Zhou Zhenguo, who had been flung onto the ground, scrambled to his feet.
It might have looked very dramatic and horrifying earlier, but in actuality, the screen of light that just disappeared had taken the vast majority of the damage for him.
It turned the originally fatal blow into a very forceful push that caused him to fall.
Nothing serious would happen to Zhou Zhenguo's elderly arms and legs, even if he took a fall like that.
"What's that?"
Zhou Zhenguo looked in the direction from which he had been sent flying.
There, a human figure stood quietly.
No, it shouldn't be described as standing. Rather, he was in a crawling position where he faced the sky, and his back faced the ground.
How was one supposed to get into a crawling position while facing the sky, and their back faced the ground?
Firstly, with their arms raised, one must bend backward until they propped their palms against the ground.
Then, his joints must break and twist in a manner that went completely against the norm and become as though an arthropod's appendages, just like a spider's legs.
This wasn't enough yet. His head that was shrouded in shadows and featured only three empty holes was even rotated 180 degrees.
The holes, where the eyes were supposed to be, were on top while the hole where the mouth was supposed to be was at the bottom.
It maintained a humanoid form and had dull greenish-blue skin. There were stitched wounds all over its body. Some lacerations were still open, exposing the motionless black internal organs inside.
The monster stared at Zhou Zhenguo with the empty holes acting as its eyes.
Its four limbs waved about, leaving four shallow pits in the ground right away.
The only reason why the contorted monster didn't continue to attack Zhou Zhenguo was that someone was standing next to it.
Tang Luo stepped on the monster's chest with one foot while holding another similar monster in his hand.
Chu Chongtian fell onto his bottom, his mouth agape. Fear was still lingering in him.
The sound of rustling reached their ears. It was the sound of snow being stepped on.
Behind the three of them, the pit that Tang Luo had dug was enveloped in a thick black aura. Monsters that looked just like the one from before were slowly crawling out of it.
Their guess was right!
Jack the Ripper was becoming stronger.
Every resident of the city he killed made Jack the Ripper a little stronger.
From being fearful of facing them directly in the beginning to the large-scale possession in the latter stage and the contorted and powerful monsters of this moment, Jack the Ripper's current bizarreness and strength made chills run down their spines.
The contorted monster lifted its head high and emitted a silent howl.
Ripples visible to the eye spread outwards from its mouth soundlessly. The ripples lashed against the ground, causing snow to fly into the air.
Zhou Zhenguo and Chu Chongtian cupped their hands over their ears, looks of pain and agony appearing on their faces.
They felt as if someone was stabbing their eardrums with needles. It seemed as though chains were slowly tightening around their bodies as well.
"The two of you can leave first. I'll bring up the rear."
Tang Luo flung away the monster in his hand and hurled it at the monster that was howling, stopping it from causing further trouble.
The two monsters crashed against each other and fell into a heap. However, they didn't behave in the same way as before.
Under Tang Luo's attacks, they couldn't even last a single round. They were swept away and killed within seconds.
After entangling around each other, the two monsters merged into a humanoid spider and turned even more contorted and bizarre.
"Jack…"
What came out of their mouths sounded like a name, but in actuality, it was just a sound of resentment and grudge without any meaning to it.
"Go," Tang Luo repeated. He stepped hard and stamped the monster underneath his foot completely into the mud.
"Master!" shouted Chu Chongtian, clearly moved. Then he got up and ran off without even looking back.
He didn't forget to throw Ill Omens over to Tang Luo before fleeing.
As for Zhou Zhenguo, he moved even quicker than Chu Chongtian and ran off immediately without even shouting anything. It wasn't like they were filming some kind of melodramatic show anyway.
What was the point of acting out ridiculous scenes like shouting, "No, I won't leave! If we have to leave, then let's leave together!"?
With Tang Luo bringing up the rear, they could still leave.
Should they stay behind, apart from throwing their lives away, they would only be a hindrance to Tang Luo.
Tang Luo watched Chu Chongtian, and Zhou Zhenguo flee. Then, he shifted his gaze to the eight-legged contorted monster and smiled.
The ground beneath his feet suddenly caved in, and a shallow pit appeared. In the center of the pit was a monster that no longer looked like what it used to be.
"You can't kill me with just these few monsters," said Tang Luo with a smile.
The black aura rising from the grave turned violent.
Monsters wrestled out of the grave bit by bit. The feeling this gave off was actually as if brand new lives were being birthed.
Tang Luo put away Ill Omens. He discarded the cap on his head and stretched his neck muscles. Then, he walked towards the grave.
A brazen and ruthless aura gradually emanated from him.
Pant… pant…
This was probably the fastest they had ever run in their entire lives. While the speed was undoubtedly unprecedented, the possibility of this being the one and only time was low.
Chu Chongtian and Zhou Zhenguo were in the crypt that they had passed through when they had first come here.
They gasped heavily for breath with their hands propped against their knees.
What they were breathing in didn't feel like air but burning flames.
Moreover, it only circled one round in their throats and didn't even reach their lungs.
"Ugh!"
Chu Chongtian panted twice heavily. He could not hold back anymore, so he propped himself against the coffin wall and threw up.
He could feel grooves under the fingers of his right hand. They were inscriptions of names and dates of birth and death.
After puking his guts out, Chu Chongtian finally felt a little better.
Zhou Zhenguo walked over to the metal door of the passage leading underground and reached out to pull at it.
"Eh?"
Chu Chongtian lifted his head and asked, "What's wrong?"
"It's locked again," replied Zhou Zhenguo.
"Didn't… we open it when we first came? Are we… supposed to push instead?" Chu Chongtian was still speaking haltingly.
They didn't even know how long they had been running during the mad dash earlier.
They only knew that they had felt a sense of suffocation and a feeling as if their lives were at stake.
Even with Tang Luo bringing up the rear and none of Jack the Ripper's conjured monsters coming after them, who knew if Master Xuanzang could hold back every single one of them? And whether any of them would get past him?
One must do things like fleeing while charging straight ahead in one breath without looking back.
It was too easy for things to go wrong if one looked behind them.
"No, I had kicked it outwards." Zhou Zhenguo recalled. Back then, he had kicked at the metal door and kicked it down with one strike.
Someone—maybe the priest—had probably reinstalled it after that.
There wasn't anything wrong with pulling.
"Let's do it together."
Chu Chongtian stepped forward. While holding one of the bars of the metal door, he pulled hard together with Zhou Zhenguo.
For some reason, the metal door wasn't cold to the touch. Instead, there was a warmth to it. But neither of them could bother themselves with this bit of abnormality.
They were only thinking of opening the metal door, getting back to the train carriage, and returning to the real world so they could get a true moment of rest.
"Why isn't it budging!"
A minute later, Chu Chongtian stood in front of the metal door with a savage look on his face.
The same went for Zhou Zhenguo.
The two of them had combined their strength and pulled with all their might, as though they were in a tug of war. Their palms were already all red.
Their grips were so tight that their palms hurt. Yet the metal door didn't budge in the least.
"What kind of lock is it that's so powerful?"
Moonlight couldn't shine into the depths of the crypt. The one and only light source was the door-sized entrance.
The area near the metal door was in pitch-black darkness, preventing them from seeing how exactly it was locked such that it didn't even budge one bit.
Zhou Zhenguo reached out his arm and felt around. "There isn't a lock. How can there not be one?
"Oh, is there a latch instead? There isn't anything at all!"
Zhou Zhenguo's voice betrayed dread and panic.
"How can that be! Step back, let me do it!"
Zhou Zhenguo gripped the metal door with both hands. A faint white glow appeared around his tightly closed fists.
"Ha!"
He let out a roar, and his body leaned backward with great force. He had put his skill, Powerful Single Strike, to use.
The amount of strength that erupted instantaneously could overturn a small sedan.
Except that after the blast of power, Zhou Zhenguo no longer had any strength to hold on to the metal door. He collapsed straight onto the ground.
The metal door was still as intact as ever.
This metal door with a grille that wasn't particularly solid had suddenly turned into an insurmountable obstacle.
This was a boundary that separated life and death.
"It can't be opened?"
A pleasant voice rang out from behind them. His shadow reflected on the ground before Tang Luo appeared at the entrance.
"For some reason, this metal door just won't budge." Zhou Zhenguo was leaning against the coffin wall right now. He didn't even want to lift a finger at this point, so he let Chu Chongtian, who was faring slightly better, speak instead.
"Master, you—"
As Tang Luo approached them, Chu Chongtian exclaimed in shock.
Under the moonlight, he could see that Tang Luo was as pale as a sheet. There were even traces of blood at the corners of his lips.
That wasn't all. His gait earlier was even somewhat unsteady. He was walking towards them with his right hand practically propped against the coffin wall for support.
Master Xuanzang was injured! And his injuries looked very serious, no less!
Tang Luo coughed a couple of times. "It's fine, these are light injuries."
"Master, don't say that while throwing up blood!" Chu Chongtian couldn't keep his calm anymore. "Where's Jack the Ripper? Did you kill him, Master?"
"No, I've already tried my best," replied Tang Luo. "If he gets any stronger, this monk may have to hand over his life right here."
"Hurry, hurry!"
Chu Chongtian turned around and pulled madly at the door.
"Don't bother, Benefactor Chu. You can't open it yet," said Tang Luo.
"You can't be serious. Do we really have to kill Jack the Ripper?" Chu Chongtian bemoaned.
"This…"
Zhou Zhenguo, who was sitting on the ground, suddenly spoke at this point. "Is this your name here?"
"Huh?" Chu Chongtian was flabbergasted.
"Is this your name, Chu Chongtian, on this wall here?!" Zhou Zhenguo shouted at Chu Chongtian.
"What?"
Chu Chongtian walked over and squatted down next to him.
Tang Luo stepped aside in a timely fashion, allowing the moonlight to shine on the wall.
Chu Chongtian had a dazed look in his eyes. He could see that the name inscribed on the wall near Zhou Zhenguo's head was his!
Even his date of birth was there too. There wasn't a date of death at the other end of the horizontal line.
"What… is the meaning of this?"
Chu Chongtian looked at Tang Luo instinctively.
"Sigh, if my guess is correct, this is the world of the dead. This crypt belongs to us."
"We're dead?"
Chu Chongtian looked at another coffin. The name on it was—Li Liang!
Little Li, the salted fish, who had encountered danger on the very first night, and the
Li Liang had disappeared right underneath their noses.
"We're definitely not dead yet," replied Tang Luo.
At that moment, a tremor shook the entire crypt.
Broken rocks fell from the top and hit against the stone walls at the sides.
Everyone lifted their heads and saw a few gigantic grayish-white fingers drilling into the crypt. It was as though they were grabbing hold of a toy. They grabbed the crypt's roof and lifted it completely, allowing moonlight to shine into the crypt.
"This is…"
Zhou Zhenguo and Chu Chongtian froze, still and motionless, like frogs encountering snakes, rabbits encountering wolves, and geeks seeing their 2D wives appearing in the flesh in front of them.
This absolute difference between their levels was such that just its gaze alone made them unable to move.
A gigantic humanoid upper torso was outside the crypt. Stitches covered its body along with a wound that practically ripped its chest apart completely. It dragged its intestines and spine about on the outside, while its hands were as thin and shriveled as dead branches and grayish-white skin.
Its head was in the shadows, and its oval-shaped eyes and mouth were empty, like the monsters they had encountered on the other side of the graveyard.
But this time, the empty holes were no longer dark. Instead, its previously vacant eye sockets were filled with twisted and entangled souls that were howling non-stop.
The same applied to its exposed organs.
Upon a closer look, one would discover that this monstrosity was a combination of mutilated corpses and severed body parts.
This was Jack the Ripper's current true form, and it had finally appeared before the trio.
"Fantastic, it's finally willing to come out for a beating in its true form!"
The sense of feebleness around Tang Luo disappeared. He straightened his body and lifted his head, looking towards the massive head staring at them.
"Looks like my acting hasn't deteriorated."
His fingers spread open, flexing a little. Then they closed, forming a fist!
Within the narrow crypt, energy waves surged and rushed towards the heavens!