Yordel instinctively sensed that something was wrong.
After a brief standoff and probing exchange, that white-haired Blood Race member with his fierce attacks, along with his two juniors, suddenly became passive!
They no longer attacked, charged, or blinked forward with reckless danger, nor did they control the Blood Thralls with imperceptible sounds.
Until Gilbert's voice rang out anxiously:
"Yordel!"
Though they had never been particularly in sync, Yordel immediately understood what he meant!
The mysterious guard wearing a mask raised his head and saw Tales push open the door from the balcony into the room before disappearing into the darkness within.
Why, Tales?
As the Mechanical Gears behind the Crystal Lens began to turn, Yordel's vision rapidly drew closer to the third floor. However, the room was so dark that he could not see what was happening inside.
Yordel grew restless.
His figure vanished in an instant.
In an unknown gray-white world, a gray-white moon gradually emerged. Then, a gray-white iron gate appeared from thin air, followed by the gray-white garden connected to it, the gray-white outer walls, the gray-white windows, the gray-white mansion, and so on.
Before long, a gray-white Weed Manor appeared in this world, identical to the real Weed Manor in every way except its bizarre color.
No one knew how much time passed. It was as though the sky had been tugged, and a point in the void suddenly rippled like water touched by a dragonfly. Layer upon layer of visible ripples spread outward!
At last, an ordinarily colored Yordel gently emerged from the center of the ripples in the void, landing in the gray-white world, inside the equally gray-white Weed Manor.
Walking along the gray-white road, whose shape and structure were almost identical to those of the real world yet utterly devoid of human life or vitality, the masked guard deftly leaped onto one window after another in the world of shadows, rapidly climbing toward the third floor of Weed Manor.
He had to reach the third-floor room from the world of shadows!
However, when he was only a few meters away from stepping onto the stone railing of the third-floor balcony, Yordel suddenly paused.
He clearly sensed that, moments earlier, this gray-white Shadow Path had been struck by a heavy hammer from every corner!
Resonance.
Those two words surfaced in Yordel's mind.
What a familiar feeling.
He frowned slightly, then abandoned his climb.
The next instant, Yordel powerfully kicked off the gray-white outer wall with his left foot. He soared into the air like a swallow and rolled backward!
Within several meters beneath the gray-white balcony, the place where Yordel had just stepped suddenly rippled with space. The shockwaves spread violently, causing all the surrounding gray-white outer walls to collapse!
The ripples were a heart-stopping blood red.
That blood-red color instantly swept across the entire gray-white Shadow Path!
As he rolled through the air, Yordel sighed inwardly. Transparent spatial ripples rose across his entire body.
Yordel's spatial ripples canceled out the incoming blood-colored ripples.
Within seconds, his figure vanished into the void.
Meanwhile, in the real world.
Below the lookout platform on the third floor of Weed Manor, a large expanse of space in midair was shrouded in blood mist. It contracted and expanded, as though it were vibrating in a regular rhythm.
Yordel abruptly materialized amid that bizarre vibration!
As he rolled through the air, Yordel looked at the blood mist surrounding him and frowned. Twelve years had passed, yet once again, he had been forcibly driven out of the Shadow Path.
Using the exact same method as back then.
An ambush prepared in advance awaited him.
The blood mist stopped vibrating. A suffocating aura stirred countless droplets of blood and sent them hurtling toward him.
The blood mist condensed into an aged, blood-red right hand. It struck at Yordel, who had no leverage in midair, with a seemingly weightless palm.
Straight at his chest and abdomen.
Before the palm even drew near, Yordel's clothes over his chest and abdomen let out ominous sizzling sounds and disintegrated one piece after another in midair!
Upon closer inspection, one would find tiny wisps of blood mist surrounding the blood-red palm, corroding every obstacle in their path.
Including Yordel's heart.
And he was suspended in midair, unable to dodge.
The Shadow Path could no longer shelter him.
With disaster about to strike, Yordel could only calmly draw in his chest and abdomen, curling his body into a strange shape and delaying the moment he would meet the palm head-on.
A little over one second.
Countless things happened within that brief interval!
Yordel's right hand instantly held that short sword of gloomy color.
In the blink of an eye, sword light flashed in Yordel's hand as he delivered three slashes in succession!
Not one of the three swords struck the dangerous blood-red palm.
But the gears behind Yordel's Crystal Lens spun rapidly. The countless tiny droplets of blood mist appeared in his vision with nowhere to hide. As Yordel swung his short sword, the frightening blood mist was shaken into three ripples invisible to ordinary people!
The blood hand advanced unhindered, only one second away.
The gears behind Yordel's lens instantly switched direction. The color of the Crystal Lens changed, and so did his vision. The three ripples disturbed the surrounding blood aura, while behind the blood-red palm, a special droplet of blood twisted irregularly amid the vibrations.
The next moment, Yordel's short sword moved at an inconceivable speed, leaving afterimages as it stabbed toward that irregular droplet of blood.
"Shhk!"
The tip of the sword lightly touched the palm formed from blood mist, then swiftly withdrew. Not a trace of strength had been wasted, yet not the slightest bit of energy had been spared.
A blood droplet neither large nor small shattered inside the palm formed from blood mist.
Then, just as the blood-red palm, which had been advancing with overwhelming force, was about to strike Yordel's chest within a fraction of a second, it suddenly collapsed into nothingness!
Yordel landed lightly. On the left side of his chest and abdomen, a large patch of clothing badly corroded by the blood mist turned to ash, exposing a strip of muscle. The skin on its surface had already been eaten away, and blood flowed from it.
Meanwhile, the blood mist scattered through the air gathered behind him with the collapse of the blood hand. Before Yordel, it re-formed into the silent figure of Chris Corleone, but it failed to condense his right hand.
Yordel did not even look at the wound on his chest and abdomen. He allowed the blood staining it to soak the hem of his robe until his muscles contracted automatically and stopped the corroded wound from bleeding further.
Chris frowned and flung his right arm. A crimson new hand bone sprouted from his missing wrist. Mixed with blood mist, it rapidly regrew muscle and skin at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Yordel's chest wound appeared far more serious, while Chris's right hand had regrown without the slightest damage.
But gloom spread through Chris's heart. He knew that in the perilous battle between Extreme Realm Experts, where life and death were decided in an instant, the proud Long-Lived Race had already lost to the Short-Lived Species behind that mask.
At first, Yordel had vanished into his unique Shadow Path and disappeared from this world, continuing forward on the other side of reality.
But Chris had immediately transformed his omnipresent blood mist into tens of thousands of droplets of blood. Through a sudden, orderly, and powerful resonance, he had forcibly shaken the skilled Masked Guard out of the shadows he alone occupied.
With his path abruptly severed, Yordel had fallen into Chris's trap in midair. The blood mist, filled with faint corrosive power, had drawn on the attraction of Source Blood to condense into a denser palm and strike at Yordel.
With no leverage, nowhere to dodge, and no way to enter the shadows, Yordel had fallen into an absolute disadvantage.
Yet in that instant, Yordel had used a sudden twist of his body to buy himself a little over one second.
Within that brief interval, Yordel had identified the location of Source Blood among millions of tiny droplets, destroyed it outright, and shattered Chris's right hand in the process.
The victor of the battle between Extreme Realm Experts had thus been decided.
Yordel had merely lost a patch of skin the size of a palm and some of the outer walls of his veins.
Chris, however, had lost a drop of the essence representing the Blood Race's vigorous vitality beneath Yordel's sword—a drop of Source Blood that took more than a century to condense.
Chris sighed. What a remarkable young man, and what a frightening successor.
"Beautiful technique and astonishing instincts. I previously compared you to 'Wrath of the Kingdom.' It seems my ignorance was showing."
As Chris spoke, his figure flashed again, avoiding Yordel's ghostly sword.
"Even 'Wrath of the Kingdom' could not have done better than you."
Yordel ignored him. He stomped hard and charged toward a window on the second floor.
But Chris blocked his path once more.
"But it's already too late to change anything." Chris dodged Yordel's attack while obstructing his advance toward the third floor.
The old Long-Lived Race member continued speaking, his words filled with the chilling insight of someone who had lived for a very long time. "For someone his age, he is probably the smartest and calmest Short-Lived Species I've seen in my more than six hundred years of life."
After losing a drop of Source Blood, Chris no longer expected to kill or even defeat this opponent. Extreme Realm Experts possessed vast power and lofty realms, yet could control every ounce of it with ease. After only a few exchanges, both sides could already see the battle's direction clearly.
But he could not allow the other party to interrupt His Highness's feeding—especially since that Short-Lived Species child might be the key to His Highness's awakening.
"What a pity. His curiosity and sense of danger are simply too strong. Even knowing that reinforcements were on the way, he still couldn't resist attacking first to save and defend himself. He probably couldn't stand the feeling of having his fate placed in someone else's hands."
"We only feinted a few times, yet he keenly noticed that the third floor might be our weakness."
"Curiosity and his sense of danger made him unable to resist opening that door."
"He didn't know that was precisely where we wanted him to go."
"His Highness needs his blood. His Highness needs his power."
"Young man, you're already too late."
"That Short-Lived Species boy has already, at this very moment—" A sharp glint flashed in Chris's eyes. For the first time, his tone as he referred to Tales carried respect and admiration. "—become His Highness's power."
Yordel's short sword trembled faintly.
When Tales saw the charred, withered hand reaching out from that bizarre Black Coffin, he stood frozen for a full five seconds.
Powerful memories flashed back, once again invading every cell of his brain and dragging familiar-looking scenes out of the void:
He heard that same sweet, gentle voice, though now it spoke without the slightest courtesy:
"Wu Qiren—you're hurting me! We're just revisiting a classic. Did you really have to be so scared?"
In Tales's ears, his past self's voice was filled with fear and trembling:
"I thought it was going to be something like The Godfather—but who would've thought you'd want to watch The Grudge in the middle of the night!"
"This is a timeless classic, okay? Look how cute Kayako is—ow, be gentler! My skin's delicate!"
"Holy crap, she—she—she's here! You're the one with the bigger chest, hurry up and block her for me!"
"You think my chest is big now? What about usually—ow! If you're scared, just close your eyes!"
"I can't help it! Anyway, can we turn on the lights—wait, she—she—she's crawling down!"
"Wu Qiren! Sit your butt back in the chair!"
"Oh my god, you old lady, don't pause it on this scene! I have to go up and down the stairs every day, you know—"
The moon was hidden by dark clouds. In the darkness, the sudden flashback of his past-life memories was interrupted by a terrifying howl.
"Haaah—"
The sound was like a drowning person suddenly awakening from a deathlike state.
But to Tales, whose mind had been thoroughly poisoned by horror films in his past life, it sounded exactly like the mournful howl of a thousand-year-old vengeful ghost awakening after a single night!
Tales jolted back to his senses and stared blankly as the thing resembling a ghost hand gripping the coffin's edge suddenly clawed its way outward with that terrifying howl!
A withered wrist like that of a Mummy.
A charred-black forearm, as though it had been scorched by hellfire.
A ruined shoulder, as though countless ants had gnawed at it.
One by one, they emerged from the Black Coffin with the hand!
That ghost hand and the barely human "body" connected to it seemed to be slowly crawling out of the Black Coffin!
Then, a horrifying head slowly rose above the coffin's edge beneath the faint moonlight!
The withered "head" was covered in pale, wilted Longhair. Its entire face was charred and rotten. An oversized black mouth sat out of proportion with the rest of its features, while the place where its nose should have been was an unfathomably deep darkness!
Tales felt goosebumps spread finely from his scalp all the way to his fingertips.
Hidden beneath the white hair, "it" opened its pitch-black "mouth." The enormous black maw split all the way to beneath its ears!
"Haa—"
The mournful howl entered Tales's ears head-on.
Tales's scalp went numb, and he nearly collapsed to the ground!
The monster did not stop. It crawled out of the Black Coffin slowly but rhythmically, as though feeling its way around.
From its head to its torso, from its left arm to its right, the "head" finally passed over the coffin's edge, and its entire upper body toppled toward the ground.
At last, its withered, ghostlike left hand lightly touched the floor.
Tales's mind was completely blank. Trembling slightly, he slowly drew in a breath of cold air.
At that moment, the head pressed against the ground seemed to sense something.
It paused, then slowly raised its head toward Tales.
Its withered white hair fell to either side, gently revealing its "face" as it turned directly toward Tales.
Where its eye sockets should have been—
Tales saw—
two irregular black holes.
The boy was practically scared unconscious.
Was this a half-burned Mummy?
But perhaps his abundant street experience since crossing over had made him bolder. Though terrified, Tales still trembled as he salvaged what little reason remained in his mind.
Whatever that thing was—Tales shuddered inwardly—I have to run!
It looks terrifying, but it isn't fast. If I just—
Tales desperately refused to think about the horror-movie scenes from his past life. He pivoted on his feet and twisted his comfortable children's leather shoes, which Gilbert had prepared for him, though they had already been heavily worn down during their journey. He prepared to rely on his speed to escape this dangerous place.
As long as I wait for Yordel's rescue—Tales thought. But the instant his leather shoes turned, the evil-ghost-like monster suddenly lunged out of the coffin!
Like a headless evil ghost blindly swimming through the air, suddenly awakened!
"Haa—ah!" The mournful howl rang out again!
Tales, whose fear was already maxed out, spun around and ran!
"Tap, tap—" His face pale, Tales took two steps and ran toward the balcony!