The Devil’s Cage

As the branch manager of Funeral Society in Forest City, Hayden Ow wasn’t a person that lived a comfortable life that enjoyed luxurious treatments.

The moment he joined Funeral Society, Hayden Ow spent his life training and in battle.

More than a decade of battle experience caused him to not turn around and check what it was, instead he leaped in front while at the same time reaching out to his gun with his hand.

Bang, Bang Bang!

He reached out to the gun that he holstered beneath his armpit, he fired it repeatedly without even aiming.

The bullets were shot through his coat as muzzle flashes lit up relentlessly.

The figure that appeared behind Hayden Ow fell to the ground after the gunshots but…

After the figure fell, it struggled and climbed up again.

Its grayish face was rotten, its eyes were dried out and were filled with puss.

Its body neglected the bullets fired and kept staggering forward.

All the signs were telling Hayden Ow what he just encountered.

“Corpse Puppet!”

Hayden Ow squinted his eyes before raising his gun for another shot.

Bang!

The figure fell to the ground after the gunshot.

Half of its brain was crushed and after twitching for two seconds, it went silent.

Corpse Puppets weren’t any rare fiends though.

In fact, in certain aged cemeteries, these kind of low-level fiends were common, as long as one was fully prepared and able to overcome the internal scare, even a common man could kill one.

After all, the common Corpse Puppet’s weakness was its head, like every other corpse monster. They also hated the light and feared fire but, the Corpse Puppet in front of him was different.

Not only did it accept the light, it even silently snuck behind Hayden Ow.

There was only one explanation for this!

Corpse Ghoul!

A Corpse Ghoul that could control Corpse Puppets!

It was only a word different yet the latter’s danger level was almost a thousand times, no, a myriad of times higher than the former.

One or two well-trained men were enough to deal with a Corpse Puppet.

But what about the Corpse Ghoul which had a body of iron filled with toxins and was able to control Corpse Puppets freely?

Even a hundred fully armed men with firearms and explosives would fall short against it.

During the ancient fiend era, the required men to deal with a single Corpse Ghoul would be a few times higher than the modern era.

Therefore, whenever a Corpse Ghoul appeared, tremendous trouble would follow but the recorded history had only a handful of similar cases.

If a Corpse Puppet was common in any old cemeteries, a Corpse Ghoul would require harsher environments to form or to be frank, Corpse Ghouls couldn’t form under natural circumstances because the last step of forming a Corpse Ghoul was…

Blood sacrifice!

A blood sacrifice of a hundred people related to the Corpse Ghoul bloodline!

Sacrificing a whole family would only give birth to one Corpse Ghoul.

Back then during in the fiend era, the population of human was not that dense and the families that could form a Corpse Ghoul would be a small force itself, hence it more or less possessed a network of relations to other people.

Once something went wrong, the people related in the network would notice right away.

As for the modern era?

The population had gotten denser but the rise of technology and the existence of Gods made it almost impossible to form a Corpse Ghoul.

Even Hayden Ow as the branch manager never encountered a Corpse Ghoul before, it didn’t even cross his mind before!

Huu! Huu!

Hayden Ow was exhaling angrily, he looked at the exposed coffin with an enraged and frightened gaze while his gun was still pointed up. His other hand quickly reached out to his inner pocket, where the grenade was.

Back in the fiend era, a Corpse Ghoul formation was forbidden and hated, let alone the modern era.

It had already crossed the baseline of humanity.

The blood-stained hands were still on the coffin, its fingers slightly crooked in a twisted way as if it was trying to pull its body up yet lacked the strength to do so.

“Huh?”

The unusual scene with the Corpse Ghoul made Hayden Ow dubious but his movements weren’t slow at all.

Kak!

After the pin was pulled, the grenade was hurled directly into the coffin.

Kaboom!

The moment the grenade landed in the coffin, it exploded.

Shrapnels flew everywhere followed by raging growls.

The wooden coffin was broken the moment the explosion happened but…

The Corpse Ghoul still didn’t appear, only its roar proved its existence.

“Incomplete? Or?”

Questioning, Hayden Ow pulled out another grenade.

However, before he pulled the pin, the ground started to tremble, it was so fierce that it felt like an earthquake befell the whole Canmore Public Cemetery.

Gravestone fell down one by one.

Sharp and withered or tough and robust arms burst out from the deepest parts of the graves.

As the biggest public cemetery, Canemore Cemetery housed a myriad of body, the number was doubled if the unnamed gravestones were counted.

During the quake, more than one-third of the graves changed for the worst.

“This many Corpse Puppets?!”

“How is this possible?!”

Hayden Ow felt his scalp go numb as he stood there witnessing the trembling scene, he took out another grenade and hurled it into the hole of the Corpse Ghoul before he instinctively called for backup.

It would not work without backup, this many Corpse Puppets wasn’t something that he could deal with alone, especially with Canmore Cemetery being not too far from the city center of Forest City. If the Corpse Ghoul rushed in…

The whole Forest City would suffer catastrophic destruction!

Hayden Ow clenched his teeth when the thought came into his mind.

During such a critical moment, Hayden Ow had already completely forgotten Kieran, he only knew Funeral Society had just gotten their hands on their own turf! He would not allow the turf to be wiped out by the waves of Corpse Puppets before it was truly built up.

A white candle appeared in Hayden Ow’s hand.

He carefully lit it up and a pea-sized flame appeared on the candle under the sun.

It was slightly gloomy but when the light from the candle came, the Corpse Puppets that crawled out from their graves were like insects attracted to light, all of them threw themselves to Hayden Ow but when the waves of Corpse Puppet got within 5 meters from Hayden Ow, they were engulfed in flames.

At the same time, the pea-sized flame on the candle grew fiercer in an instant, the candle burned quicker as well.

Within a breath’s time, the first wave of Corpse Ghouls was burned to ashes, followed by the second, the third…

Consecutive waves of Corpse Puppet were burned to ashes mercilessly.

But!

The numbers were overwhelming!

Compared to the overall number which was still swarming towards Hayden Ow, the incinerated ones didn’t even reach one-tenth of the total number yet the candle was halfway to its end.

It even burned faster than before as the waves got fiercer.

Bang Bang Bang!

Gunshots sounded again as muzzle flash lit up, Hayden Ow was squeezing the trigger repeatedly.

Although he knew his efforts were insignificant, it was better than doing nothing at all, right?

Soon, his bullets were emptied and only an inch was left on his burning candle.

Hayden Ow saw the dense waves of Corpse Puppet around him, his face filled with despair.

After the despair flashed over, he pulled out the dagger from his thigh holster.

It was impossible for him to die without struggling, should he die from this, he would take out as many as he could.

Kaboom!

Just as Hayden Ow wanted to charge forward with his life, explosion and fierce firing happened behind the Corpse Puppet waves.

Reinforcement has arrived!

They were faster than he expected!

“Made it!”

Hayden Ow heaved a long sigh of relief when he saw that the candle was still burning.

Who would want to die if they could live?

After moving around on the verge of death, Hayden Ow swiftly loosen up his tense manner and it was at that moment, he thought about something.

Where was Kieran?