The Ghost Heart's integration was a continuous, irreversible corrosion of the Time Ghost.
First its eyes, then its head.
It did not know when it would completely lose its head, what it would become after losing it, or what the Ghost Heart still beating in its chest would do to it.
So it had to seize it.
The progress of the Killing Method was the progress of its own collapse.
The more desperately it tried to pull off Ji Li's head, the closer its own head was to falling off.
Ji Li had no way to win.
He was only an ordinary man. He could not withstand the tearing that rose from deep within his cervical vertebrae, the ceaseless pulling of those invisible hands, or the widening crack at the back of his neck.
At some moment, his head would be completely pulled free from his body. Perhaps in a minute, perhaps in ten seconds, perhaps with his very next breath.
He did not need to win. He only needed to stall.
Stall until the Time Ghost's head fell before his did.
But how could he stall?
The force pulling at his head had already tightened to its limit.
Ji Li could feel that, in the gap between his first and second cervical vertebrae, his ligaments had been stretched like rubber bands pulled to their absolute limit, ready to snap at any moment.
Cracks began to appear in his consciousness—not dizziness, but something far more terrifying: the clear awareness that he was being dismantled.
He needed to find something, something that could interrupt this process.
Not resistance. He had no room to resist.
"There must be a flaw..."
Blood still flowed from Ji Li's right eye, dripping from his lashes into the Blood Pool beneath his face, each drop sending