Chapter 9: Total Annihilation, Not a Single Survivor
"You did very well. You saved me a lot of time," Li Mo praised.
Saori Tsuruyo revealed a satisfied smile, greatly enjoying Li Mo's patting.
Li Mo came before the spirit tablet and carefully scrutinized the spirit tablet that had no portrait.
Saori Tsuruyo stood behind Li Mo, quietly watching him.
Even though she had seen the sky-covering head-eating ghosts at the entrance rushing toward them, as long as her big brother was there, it seemed like all the crises could be resolved.
Saori Tsuruyo wasn't the only one who felt this way. The other sixteen students that Li Mo had brought from the broadcasting room also felt the same.
"The black coffin is open, and the coffin lid is on the ground next to it."
"The spirit tablet has no portrait, and the coffin has no corpse inside."
"There are five grave incense sticks. The first one is burning very quickly, more than ten times faster than when we first came in. The other four, although they're burning, show no sign of consumption. This means that the next one will only start burning when the current one is completely burned out."
"The change between before and now was the appearance of vengeful spirits. This means the grave incense has some kind of protective and warning function. It's likely one stick a day."
"But it can't last one day now. There must be something wrong."
"Five grave incense sticks... five days... a black coffin with no corpse... a spirit tablet with no portrait..."
Li Mo's brain was working at top speed. He spoke out all his thoughts to help organize them.
"It can't be that I have to lie down in it myself, can it?" Li Mo suddenly blurted out a terrifying idea.
According to past cases, if a living person lay down in a black coffin, they would definitely die. Even terrifying vengeful spirits couldn't come out, let alone ordinary people.
"Hey! Those heads are here!" Shigure Kira didn't know Li Mo's name, so she could only shout a reminder.
"Ca-Captain... are we going to die here?"
"Captain, I don't want to die. Even if I die under the claws of a Honkai beast, I can accept being tortured by Honkai... We don't want to die in the mouths of these heads!"
The crowd had already started to panic, and the heads had already crossed "that bottom line..." and entered the auditorium.
"Damn it!" Shigure Kira took out her greatsword. Looking at the dark, oddly shaped, ugly and distorted heads, she had no confidence.
But she was the captain. She couldn't retreat.
Was Shigure Kira not afraid of ghosts? She was afraid, very afraid. She was even afraid of the dark... When she was young, she couldn't sleep the whole night alone when her parents were out.
She couldn't show that expression.
Everyone else could be afraid, could be terrified, and could retreat.
But she couldn't, especially in front of her juniors.
In the blink of an eye, the first grave incense stick had only a short end left, less than 1 cm.
Li Mo fiddled with the grave incense, seeming to realize something. "The five grave incense sticks represent the five days of a funeral. Although the funeral procedures are different in different eras and dynasties, the first day is mainly about the encoffining."
"{Shigure Kira}, put the coffin lid askew on the coffin. Remember, leave a gap. Don't cover it all the way!"
Li Mo turned around and shouted.
Upon hearing the instruction, Shigure Kira didn't say anything and immediately rushed to the coffin lid on the ground, grabbing it with both hands, ready to lift it.
But an accident happened. The coffin lid didn't budge at all...
"Ughh! Damn it! Why can't I move it!" Shigure Kira even used Honkai energy to enhance her strength but still couldn't move it.
"Captain, I'll help you!"
"Me too!"
But the outcome didn't change.
"The heads, the heads are coming!"
"Big brother, what do we do!" Saori Tsuruyo kept retreating, already pushed against the wall. There was no place to retreat, and the heads were less than half a meter away from them.
Li Mo was also a little anxious at this moment. What had he missed...
Encoffining, wake, announcing the death, condolences, burial...
Coffins, corpses, grave incense, clocks, spirit tablets...
My major in college wasn't in the funeral industry!!
Just as Li Mo was getting frustrated, heart-wrenching screams came from inside the auditorium.
"Ahhhh!!! Don't come over! Get off my head!! Get off!!"
A bloody head was biting hard on a girl. The sharp teeth pierced the skull, and blood mixed with brain matter flowed out of the victim's head and dripped onto the ground, making "drip" "drip" sounds...
Soon, the painful screams disappeared. The head-eating ghost had devoured the girl's head.
Then, something even more bizarre happened. The head-eating ghost's bloody face gradually became clearer. Upon closer inspection, it was shockingly the face of the girl who had just been eaten.
Then, the head hopped and bounced, landing perfectly on her neck. The eyes suddenly opened.
Suddenly, the girl who had fallen to the ground after having her head eaten slowly stood up. Her limbs were twitching as if she was having cramps.
Perhaps because she hadn't adjusted to the body, the girl's arms were reversed, and the direction of her face was actually her back...
"I, I didn't die?"
"Wait, how am I... Ughh!!!"
When the girl realized that her head and body were reversed, she screamed again, making an ear-splitting shriek.
At that moment, the first grave incense stick in Li Mo's hand completely extinguished...
The head-eating ghosts rushed in crazily, as if they had completely lost their restraints.
The girl who had been eaten by a ghost also lost consciousness, giving Li Mo a strange smile.
A familiar head appeared in Li Mo's vision. It was Ekri...
She was already dead, and the ghost in her body had revived, bringing her head here.
"Ahhhh!!"
"Captain, save me! Save me!!"
Instantly, the entire auditorium became a true, "hell on earth."
Blood splattered everywhere. Despairing wails and screams filled Li Mo's ears. Blood filled the black coffin, and an endless stream of heads kept coming from outside.
Just like the notebook had predicted, [I won't be targeted by the ghost in the broadcasting room before the original host dies.]
And after Ekri died, Li Mo had become its primary target.
Suddenly, Ekri's head shot up and lunged at Li Mo.
At this time, Shigure Kira's right hand was already being bitten by seven or eight heads. The pain made her expression very ferocious.
She noticed that a head was lunging at Li Mo. She hardened her heart and threw away her weapon. Completely disregarding her own defense, she used her body to crash into Ekri's head.
Shigure Kira fell. Countless heads leapt up, blocking out the lights above the auditorium and also blocking out the hope of survival.
She could no longer feel the pain in her body.
"Gloomy man, I'm sorry. It seems this is the end for me..."
Before she could finish speaking, countless heads completely covered Shigure Kira, gnawing at her flesh, tearing at her beautiful sky-blue hair...
Li Mo faintly remembered that Shigure Kira's hair was very beautiful, as fresh and beautiful as the clear sky.
When Li Mo and Shigure Kira first met, he had unreservedly praised her hair because it was truly beautiful.
But now, it was scarred, and the dirty blood had ruined her soft and flowing sky-blue hair.
While Li Mo was in a daze, Ekri's head once again lunged at Li Mo, as if saying, "This time, there's no one to help you block."
But just when it was about to succeed, a scent of mercury came. Poisonous mercury, carrying some kind of bizarre rule, began to burn Ekri's head.
Unfortunately, Ekri's head didn't have vocal cords. But it turned its head toward Saori Tsuruyo.
Ghosts had specific rules for killing people. For example, targeting Li Mo.
And some other behaviors could also trigger the rules for killing people.
Now, the thermometer that Saori Tsuruyo had thrown had triggered a higher priority rule for killing people. The ghost had targeted Saori Tsuruyo.
"Stay, stay away from, Big brother!" After throwing the thermometer, Saori Tsuruyo's hand was empty.
She would die. She knew it.
But it didn't matter if she died. The unsmiling big brother was the hope of saving everyone.
As long as he was still alive, such more tragedies wouldn't happen. Saori Tsuruyo had always firmly believed in this.
Just like when she was in the small, sunless room, surrounded by darkness, where everyone lived like livestock... It was big brother who brought them under the sky, even if it was for less than an hour.
Saori Tsuruyo was very afraid of ghosts. In the dormitory, she would often be scared by her roommates' ghost stories and would be too afraid to go to the bathroom alone.
She was still afraid of ghosts now, so she could only keep shouting, as if the loud voice could make her brave.
But what Saori Tsuruyo didn't know was that shouting didn't make her brave. What made her brave was faith, was hope.
"Big brother, I'm sorry..." Saori Tsuruyo's weak voice was drowned out by the sounds of the heads gnawing at flesh.
In just a few minutes, besides Li Mo, the entire auditorium was left with only head-eating ghosts and the people who had been eaten by head-eating ghosts...
Li Mo had a gloomy face as he looked at the corpses on the ground, the severed limbs of all sizes.
The mercury on the heads had spilled onto the ground, covered by scarlet blood.