Zuo Lin'an tossed the corpse aside, planning to head over and see how the 【Blood Ghost Curse】 was playing out.
But before leaving, he instinctively glanced back at the corpse he had discarded.
“I remember...”
He recalled that the disappearance time of player corpses could also be set by the dungeon boss.
Previously, his dungeon was only One-Star and lacked any storyline, so it didn't matter when the corpses disappeared.
But now, things were different.
His dungeon had upgraded to Two-Star difficulty and now featured a plot. Therefore, he needed to configure the disappearance time for player corpses.
After a brief thought, Zuo Lin'an quickly recalled some posts he had read on the forum.
【In specter dungeons with complete storylines, it is best to let other living players see the player's corpse before it disappears.】
【Upon seeing the corpse, they will grow increasingly anxious and do everything they can to clear the dungeon as quickly as possible. However, the more they do and the more rushed they are, the more prone they are to making mistakes, thereby increasing the probability of triggering Death Rules.】
【This can drive the plot forward, accelerate their deaths, and most importantly, fit the narrative setting of the dungeon.】
Zuo Lin'an ended his trip down memory lane.
He casually set the player's corpse to disappear ten minutes after being discovered by other players.
“Ten minutes should be about right.”
Furthermore, without his specter aura to mask it, the remaining players would likely detect such a strong stench of blood with ease.
It was just... how many players would actually survive until tomorrow morning?
After setting the timer, Zuo Lin'an quickly withdrew his specter aura, concealed his figure, and gave chase in the direction of Han Mingming.
Just now, she had used her talent 【Position Swap】 to exchange places with Zhou Yunyun, allowing her to survive.
However, he had already made up his mind.
He would leave the next opportunity on the hour, at two o'clock, for her.
As for his auxiliary rule, 【time acceleration】, it could only be used once a day and had to be saved for emergencies, so he would hold onto it for now.
Zuo Lin'an arrived near Han Mingming's location and quietly hid himself.
At this moment, he happened to see the skull outlined in fresh blood quietly creeping closer to her, waiting for an opportunity.
Han Mingming had absolutely no idea this thing was there; she was currently resting against a tree.
She let out a long sigh of relief.
“Thank goodness...”
She was celebrating her survival.
“Locking onto Zhou Yunyun earlier was just a precaution. I didn't expect...”
Once Han Mingming calmed down, she remembered that this was a specter dungeon.
This wasn't normal life.
According to the web novels she had read, in dungeons like this, there was a high probability that the specter attacked because a player had done a specific thing.
In other words, the specter's choice to hunt her out of the three of them earlier wasn't just because of bad luck.
It was because of something she had done earlier that triggered the specter to lock onto her, which was why it chased her.
“Phew...”
“I really didn't expect the talent I drew to be this useful.”
The only downside was the long cooldown.
She had to wait two days.
Previously, she had looked down on this talent, thinking it was just some evil ghost possession that would inflict a hallucination on her.
She hadn't expected it to actually be useful.
She carefully looked around but found nothing unusual.
It seemed the specter hadn't continued tracking her down. This meant Zhou Yunyun had indeed inherited her status and had been killed by the ghost in the dungeon.
“That ghost shouldn't be targeting me anymore, right?”
She muttered under her breath.
Right at that moment, however, a sudden chill ran down her spine. Without any time to check what was happening, she immediately lunged forward and fell flat onto the ground.
She then quickly rolled over, scrambled to her feet, and bolted.
As she got up, she seized the chance to look back.
And what she saw was...
“The Blood Ghost Curse!”
“Damn it, it must be Zhou Yunyun!”
Because she had dodged in time, the Blood Ghost Curse had failed to possess her, giving her a brief moment to think of a solution.
Speaking of which, the Blood Ghost Curse was actually a very common curse.
It was also one of the most widely circulated and frequently used blood curses.
The caster only needed to draw a blood ghost pattern using their own blood, and it merely had to be roughly shaped.
Then, they would sacrifice their own blood. Once the blood ghost pattern absorbed the blood, it would transform into a skull outlined in fresh blood.
After that, the blood skull would travel all the way to the cursed target's location.
It wasn't fast, making it easy to spot.
It was unlike other powerful curses that could be cast from afar or moved too fast for the naked eye to track.
The most criticized aspect of it was that even the lowest-grade Daoist thunder talisman could easily disperse it.
For this reason, almost all cultivators carried a few of the cheapest thunder talismans on them.
But... precisely because of this, the Blood Ghost Curse was outrageously powerful in other aspects.
It was immune to all physical attacks and the vast majority of non-lightning offensive methods, and it could even weaken fire-based attacks by more than half.
If the attack possessed cold, yin-aligned attributes, it would not only fail to destroy the curse but would actually be devoured and absorbed, strengthening it instead.
As for how the curse took effect?
The moment the blood ghost skull made contact, it would instantly drain the blood from the victim's body.
How much was drained depended on how much the caster had sacrificed, calculated at twice the amount of the sacrifice.
Under normal circumstances, Han Mingming wouldn't give this Blood Ghost Curse a second thought. This low-end stuff could only pull off a sneak attack when the target was completely off guard.
Whenever she encountered it, she only needed to pull out the lowest-grade thunder talisman and throw it.
Throwing such a talisman would, at most, leave an ordinary person numb from the shock for a short while, recovering in less than ten seconds, yet it was precisely what could disperse the Blood Ghost Curse.
But right now, she had absolutely nothing on her!
She only had her everyday light veil.
As for the thunder talismans she usually carried with her daily?
None!
She didn't even know how she had ended up in this godforsaken place. Regardless, not a single item on her person had been left behind!
Especially those thunder talismans she normally wouldn't spare a glance for.
Han Mingming knew that Zhou Yunyun had cast the Blood Ghost Curse right before her death with precisely this in mind.
Knowing that she currently had no means to counter the Blood Ghost Curse.
That was why...
“Bitch!”
“Could you not have just died quietly in my place?”
“Wait, how did she know I was the one who swapped her over?”
Resentment filled her heart, but she didn't dare linger. She could only keep running.
Fortunately, the Blood Ghost Curse wasn't fast.
As long as she maintained this fleeing speed, the Blood Ghost Curse would never catch up to her.
But...
She was human, and humans eventually exhausted their strength, whereas the Blood Ghost Curse would never tire.
After running for a few minutes, her expression grew increasingly grim. Finally, she gritted her teeth, changed direction, and bolted toward the mountaintop.
Right now, the only ones who could save her life were those two Daoists.
Whether other Daoists knew lightning techniques, she didn't know, but Daoist Wufang and Lin Xiaolei definitely did.
If they intervened, the Blood Ghost Curse would be trivial to handle.
Although she didn't know if the old Daoist would actually help if she begged for aid—he might even strike her down first.
Rate on N.U.
