Free Web NovelA pungent mist drifted through the empty streets, and dark red flesh rolled back and forth among the ruins of buildings.
"Thump—thump—!"
In the distance.
Iron hooves pounded, giving off a clanging sound.
Immediately after, the sound of tearing air echoed, and an agile figure shot out from a narrow alley like lightning, cutting a silver-white arc in mid-air.
As soon as Jiang Li, clad in simple silver armor, landed, the dark red flesh attached to the streets and buildings immediately became restless, like a vicious beast that had smelled blood.
Following closely, a booming sound came from the alley behind her.
As the alley walls collapsed, stones and dust splattered like an explosion, and in the broken alley, a horde of mutated beasts emerged.
Cats, dogs, rats, birds, and even humans and plants—various common urban creatures gathered in groups, each covered in large amounts of dark red flesh, which surged and churned.
Affected by the flesh of the Invasion Beast, their bodies had undergone varying degrees of urban legend transformation.
Countless pairs of scarlet eyes stared intently at Jiang Li's back. The next moment, piercing screams erupted, and the frenzied horde immediately charged at her.
In an instant, a Fishy wind.
Jiang Li bit her silver teeth, spun her body lightly, tapped her toes hard on the ground, and retreated rapidly.
While creating distance from the beast horde, she quickly took out a cloth bag filled with pearls from the backpack on her chest with her left hand.
"Stars scattered like a chessboard, wind stirring the mountain foothills, flying silver threads, waving white pearls, the sound of clashing spears, the sound of falling arrows, seventy-five strikes of the Spell, a fierce downpour of falling arrows!" frёeweɓηovel.coɱ
As the incantation was completed, the surrounding humidity suddenly intensified.
Jiang Li raised her arm and forcefully scattered the pearls from the cloth bag into the sky.
These pearls were born inside aquatic mollusks and had been underwater for a long time. Although not top-grade cursing materials, using them when casting water-based Spells would more or less have an amplification effect.
Affected by the Spiritual Energy fluctuations and the incantation, the snowy white pearls were enveloped in mist, emitting a brilliant blue light, cutting arcs in mid-air, and then rapidly accelerating, turning into a sky full of sharp rain threads.
"Thud, thud, thud—!"
The rain threads, like spears and falling arrows, fell from the sky with whistling sounds of tearing air and splashing water, instantly causing blood blossoms to explode within the pursuing beast horde, pinning the twisted bodies to the ground.
Foul-smelling blood stained the dilapidated asphalt road.
Suddenly, from the layers of splashing blood, a canine creature whose body had mutated and expanded several times, broke through the rain curtain, flew out, and opened its bloody maw towards Jiang Li.
However, precisely in its trajectory of pouncing, a silver long blade suddenly appeared, as if it had been waiting there for it all along.
A flash of silver light passed by.
The fleeting blade light left a brilliant blue afterimage in the sky.
The giant dog's body stiffened, and the greed and ferocity flickering in its scarlet eyes gradually turned into shock and pain.
A bloody line appeared on its lower jaw, extending to the top of its head. Immediately after, its head split in half from top to bottom, with thick, foul-smelling matter splattering out.
"Boom—!"
The giant dog's massive body twitched violently and crashed heavily onto the ground with a loud thud.
However, it did not die on the spot. From its split head, a large amount of dark red flesh split into buds, wriggling like swarms of insects, attempting to repair its body.
Immediately after failing to repair the giant dog's body, as the giant dog's body suddenly exploded, the flesh of the Invasion Beast quickly surged out and burrowed into the bodies of the nearby monsters that were still alive, giving rise to more deformed and strange creatures, becoming increasingly hideous.
The flesh of the Invasion Beast attached to the bodies of these creatures was like some kind of parasite. Once the host died, it would immediately detach and transfer to another living host.
"Damn it!"
Jiang Li cursed softly, and without a moment's hesitation, she activated her Spirit Mark and turned to run towards the end of the street.
She had no doubt that if her long blade hadn't been coated with Hydra's venom, the giant dog would have instantly healed its fatal injuries with the enhancement of the Invasion Beast's flesh.
"..."
Why did the flesh of the Invasion Beast become restless and give rise to a large number of urban legend?
What exactly happened here?
Could it be related to Lu Yibei's aura disappearing within this special space? Jiang Li thought uneasily.
When she encountered the urban legend-transformed wild cat that attacked people on Peony Street, she still felt that the situation within this special space was within controllable limits.
Relying on her seasoned combat experience, even with her Spiritual Energy fluctuations suppressed, she could still easily win against one or two urban legend-transformed creatures.
But as Lu Yibei's aura disappeared, moving beyond the effective range of divination, it was as if stimulated or catalyzed by some force, the flesh of the Invasion Beast entrenched in the special space fell into madness.
The situation gradually ran wild and became uncontrollable, galloping towards chaos.
Large numbers of creatures affected by the flesh of the Invasion Beast, whose bodies had undergone urban legend transformation, emerged in the streets and alleys.
Ten, fifty, one hundred... In just about an hour, the number of urban legend-transformed creatures chasing Jiang Li had exceeded two hundred, and the number was still increasing.
With such a number of urban legend-transformed creatures, and her Spiritual Energy fluctuations suppressed by the special space to only slightly stronger than D-level, even with Jiang Li's rich combat experience, she couldn't continue to fight them all.
Thus, as she fought and retreated, her mood gradually became heavy.
Although she was very unwilling to believe the possibility that Lu Yibei was devoured by the Invasion Beast, facing the anomaly within the special space, she subconsciously prepared herself for the worst-case scenario.
What worried her even more was that the situation in this special space going out of control would affect Hua City, causing the black night disease epidemic, which had already been brought under control, to break out again, or even directly cause irreversible devastating damage to Hua City...
She wondered what the situation in Hua City was like now. Jiang Li thought.
— — — —
Hua City, Peony Street, Folk Culture Research Bureau, Office No. 2.
A girl in ragged clothes with messy long hair was sprawled on Li Xuan's desk in a large 'big' shape. Her breathing was extremely weak, and she lay motionless, like a corpse.
When Li Xuan rushed back to the office with the monitoring data, he saw this scene and the corners of his mouth twitched uncontrollably.
Ever since he brought Hua Sang to the Hua City Si Ye Hui, Hua Sang had been lying there without moving at all, not even bothering to eat the food he brought.
"Junior Sister? Junior Sister Hua? Hua Sang!"
Li Xuan called out three times in a row, raising his voice a few times each time, and only then did Hua Sang react.
She gently twisted her slender waist, slightly lifted her eyelids, looked at Li Xuan listlessly, sat up cross-legged, stretched, and then somehow pulled out an ancient-looking black iron ruler from somewhere. While scratching her back with the ruler, she mumbled, "Senior Brother, what is it? Such a hurry?"
"You... I..." Li Xuan hesitated.
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He was truly exasperated by Hua Sang. He originally thought this Junior Sister who cared about his car was a thoughtful little cotton-padded jacket, but who would have thought she was a leaky, black-hearted cotton-padded jacket.
He had long known that Hua Sang was unconventional, but he never expected that as a disciple of Da Chunyang Palace and a confidante of the Sect Leader, this Hua Sang could be so lazy.
It was simply a disgrace to the sect, the shame of the sect!
His chest rose and fell for a while, suppressing the indignation in his heart. Li Xuan handed the monitoring data to Hua Sang and said, "Look at this! This is the Spiritual Energy fluctuation monitoring data that just came in. That special space is already on the verge of losing control, and you still have the mood to slack off here?"
Hua Sang glanced at the monitoring data in Li Xuan's hand, waved her hand, and said, "Senior Brother, don't worry. I've been keeping an eye on it. Only three-eighths of the anchoring left by the Sect Leader Old man has been damaged."
"For now, there won't be any problems."
Although Zhang Huainan was frugal with materials when setting up the anchoring, making the anchoring's defense against external intrusion extremely low, the technique he used was undeniably ingenious.
The eight anchors were one entity, yet each operated independently.
According to Hua Sang's understanding of Zhang Huainan, as long as two anchors remained, that special space would not lose control and surface.
"You've been keeping an eye on it?" Li Xuan said indignantly, "Why do I feel like you've been slacking off all along? If it continues like this, will it be too late when it really loses control?"
Li Xuan was worried about the special space losing control, and in his anxiety, he actually ignored Hua Sang's words that only three-eighths had been damaged.
"There's still time, there's still time..." Hua Sang said slowly, "As the saying goes,'Stillness controls movement, sinking controls floating, spaciousness controls narrowness, slowness controls urgency.' It's no use being anxious about this kind of thing."
"The deadline is the primary productivity!"
"You..." Li Xuan hesitated, completely speechless towards Hua Sang. "Did the Sect Leader know you were like this when he sent you? I must report the situation truthfully this time!"
"Report it, report it, it doesn't matter." Hua Sang smiled lazily.
Anyway, that annoying Old man told me to do this. It's useless for you to report me. I'm slacking off on imperial decree... Hua Sang added in her heart.
Although she didn't quite understand why the Sect Leader told her in the letter he slipped into her pocket before leaving, "Before the anchoring is damaged to only one remaining, you must observe the changes and not tell anyone the reason for doing so."
However, she did a slight deduction without much effort and confirmed that acting according to the Sect Leader's instructions resulted in a highly auspicious divination.
As for the reason the Sect Leader did this, she really didn't know. Deducing the auspiciousness or inauspiciousness of an event was simple, but trying to deduce why an event was auspicious or inauspicious was very tiring. It was possible but unnecessary.
Anyway, as long as she knew that the Sect Leader's decision was correct, that was enough.
That annoying Old man is almost a spirit, he wouldn't make random decisions.
So...
The Sect Leader himself said I could slack off, and you, my smelly junior Senior Brother, still want me to get moving?
You're dreaming!
Thinking this, Hua Sang stretched, lay back down on the desk, and quickly entered a state of hibernation. No matter what Li Xuan said to her, she no longer responded.
She had said so much and even used her brain a little, she was already very "tired" and needed rest!
As for the matter entrusted by the Sect Leader, she would deal with it when the time was right.
— — — —
Within the Invasion Beast's mental world.
The ground was constantly collapsing, turning into fragments, and being swept into the turbulent flow. Lu Yibei's foothold also continuously shrank.
Although she really didn't want to enter the depths of the small park, she even more didn't want to be swept into the turbulent flow formed after the city's fragmentation, so she had no choice but to keep retreating.
In just over ten minutes, the area around the small park had shrunk from a diameter of about one kilometer to less than two hundred meters.
Then...
What was originally slow disintegration suddenly intensified. The sky rapidly darkened from far to near, merging into a light gray dense fog. The ground beneath her feet broke and detached in large chunks, turning into sharp fragments.
"Boom—boom—!"
Amidst a series of booming sounds, in the blink of an eye, the cracks spread to Lu Yibei's feet.
"Damn!"
She cursed under her breath, and without time to think, she quickly retreated. When she came back to her senses, there was only a small grove between her and the Invasion Beast, and the distance was no more than twenty meters.
Through the gaps in the small grove, she could already vaguely see the inverted swing swaying in the sky, and the child on the swing.
The child looked about eleven or twelve years old, small in size, with short dark red hair cut even with their temples. Due to being too young, their gender was indistinguishable.
Perhaps creatures like the Invasion Beast don't have a gender at all... Lu Yibei muttered inwardly.
A dark black crystal ring covered their eyes, a silver long needle pierced from their left ear and exited from their right ear, and their thin little mouth was sewn shut with glowing red thread. Their face looked pale and emaciated, as if from long-term malnutrition.
But even so, looking at their facial contours, one couldn't help but think, "If they were given good nutrition, they would definitely be a cute child?"
Like anti-theft barbed wire, chains covered in barbs were wrapped around their small body, embedded in the flesh, tightly binding them to the swing. Perhaps due to being bound for a long time, their slender hands and feet also appeared slightly twisted and deformed.
As the inverted swing swayed back and forth, the sharp barbs dug into their flesh, and blood constantly dripped, corroding the chains wrapped around them, making it impossible to distinguish whether the dark red marks ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) on them were rust or dried blood.
Lu Yibei, "..."
Did they do this to themselves, or did someone else do it? This is too ♦ perverted, right?
What should I do! That thing looks too weird, I really don't want to have anything to do with them!
What is Chatterbox Girl doing? It's been so long, isn't she done yet?
Lu Yibei thought, and just then, a soft murmur sounded in her ear again, "Do you see me? Does my appearance scare you? I must look very scary, right?"
Their tone of voice was very hesitant and cautious.
Lu Yibei, "..." Yes, it did scare me, but I don't want to talk to you.
"Even if you don't plan to save me, can you come a little closer? I can't see or hear. Just come a little closer so I can feel your presence."
"Boom!"
A booming sound came from behind her. Lu Yibei looked back and fell silent.
The collapse had started again.
"..."
Is this a request? This is coercion, isn't it? This child definitely has a serious mental illness! Lu Yibei thought.
