The ghost spirit's long, twisted hand seized Ed's throat, catching him off guard. In an instant, Ed's feet were lifted off the ground, and his silver sword fell to the floor.

"How did this happen!?"

Ed was shocked. Just a moment ago, the ghost spirit had been clutching its face, howling in agony, as if it was on the brink of death.

Yet now, it launched a violent attack, completely disregarding the heavy wound it had sustained in its waist. Its black ghostly blood continued to pour out as if it were determined to take Ed down with it!

Cough, cough, cough!!

The ghost spirit's strength was overwhelming. Barely moments after being strangled, Ed began to feel his vision blur, and he was on the verge of suffocating!

Moreover, his sword had slipped from his hand, leaving him defenseless, much like a venomous snake that had been stripped of its fangs.

"You damned human, I will kill you!!"

The ghost spirit's voice was filled with even more venom than before. Clearly, the severe injuries it had suffered had weakened it significantly.

It would take a long time for it to recover from such a blow.

As it prepared to strangle Ed to death in revenge, the wooden box it had been carrying began to glow faintly.

It was actually starting to heal the ghost spirit's wounds!

This meant that with the help of the high-level spiritual treasure, the ghost spirit could kill Ed and still survive!

"Die!!"

The ghost spirit tightened its grip even more, wanting to speed up Ed's death. He was completely out of options!

But then, suddenly, Ed, using every ounce of his remaining strength, lifted his hand toward the ghost spirit. It didn't notice, focused solely on killing him. It didn't believe this human had any further means of resistance.

Boom!!

Suddenly, an incredibly deafening explosion erupted, accompanied by a silver light as bright as moonlight, flashing through the air!

The sound was so loud it seemed like it could shatter everything! The light was so bright it felt like it could blind someone!

The ghost spirit never anticipated that this sudden explosion would send its massive form flying several meters back!

The blast severed both of its ghostly hands, and a terrifying wound appeared on its abdomen. Ghostly blood gushed out uncontrollably, and it couldn't contain the flow anymore.

Even with the high-level spiritual treasure nearby, it was of no use!

Ed's body also dropped to the ground. His face was pale from being strangled, but he quickly stood up.

"Damn, I almost got killed!"

"I had hoped I wouldn't need to use that move."

"Fortunately, the Moonstone finally lived up to its purpose!"

Before the battle began, Ed had thirty-two moonlight marks on his body, but now only twelve remained.

Ed triggered a total of twenty seals simultaneously, and at such close range, the B-rank ghost spirit was blasted into oblivion!

This was the first time Ed had unleashed so many seals at once!

Over a dozen meters away, the ghost spirit could no longer get up. Its ethereal form began to fade more and more, and at first, it had let out some painful sounds, but now, even the sounds had stopped.

Ed let out a quiet breath. The damned ghost spirit was completely finished!

"It feels like using twenty seals at once might have been a bit too much."

"I should practice more to master the number of seals needed against different types of enemies!"

In that moment of life and death, Ed had been worried that using too few seals might not have been enough to kill the ghost spirit instantly. He had even considered using all thirty-two seals at once!

Now, with the battle over, Brian, who had been watching from the side, was utterly stunned, his emotions still in turmoil and not calming down.

He had just seen Ed being lifted into the air by the ghost spirit, and in that moment, Brian had been ecstatic, thinking that Ed was about to die.

But the next moment, a terrifying explosion, completely unexpected and impossible for Brian to comprehend, had occurred out of nowhere!

It had instantly killed the ghost spirit, ending the battle on the spot. The nearly-dead Ed had won!

The explosion from earlier was incredibly terrifying, and its aftershock even reached every corner of the barrier.

To Brian, the power of that explosion seemed dozens of times more powerful than his own small explosion potion!

How could this possibly be the strength of a Black Iron intermediate Hunter?!

At this moment, Ed walked toward him. Brian struggled to open his mouth, his eyes filled with disbelief:

"How... how did you do that? Why are you so strong?!"

Brian had always believed he was stronger than Ed, even after being defeated. He had thought the gap in their strength was only slight.

But after seeing that explosion, he was completely dumbfounded. What would have happened if Ed had used that power against him instead of the ghost spirit?

Of course, in Ed's eyes, Brian wasn't even worthy of him using the Moonstone seals.

As for Brian's question, Ed couldn't be bothered to answer. He spoke casually:

"It's simple. Because you're just garbage."

"All of you from Karot's group are garbage. Rest easy and die. Soon, I'll send them all down to join you!"

Brian's eyes filled with blood as he tried to speak: "You can't be... Karot's..."

He couldn't even finish the word "rival" before his breath failed him. Unable to catch his breath, he collapsed to the ground, his body growing cold as he died, unable to rest in peace.

Ed directly ignored Brian and walked over to the fallen ghost spirit.

Bending down, he picked up the wooden box that had fallen nearby.

Inside was the high-level spiritual treasure, but let's not forget, the box was locked with a very special lock.

Ed raised an eyebrow slightly: "How should I open this box?"

Just then, Ed noticed that on the corpse of the dead ghost spirit, a glowing skull had appeared, emitting a unique aura!

A thought crossed Ed's mind, and instinctively, he picked up the skull, holding it in his hand, still curious about its purpose.

However, the next moment, as the skull came near the wooden box, the eyes of the skull suddenly lit up!

Ed's eyes widened in realization: "Could it be?"

He moved the skull closer to the lock on the box, and as soon as the skull made contact with the lock, a surge of power erupted from it.

Click!

The lock on the wooden box was unlocked!

Ed immediately opened the box, eager to see what the high-level spiritual treasure inside looked like.

To his surprise, inside, he found a black bell, which didn't exactly match what he had imagined.

But as soon as he activated his hunter's senses, he immediately felt a powerful energy emanating from the black bell.

Ed's eyes lit up: "That's right, this is definitely the high-level spiritual treasure!"

The object that so many people had fought for, and that the ghost spirit had sworn to protect, was now his!

Ed felt a rush of excitement, almost making his mouth dry. He then picked up the bell.

The moment his hand touched the bell, his body immediately connected with the spiritual treasure, and a surge of power from the bell flowed into Ed.

Ed froze for a moment but didn't resist, letting the power from the bell enter him. Soon, he began to feel an incredibly eerie presence from within this power!

"It's so cold! Such a sinister spiritual treasure!"

"It's all corpses, darkness, and a chilling aura…"

Not long after, the black bell emitted a flash of light. After Ed endured this energy for a full minute, the black bell finally recognized its master!

The next moment, the bell's power no longer caused Ed discomfort, and a stream of information entered his mind.

In front of Ed, a scene resembling a slideshow flickered before him...

The first image appeared: a peaceful village. From the outside, it was clearly the village where Ed was currently located!

However, the scene depicted was of the village before its destruction!

The villagers had once lived here peacefully, but suddenly, one night, countless evil monsters attacked the village!

The villagers were all killed, leaving behind a sea of corpses. The village was destroyed, and there were no living souls left; it had become a ghost village.

At that moment, the black bell appeared out of nowhere and descended upon this abandoned ghost village. Using its power, it summoned all the evil creatures from a hundred-mile radius!

"My god, are all the monsters attracted by the bell? Is it because of this bell that the Nightmare Wasteland was created here?"

Ed was stunned as he watched, realizing that this high-level spiritual treasure was far more sinister than he had imagined! But as he continued to watch, he soon realized that the shock wasn't over.

After the black bell appeared in the ghost village, it mysteriously gathered all the bodies of the dead villagers using an invisible force.

Once it absorbed the bodies, all the spiritual energy of the dead was converted into the bell's own power.

At the same time, the souls of the dead villagers were extracted!

Ed's eyes widened as he saw countless souls leaving their bodies—souls of children, the elderly, middle-aged men, and women!

They screamed and cried out, their spirits being twisted in the air by the black bell. Eventually, they slowly fused together, as if they were forcibly merged!

In the end, after the souls of the entire village were fused, a ghost spirit was born!

Seeing this ghost spirit, Ed's heart jolted once again.

This was the same ghost spirit that he had killed earlier! It was born this way!

"I never thought the origin of the Nightmare Wasteland would trace back to this village."

"And this black bell's power... it's far too overbearing!"

After that, Ed saw only a few more scenes. The final sequence showed how many monsters were drawn to the area by the black bell's aura.

As the number of monsters in the land increased, they naturally began to fight each other! And those monsters that were killed in the infighting, their spiritual energy would also be absorbed by the black bell!

Decades passed!

The black bell had absorbed the spiritual energy of the dead for decades!

Ed couldn't help but marvel: "No wonder this power felt so eerie and evil when it entered my body earlier!"

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