Chapter Fifty: The Half-bodied Wraith

Mu Chen’s words sent a chill through Ivy’s heart. She immediately drew her crucifix and assumed a defensive stance. The red mist had reduced her visibility to barely ten meters, but she remained vigilant, her eyes fixed ahead.

The world fell abruptly silent.

A strange sound drifted to their ears—rapid, rhythmic, like someone clapping their hands at incredible speed.

That’s when Mu Chen saw them: two female corpses, each missing everything below the waist, coming straight at them from a hundred meters away. The bizarre clapping was the noise of their palms slapping the ground as they moved.

Even more disturbing, their torsos were shorter than their arms. Their limbs were bent, their skin a ghastly blue-black, and as they hurled themselves forward with desperate speed, their deathly figures seemed tinged with madness.

Their eyes were hollow, void of all emotion, and even from a distance they sent chills down the spine.

The Soul-Calming Nails floated at Mu Chen’s side, poised to strike at any moment.

The clapping grew louder, sharper.

A cold wind swept over them, tossing Ivy’s hair.

“Blessing of Honor!”

Instantly, Mu Chen felt his body suffused with strength, and his vision sharpened beyond its previous limits.

“My constitution and spirit have increased!” There was no time to ponder further. With a metallic clang, something struck the crucifix in Ivy’s hands and shot past her.

“Be careful!”

Ivy’s warning was urgent. Mu Chen suddenly remembered there were two of the creatures. His heart skipped. He quickly positioned the Soul-Calming Nail in front of him.

A surge of danger swept from ahead.

Bang!

In that instant, Mu Chen felt a tremendous force slam into his waist. It was as if he’d been hit by a truck—he flew backward five meters, fiery pain flaring across his body. He gritted his teeth, refusing to make a sound.

[Half-Torso Wraith]

[A terrifying female undead, missing everything below the waist. She can only crawl with her hands, forever wandering in search of a suitable lower body.]

[Skill 1: Phantom Dash; Skill 2: Waist Sever.]

Note: These wraiths harbor an intense loathing for the color red. Shrouded by the red mist, they have lost all reason, and will attack anything with a trace of living aura.

“They’re mindless monsters—staring them down is useless!” Mu Chen scrambled to his feet. The shield of Sacred Light was noticeably thinner now.

They were so fast he hadn’t even seen their faces.

The eerie clapping rose again from the highway behind them.

Ivy was on high alert, her crucifix now planted firmly in the ground.

Whoosh!

A bone arrow struck the shadow lunging at Ivy, sending it flying back over ten meters.

There was no time to praise Little Bone’s fine marksmanship.

Mu Chen remained wary; the one repelled wasn’t the one that had attacked him.

The clapping came again.

“They’re coming!” he shouted.

The Soul-Calming Nail lunged forward from his side.

With a wet sound, the nail passed straight through the wraith’s body, failing to impale it. Mu Chen’s protective barrier shattered, and a gash nearly ten centimeters long opened at his waist, blood oozing out.

“Holy Light Healing! Divine Protection!”

A gentle white light enveloped him. Mu Chen felt his wound knit together, and Ivy renewed his protective status.

“Ivy, we stick together! Use the ‘Divine Shackles’ to restrain them as much as possible!” Mu Chen didn’t worry about Little Bone; the information was clear—these undead only attacked living prey, and Little Bone wasn’t among their targets.

The twin impacts had left Mu Chen pale, but his gaze was calm and cold. He fixed his eyes on the two dark shapes a hundred meters away, drew another Soul-Calming Nail from his pack, and reversed his grip.

The distant shadows moved, clapping echoing in the air.

“Ivy, now!” Mu Chen shouted.

The moment the Divine Shackles appeared, the two wraiths crossed into the snare’s radius. One leapt up, the other darted from below, surging toward Ivy.

In a flash, Mu Chen placed himself between Ivy and the oncoming horror, driving the Soul-Calming Nail downward.

Bang!

The wraith crashed into him, the impact hurling both man and monster back against Ivy.

But as they flew, Mu Chen’s Soul-Calming Nail stabbed into the wraith’s back.

[Soul-Calming Nail effect triggered: Target’s vision sealed!]

A heady scent and a ghastly stench assaulted his nose. Mu Chen ignored both, directing the floating nail to pierce the wraith’s skull.

[You have slain a Half-Torso Wraith.]

The notification didn’t make him relax. He shoved the corpse aside—there was still one left!

He looked up.

The other wraith, suspended mid-leap, had failed to break free from the shackles and hung motionless, caught in midair.

With a sigh of relief, Mu Chen braced himself to stand—then paused. What was this softness beneath him?

A soft moan reached his ears, and Mu Chen’s face reddened. He didn’t need to look to guess what had happened; remembering the fate of the Nightmare Tiger, he forced himself to remain composed.

“As long as I don’t turn around and pretend nothing happened, it should be fine...”

He stood up, turned, and gently helped Ivy to her feet.

“Ivy, are you alright?”

“I’m fine...” Her delicate cheeks were flushed scarlet. She glanced at the wraith still bound nearby. “The binding only lasts twenty seconds. If it’s especially strong, it’ll break free even sooner. We have to finish it quickly.”

Her words jolted him. Mu Chen sent the Soul-Calming Nail rushing toward the wraith’s head. Ivy was even more decisive—she cast Holy Light Healing directly onto the remaining wraith.

[You have slain a Half-Torso Wraith.]

With the two monsters dispatched in the nick of time, Little Bone stepped forward to retrieve the bone arrow from the corpse. It absorbed the arrow back into its body—a detail that deepened Mu Chen’s understanding of his companion.

He produced the workbench.

“Obtained: [Source of Turbidity] x10. Automatically stored in backpack.”
“Obtained: [Resentment Crystal] x6. Automatically stored in backpack.”
“Obtained: [Blade Bone of the Half-Torso Wraith] x4. Automatically stored in backpack.”

As he sorted through his pack, Mu Chen couldn’t help but sigh.

Thank goodness these things were far from their territory. If they’d broken in, the consequences would be unimaginable.

And to think—these monsters had once been human...

That troubled him. In every region, tens of thousands had died in the red mist. If every one of them mutated into monsters like these...

For a moment, he saw in his mind’s eye countless swarms of undead.

Fortunately, the territory was in a sparsely populated area. Once they returned, he would have to warn the other survivors on the world channel.

...

After a brief rest, they pressed on toward the grain storage base. As they passed a villa, Mu Chen hesitated for a moment.

It was here that he’d once negotiated a trade with the Yang family, and now, their destination lay less than a kilometer ahead.