Chapter 53 Ghostly Marriage (5)

Thanks to the attack of the crimson flames, both managed to simultaneously break free from the control of the black substance. Now gripping their golden weapons, they eyed the scarred man with wary vigilance. To be able to drag both into a ghostly illusion in an instant, and manipulate spirits with such skill—the man before them, though human, was even more formidable than a three-star ghost spirit.

“Let go of my cat!” Xiao Keyan shouted, pointing her hammer at the scarred man, whose hand clutched Commander Cat. Restricted by the man’s magnetic power, Commander Cat couldn’t dissolve into nothingness and escape his grasp; only its large black eyes spun frantically.

“So you’re out? That makes things even more interesting!” The scarred man narrowed his eyes at Wu Zui and Xiao Keyan, his lips curling into a strange smile.

With his free hand, he tossed a black “glass bead” the size of a lychee. It hovered in midair, transforming into a square meter of black ghost mist. At its center, a vortex appeared, drawing in the lingering resentful energy and magnetic force nearby.

The scarred man casually threw the terrified Commander Cat toward the vortex. But a surge of flame rushed to the vortex before Commander Cat could reach it. As Wu Zui uttered a low command, “Explode!” the fire burst forth. The vortex at the heart of the ghost mist stalled and retreated, and Commander Cat was blasted free by the flames.

The scarred man’s magnetic control over Commander Cat was disrupted by the flames. The cat, previously rigid, instantly dissolved into nothingness and returned to Xiao Keyan’s body.

The scarred man’s expression hardened. Though the ghost mist seemed unharmed, the vortex within, which absorbed magnetic force, couldn’t consume the fire Wu Zui had unleashed. If the fight continued, even if the ghost mist managed to destroy Wu Zui, it would suffer damage itself.

That ghost mist was crucial for the scarred man’s rapid ascent to five-star awakened status; he couldn’t risk it being ruined. With this in mind, he decided to retreat.

“High mountains and distant roads! When I reach five stars, I’ll turn your bodies into monsters, your souls into spirits, and torment you day and night!”

Just as the scarred man reached out to recall the ghost mist and make his escape, Wu Zui hurled his golden longsword, wreathed in crimson flames.

The sword pierced straight into the vortex at the center of the mist. The vortex ceased its rotation, and the flames on the sword locked in a stalemate with the ghost mist.

For a moment, the scarred man couldn’t summon back the ghost mist.

“Ha!” Xiao Keyan, wielding her twin hammers glowing with blue magnetic light, charged at the scarred man. One hammer swung toward his crown. He raised his black umbrella to block; though the hammers struck with force, he deftly parried them aside with two or three swift moves.

While Xiao Keyan kept him occupied, Wu Zui launched his own attack from the other side. His hands, ablaze, seized the opportunity as the scarred man fended off the hammers—delivering a heavy punch to his chest. The fire, guided by the force of the blow, penetrated deep.

The scarred man felt a spark igniting within his chest, as if his very cavity might catch fire. His magnetic energy became erratic. A black halo shimmered around his umbrella, and the whites of his eyes vanished completely.

“You’ve angered me!” he roared. Swinging the umbrella in a perfect arc, he drove Wu Zui and Xiao Keyan back, then rushed toward the ghost mist, still locked in combat with the crimson flames.

He opened his mouth wide and bit into the mist, at the same time gripping the golden longsword lodged in the vortex and hurling it into the wall of the village chief’s house. Magnetic energy surged around him, enveloping the ghost mist as he attempted to pull it entirely into his mouth.

Though devouring the ghost mist wouldn’t make him a five-star, consuming it would allow him to reach four stars. Then, with Xiao Keyan and Wu Zui, he could craft new spirits—more troublesome, perhaps, but enough to achieve five stars.

“Stop him! Don’t let him swallow that thing!” Wu Zui shouted, already lunging toward the scarred man. His right hand shaped into a blade of crimson fire, avoiding the man’s front and aiming a slicing strike at his neck. The scarred man’s attempt to flee revealed that the crimson flames could harm him.

Having tasted Wu Zui’s flames, the scarred man knew their tenacity. He withdrew his hands from controlling the ghost mist and used his black umbrella to block Wu Zui’s fiery blade.

At that moment, Xiao Keyan joined the fray. Her hammer, charged with magnetic energy, sent the scarred man—umbrella and all—flying into the wall, cracking the concrete with the force of impact.

Wu Zui didn’t spare the man a glance. He transformed his magnetic energy into crimson fire, burning the ghost mist, which Xiao Keyan had trapped with her hammers.

“Ah—!” As the flames began to scorch the ghost mist, a chorus of anguished cries erupted from within, as though several voices mourned together. The vortex at the center had stopped spinning long ago; patches of black mist burned away into nothingness.

At last, the square meter of mist was reduced by fire to a single transparent bead. The bead, stripped of all its strange power, dropped from the air into Wu Zui’s hand.

Though it seemed to take ages, the crimson fire’s subtle dominance over the ghost mist meant the burning was swift. Only now did the scarred man crawl out from the corner of the wall.

Seeing his hope of reaching five stars destroyed, the scarred man’s rage boiled over. Hatred blazed in his pitch-black eyes—he would kill these two, no matter the cost!

He drew a black shadow from his umbrella, its form resembling a burly butcher. Before Wu Zui and Xiao Keyan could react, the two-star spirit—sensed by Wu Zui—was devoured whole by the scarred man, without a struggle. With the spirit gone, the black umbrella transformed into a bone-cutting blade.

“Let’s all go to hell! You’ll be buried with me!” the scarred man howled. Black resentful energy poured from his body, forming tangible walls. His internal magnetic force reacted strangely with the rage.

Wu Zui and Xiao Keyan couldn’t even approach him, let alone attack. Even Wu Zui’s crimson flames, thrown at the walls, burned away some of the energy only to be extinguished.

What Wu Zui didn’t know was that this two-star spirit was a pig slaughterer—a butcher who killed pigs daily for over twenty years. His body was saturated with the pigs’ dying resentment. Though he was only a two-star, the unabsorbed rage around him rivaled the power of a four-star monster.

Originally, the scarred man planned to wait until he reached four stars, then consume the butcher spirit and ghost mist, ascending directly to five-star peak strength.

Now, with the ghost mist gone, he could only devour the butcher spirit to reach four stars, then kill Wu Zui and Xiao Keyan to craft new spirits.

According to the Purification Society, that ghost mist would help him establish a ghost domain at six stars; the later he devoured it, the better. The butcher spirit was easy to consume, but its rage hadn’t been assimilated—at his current magnetic strength, he risked backlash.

But Wu Zui and Xiao Keyan had ruined his hope of five stars, and now he was bent on annihilating them—blinded by rage, he cared nothing for consequences.

“Ugh... ah... ha ha... snort... snort.”

Behind the walls of black resentment, the scarred man’s strange cries echoed—sometimes shrill, sometimes satisfied, sometimes like pig squeals. As the cries grew more bizarre and louder, the black energy began to slowly spread outward. Wu Zui and Xiao Keyan could not imagine what was happening inside.

“We need to withdraw!” Wu Zui said solemnly to Xiao Keyan, picking up his golden longsword.

“Understood, Master!” Xiao Keyan replied, following him quickly out of the village chief’s house.

Only outside in the courtyard did they realize that the resentful energy, which had nearly dissipated from Old Mountain Village, was now converging here. Within five minutes, the surrounding areas were clear, but the chief’s house was enveloped in darkness. Soon, the black energy began to contract inward.

“Snort... snort!”

Boom—

A sound like pig squeals erupted from the chief’s house, then the wall was smashed open. A half-human, half-pig monster burst out, brandishing gleaming claws and launching an attack at Wu Zui and Xiao Keyan.

“Dodge! Attack on the move!” Wu Zui called, and the two leaped to opposite sides. The monster barreled into the streetlamp behind them, shattering the cement pole, which crashed down with a loud bang, electric wires sparking as they fell.

“Snort... snort...”

The monster crouched, squealing, seemingly unharmed. It looked dazed from the collision, shaking its head with a confused expression, though ferocity was beginning to rise.

Its body had grown to over two meters tall, draped in tattered scraps of magnetic armor. Tusks jutted from its mouth, and its shoulder-length hair bristled like steel needles. Hands and feet had become beast-like claws, with five nails gleaming menacingly.

It appeared the scarred man had finally succumbed to the butcher spirit’s rage, becoming a hybrid of human and monster—a pig-man abomination.

“Snort... eat... all... of you!” The pig-man crouched, shaking off the dizziness, then turned to glare at Wu Zui and Xiao Keyan. Its eyes were pitch-black, but its gaze could be felt. Mixed with the pig squeals were low murmurs resembling the scarred man’s voice.

Though the spirit and the scarred man had fused, forming a half-human, half-monster entity, their power had grown—but their intellect seemed diminished, affected by the two-star spirit and its rage.