As long as you have the courage, fierce ghosts go on maternity leave.

Chapter 259: Four images

Why is Su Rong here? Alexander was bewildered, his focus entirely absorbed by the scene playing out before him.

Then, he noticed something amiss. The aura emanating from Su Rong in the footage far surpassed that of Kassadin. Unbelievably, Su Rong was a Ghost Emperor!

Moreover, the Su Rong in the scene had a vastly different demeanor than the one he knew. The Su Rong he was acquainted with was gentle, amiable, and empathetic.

In contrast, the one on-screen was cold and stern, emitting an aura of solemnity and killing intent. Her armor was not made of magma but resembled the black armor worn by hell warriors.

Could this be someone else who just looked strikingly like Su Rong? Or perhaps something had happened to Su Rong to transform her from a Ghost Emperor into the person he was familiar with?

Then there was the mystery of James. Why would he send this to him? According to Alexander’s speculation, Alexander must have had a previous life; otherwise, the bottle of Emperor Red Wine in his bag would be meaningless.

But even if that were the case, the timeline didn’t match. This body was twenty years old, and assuming he reincarnated immediately after dying in his last life, that would have been twenty years ago. However, the previous owner of the Ghost Apartment had died only five years before.

Before Alexander could delve any deeper into these enigmas, the footage began to move. It wasn’t a continuous video but rather a series of images, like a stop-motion film.

In the scene, James channeled dark purple flames into a furnace, which then started to glow red. He reached out, and a corpse exploded into a dense ghostly mist, which was sucked into the furnace.

Alexander knew that although this ghostly mist seemed rich, it was different from his Ghost Food. It was laden with too many impurities to be absorbed by ghosts or Chosen Ones.

Or rather, only a minuscule amount could be absorbed, requiring a great deal of time and effort—making it an inefficient endeavor.

As the mist from the corpse was funneled into the furnace, the surrounding red light grew increasingly vivid.

Billows of black smoke spewed forth, spiraling and gathering above the furnace to form minute black grains—dark crystalline sands. Ghost Crystals! Or something akin to them!

Astonishingly, the impurities separated during the creation of this Ghost Pill were similar to Ghost Crystals.

Soon after, James lifted his palm once more, causing another corpse to explode. Again and again, the number of ghostly corpses in the room dwindled, while the red glow above the furnace grew increasingly radiant. A thick layer of dark crystalline sands began accumulating on the ground.

Suddenly, the imagery in Alexander’s mind shifted. The core of the furnace became transparent. A jolt of realization surged through him. If his guess was right, this was what James truly wanted him to see: the process of crafting the Ghost Pill—or, to put it differently, the manufacturing process of Forbidden Empowerment.

Perhaps, this was why Selena had concocted the story of being James’s sister, luring him into this mist instance.

Eyes wide, Alexander stared unblinkingly at the furnace. Inside it, a swirling mass of pure white mist was churning. Strands of dark ghostly mist separated themselves from the white mist—a process eerily familiar to Alexander.

In the cycle of the mist instance, white mists would emerge from the dead bodies. However, here in the furnace, the process was reversed: the ghostly mist was extracted, leaving behind the white mist.

This white mist must represent the lingering attachments of the dead, or something similar. Perhaps this was the elusive truth behind the so-called forbidden power.

As the white mist appeared, James accelerated the melting of the corpses. One after another, they were transformed into ghostly mists that merged into the furnace.

Alexander noticed that not all the ghostly mist was being extracted from the furnace; a portion remained. Under the refinement of black flames, it grew purer, enveloping the white mist within.

Eventually, as if reaching some limit, the ghostly mist turned transparent, coalescing into pure energy that encapsulated the white mist, forming a translucent, milky-white pearl.

It was similar to the pearl that Alexander had just absorbed, except the one in the furnace was immeasurably more potent. The one he absorbed was like a watered-down prototype—a sample revealing the Ghost Pill’s formation in the most straightforward manner.

As the visions in his mind reached a critical juncture in the pill’s creation, Alexander’s attention shifted to his recent memory of absorbing the milky-white pearl. Closing his eyes, he focused on the changes within his body.

The instant the white pearl shattered, the highly-concentrated ghostly mist was absorbed without hindrance into Alexander, becoming a part of his energy. The white mist didn’t entirely separate from the pure ghostly mist; it integrated into Alexander’s body, connected through this purified mist.

"This white mist is undoubtedly the same as the white mist in the mist instance, which must be what the ’Forbidden Power’ refers to in the horrific world. The outer shell acts like a catalyst—pure enough for instantaneous absorption.

Because it originates from the same source as the white mist, it serves as a bridge for the Forbidden Power to enter the body. This Forbidden Power is..."

Eyes still closed, Alexander’s lips curved into a subtle smile. He had come to understand what Forbidden Power was, or rather, what the white mist represented. It wasn’t lingering attachment or anything else he initially thought. The essence of Forbidden Power was surprisingly simple.

The soul consists of two parts: one is pure mental energy, and the other governs emotion, thought, and attachment—the entity directing mental power.

These two have an essential affinity. When a soul disperses, this Forbidden Power, formed by a person’s emotional thought, becomes terrifying. To other spirit-led minds, it’s the world’s most potent poison and virus, capable of contaminating one’s mental power.

So, lacking control over Forbidden Power, one would be utterly defenseless against it. Just as an ordinary human stands no chance against a ghost filled with ghost energy, a regular ghost is similarly outclassed by Forbidden Power. It’s not even a contest; they don’t even exist on the same plane, making resistance futile.

"Forbidden is, in essence, emotion, thought, and attachment! Ordinary humans or ghosts can never channel their own emotional thoughts into power to combat external Forbidden Power, unless they too possess the ability to control Forbidden.

However, the rejection between different mindsets is far more horrifying than that between blood types or organs.

No two thoughts in the world are the same, not even closely similar. Even after transforming into Forbidden post-death, an instinctual aversion remains," Alexander pondered, feeling as if the universe had granted him an epiphany.

James had been using the ghostly mists inherent to corpses as a nexus, allowing the body to assimilate Forbidden, thereby gaining relative control over this elusive power.

But this was no small feat; the ghostly mist must be refined to utmost purity for immediate absorption, with no trace of rejection. The Forbidden Power, too, must be extraordinarily pure.

Moreover, the quantity can’t be scant, or else Forbidden won’t fully envelop the ghostly mist, leaving a massive vulnerability. Hence, the horrifying act James committed: the massacre of Blood Moon Town, using corpses to make pills.

A seismic shift occurred in Alexander’s inner world. It wasn’t merely due to James’s grotesque ingenuity; it was because Alexander realized he had an easier way—Ghost Chef.

The Ghost Chef skill could directly convert a body into the purest ghostly mist, even allowing manipulation of external forms to create various kinds of Ghost Food. Especially the latter aspect, converting spirits into different food ingredients with authentic taste and texture, had never occurred to Alexander before.

He hadn’t considered this angle previously; after all, this was a world of horror. One couldn’t possibly discuss scientific principles like the law of conservation of energy here.

However, the recent experience of observing the Ghost Pill had illuminated his understanding like a flash of divine inspiration. The level of purity in the Ghost Food’s ghostly mist was almost comparable to that of the transparent shell James had created.

Alexander was certain of this for a simple reason—the transparent shell of that white pearl was akin to his Ghost Food. Both integrated seamlessly into the body, enhancing physical strength. If this transparent shell could serve as a conduit, so could Ghost Food.

The only lingering question was: where to obtain the Forbidden Power?

Given the process by which James crafts his ghost pills, it’s clear that an exceptionally pure form of Forbidden Power is required as a catalyst. Harvesting mist directly from the mist instance won’t suffice.

Even if Alexander not afraid of those mists, their purity falls short. Moreover, the mist, having already separated from the spirits, no longer maintains a connection and therefore can’t be channeled through ghostly mists.

Only the ghostly mists and Forbidden from the same corpse can serve as a nexus for imbuing one with Forbidden Power, Alexander’s mind racing like a loom, weaving the threads of epiphanies.

Ghost Food transforms into an incredibly pure form of itself—essentially concentrated mental energy—which allows it to be manipulated freely through Alexander’s skills. Hence, only spirits and those with special constitutions like Alexander can absorb it.

But where do the emotional thoughts—the Forbidden—within Ghost Food go? Are they hidden within, or expelled during the transformation?

The fact that the Ghost Food could mimic various forms, even taste and texture, no longer struck Alexander as mysterious; it was, after all, pure mental energy.

Now, the singular issue was whether the transformation of Ghost Food could be applied to James’s method of creating ghost pills. Where did the vanished Forbidden end up?

As Alexander sifted through his memories of creating Ghost Food, it seemed as if a special power surged from within his body, breaking down spirits into ghostly mists, which then transformed into various types of Ghost Food. Having undergone this transformation countless times, the process was etched into Alexander’s mind as naturally as breathing.

Gradually, elements he hadn’t noticed before began to surface in his recollection. For instance, each transformation of Ghost Food was accompanied by a flickering white light.

Before, Alexander had dismissed this as mere visual flair, akin to the flashy effects that accompanied his talents or skills.

Now, he suspected that it might be a highly condensed form of Forbidden, sealed within the Ghost Food in some way, rendering it harmless even when consumed.

While Alexander may not have a knowledge of alchemy or possess James’s dark purple flames, he had something that even James lacked: the transformative capability of Ghost Chef. This skill allowed him to effortlessly separate ghostly mists and Forbidden.

Could this imply that he could more easily produce Forbidden Empowerment than James could?

"The implications are staggering," Alexander thought. "I don’t have to conduct mass killings like James. Even without an elaborate plan to pillage mist instances, the Ghost Food I already possess should suffice for some time.

This means I could mass-produce Forbidden Empowerment without needing Emperor Wine, bestowing the Forbidden Power upon all members of the Fierce Spirit Association.

With that power, conquering not just the Endless Abyss but even Cangshan City would be feasible."

Yet, a seed of doubt sprouted.

The Ghost Chef skill was a gift from the Blood Queen. Now it conveniently intersects with James’s ghost pills. Isn’t this a little too coincidental?

A flurry of questions clouded his mind, but the shifting images in his head pulled him back to his observations.

As bodies disappeared one by one, the bead in the alchemical furnace in his mind’s eye turned gray. At that moment, bolts of lightning appeared in the scene. Outside the window, strange white clouds almost touched the roof, but bolts of lightning were kept at bay by a dark purple barrier.

James in the visualization cast a fleeting glance at the sky, accelerating his movements. The last few spectral corpses were tossed in.

Here, the visual stream started to flicker as if the bead could no longer sustain the influx of information. Finally, four images flashed into Alexander’s mind before all went quiet.

In the first, a ghost pill burst from the furnace, floating in mid-air. Su Rong and the Blood Queen were nowhere to be found, replaced by a young child in his teens. His face, though youthful, was unmistakable. It was Louis!

The second image showed a column of light penetrating the rooftop, shattering the alchemical furnace instantaneously. James shielded the impact with his body, beneath which lay a ghost pill, now covered in fractures.

In the third, a woman in white raised her palm against the backdrop of the sky, from which a torrent of lightning burst forth, descending toward the ground below.

Louis’s youthful figure hung suspended in the air, clutching the fractured ghost pill in his hand. As if magnetically attracted, the celestial bolts of lightning twisted in mid-air just before striking the ground, engulfing Louis in a radiant sphere of white lightning.

The fourth, and final, image dispelled the clouds, revealing Louis in a black robe and large glasses, juvenile and unsophisticated, seated next to a girl dressed in white. They were sharing drinks.

A seismic tremor shook Alexander’s emotional core. It wasn’t the sudden appearance of Louis, nor was it the revelation that James had died protecting the ghost pill.

Rather, it was the face of the woman in white that he finally saw clearly—she was the Guardian in White!

According to information James had gathered from the Horror World, there should be at least seven guardians in the mist instances.

Among them, only the identity of the Purple-Clothes Karin was confirmed. The Blood Queen had also been suspected of being a guardian, though no definitive evidence existed.

As for the White-Clothes Guardian—according to both Alexander’s understanding of her role in the Horror World and the information he’d gathered from the Hell Warrior—she was without a doubt the strongest among them, presumably even the leader.

Her identity was a subject of vast curiosity.

Alexander had considered various possibilities, especially after Karin had mentioned that he bore the aura of the White-Clothes Guardian. He had thought of Isabella, considered Sofia, even contemplated Selena who was by his side, as well as every ghost he had ever encountered in the Horror World—regardless of gender!

However, one thing Alexander had never imagined was that the Guardian in White would turn out to be her!