Chapter 590: Evil Spirit

The road ahead abruptly ended, replaced by a stretch of water blue to black.

The off-road vehicle screeched to a halt; Ada, whose limbs had been restored via digitization, jumped out, dipped her fingers into the water, and scanned the data: “Water temperature 17°C, salinity 15%, pH 8.3, dissolved oxygen 9 mg/L, trace algae present. As for depth...”

Ada paused, as if releasing sonar: “Within a ten-kilometer radius, average depth is 1,300 meters. Surface area unknown.”

“Launch a boat and cross.”

Wu Quan also leapt from the driver’s seat; the Special Affairs Bureau’s standard off-road vehicles were modularly designed, capable of converting to amphibious mode with propellers and watertight compartments installed.

He called out to Abdullah and Alci; the three swiftly used a jack to lift the vehicle and swap the tires.

Alci removed the tires and replaced them with propellers, then asked softly: “...REX, still alive?”

“For routine missions, you can exit with a single thought. He should’ve returned to the real world.”

Wu Quan spoke as calmly as he could, his gaze meeting Abdullah’s; both silently lowered their heads and resumed modifying the vehicle.

They both knew REX was likely dead—when the mission began, all players had exchanged information about their gear and skill sets.

REX’s police radio could summon up to five waves of police reinforcements; each summon consumed additional spiritual energy.

As the off-road vehicle exited the city, it passed a Wuzhuang helicopter summoned by the radio—proof that REX had not returned to the real world immediately, hence the presence of a Sikorsky helicopter bearing Coast Guard markings.

The off-road vehicle was swiftly converted into an amphibious craft; everyone boarded in silence and steered into the thick fog.

I hope REX really made it back to the real world...

Mushroom complex.

The Sikorsky helicopter had crashed, scattered in pieces across the ground. Several burning Chevrolet and Ford Explorer vehicles lined the roadside.

“You’re from Dandong, you gave me a city of snow, want to eat Cantonese food~”

“AufderHeidebluhteinkleinesBlumeleinunddasheiBtErika~”

Two songs, radically different in language and style, played from the square-dance speakers; cylindrical and cubic robots, wearing yellow construction hard hats, enthusiastically operated engineering vehicles, assembling temporary three-story factory buildings from piles of prefabricated steel-reinforced concrete components.

“Why use metal scaffolding instead of bamboo scaffolding?”

Hui Yu, wearing the white hard hat symbolizing construction leadership, stood with hands on hips and declared: “Don’t you know metal frames conduct heat extremely well, while bamboo scaffolds have near-zero thermal conductivity and no melting point? You could even build bamboo war tanks, bamboo helmets, bamboo spaceships!”

Back in the day, if Cao Cao had built his ships from bamboo during the Battle of Red Cliffs, even Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu would’ve been exhausted trying to burn the linked iron chains.

If the Twin Towers had bamboo facades, a Boeing 767 would’ve been bounced right off.”

“? What’s bamboo punk? Don’t mess around.”

Li Cheng rolled his eyes; at that moment, the dog-headed corpse and REX were chained to the conveyor Zhijia , while the other end was lined with hundreds of monster corpses—

Due to his casting-anvil’s body-modification services, he frequently purchased supernatural biological samples. Unlike large guilds that required paperwork, approvals, and invoices, the Casting Anvil paid cash on the spot— Koubeijijia .

So much so that long-term clients would casually post on forums: “Down a scenario mission, too many kills, too many corpses? Just rotate the old ones... no, wait—Casting Anvil. Casting Anvil is a professional official autopsy platform, offers on-site pickup, easy cash-out.”

The refrigerators and freezers were overflowing—perfect for use here.

“Start the production line.”

Li Cheng sat on a small stool beside the conveyor, waved his hand; a cylindrical robot pulled the lever hard, setting the conveyor in slow motion.

One by one, supernatural corpses were transported past; Li Cheng held REX’s head, connected to a life-support device, and stamped it onto each corpse in turn.

Each time he did so, a red blotch curse appeared on the corpse’s back—even on creatures without visible spines, like fish.

All corpses were suspended by racks; Li Cheng sat upright, his feet beside the Eight Trigrams Alchemical Cannon.

Three minutes. Seven minutes.

Time passed slowly; no anomalies occurred among the corpses.

“Hmm?”

Li Cheng frowned; he had dispatched a fringe fighter to patrol high above, monitoring Wu Quan and the others from afar, while he remained at the mushroom complex to test the curse’s effects.

According to REX’s memories, the group had discovered patterns during their six-day survival: the evil spirit appeared with higher probability when isolated, asleep, resting, or emotionally low.

To avoid sleep, over the past six days, except for fully mechanical Ada, even semi-cyborg Alci relied solely on iced Americanos, Red Bull, Gfuel, and “A Nightmare on Elm Street” sleepless capsules—more extreme than Seoul youths who slept only three or four hours daily.

“Theoretically, the evil spirit should’ve been summoned by now... unless...”

Li Cheng rubbed his chin, then suddenly remembered something; he pressed one hand onto the first dog-headed corpse—and...

Mercy Soul Infusion!

In the next instant, the dog-headed corpse convulsed violently; its brain had been wiped clean, incapable of forming coherent consciousness—only involuntary spasms driven by bioelectricity.

As the corpse trembled in place, a rhythmic sound suddenly echoed through the empty mushroom complex.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The sound was steady, like knocking—or like a cane tapping the ground.

Only when a ghostly figure appeared around the corner could it be confirmed: the sound came from high heels.

It was a human female, wearing stiletto heels and a red sequined dress, with a curvaceous figure, shoulder-length blonde hair, pale skin—but her face twisted into a grotesque mask, rings of teeth exposed to the air, drooling incessantly.

She seemed aware of Li Cheng’s power, pacing back and forth in place, never daring to approach.

Hui Yu yawned boredly; the red-clad evil spirit seized the opening, eyes brightening, vanishing instantly and reappearing behind Hui Yu, gripping her skull with pale, bloodless hands tipped with purple bruise-stained nails, and twisted with all her might.

The force of the strike was 300 kilograms—enough to snap the neck of a large animal.

But Hui Yu... didn’t move an inch.

“That’s it?”

Hui Yu shook her head in disappointment; at home, when she did street dance moves upside down, her neck bore far greater weight.

The red-clad evil spirit hadn’t anticipated this; after a brief shock, her hands moved like lightning—left hand plunged into Hui Yu’s chest, gripping her heart; right hand pierced her forehead, reaching for her brain.

“Dumbass—I’ve got no heart, no lungs, and no brain.”

Hui Yu stood with one hand on her hip, smirking; as Li Cheng muttered, “Is that something to be proud of?” she slapped the evil spirit across the face.

Slap!

The red-clad evil spirit was flung backward, spinning three full rotations before barely managing to brace herself against the wall, avoiding collapse.

After this brief setback, she swiftly switched targets, vanishing again, grabbing the head of a cubic robot and twisting hard.

But the cubic robot, its neck rotated 180 degrees, still stared straight at the evil spirit with its electronic eyes, roaring: “Sibai!”

Its flexible mechanical arm whipped out from its side, drawing a police baton coated in incense ash, and swung with full force.

Though these robots spent their days in toy factories Banyun cargo and sketching designs, they were still precision constructs forged from over a dozen high-quality concepts—strength rivaling Olympic athletes. And these cubic robots from Caoxian seemed to have instinctively mastered their southern neighbors’ skills, wielding the baton with uncanny mastery, leaving the evil spirit no chance to counter.

Several cubic robots even swarmed her, knocking her to the ground, surrounding her in a circle and striking—literally six blows per second.

“Response speed, enforcement warmth, baton angle, every strike forceful.”

Hui Yu clucked in amazement; all the batons used by the robots were coated with special incense ash produced by the Special Affairs Bureau—capable of physically contacting spiritual entities.

Under the storm of attacks, the red-clad evil spirit had no chance to teleport away.

“Don’t kill it. Hang it up.”

Li Cheng gave the order; the robots surged forward, binding the evil spirit’s upper body with iron chains coated in incense ash, locking it inside a pre-prepared small cell.

The cell was about 1.5 meters wide and 2 meters high; its walls were made of slaughterhouse-grade materials, impervious to any spiritual entity. The floor was open, beneath which sat a treadmill; behind it, a copper-coin sword capable of harming spiritual beings.

As the evil spirit was locked inside, the treadmill activated automatically, forcing it to run forward—or risk being pierced by the copper-coin sword.

Tap-tap-tap-tap—

The red-clad evil spirit, in stiletto heels, was forced into a frantic sprint, quickly surpassing Bolt, legs moving so fast they became blurs.

“Even a slaughterhouse creation must obey the law of conservation of energy.”

Li Cheng said, “If the evil spirit curse has a source, then that source must pay energy for every evil spirit. Let’s see how much it can pay.”

With that, Li Cheng strung together all corpses bearing the red blotch curse using a hundred-meter-long intestine from a hundred-armed giant; beneath each corpse sat a cell with a treadmill, the treadmill’s base wired to a mechanical arm connected to the copper-coin sword—if the running speed dropped too low, the arm would slowly extend the sword, forcing the evil spirit to maintain pace.