271 The Unsolved Source Ghost
The gloom was more oppressive than the darkness, and Yang Jian had no idea what was around him; he couldn’t hear a thing, couldn’t see a thing,
At this moment, his Ghost Eye, capable of piercing through darkness, was as good as blind and of no critical use.
It seems the Ghost Eye hadn’t revived. Dealing with this situation was still a struggle.
Or perhaps, under these circumstances, it wasn’t just the Ghost Eye—anything less than fully functional felt significantly constrained.
Just as Zhao Kaiming had said, the fierce ghost was only a piece of the puzzle; Yang Jian might now be facing either a complete puzzle or one nearing completion.
“Tap, tap tap.”
The sound of dress shoes walking across the floor suddenly erupted.
After half an hour of waiting, just when Yang Jian decided to purposely expose a flaw, there finally came a noise.
“It’s approaching me,” Yang Jian suddenly looked in the direction of the sound.
Although he couldn’t see anything, he could vaguely gauge that the object was no more than ten meters from him.
And the distance was rapidly closing with the sound of footsteps.
Five meters, three meters… It appeared to be right before his eyes.
Yang Jian felt as if he could touch the ghost’s body with just an outstretched hand.
“Should I make a move?” He broke out in a cold sweat, the urge to thrust the Coffin Nail in his hand toward the sound overwhelming.
“No, I can’t be sure it’s a ghost just from the sound of footsteps; if I were to nail a Ghost Infant like last time and waste another chance, I might just meet my end here.”
He gritted his teeth and suppressed the impulse to lunge forward right away.
He decided to let the ghost make the first move; he absolutely wouldn’t act first, unable to afford the consequences of failure now.
One meter away, the footsteps abruptly stopped.
It seemed as though the ghost stood right before him.
“It stopped?” Yang Jian clutched the Coffin Nail in his hand tightly, wavered in his mind.
Would a tentative attack be better?
But in the place where the footsteps had come from, there was no Source Ghost at all—just a pair of empty dress shoes that had walked over, and once the footsteps ceased, only the bizarre shoes stood in front of Yang Jian.
The real ghost had been standing behind him all along, motionless just like him.
The footsteps were bait.
Yang Jian used himself as bait to lure the fierce ghost into a trap, and the Source Ghost used a pair of shoes to create footsteps, likewise attempting to lure Yang Jian into its trap.
At this moment, Yang Jian was unaware of this fact; had he known, he would have found it utterly chilling.
“No, a probing attack is pointless. Wait a bit longer.”
Caution and his many experiences with fierce ghosts allowed him to unknowingly avoid disaster.
After another short wait.
“It hasn’t attacked me?”
By now, Yang Jian’s nerves were stretched to their breaking point. He noticed that the ghost standing before him was unmoving.
Despite this, he was ready, prepared to drive the Coffin Nail in his hand into the body of the Source Ghost at the first opportunity.
But that opportunity didn’t come.
The footsteps a meter away had stopped and remained silent for quite some time.
After another tense ten minutes.
The footsteps started up again.
“Tap, tap tap.”
Within the gloom, a pair of dress shoes moved on their own, circling around Yang Jian.
Yang Jian stared fixedly at the direction of the footsteps, his head turning to follow them.
Still, he didn’t attack.
By this point, he had begun to suspect that the footsteps might be a problem, similar to when he faced the Headless Ghost Shadow, which deliberately set a trap to provoke his attack.
The moment he exposed a vulnerability would be the moment the fierce ghost struck.
“There’s something wrong with these footsteps…” Yang Jian was convinced of this, sensing an increasing eeriness around him.
The ghost that had disappeared, the footsteps encircling him.
The impenetrable gloom.
All of it concealed immense terror.
Though the conditions for the fierce ghost to attack were met, the ghost never showed, and Yang Jian was now eagerly wishing for its appearance, as it would give him the chance to act.
However, this standoff couldn’t go on forever.
Just as the surrounding gloom began to encroach upon Yang Jian’s body, there suddenly came a movement nearby.