Why are all of us who transmigrated at the same time demons?

The nightmares of the Pseudo-Ghost, the childhood trauma of the Telephone Ghost, and the death experience of the Death-Sniffing Ghost—at this moment, like three erupting volcanoes of fear, they simultaneously erupted in the Bloodhand Death-Sniffing Ghost's chaotic consciousness!

Three distinct yet equally profound objects of fear, like three red-hot branding irons, simultaneously branded every inch of its soul!

Three fear instincts originating from different vengeful spirits clash, tear each other apart, annihilate each other, and reinforce each other!

"Roar—! No! Get away! Don't come any closer! Dad! Mom! It hurts! It hurts so much! My hair! My hair! I can't breathe... I can't breathe... Believe! Believe! Water! Ahhh—!"

The Bloodhand Death Demon has gone completely mad! It emits a shrill scream whose meaning is incomprehensible, a mixture of all sources of fear!

Its body, made of filthy blood and shadow, twisted, swelled, and collapsed violently, its form flashing and changing wildly between the characteristics of the three vengeful spirits. Sometimes it turned into the shadow of a boy covering his face, sometimes into the form of a child frantically scratching his scalp, and sometimes it was like drowning, desperately tearing at a non-existent covering!

All it wanted was to escape! To escape this room that held all its nightmares! To escape these three terrifying phantoms that dragged it back to the deepest hell!

It lunged desperately at the bedroom door that it could easily penetrate!

boom! boom! boom!

Blood splattered everywhere, shadows dissipated, and the ordinary wooden door remained as still as if it were made of tons of steel.

It roared as it crashed into the wall, but the wall was equally indestructible.

The window, and the window! It lunged at the window, the glass intact, the outside still a deep night, but an invisible force held it firmly inside the room.

At this moment, this small studio apartment bedroom transformed into a prison of fear from which it could not escape! An indestructible purgatory materialized from its deepest fears!

The scarred man wielding the ghost-head knife approached step by step with a cruel smile, his heavy footsteps sounding like a death knell.

The woman's head, floating in mid-air with its scarred face writhing, its hair growing wildly and twisting like a living thing, emitted a silent, shrill laugh as it slowly drifted closer.

The refined man in a suit and tie, holding a blue stationery book, adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses and gazed calmly, as if recording experimental data. He slowly raised his hand, his fingertips pinching the edge of a piece of blue paper…

The three phantoms of despair, each carrying its own unique and terrifying aura that could shatter the soul of the Bloodhand Death Demon, slowly closed in from three directions, completely trapping it in a corner of the room!

"No—!!! Let me out! Let me out! Aaaaaaahh ...

The Bloodhand Death Demon completely collapsed. It curled up in the corner, its body churning, deforming, disintegrating, and reforming violently like boiling asphalt, emitting continuous, hysterical, inhuman howls of despair.

The filthy blood and shadows that constitute its existence become extremely unstable under the impact of extreme fear, sometimes expanding like a balloon, sometimes collapsing like a thin sheet of paper, its eerie green eyes darting wildly, almost jumping out of their sockets.

The ferocity of the Class A vengeful ghost vanished, leaving only a pitiful creature torn to pieces by its deepest fears.

This was destined to be a desperate night that would send ghosts flying and plunge them into an abyss of eternal fear.

Outside the door, there is only a wall separating them.

In the brightly lit living room of the apartment, soft light spilled onto the clean floor.

Loran was comfortably reclining on the soft fabric sofa. A slim, high-performance laptop sat on his lap, the cool light of its screen reflecting on his focused face. His slender fingers tapped lightly on the keyboard, producing a rhythmic and crisp click-clack sound.

On the screen is an open document with a clear and calm title:

"On the Fear of Vengeful Ghosts: An Empirical Study of Multimodal Fear Excitation and Closed-Loop Effect Based on the 'Blood-Handed Death Ghost' Concept in Individuals"

His gaze seemed to penetrate the walls and doors, clearly capturing the details of the Bloodhand Death Demon's morphological changes under the stimulation of multiple sources of fear. He then added a few lines of precise observation records and preliminary analysis to the document.

The aroma of coffee filled the living room, creating two distinct yet strangely connected worlds: desperate screams and chilling fears seeping from the crack in the bedroom door.

Chapter 185 Supernatural Revival: Ghosts Die and Become Demons

"I've lived another day, that's amazing!"

It was 7:30 a.m. in the office of the Paranormal Investigation Team 2 of Fuyin City. Team leader Li Xiao sipped his beloved pink cat coffee cup of extra-strong coffee with satisfaction—his sense of taste had deteriorated so much that only this concentration could give him any flavor.

Ma Lu, working at the next workstation, irritably loosened his tie. Seeing Li's relaxed demeanor, he was furious: "Hey, Li! That Blood Hand Death Demon's death warrant is still in your pocket! How come you're acting like nothing's wrong?"

The office was almost full of people. Not because they were dedicated to their work, but because the team members had all received "death notices" (on blue paper) and were all ordered to stay at the bureau.

Being alone? That's like handing food to that top-tier monster.

Although the support teams from Jiannan City and the provincial department had been working tirelessly for over a month, they hadn't even caught a glimpse of the Blood-Handed Death Demon. Even more strangely, there were no new victims.

A vengeful ghost is silent; it must be up to no good.

The calmer things seemed, the more cautious everyone in the Paranormal Bureau felt.

Li Xiao glanced disdainfully at the tall, burly Ma Lu, whose shirt collar was yellowed, and downed his scalding hot coffee in one gulp.

"What's the use of being anxious, Old Ma?" He slowly propped his legs up on the table and leaned back in his chair. "We've all seen how wicked that thing is. Even the brothers from above are helpless. What can you do by just staring at it? Eat and drink as you please. If it really comes to that, you'll just die a well-fed ghost, won't you?"

Maru slumped into his office chair in despair, letting out a groan: "When will this constant fear end? I might as well just give up and attack already!"

“It’s really strange,” Li Xiao said, rubbing his chin. “Normally, these kinds of ‘death omen’ ghosts rarely take more than seven days to make their move. We’ve been here for almost a month, almost six seven-day periods, and we haven’t even seen a single ghost hair.”

"Could it be... that someone killed him?" A faint hope flickered in Maru's eyes.

Li Xiao shook his head: "Kill it? That deadly blue letter should have turned to ash long ago. But those things in the storage cabinet are still lying there perfectly fine, as if they were just printed."

He changed the subject, "By the way, have you seen that legend about the '魙' that's been circulating online lately?"

"Huh?" Ma Lu looked blank. He only browsed exciting and stimulating content online and never touched forums or news.

"When a person dies, they become a ghost; when a ghost dies, they become a demon. Ghosts fear demons as people fear ghosts!" Li Xiao recited this sentence, which has recently been widely circulated on paranormal forums.

"A ghost? That's bullshit!" Ma Lu scoffed. "Can ghosts die? And can they turn into something else after they die?"

Li Xiao did not refute, but a faint, almost imperceptible expectation flashed in the depths of his eyes—perhaps, even the most vengeful ghosts, which are almost impossible for humans to deal with, have their own natural enemies?

---------------

Meanwhile, the Bloodhand Death Demon, which everyone was talking about, lay prostrate on the cold floor of a huge laboratory, like a tamed black hound. A gleaming metal collar adorned its neck, the other end of the chain held in Loran's hand.

Loran remained expressionless as one hand, like an iron clamp, probed into the Bloodhand Death Demon's body, which was composed of filthy blood and shadows! A grating, tearing sound, as if the soul were being ripped apart, rang out, accompanied by the Bloodhand Death Demon's shrill wail.

Loran suddenly pulled his hand outwards!

He forcibly ripped a twisted, struggling black shadow, exuding a thick aura of resentment, from the body of the Bloodhand Death Demon—it was the origin of a Class B vengeful ghost!

This unfortunate ghost had been leisurely dwelling in the ghost realm of "Ox Head Village" not long ago. One day, it discovered a strange crack at the edge of the ghost realm, and from the other side of the crack came the alluring vitality of a living person.

Driven by curiosity (or perhaps greed), it cautiously poked its head out...

On the other side of the crevice was the most terrifying existence in its memory—the terrifying form of a calamity-level demon that had once terrified it! Fear instantly froze all its thoughts.

Just as it was stunned with fear, a cold, powerful hand suddenly reached out from the other side of the gap, grabbed its invisible "neck" tightly, and dragged it out with irresistible force!

It was horrified to find itself in a vast warehouse, surrounded by countless of its kind imprisoned in transparent containers. The moment those vengeful spirits saw the human holding them—Loran—they trembled violently, emitting desperate wails.

It was just a small, second-class vengeful ghost, who usually killed people to relieve his boredom. What did it have to do to suffer such hellish torment and encounter such a "vicious person" who was even more terrifying than a ghost?

Next came its unforgettable "test." Various incomprehensible beams of light, energy, and spells were unleashed upon it, leaving it on the verge of death. Finally, it was thrown into a huge glass container and sealed away like trash.

Just when it thought it could finally catch its breath, it saw Loran walk toward another container next to it that held a Class B vengeful spirit.

Loran made a few complex hand gestures, and the vengeful ghost inside the container suddenly let out a scream a hundred times more shrill than before. Its entire soul was like ice being thrown into strong acid, boiling and twisting violently, and then... began to "melt"!

It's not a physical disappearance, but rather the rapid collapse and annihilation of some core force that constitutes its existence!

"Death?!" A thought, born of instinct and boundless fear, instantly seized it!

What terrified it even more was that, as the vengeful ghost completely "dissipated," an indescribable, invisible "thing" was born! It couldn't see the shape of that thing, nor could it capture it with any of its senses, but it could "sense" its presence with absolute clarity!

The moment that thing was born, a fear originating from the deepest part of its soul, more primal and colder than when it faced Loran, instantly overwhelmed it like ice water!

The feeling was like ancient humans facing a deep, lightless night, or an incomprehensible primordial beast!

It wasn't the only one that sensed it. Throughout the entire warehouse, all the imprisoned vengeful spirits, regardless of their rank, simultaneously let out hysterical wails!

They crashed wildly against the container walls, their shapes twisted and disintegrated, as if they had encountered their natural nemesis! A wave of fear surged silently through the warehouse!

A rare, chilling smile curled at the corners of Loran's lips. To the vengeful spirits, this smile was a thousand times more terrifying than the demons of the deepest hell.

In his transcendent perception, the true form of that invisible thing was clearly revealed—a constantly shifting black mist phantom, seemingly composed of the purest "nothingness." It greedily devoured the last remaining "ghostly energy" of the dissipating vengeful spirit.

This is the "魙".

Things that have died are the essence of the netherworld, and ghosts fear them.

Ancient texts flashed through his mind:

The Five Tones Collection states: "When a person dies, he becomes a ghost, and people are afraid of him; when a ghost dies, he becomes a '魙' (a type of ghost), and other ghosts are afraid of him."

The Dao Fa Hui Yuan and You Yang Za Ji state that "ghosts who die become '魙'", which are included in the "Twenty-Four Ghosts" system. They hide in the ultimate netherworld places such as "Ming Hai" or "Gui Xu", representing the highest level of the ghost realm. They have the ability to devour their own kind, hence the saying "魙镇百鬼" (魙镇百鬼).

There are even further sayings like "When a person dies, they become a ghost; when a ghost dies, it becomes a demon; when a demon dies, it becomes a rabbit; when a rabbit dies, it becomes an insignificant creature," which is actually a philosophical description of the extinction of life in traditional Chinese culture.

It is fundamentally based on the Taoist theory of "the gathering and dispersing of Qi".

Humans are the fusion of Yin and Yang energies; ghosts are the condensation of Yin energy after Yang energy dissipates; and the demon is the product of the ghost's obsession, depravity, and secondary demise. It is more ethereal than a ghost, devoid of wisdom and form, and only retains the instinct to devour its own kind to survive.

And what about Xi Yi? The *Tao Te Ching* says: *What cannot be heard is called Xi; what cannot be seen is called Yi.* Silent and formless, it returns to the "nothingness" of the Great Tao.

Loran's gaze shifted from the struggling source of the vengeful spirit in his hand to the Blood Hand Death Demon lying prostrate on the ground, trembling violently due to the annihilation of its kind and the birth of the demon, and finally settled on the invisible "demonic spirit".

“Interesting,” he murmured, his voice sounding particularly cold and clear in the warehouse filled with the wails of vengeful ghosts.

Chapter 186 Supernatural Resurgence: Better to Die?

A private experimental document records Loran's observations and thoughts:

---------------------------

Project Number: 001 - ("Human → Ghost → Demon → Xi? → Yi?" sequence)

Project Level: Keter Apollyon (Cognitive Isolation - Prohibition of Access to Any Physically Recorded Media Communication Theory)

Special Containment Procedures: 001 is not a single entity, but a conceptual sequence model concerning the evolution of the essence of existence, posing a cognitive hazard. Digital storage of the essential description of concepts above the 001 level is strictly prohibited in any form (including encryption and antimemes); understanding it will lead to disaster.

Description: 001 describes a (potentially) universal sequence of existence transformations, characterized by an "absolute difference between perception and rules" and the resulting "regularity over lower-order existences." This sequence model originates from multiple anomalous entities involving higher-dimensional existences, reality distortions, and alternate-space domains.

1. Person (Ren):

Form: The basic physical form of matter, constrained by three-dimensional (or perceptible low-dimensional) spacetime rules.

Perception: Relies on senses and logic; fragile and easily contaminated. Understanding rules is essential for survival.

Core traits: Fear and thirst for knowledge. A fundamental vulnerability to the unknown and rules beyond comprehension is the starting point of the sequence and the core variable (the object being transformed). In Loran's experimental terminology, this refers to uncontaminated or non-abnormal humans.

2. Ghost (Gui):

Transformation triggers are typically caused by intense unnatural death (involving rule distortion), exposure to high-dimensional meme contamination, or artificial/abnormal transformation rituals.

Form: Non-material (or semi-material) form, usually manifested as the embodiment of gaps in the rules of reality, may have a distorted physical form (conceptual projection), but its essence is a collection of consciousness based on rules or the focus of some distorted spacetime rules (? to be further verified by experiments).

Perception: Transcending physical senses, directly "perceiving" and manipulating rules. Extremely resistant to physical attacks, but fears rule conflicts or higher rules.

Core traits: Obsessive fixation & rule anchoring. Its existence is embedded within one (or more) distorted, anomalous rules (such as resentment, logic of killing, or domain restrictions). Its power stems from the stability of these rules. It fears conflict with those who understand its rule logic. It can be suppressed, overridden, or "contained" by higher-order rules.

3. 魙 (Zhan):

Transformation trigger: The extreme distortion, devouring and fusion of rules (by the ghost itself or the target ghost), or the "precipitation" caused by extreme reality collapse in non-Euclidean space. Essentially, it is the "relic" or "distorted direction" of a ghost's failed attempt to understand/control the rules.

Form: An extreme form of alienation, an indeterminate form that is not visible to ghosts, appearing as black mist or shadows. It no longer possesses a stable logical entity (like a ghost), but is closer to a corpse of rules, or an unconscious crystallization of concepts. It may manifest as "anti-ghosts," "rule-digesting pits," or a spectrum/structure that cannot be described in real-world language.

Perception: Almost completely lost subjective consciousness (or consciousness structure completely different from humans/ghosts, unable to communicate), passively absorbing, annihilating, and distorting the surrounding rule field. Oneself is the source of unstable rules.

Core traits: Rule inertia & devouring nature. It constitutes a "natural enemy" of demons because its existence unconsciously assimilates and disintegrates the abnormal rule field upon which demons depend, acting like a "demagnetizer" or a "rule entropy increaser." Physical attacks are completely ineffective. Low-level demons encountering it are like snowflakes meeting fire, instantly disintegrating their rules and vanishing.

4. Xi (?, possibly a hypothesis):

Transformation trigger: A mutation that transcends known transformation mechanisms (or the "seeding" of a higher-order existence). Could it stem from a complete understanding (distortion) and internalization of some fundamental cosmic rule? Or the ultimate realization (or end) of some "purpose of existence"? It cannot be observed; it is merely speculation.

Form: A completely conceptual, informational existence. It transcends any comprehensible form of matter, energy, or space. It can be seen as the absolute embodiment of one or more ultimate rules, or a "facet of consciousness" of the laws of the universe itself.

Perception: Its "perception" is the change in reality itself. It lacks conventional consciousness and is more like a program or mechanism that transcends dimensions.

Core Characteristics: Rule-making & Cosmic Constant-level Influence. "Xi" is a force at the cosmic structural level, influencing the spacetime continuum, fundamental constants, and even certain frameworks of logic itself. They are the backdrop of reality, and also the source of potential rule changes. Directly perceiving or understanding "Xi" can lead to the complete logical collapse of existence at the human/ghost/monster level, or be forcibly formatted as part of its rules. The fundamental rules of "Ghost Realms" and "Alternate Dimensions" may be formed from fragments of some "Xi"-level power that have dissipated or been projected. It has dominion over monster-level rules.

5. Yi (?, possibly existing):

The ultimate form is deduced as: "The formless form, the imageless image." "Yi" represents the absolute critical point and transcendence of existence. It is not a "god" more powerful than "Xi," but rather the ultimate opposite (or origin?) of all existence, rules, and definability.

Form: Ineffable, inconceivable, transcending all definitions. It cannot be described by any dimension, rule, or logic. It is the unity of "being" and "non-being," "existence" and "non-existence," "rules" and "no rules."

Core characteristics: The annihilation of the logic of existence & absolute silence. "Yi" represents the endpoint of definition. Any active or passive "contact" with it (the word itself is meaningless) results only in the complete dissolution and zeroing of all structures (rules, forms, consciousness), returning to the unknowable state of "Yi" itself. It is not destruction, but the absolute benchmark of existence itself, the point of zero. It is the extreme form of the speculative concepts of "absolute vacuum" or "the end of non-existence." Even "Xi" is merely a ripple or projection on its edge.

In this sequence, "Yi" is the inferred "supreme divinity." But it is by no means a "god" in the traditional sense.

He is the Absolute Null Baseline.

He needs no faith, has no consciousness, and has no purpose. He is the Great Silence after the disappearance of the cosmological constant, the ultimate "field of meaninglessness" after the complete dissolution of rules.

All sequence levels, from human to Greek, ultimately "sink" or "return" towards "barbarian," just as water eventually flows into the sea and disappears in the sea, losing its droplet attributes.

The attempt to understand "Yi" is itself a distorted process of moving closer to "Xi" or even "Yi", which will ultimately lead to the complete shattering and disintegration of the participants' existence before they even reach the end.