeded in walking out, and the Precognition's spiritual anomaly did not vanish with his departure.

However, in this Precognition he could not continuously obtain surrounding information through Human Skin Paper.

It was as if within the Human Skin Paper there was no record of this darkness at all.

As Zhang Hao progressed in the Precognition, he could even feel the strength of the worlds corresponding to these environments.

Some connect to lower worlds weaker than Zhang Hao's world, while others connect to worlds of roughly equal strength.

And it seemed there were also many dark patches that did not connect to any corresponding world.

"It must be because the White Bone Gate of the corresponding world has not been opened."

Zhang Hao turned back and saw that he could no longer see the White Bone Gate he came through; only darkness remained behind him.

It seemed that the world he originally occupied also turned into one of those dark patches at that moment.

Only because his original body remains in the original world, the present self is merely a future duplicate, so Zhang Hao can clearly sense his body's location and will not get lost.

"Indeed, the Yin Yang Lu is much as I imagined; the spiritual realms it can connect to extend far beyond a single world."

"The only difference is that to reach the Spiritual Realms of different Derived Worlds via the Yin Yang Lu, one must enter the White Bone Gate at the end of the Road."

After a moment of thought, Zhang Hao decided to keep moving forward.

Lower worlds and worlds of the same tier have no meaning. Worlds of the same tier should represent worlds derived from some Spiritual Realm of the upper world.

Lower worlds are even more meaningless; they are Derived Worlds within Derived Worlds.

What Zhang Hao now needs to find is the location of the upper world.

Only by devouring the ghosts of the upper world can he metamorphose into a true Fierce Ghost, allowing him to enter the upper world without vanishing.

As he kept moving forward, some human silhouettes began to appear around Zhang Hao.

Their states were strange: some resembled a black shadow, some looked like a painted figure, and others like a drowning corpse.

Nevertheless, each of these entities exuded a strong aura.

Some even had an aura that reached a level comparable to Zhang Hao's.

"Are these all the ultimate victors of other worlds, the pinnacle products of Derived Worlds?"

Zhang Hao quickly caught on.

These silhouettes walking in the darkness are in a situation much like his own now—like he has devoured all the world's ghosts and now seeks to enter a higher tier world.

These silhouettes may also have eaten most of the world's Fierce Ghosts, perhaps all of them, and finally entered the Yin Yang Lu.

Only the difference is that Zhang Hao knows that Yang Jian exists in the upper world.

And these figures enter the Yin Yang Lu, even opening the White Bone Gate to do so, perhaps to command more ghosts.

After all, there are many ghosts in the Yin Yang Lu; despite Zhang Hao feeling no threat while walking it,

but at that time Zhang Hao had already surpassed Zhang Dong's level, so walking the Yin Yang Lu he naturally felt no threat.

Yet in reality, even the Seven Elders walking this road alone could, with a single misstep, be killed by the Fierce Ghosts within.

Among them, perhaps some ghosts or Ghost Tamers, like Zhang Hao, have become aware of the upper world's existence.

"If so, might I encounter a second Yang Jian here? A Yang Jian belonging to a Derived World."

"A Yang Jian with Six-Tenths of the Ghostly Power and I—defeating him should pose no problem, right?"

Curious, Zhang Hao soon began to search.

Quickly, he set his target on one of those things.

It was a black shadow, its shape very similar to the ghostly silhouette of Yang Jian after completion.

Quickly, Zhang Hao moved toward that black shadow.

In fact, the ghosts Zhang Hao encountered at the White Bone Gate were ones he had mostly dealt with before.

The drowning corpse resembled a woman, much like the Ghost Lake he had first seen.

It seemed that in some world, Ghost Lake had become the ultimate victor.

After all, Ghost Lake possesses the ability to learn; once she mastered limitless growth, she could ascend to the pinnacle of the world.

The painted thing seemed like a ghost painting, also like ghost pigment, perhaps linked to the Ghost Bride.

Once the ghost painting, painter, ghost pigment, and ghost makeup are completed, as long as one can ensure their own Spiritual Realm strength won't be immediately detained by the Seven Elders, they already have the capital to oppose the Seven Elders.

Raising the Terror Level could likewise make one reach the world's apex.

Not to mention, besides these few painting-related spiritual anomalies, there are many various other painting-related spiritual anomalies.

This ghost apparently did not develop toward the Ghost Bride, but fully pursued the path of painting.

When Zhang Hao looked at that ghost, he could clearly feel his Gaze was obstructed, and he could not see any bride-related items on her.

This is the effect of the White Ghost Eye being suppressed by the ghost painting.

Just like Yang Jian's Ghost Eye, even the White Ghost Eye, as long as it concerns the Gaze, will be suppressed by the ghost painting.

As Zhang Hao examined those two ghosts, the two ghosts seemed to notice as well.

They lifted their heads, eerily looking toward Zhang Hao, but did not launch an attack.

At that moment, Zhang Hao also approached the black shadow.

The black shadow's figure was tall; as Zhang Hao drew near, the shadow oddly twisted its head.

Then, an eerie red light appeared.

Within the black shadow, a pair of red eyes suddenly emerged, this looked.

It was just like the Yang Jian Zhang Hao had seen in the suspected hell of the upper world.

However, soon Zhang Hao realized something was off.

Within the black shadow, though there were traces of Yang Jian's appearance, it did not look like a living person, more like a ghost.

"This thing is not Yang Jian, but that Ghost Shadow."

In an instant, Zhang Hao realized something was amiss.

Even without the human skin paper, Zhang Hao's current level makes his insight unquestionable.

Zhang Hao quickly sensed that this thing bore no Ghost Lake or bus-related supernatural phenomena.

Compared to Yang Jian's use of the bus, Ghost Lake, Ghost Blood to attain the Seven Elders Level.

This thing seems more like steering a body that is merely cobbled together into a complete corpse, having grown to this level.

Ghost Eye, Ghost Blood, ghost head, Ghost Hand, Ghost Foot, Ghost Skin, Ghost Flesh. Just from the ghosts Zhang Hao knows, several of these parts can be seen on this ghost.

While Zhang Hao was pondering, the black shadow's Ghost's Invasion struck Zhang Hao.

In this darkness, even the headless Ghost Shadow's attack became silent, concealed by the gloom.

An unknown supernatural phenomenon began its Ghost's Invasion on Zhang Hao, seeking to steal his memories.

This is an ability of the Ghost Shadow Head; it can pilfer a living person's memories and even turn the living into its Puppet Ghost Slave, placing them in a Ghost Controlling Human state.

After completing the headless Ghost Shadow, the Ghost Shadow Head's supernatural phenomenon received a notable boost.

It seems that, because the Ghost Slave cannot be taken to the White Bone Gate's dark realm, this Ghost Shadow's behavior still leans toward Fierce Ghost instinct.

At that moment, sensing Zhang Hao's approach, the Ghost Shadow immediately launched an attack on Zhang Hao.

In response, Zhang Hao made no deliberate resistance.

It does not fear the invasion of memories.

When it comes to playing with memories, Zhang Hao fears no one, let alone the fact that he is merely a future entity now.

Even if his future self suffers irreversible damage, it will have no effect on his original body.

As the Ghost Shadow's Ghost's Invasion continued, Zhang Hao began a reverse invasion of the Ghost Shadow's past memories and soon saw its history.

That was the time when Yang Jian became Abnormal.

Due to certain accidents, Xu Feng was killed on the bus by some guy.

This caused Yang Jian, when completing the Ghost Shadow Head to become Abnormal, to lack the Ghost Caller factor.

Without the Ghost Caller supernatural phenomenon, relying only on the Ghost Newspaper's influence and the Ghost Cabinet's protection cannot keep Yang Jian, who is inside the Golden Coffin, safe.

After all, gold can block supernatural phenomena, including the Ghost Cabinet's transactional protection.

In this situation, as time passed, the Ghost Shadow Head reversed to seize control of the Ghost Newspaper; without the Ghost Newspaper's interference, the Ghost Shadow smoothly rode the other Fierce Ghosts within Yang Jian's body.

With Yang Jian's memories, the Ghost Shadow opened that Golden Coffin, which was hardly difficult.

The final outcome is that, after acquiring Yang Jian's memories, the Ghost Shadow treats the human skin paper as a piece of flesh to complete the body.

Then the headless Ghost Shadow began gathering various Fierce Ghosts to stitch together a perfect corpse, achieving a Terror Level that entered the Yin Yang Lu.

(End of chapter)