Is this what a zombie is?

138. Purification

roar--!!!

The dragon's roar was deafening!

The dazzling and ferocious body of the thunder dragon, with a speed exceeding the limits of visual perception, precisely pierced through the black mist that was rushing towards the game.

Lightning exploded violently at the core of the black mist!

"Ahhhhh—"

The evil spirit only had time to let out a shrill, distorted scream before it was completely annihilated by billions of arcs of electricity.

With the core destroyed, the entire spirit realm could no longer be maintained.

The space crackled and shattered piece by piece until it collapsed completely.

As the gray fog dissipated, the cold night wind brushed against their cheeks again. The three of them stood at the bus stop, and everything that had just happened seemed like a dream.

With the collapse of the spiritual realm, the No. 444 bus, which had been so fierce just moments before, like a great calamity that was about to send them flying to another world, was now just a piece of scrap metal, lying paralyzed in the middle of the road.

Without its energy source, it completely loses its ability to move and is headed for extinction.

The two remaining headlights struggled to flash a few times before going out completely, like the deceased taking their last breath and closing their eyes.

The spiritual energy on the vehicle was rapidly dissipating, turning into specks of light that drifted into the night sky.

"Finally solved."

Ai Yi let out a long sigh, dusted off his hands, and resumed his carefree demeanor.

"You made me wait a week, and this is all you've got? But you brat, you actually stole my kill."

Jiang Chen did not respond to Ai Yi's accusations.

His gaze was drawn to one of the points of light that was about to disappear.

Within that point of light, there seemed to be some kind of stubborn and persistent will.

He subconsciously reached out his hand, and the light spot seemed to be drawn by something, slowly falling into Jiang Chen's palm.

The moment it landed in his palm, the light was drawn in by the dormant vortex of the Rejuvenating Incense within his body and merged into the incomplete vortex, as if a switch had been triggered, and the remaining vortex suddenly began to rotate in reverse.

Immediately afterwards, Jiang Chen's consciousness was also drawn into the vortex by an irresistible suction force.

The world before him spun around him, blurring the concepts of time and space; he felt as if he had been thrown into a rapidly spinning vortex.

"Hey, Jiang Chen, you've disconnected. What happened? Don't scare me if nothing's wrong."

Ai Yi's shouts sounded distant and distorted.

The next second, Jiang Chen's consciousness was forcibly pulled into a historical illusion.

Yes, it's that familiar feeling. Except for the absence of fog, everything is so familiar.

He was "sitting" on an old bus, the very same No. 444 bus.

Outside the car window, the city scenery rushed past, with narrow streets and low buildings, just like it had been twenty or thirty years ago.

A middle-aged driver in a blue work uniform, with a kind face, drives along the same route day after day, his expression calm and content.

He is very satisfied with his job, as he can drive and enjoy the scenery along the way.

Even though the car doesn't belong to him, he still takes great care of it. He greets it every day before going to work, tidies it up after get off work, and even cleans and maintains it during his rest time.

His colleagues joked that the bus was like his wife, and that he wasn't even this good to his own wife.

He's been driving the same route for over a decade or two, and he's witnessed all the changes in the city.

However, times are changing, and 444 is facing cancellation because the number has a bad connotation.

With the city's development undergoing a redesign and the routes needing to be changed, this old bus, which he had poured his heart and soul into and which had served him for many years, was also facing the prospect of being scrapped.

Just then, the scene suddenly changed.

That night, torrential rain poured down, and flash floods roared.

The driver struggled along the rugged mountain road, trying to escape the predicament.

However, the mudslide, like an enraged beast, instantly swallowed and buried the tiny bus along with its driver.

Deathly silence and darkness enveloped everything.

After an unknown amount of time, the screen lit up again.

At a dimly lit tunnel construction site, an excavator unearthed the rusty wreckage of a bus.

The workers gasped in shock, but the incident was not reported and was suppressed.

After the workers were evacuated, a mysterious figure with a hunched back and extreme weakness quietly appeared.

Jiang Chen couldn't see his face clearly, but he could hear a series of violent, uncontrollable coughs, as if he was coughing up his lungs.

As a medical student, Jiang Chen was almost certain that the other party was suffering from a serious illness and probably didn't have long to live.

He walked up to the wreckage of the bus, looked at the bus that seemed to have a spirit, and smiled with satisfaction.

"You've developed spirituality in just a few decades, but that's not enough, far from enough. Let me lend you a hand."

He took a small bottle from his pocket, poured out a few drops of a thick, black liquid that exuded an ominous aura, and dripped it onto the driver's skeleton.

The mysterious man whispered hoarsely, his voice revealing a morbid greed.

"Then... I'll lend you a hand, to make you... more useful."

The pitch-black liquid seeped into the bones like a living thing.

Originally, after the driver was buried alive, he became a bound spirit, trapped in this car and this area.

However, under the catalysis of the power given by the mysterious person, the driver actually transformed from a weak earthbound spirit into an evil spirit. The bus, which had already acquired a spirit, was also corrupted and began to do evil together.

The scene abruptly ends there.

Jiang Chen's consciousness snapped back to reality. He was breathing heavily, his forehead covered in cold sweat.

"Are you alright? You look terrible."

When Ai saw that he had recovered, she asked him with concern, and Youxi also cast a worried look at her.

Jiang Chen shook his head and briefly described everything he had seen in the illusion.

"A mysterious man, suspected of having tuberculosis, is creating evil spirits. What is his purpose?"

Ai Yi's brows furrowed tightly, and the relaxed look on her face was replaced by a solemn expression.

"This means there's more to this than meets the eye. There's an organization behind this. But that also explains why there are so many dried corpses."

"It seems so." Jiang Chen nodded. "This evil spirit driver is just one of the tools they created, but I haven't found out exactly what it's used for yet."

Ai Yi stared at the pile of scrap metal from the bus for a moment in silence.

The air behind him distorted slightly, and the phantom image of the nine sons of the dragon appeared.

He walked up to the scrap metal, pressed his hands together lightly, and began to chant some ancient scripture.

Pure golden dragon energy surged from his palm, like warm sunlight falling on the wreckage.

The lingering resentment clinging to the car body melted away quickly under the golden light, like snow meeting the sun.

In the end, all the resentment and bitterness vanished, leaving only a fist-sized, pure and gentle ray of light, quietly suspended in mid-air.

That was the driver's initial obsession, and also the pure spirit of this bus.