Starting as dockworkers, they swept through Chongqing.

A pale, swollen hand broke through the water and grabbed out, its fingernails filled with black mud and seaweed, but its wrist was empty, as if it had been forcibly torn from a corpse.

Then, the second, the third, the fourth...

The entire floodwaters seemed to be filled with countless drowning victims reaching out, grabbing feet, clinging to legs, and pulling at clothes, desperately trying to drag people into deeper water.

Xilun's eyes turned cold, and he slammed his right palm down.

The sky-blue chill suddenly dissipated!

Click!

The water within two zhang around him instantly froze into a layer of white and blue ice. The dozen or so water ghost hands, still in a grasping posture, were frozen together with half of their bodies, their faces contorted and their mouths wide open, yet not a single sound could be heard.

Xilun lifted his foot and stomped down heavily.

boom!

The ice shattered, along with the half-frozen, half-ethereal water ghosts, all collapsing into black dust.

But this is just the beginning.

The deeper he went into the Seventh Wharf, the more resentful shadows appeared in the water, and the clearer the whispers became in his ears.

Those sounds weren't just meant to scare people; they were like hungry creatures that had caught the scent of living people, lingering all around, repeating themselves over and over again—

"Let's go back..."

"Don't go over there..."

"You will sink too..."

"He's just like us now..."

Xilun remained unmoved, silently activating the Moon Memory Meditation Technique in his mind, allowing his spirit to be like a stone sunk to the bottom of a deep lake, forcefully suppressing the noises that kept pounding against the edge.

Ahead, an overturned truck lay across the road, its wheels still slowly turning. Two dockworkers were trapped next to it; one's chest was rising and falling weakly, while the other's leg was half broken, his face submerged in water, and he looked like he was about to die.

Xilun paused for only a moment before stepping forward with the gun case, grabbing the edge of the truck with one hand, his shoulder and back muscles tensing up suddenly!

creak-

He actually managed to lift a corner of the car body, which weighed several hundred kilograms.

The surviving dockworker coughed violently. As soon as he lifted his head out of the water, he saw the young man in front of him coldly drag him out and then push him behind a wooden post.

"Can you walk?"

The man choked, tears and snot streaming down his face, and nodded frantically.

"Take him and head north." Xilun pointed in the direction of the previous rescue shed. "There's a woman in the shed. Tell her that the section behind the third section of the old causeway is starting to collapse, and tell her not to send any more people over."

"Yes, yes..."

The man scrambled away, dragging his companion with the broken leg, but as he turned back, he couldn't help but ask, "You...you're still going in?"

Siren had already started walking again, leaving only the words: "There's someone inside."

The wind and rain were so loud that the dockworker could barely hear them, but for some reason, he felt inexplicably certain.

Further ahead, the road completely disappears.

The railway track that originally led to Cold Storage No. 3 has been submerged in black water, with several broken sections of track protruding from the surface like animal bones sunk in the sea.

Further away, the collapsed bridge wreckage lay like a huge shadow in the depths of the torrential rain, occasionally illuminated for a moment by lightning, revealing a sense of oppressive unease that made one's heart ache.

Xilun stood on the high, ruined platform and slowly closed his eyes.

The reverberation chamber is fully open.

The sounds of wind, rain, clanging chains, crashing tides, and screams from a distant crowd...

All the sounds were peeled away layer by layer in his mind, and finally, the deepest and most profound one was forcibly pulled out from the noise.

That wasn't just the sound of water.

It's a gun.

It was the sharp sound left behind after the spearhead cut through the dampness and resentment.

Lund is still playing.

But the gunshot was much softer than it had been at the beginning, clearly being slowed down little by little by something.

Xilun opened his eyes, his gaze even colder. He then picked up the gun case and jumped down the half-sloping track.

The icy black water instantly reached above the knees.

Almost at the moment he landed, the shadows that had been merely spying in the surrounding black water seemed to be provoked by something and rushed towards him all at once!

This time it's not just about hands.

One of the crew members, whose face was half-submerged and mangled, was the first to emerge from the water, his broken work badge still hanging on his chest, spewing out a stream of black foam with a fishy smell.

Immediately afterwards, more corpses were unearthed from various places, some wearing old-fashioned dock uniforms, others wearing patrol raincoats from ten years ago, and some even being only the size of children with ropes wrapped around their necks and empty eye sockets.

They don't speak, they just frantically pounce on people.

With a flick of his wrist, Xilun caused the gun case to bounce off the ground, revealing the nine-foot-long golden spear.

The moment the gun touched his hand, his entire demeanor changed abruptly, like a high wall pressing down in the wind and rain, cold, hard, and heavy, carrying an unshakeable sense of dominance.

"roll."

The moment the word was uttered, guns swept across the battlefield!

boom!

The golden spear shaft smashed away three water ghosts that lunged at it with astonishing force, but what exploded was not flesh and blood, but clumps of cold, foul-smelling black water and shattered resentment.

Before the few corpses in the back row could get close, Xilun's left palm had already reached out, and the sky-blue cold energy in his palm suddenly condensed, and he slammed it heavily into the water!

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Large swaths of black water rapidly froze beneath his feet, the ice spreading forward until it turned the sea surface and the broken railway track several meters ahead white.

More than ten corpses were trapped in the ice, their faces pressed against the ice, their mouths opening and closing as if they wanted to crawl forward.

Xilun strode swiftly across the ice.

But the closer one got to the underground entrance of Cold Storage No. 3, the stronger the resentment became, as thick as a pot of boiling black oil, making even the air feel heavy.

Raindrops fell on his shoulders, and a few slipped down his collar and into his skin, creating a strange, slippery sensation, as if it were not just water, but someone gently stroking his back with their fingers.

Xilun frowned, immediately realizing he had stepped onto the edge of pollution.

Two gunshots suddenly rang out from behind the ruins of the wall ahead.

boom!boom!

The bullet struck the black water, splashing up a trail of foul-smelling spray. Immediately afterward, a staggering figure emerged from behind the wall—it was Pete.

The old man's face was half blue, his hands were trembling violently, and a water ghost was clinging to his back, almost climbing up to his shoulder. He kept stammering, "Don't come any closer... don't come any closer..."

Xilun lunged forward, his spear tip lashing upwards!

Snapped!

The water ghost was instantly flung away, exploding into black foam in mid-air. Pete's legs went weak, and he almost knelt in the water, but Siron grabbed him by the back of the collar: "Did Sarah give you the medicine?"

Pete stared at him blankly for a moment before barely recognizing him: "west...Xiren?"

"Where is the entrance?"

The old man pointed to the half-collapsed entrance to the cold storage ditch ahead, his lips trembling: "There, down there... he's still inside... but that thing is singing, chanting, I dare not go down... I can't go down..."

Xilun released him: "Then you just stand here and don't look inside anymore."

Having said that, he didn't linger any longer, picked up his gun and rushed into the ditch entrance that was swallowed up by the black water and the rain.

It's even colder inside.

It's also darker.

The abandoned maintenance lines were half-submerged, water seeped from the overhead steel beams like threads, and the echoes of black water slapping against the concrete filled the air. But deep within these sounds, something even more jarring—

Gunshot!

As Xilun descended the collapsed slope, the more he went in, the more chaotic the noise in his mind became.

Some cried, some cursed, some begged him to stop, while others whispered soothing words, saying there was nothing ahead, that all he had to do was turn around, lie down, or throw the gun away...

His breathing was steady, but his eyes grew colder and colder.

Finally, after rounding the last section of broken track, a vast expanse of darkness suddenly opened up ahead.

That was the old cavity left after the bottom of the approach bridge collapsed.

The black water churned like a sea, with a huge, pale limb hanging in the center. The white eye in the palm was open, and countless faces made up of resentment and drowned corpses were wrapped around it.

Every face was opening and closing, every mouth was reciting the same incomprehensible prayer, the whole space was like a throat full of dead people, spewing out pollution.

Lund stood before that patch of black water.

He was still holding the gun, the crimson glow on the black steel still lingering, but there were several wounds on his shoulder, arm, and side, and the black line on his left arm had spread all the way to his elbow.

Worse still, his movements were noticeably slower, as if an invisible weight was pressing down on his mind layer by layer.

The severed limb seemed to sense the new intruder, and the white eye in its palm slowly turned to look at Xilun.

In an instant, the entire tide of resentment stirred up!

"Another one has arrived..."

"You can smell the white buds in this one too..."

"Leave him here too..."

Countless voices simultaneously drilled into his mind, like sharp iron wires piercing his temples. Xilun felt a tightness in his chest, and his feet sank slightly.

But at that moment, the white light deep between his brows, which he had long since mastered, suddenly lit up on its own.

Pray for the sacred bud.

It wasn't that I was speaking out; it was that I was forced to raise my head by this filth.

Xilun's eyes narrowed, and without hesitation, he raised his right hand, joined his five fingers together, and pulled his mental energy inward fiercely!

hum-

A wisp of pure white light shone from the fingertip, small and quiet, yet it stood out starkly against the dark, foul tide of resentment.

It's unlike fire, unlike thunder, and unlike the domineering physical techniques and spear stances of Xilun. Instead, it's like a tender sprout just peeking out of the soil, so delicate that it would break at the slightest touch.

But when it actually lit up, the surging resentment in front of it seemed to be scalded and suddenly shrank back!

Even the white of the palm of that severed limb showed clear surprise and doubt for the first time.

Lund turned his head, saw the white light, was startled at first, then cursed, "You little brat, why did you actually come here!"

Xilun didn't reply to him.

He simply gripped that wisp of white light, took a step, and plunged straight into the surging tide of resentment and black water!

A flash of white light, and the entire expanse of black water shrank abruptly, as if an eyeball had been pierced by a needle.

The resentful face that lunged forward, the bloated corpse that rose from the bottom of the water, and the gray-white ghost that writhed against the steel beam all retreated half a foot.

It wasn't just simple fear, but more like a kind of disgust etched into the remnants of instinct—like rotten meat meeting salt, like worms in a sewer being exposed to daylight. Even the fine, noisy whispers became somewhat disordered in that instant.

Xilun stepped into the Black Tide.

A faint white light flowed between his fingers, extremely light and quiet, yet it illuminated every detail of his body several feet away.

The black water tried to surge forward, but was scalded by the white liquid, hissing and rising in wisps of cold, fishy gray smoke.

Several drowned ghosts floating on the surface of the water opened their rotten mouths, squeezed out half a dry scream from their throats, and then sank down on their own.

But there was no sign of relief on Siren's face.

It felt as if a red-hot iron nail was being slowly driven into my brow; with each step forward, the stinging pain intensified.

Prayer buds were not meant for fighting, but at this moment he forcibly used them as a weapon to cleave through the tide of resentment, consuming several times the energy he usually used to purify and suppress pollution.

As soon as Bai Yi released his power, the spiritual energy in his mind flowed out rapidly, like a floodgate being opened.

His breathing was slightly heavy, but his gaze remained steady.

The Moon Memory Meditation Technique slowly began to run in my mind.

In a daze, those noises that seemed to pierce the skull were as if they had been pressed into the bottom of a cold, black lake, still churning and crashing, but ultimately separated by a layer.

Taking advantage of this brief moment of clarity, Xilun picked up his gun and charged forward again.

The collapsed old cavity ahead was even more horrifying than what we had just seen.

The black water is not without roots.

They seemed to be seeping out from the broken wrist of that pale, mangled limb, and below the wrist, where it should have been severed, a bizarre mass of things was growing.

Like the fleshy sac of a deep-sea octopus, or like a rotten offering on an altar soaked in incense ash and blood plasma for years, its surface is covered with patches of bluish-black scales and wet, seaweed-like hair.

Nine thick, long tentacles emerged from the mass of rotten flesh, sometimes like whips, sometimes like ropes, and sometimes like nine breathing black snakes, lashing back and forth in mid-air.

At the end of each tentacle was half a blurry human face.

There were elderly people, women, men in patrol raincoats, children, dockworkers...

It's as if the dead bodies that have sunk into this sea over the past ten years have been sewn into its bodies and become part of it.

They opened their mouths, silently opening and closing, speaking for the severed limbs again and again.

"Don't go any further..."

"The living always arrive late."

"You're always like this, waiting until there's only a corpse left before you try to take the person away..."

Xilun raised his eyes coldly.

Deeper inside, Lund was standing on a section of half-collapsed steel beam.

The steel beam beneath his feet was only about a hand's width wide, with churning black water on both sides. Nine tentacles kept lashing out from different directions, causing sparks to fly from the steel beam and concrete and iron filings to scatter everywhere.

Lund's black steel spear was soaked through, but the crimson light at the tip was still dazzling. Every flick, deflection, strike, and thrust was clean to the point of being cold.

No matter how clean he was, it couldn't hide the fact that he had been pushed to his limit.

He had a large gash on his shoulder, and blood mixed with rainwater flowed down. The dark line on his left arm was even deeper, climbing up the elbow like a worm hidden under the flesh.

The clothes on her side had already been torn open, revealing skin covered with scratches and bloody gashes.

To make matters worse, his breathing became erratic.

It's not that the blood and qi are disordered, it's that the spirit is being dragged down.

Every time that strange thing opened its mouth, the entire old cavity would vibrate.

It wasn't deafening, it shook your very soul. It felt like someone was hammering your thoughts through your skull, dragging your will into dark waters. Anyone else would have given up long ago.

Xilun's heart sank after just one glance.

Lund was suppressed.

It wasn't because the gun wasn't fast enough, nor because the force wasn't strong enough, but because this thing was too strange, so strange that it shouldn't appear at a level that even second- or third-tier extraordinary beings could handle.

It's not just hitting; it's polluting, dragging, and gradually wearing down people's minds and spirits.

Lund's ability to hold on until now is astonishing.

Just as Xilun looked over, the white eye in the palm of the pale, mangled limb slowly turned towards him.

The white of his eyes had extremely pale pupils, like beads that had turned white from being soaked in seawater. There was no anger or joy in them, only an unusually old and cold feeling.

It had seen too many people come in and too many people die, so much so that even surprise had become rare.

But when its gaze fell on the wisp of white between Xilun's fingers, that coldness finally cracked a little.

"White Sprout..."

For the first time, it uttered a voice completely different from those resentful faces.

Hoarse, low, like many broken prayers pressed together, slowly squeezing up from the bottom of a deep well.

"The scent of the old seal... the purity of the old order..."

"You living people are truly insatiable. You want to throw disease and corpses into the sea, and you also want to dig up what you suppressed before..."