"…"
Blood almost sprayed out of Chu Chongtian's mouth three meters far.
'No wonder so many of the possessed had suddenly appeared in the vicinity. The bastard was all ready to dig up their graves! As if Jack the Ripper could keep his calm!
'He was already a malicious ghost from the start. With this, his resentment has probably reached sky-high.
'No, wait, it was already sky-high from the start. It's probably close to rocketing through the sky now.
'Wait, what is Master using to dig up the grave?
'That thing formed into a cross with two slabs of wood and acting as someone's tombstone?
'Could it even be used for digging up graves?
'Is that why he needs two minutes?
'Couldn't he look for a shovel in advance instead? He might have been able to finish in just a minute that way.'
Chu Chongtian's mind wandered all about. Even he himself didn't know what exactly was running through his own mind anymore.
He merely raised his gun instinctively and pulled the trigger.
There wasn't any need to aim either. After all, all that was in front of him right now was 'people' anyway. No matter how off-mark he was, he would be able to hit his target.
However, he used up all six bullets in no time.
Apart from hindering the possessed at the forefront slightly, no other effect came out of it at all. Neither did Chu Chongtian dare to go forward and wrestle with them.
Although their speed of movement wasn't fast and was a little similar to those slow-moving zombies in the movies, it was common knowledge that getting caught in a zombie horde would lead to deadly consequences.
Retreating, while attacking at the same time, was the way to go. But right now, they needed to buy two minutes of time for Master Xuanzang.
They couldn't retreat!
The only thing worth rejoicing was that when Jack the Ripper was possessing and controlling a large number of people, his finesse in control would be significantly reduced.
The possessed would not have phantom-like speed and superhuman combat abilities.
Just as he was thinking about that, Chu Chongtian felt his vision blurring for an instant—someone had crossed the distance between them.
The person came right up to him, holding a dagger in his hand. He stabbed viciously at Chu Chongtian's chest.
There was no sound of movement, nor was there any sign of life in him. This was a true specter.
Chu Chongtian could only say that he 'saw' him. Perhaps his thought processes had also reacted in time.
However, his physical reaction couldn't keep up at all. He could only watch helplessly as the other party's dagger stabbed towards him.
In his stupor, he felt as if the world was moving in slow motion.
The only thing he could do was to place his hope in Master Xuanzang's blessing and hope that it could save him from certain death.
He heard a whoosh by his ear.
Chu Chongtian caught a glimpse of a shadow flying past him in his peripheral vision. It crashed violently against the head of the person in front of him.
The possessed person collapsed upon impact and crumpled onto the ground at the same time as the shadow.
The shadow was still in perfect condition, but the possessed person's head could no longer be put back together in one piece.
"Launch the Final Storm."
Tang Luo's voice drifted over from the back.
It was only then that Chu Chongtian got a clear look at the shadow on the ground. It was a revolver—Ill Omens.
As a revolver, Ill Omens only had six bullets.
Including Chu Chongtian's own vital energy and blood, there was only a maximum of 12 bullets.
Honestly, in this aspect, Ill Omens was far inferior to the firearms of the contemporary era.
However, the second skill it came with, Final Storm, was relatively useful. It could fire 6,000 rounds in a minute.
This rate of fire had already reached the M134 machine gun's highest rate of fire in theory.
This type of machine gun was installed in armed helicopters, armored cars, and fortifications. Only macho men like the Terminator could even lift this type of Gatling gun directly for use.
The storm of bullets formed by six muzzles and a rate of fire of 2,000 to 4,000 rounds per minute in actual combat was enough to rip apart the majority of its targets.
And in the case of Ill Omens' Final Storm, not only was there no energy consumption, but there was also no recoil. Even a child could use it.
Chu Chongtian needed to lift the gun, pull the trigger, and launch its supplementary skill, Final Storm.
The revolver started spinning wildly, and snakes of resplendent crimson flames sprayed from the muzzles.
It didn't shoot a straight line of bullets but an entire expanse of it. The range of fire didn't lose out to the barrage of a Gatling gun!
It was just like a large combine harvester going through a wheat field during the autumn harvest.
Wherever the muzzles were aimed, the possessed collapsed, or rather, disappeared in large batches.
Chu Chongtian held his arm up and waved it left and right wildly, creating a terrifying doomed land of death.
He should count himself lucky that the possessed people's faces were contorted, shadowed, and blank, or that blood didn't flow from their bodies.
Otherwise, the scene of blood and flesh flying about everywhere would probably make Chu Chongtian puke his guts out right away.
In the case of the current situation, while he did catch glimpses of severed limbs once in a while, if he tried his best to ignore them, Chu Chongtian could still persevere.
Zhou Zhenguo stood a step behind Chu Chongtian. He quickly loaded his gun and shot down a few who managed to get past the line of fire.
The Imprisoning Chain also acted as a backup. They might just be able to hold them back for two minutes.
Even if the Final Storm could only sustain for a minute, there was also a limit to the number of people encircling them.
After a minute of gunfire, there probably wouldn't be many left.
If Jack the Ripper's degree of control over them rose dramatically, with the blessing protecting them, as well as Zhou Zhenguo's skill, they would be able to stand against their attacks!
By the 50th second of the Final Storm, the number of possessed people within their sight was already far and few.
But outside of the field of light shrouding them, one could still vaguely hear footsteps and glimpse a hint of blurry human figures.
While hidden in the snowstorm, the possessed was still approaching.
Chu Chongtian stared hard at the scene in front of him. He pointed the gun wherever he detected sounds of motion. But neither he nor Zhou Zhenguo next to him noticed something.
At the other side diagonally to the back, a phantom-like figure laid close to the ground and slithered towards them like a poisonous snake.
When it got near them, its upper body got up in a strange manner.
The dagger in its hand stabbed towards Chu Chongtian's lower back.
Then, the figure paused in its movements.
A hand gripped his neck from the back!
Zhou Zhenguo heard Tang Luo say, "Hmm, I seem to have found a tool to my liking. I'll need only 20 seconds to get it done now."
Instinctively, he turned back and looked behind him.
Master Xuanzang was holding a large object in his right hand and waving it up and down.
It looked like a human?!
Not just that, it even seemed like it was that priest from before?!
"How tragic…" Zhou Zhenguo uttered silently and turned back to the front at once.
The priest was likely the first person who had been possessed and controlled by Jack the Ripper.
And there was a high chance that he had been in cahoots with the organization to handle and dispose of dead bodies. Both the cross and the dagger were indicative of this.
The spinning cylinders came to a stop.
The muzzles were smoking, but in actuality, they remained cold to the touch and weren't in the least overheated.
Chu Chongtian and Zhou Zhenguo could hold off the remaining small fries that were still approaching without any problems.
A few sparse gunshots later, they heard Tang Luo's voice coming from the back.
"I'm done."
Just as he spoke, the snowstorm suddenly came to a standstill in that instant.
Yes, a standstill.
In fact, Zhou Zhenguo and Chu Chongtian could even see snowflakes suspended in front of their eyes.
And then, the clouds were dispelled, and the moon was revealed.
The gray snowflakes suspended in mid-air fell onto the ground, and the thick and dense clouds in the sky vanished without a trace.
It was such fine weather that it was as if there wasn't a blizzard at all just a second ago.
Only the gray snow at their feet remained.
The bright and clear moonlight shone upon the earth.
Even without the light shrouding their bodies, the moonlight was bright enough to give Zhou Zhenguo and Chu Chongtian a clear view of their surroundings.
The possessed also disappeared along with the snowstorm.
"Amitabha, I have sinned."
A chant of Buddha's name made Zhou Zhenguo and Chu Chongtian turn behind and look towards Tang Luo and the pit by his feet.
The pit was dug by him.
As for the tool he had used to dig the pit, let's just ignore it.
Master had already spoken of his 'sins'. What more did they want?
Of course, they were going to forgive him!
Contrary to what Zhou Zhenguo and Chu Chongtian had imagined, what lay inside the pit was neither a coffin nor someone's exposed corpse.
At the bottommost was a pile of skeletal remains. On top of them were mutilated and half-rotting corpses.
This was clearly a mass grave!
"Jack the Ripper!" Chu Chongtian couldn't help exclaiming in shock. "He's actually the product born from the numerous test subjects' auras of resentment?"
How did this mass grave come to be?
By putting together the results of their investigations, one could easily guess.
In the course of the organization's experiments pursuing immortality, the mutilated corpses of the test subjects had been abandoned and buried here.
Even if they were just mentally ill patients, they had emotions nonetheless.
Not to mention that there was a large number of mentally healthy people too.
Intense fury, indignation, insanity, and immense hatred and resentment—all of these came together to form Jack the Ripper.
It wasn't a human or a ghost, but the product born from the gathering of resentful auras.
To be honest, it was the same kind of evil and depraved creature like the Resurrected, except that their strength and forms were worlds apart.
At least, compared to the current Jack the Ripper, there was an insurmountable distance between the two of them that the Resurrected couldn't possibly cross.
Why did the Ripper tear the guts of people apart?
Because it had been dissected.
The ripped wounds represented its fury.
Dr. Jack had once mocked the Ripper's technique and called it crude. Yet he didn't know that this was a kind of 'imitation' by Jack the Ripper, as well as his revenge!
Evil creatures rarely possessed intelligence. They acted purely by instinct to bring ruin and to destroy.
In the case of Jack the Ripper, there was probably an additional element of revenge.
The indiscriminate hunting was for the sake of strengthening itself so that it could fulfill its revenge.
It wasn't simply just revenge against the organization. It was more of revenge against 'everything' it saw.
At the bottom of it all, there wasn't much of a difference between what it did and bringing ruin and destruction to everything.
"Mission complete. Head back to the train carriage and return to the real world."
After Chu Chongtian's exclamation, a message surfaced in their minds.
This was a fascinating feeling that was in between speech and text.
It informed Tang Luo and the others that their mission of Search for Jack the Ripper had been completed.
Zhou Zhenguo and Chu Chongtian were overjoyed. They had originally thought that they would only be able to complete the mission by killing Jack the Ripper.
Unexpectedly, the mission was completed just by this alone.
Except… by 'head back to the train carriage', was it referring to that train carriage they had arrived here in?
"Do we have to go to a certain special location in order to return?" asked Chu Chongtian.
Wasn't there supposed to be a light pillar shining down upon them after the completion of the mission to send them back immediately, followed by the treatment of their injuries?
"I haven't experienced this before, but I've heard about it from other people." The smile on Zhou Zhenguo's face vanished, and his countenance turned solemn. "This isn't good news."
Obviously, the return journey was probably going to be fraught with danger.
They had only repelled Jack the Ripper, for the time being, that was all.
"Let's go!"
Zhou Zhenguo took a deep breath and started to run in the direction of the crypt where they had first come from.
After going through the crypt and the passage of steps leading downwards, they would truly be able to leave this place when they got back to the train carriage.
There had been seven of them when they had first come. There were probably only going to be three of them left on the way back.
Zhou Zhenguo lamented in his heart.
All of a sudden, the gradually fading light around him intensified fiercely and formed a screen of light.
It was as though Zhou Zhenguo had been struck by a heavy hammer. He was thrown out more than ten meters into the distance and crashed heavily on the ground!