Lakeside Ghost Story 22

Marcus slipped beneath the lake's surface. In the water, he felt even lighter and more refreshed than he had on land, as if he were swimming through the air. Everything about it intoxicated him.

But he had not forgotten his purpose.

Marcus swam toward the center of Golden Lake. The drowned revenants around him seemed uninterested in him, merely hurrying past on their way to climb ashore and feast on blood.

He saw it!

An old dagger was embedded in a boulder on the lakebed.

On shore, Zhuo Yu furrowed his brow. Something felt very wrong.

"Even if he wanted to run, he shouldn't have fled into the lake. It's full of drowned revenants." The more Zhuo Yu thought about it, the stranger it seemed. He remained warily inside the half-extinguished magic array. The cultists within had already been dealt with by the drowned revenants, and with Asha present, none of them dared attack him.

But what did Marcus have to rely on that made him dare do this?

"Xiao Liu, watch the surroundings. Don't give the mayor a chance to show himself." Zhuo Yu handed his gun to Liu Jingyun. "Shoot the moment you see him surface."

The Boss was growing irritated. How dare that piece of trash swim into Golden Lake?

Gripping his axe, he strode toward the shore and blew his whistle, ordering the drowned revenants to attack the human in the lake. They were puzzled by the command, but they still entered the water one after another, patrolling their territory like hounds.

Under the ghastly moonlight, a head surfaced, scattering the mist above the water.

The gunshot cracked. Without a word, Liu Jingyun drew and fired. She lacked experience, and her first shot missed, but she immediately followed up with several more. At least two bullets struck the person in the lake.

Yet his body only shuddered twice before he broke through the waves and swam swiftly toward shore.

This was far too abnormal.

Zhuo Yu thought, This guy went into the lake deliberately to find something. He knew the Studios could not set up a Boss that was impossible to defeat. Asha had to have a weakness. All he could do now was hope the mayor had not figured that out.

Marcus stopped at the water's edge. His eyes were bloodshot, the whites webbed with sickly red veins. His lips had frozen purple, yet he threw back his head and laughed as if he had gone completely mad.

"You destroyed fifty years of my work and slaughtered my most loyal followers. I understand now. Fate brought us together. You are my natural enemy."

Zhuo Yu knew Asha did not like to talk, so he answered for him. "Who do you think you are?"

"Shh. Don't be so rude, my child." Mayor Marcus looked more like a crocodile than ever. He suddenly lunged ashore and charged straight at Asha. "We are both chosen by Golden Lake. It is time to settle this!"

Silver flashed in Marcus's hand. "In the end, only one of us can live!"

Liu Jingyun raised her gun to stop him, but just as before, the bullets did nothing. Marcus's wounds healed at terrifying speed. Tender pink flesh filled the holes directly, and his absurd recovery rate was far faster than Asha's.

"Did you think you were the only one who couldn't die?"

The madness in Marcus's eyes deepened, laced with boundless envy and hatred. At last, he revealed what he was holding.

It was a dagger. Soaked in the lake for too long, it had rusted over and become encrusted with tiny parasitic shells. It looked so fragile that a light knock against a rock might snap it in two.

Zhuo Yu's expression changed.

His prediction had come true.

Marcus moved as nimbly as an eel, closing on the Boss in an instant. And that was exactly what the Boss wanted. He had wandered Golden Lake for fifty years. He had long wanted to settle the score.

The two clashed. The enormous difference in size made it look like a tiger mauling a jackal. Naturally, Marcus was no match for Asha. The moment Asha seized his arm, the bone was already shattered. Marcus endured the pain and drove his dagger toward Asha's heart.

Asha dodged, but the blade still cut across his chest, exposing the wound that had never healed.

It was the fatal injury he had suffered before being transformed: the mark left when Marcus's son had plunged a dagger into his heart. A hideous vertical scar sprawled across his chest, the sole weakness of this seemingly invulnerable man.

Asha was enraged. He swung his axe down at Marcus. The blow nearly tore the air apart. Marcus could not possibly survive it.

With a wet thud, the axe, driven by overwhelming force, sliced into him like tofu, cleaving open the mayor's chest in a single stroke. Skin, muscle, and bone were severed together, exposing the steaming cavity within as his organs spilled across the ground.

Marcus let out a shrill scream. Yet even as he howled in pain, he gave a strange, sinister laugh. A few seconds later, the mayor lost all strength and collapsed on the grass, utterly still.

"Captain, it can't be that easy, can it?" Liu Jingyun moved to Zhuo Yu's side and asked quietly.

Zhuo Yu raised an eyebrow. This girl had already changed what she called him, even though they had not formed a guild yet.

"I don't think this is over either."

If the mayor could really be dealt with that easily, the film would never have laid so much groundwork.

As everyone stared tensely at the corpse on the grass, a fog of lake mist swept past, and Marcus vanished.

"Where did he go?!" Liu Jingyun cried.

In Golden Lake, a human body formed anew.

"Just as I thought, wasn't it?" Marcus's voice came from a distance. Zhuo Yu looked closely and saw him floating in the lake, completely uninjured. The wound that had split open his chest was gone.

Marcus stared fixedly at Asha, turning the dagger over and over in his hand. "After I endured the seventh day, the cut on my leg never healed. It seemed to be permanently fixed at that moment. Then I tried cutting my finger, and the new wound healed."

"So I came to believe that the Fountain of Youth leaves people fixed at a certain point in time. When we are injured, we heal quickly because we have already surpassed humanity. But once we die, our bodies return in the lake to the point at which we were transformed."

Marcus gave Asha a malicious, condescending smile. "And before I was transformed, I had no fatal wound."

All he had to do was drive this dagger, the one that had once grievously wounded Asha, back into his heart. This freak's current bodily state would overlap with the past, returning him to the timeline before he was transformed. Unable to revive, he would lose the guardian's power.

Mayor Marcus was convinced that this dagger could kill him.

"Great Fountain of Youth, grant me divine power! I will kill this usurping monster and claim dominion over you. From this day forward, all who drink your sacred water shall receive your blessing!"

Marcus sprang into the air. Now that he had tested his theory, he had no more reservations.

The two fought again. No matter how many times Asha killed him, Marcus's body could return to its starting point. He intended to wear his opponent down with this horrifying war of attrition. He knew this powerful monster did not want to die without dignity. Revival itself was an insult, much less when Marcus had no intention of allowing him to revive at all.

This fellow had a warrior's will.

But what did that matter?

In a short time, Marcus had already died more than ten times. He was gradually learning the patterns of his opponent's attacks, but understanding them did not mean his body could keep up. This time, Asha caught him by the neck again and snapped his spine.

"Have you noticed Marcus is changing?" Zhuo Yu sat inside the magic array, its light allowing him to see the battle in the distance. "Every time he revives, his body swells a little. He's slowly becoming deformed."

"I noticed too." Liu Jingyun and Zhuo Yu were ordinary people. They could not interfere in a battle between two immortals, and could only worry helplessly.

Zhuo Yu felt the situation was extremely dangerous. Mayor Marcus could rely on Golden Lake's power to revive endlessly, like a player who could reload a save. As long as he did not truly die, he would eventually find a way to clear the game. No matter how strong the Boss was, Marcus would discover the patterns in his attacks and learn how to evade them.

For someone with that ability, winning the game was only a matter of time.

Asha's situation was becoming increasingly dire.

When Marcus's blade swept across Asha's chest and finally cut his skin, Zhuo Yu could no longer endure it.

It was both his own will and the character's will. Neither could accept Asha being harmed before their eyes. Zhuo Yu in particular found it unbearable to see Asha's perfect body cut by such trash.

"I've got it!" Zhuo Yu swiftly summoned a fork from grid space. Without changing expression, he stabbed it into his own arm and used the sharpened edge to carve a deep, long wound. Blood immediately gushed out in torrents.

"Captain, what are you doing?!" Liu Jingyun's mouth fell open, clearly unable to understand what she was seeing.

But Zhuo Yu's plan worked.

Marcus suddenly froze. His nose twitched like a dog's, and his gaze snapped toward Zhuo Yu. More precisely, toward the wound that would not stop bleeding.

Marcus was not the only one deducing his enemy's weakness. Zhuo Yu had been thinking nonstop as well. From the beginning, Marcus had seemed wrong to him. How did he know about Golden Lake's seven-day curse? Unless he had met someone who survived it, or unless he himself was a survivor!

And he was not a guardian recognized by Golden Lake, yet he had still dared to enter the water without fearing an attack from the drowned revenants. There was only one possible conclusion.

Marcus had never received the Fountain of Youth's blessing at all. He was merely an "ageless" drowned revenant!

He was cursed!

Seeing that Marcus was no longer looking at Asha and was instead drawn by the blood, running toward the magic array, Zhuo Yu immediately turned his wheelchair toward the hexagram.

This was the focal point of King Solomon's magic array. The six bottles were its anchors. Once activated, only its master could shut it down, and anyone who tried to destroy the array would be attacked.

But this was the fastest solution Zhuo Yu could think of!

He thrust his hand into the focal point, which gave off sharp silver light. At once, immense gravity made the blood vessels in his right hand burst inch by inch. In less than half a second, it turned purple, the skin filled with bruising.

"The pressure is too strong." Even Zhuo Yu was nearly unable to bear the excruciating pain. It felt as if his hand had been plunged thousands of meters beneath the sea, the pressure on the verge of crushing it completely.

"Help me!" Zhuo Yu looked at Liu Jingyun.

Liu Jingyun was so frightened by his injuries that tears shimmered in her eyes, but Marcus was only a few steps away. Gritting her teeth and squeezing her eyes shut, she used all her strength to push Zhuo Yu toward the focal point.

Zhuo Yu thrust his entire right arm inside. His flesh burst apart, exposing bloody fascia and bone. He had never experienced such torment. He could barely suppress a hoarse cry of pain, yet his hand still reached steadily, forcefully, for one of the sacred bottles at a point of the hexagram and yanked it free.

-- King Solomon's Third Moon Magic Array: array broken.

At that very moment, Marcus, dagger in hand, rushed up to Zhuo Yu. His eyes were clouded. After dying and returning so many times, the human reason within him had been worn away completely.

Now, he was nothing but a bloodthirsty drowned revenant!

Marcus plunged the dagger toward Zhuo Yu's heart.