Shadow Person

Luo Wendi looked astonished, and Bai Ge could not help feeling surprised as well.

"Danmu was stolen? How is that possible? The Chinese Academy of Sciences couldn't even guard a flower?" Bai Ge thought. The security here is so tight. How could thieves have gotten in?

Right after that, Luo Wendi exclaimed in utter astonishment, "Ah! Look over there!"

When Bai Ge looked over, his expression grew even stranger.

Because he and Luo Wendi both saw a Shadow Person running over from the distance, apparently about to pass in front of their building.

The reason it was called a Shadow Person

was simply that there was no better name for it.

Bai Ge could hardly believe what he was seeing. It was a human-shaped shadow. Other than its eyes and teeth, which were white, its entire body was pure black, and it darted through the night like a ghost.

That alone would not have been too strange.

But when the personnel on duty chasing behind the Shadow Person shone a flashlight at it, it remained pitch-black, as if it had naturally grown that way. That was truly bizarre to the extreme.

Luo Wendi muttered in amazement, "A bodysuit?"

Bai Ge shook his head inwardly. It was actually possible to tell whether someone was wearing a bodysuit.

The Shadow Person before them looked completely naked, as if its skin itself were pure black.

It looked just like... Shadow Lord from Conan.

Before the culprit was revealed in each episode, the anime portrayed them as a shadow.

Other than their eyes and mouth, every part of their body was pure black, even in broad daylight.

Put simply, it was merely a storytelling device. When depicting the criminal process, it was set up that way to keep the reader from learning the culprit's identity.

How could anything so bizarre appear in reality?

In the past, Bai Ge would have racked his brains over the other party's method of committing the crime, striving to find a reasonable explanation.

But now, the thought that surfaced in his mind was...

Absolute Trait!

He realized that the situation might be terrifying.

The Shadow Person had been created by energy that had escaped from his imagination.

The reason he thought so was that, to this day, Bai Ge still did not know why the escaped mysterious energy had not blown up this world.

"I suspected before that the escaped energy might also be used to realize fantasy traits... Now that I think about it, could the Shadow Person have been caused by an anomalous trait?"

"No way..."

"Wouldn't that make it a contained object?"

Bai Ge stared at the approaching Shadow Person in astonishment when the pursuing guard shouted, "He stole Danmu! Stop him!"

With no time to think, Bai Ge strode forward and stood in the Shadow Person's path.

The Shadow Person's bizarre eyes glanced at Bai Ge. Holding Danmu in one hand, it swung the other at Bai Ge as if swatting a fly.

The blow was fast and fierce, and Bai Ge could feel tremendous force coming at him.

He remained calm, planted his stance, and rapidly threaded both hands forward. With a smooth maneuver of redirecting a thousand pounds with four ounces, he threw the Shadow Person to the ground.

The entire process was incredibly fluid. The Shadow Person only reacted after it had hit the ground.

"Hmm?" the Shadow Person murmured in surprise.

An ordinary person would have needed quite some time to get up after being thrown like that, but the Shadow Person seemed completely fine and sprang back to its feet at once.

After exchanging that one move with it, Bai Ge immediately noticed many abnormalities.

It was too quiet. Other than the "hmm" it had deliberately made, the Shadow Person had produced no sound at all.

Bai Ge had thrown it to the ground. Despite clearly having considerable weight, it had made no noise whatsoever.

Even the dust on the ground remained completely undisturbed, without a trace left behind.

Thinking about it carefully, the Shadow Person had just run over the flower field. That was muddy ground, yet it had not left behind a single footprint.

"Silent... leaving no traces... Its speed and strength are both greater than an ordinary person's."

"Be careful!" Seeing Bai Ge facing the Shadow Person's counterattack with a calm expression, Luo Wendi assumed he had not reacted in time and hurriedly warned him.

But Bai Ge had spent two full months studying martial arts. When it came to combat skills alone, no one in the world was more knowledgeable than him.

There was no need to think when dealing with an attack like this. He simply raised his hand.

To defeat him, it was possible—unless one possessed overwhelming strength.

Clearly, the Shadow Person's strength was still lacking.

Although the Shadow Person was strong, it remained within the human range. It was probably somewhat stronger than a top heavyweight boxer.

"Hiss!" Luo Wendi watched, utterly absorbed.

He saw Bai Ge throw the Shadow Person down again and again. This visual humiliation made the Shadow Person seem much less frightening.

No matter what it did, Bai Ge could deflect its attacks and counter them.

It was pure domination through technique. The Shadow Person could not even stay on its feet, constantly being thrown down or grappled.

If its body had not been immune to joint locks, it would probably have been unable to move long ago.

"Are you from Mos?" Seeing himself thrown down more than twenty times in succession, the Shadow Person asked anxiously.

"Are you a local?" Bai Ge did not answer. Instead, he asked a question of his own.

He had heard that the Shadow Person actually had a local accent.

The Shadow Person bared its enormous mouth, its snow-white teeth shining fiercely, as more and more people gathered around.

Its gaze instantly turned vicious.

The Shadow Person put a hand into its mouth and somehow pulled a small knife from its throat, stabbing it straight toward Bai Ge's face.

The entire process was silent, making it genuinely difficult to guard against.

Under the night sky, the small knife flashed like a streak of silver light, shooting straight at Bai Ge's eyes.

Luo Wendi watched in alarm. In the blink of an eye, the Shadow Person had been thrown down by Bai Ge again.

The knife that had been heading for Bai Ge's face had vanished without a trace.

Bai Ge pinned the Shadow Person to the ground, bent one of its arms behind its back, and twisted it into a position where it could not exert any force.

The Shadow Person seemed not to care. Instead, it asked in surprise, "Where's my knife?"

As it spoke, it slipped free like a fish and tried to flee.

"Here!" Bai Ge smoothed back his hair, producing a small knife, and decisively drew it across the Shadow Person's arm.

However, although the blade passed over it, it left no wound—not even a scratch. Bai Ge did not even know whether the Shadow Person had skin...

A moment ago, the knife had narrowly missed him and scraped past his temple.

When he felt the blade cut through his hair, Bai Ge had a thought and stored it in his imagination. Now he took it back out from behind his head, turning it into his weapon.

The process had been too quick, and it was too dark to see clearly. Everyone assumed Bai Ge had used some swift technique to take the knife away.

Bai Ge's method looked reasonably plausible.

But the Shadow Person's body was far too strange.

Had it become immune to sharp weapons?

Even a knife could not hurt it!

Ignoring Bai Ge's knife, the Shadow Person finally realized that it could not keep entangling itself with him.

"You're impressive, but you're ultimately just an ordinary person. You can't stop me."

The Shadow Person grinned, its snow-white teeth gleaming, and pulled an IV bottle and a lighter from its mouth with one hand.

Its mouth could open incredibly wide. Inserting half an arm into it would have been effortless.

At first glance, it had taken out an IV bottle, but it also had a rubber stopper and a very short fuse. Inside, it was packed with...

"Homemade bomb?" Bai Ge immediately retreated, because the Shadow Person had already lit the bomb.

The bomb exploded in the Shadow Person's hand, scattering numerous nails.

An ordinary person could never use explosives like that, because it would be tantamount to suicide.

But the Shadow Person was different. It completely ignored the bomb's power and instead burst into loud laughter.

"I'm immortal!"

After saying that, it suddenly froze.

Because it saw Bai Ge lowering his arms, which had shielded his vital points, his face cold and expressionless.

During the explosion, Bai Ge had already widened the distance somewhat and used both arms to block the nails.

Three nails were now embedded in Bai Ge's arm. He was not bleeding, because the heat had seared the torn flesh shut.

An ordinary person with injuries like that would probably have been crying for their mother.

But Bai Ge did not even blink at such wounds. Even his breathing rhythm had not been disrupted.

The Calm Command forced him to maintain his condition under any external stimulation.

"Hmph. What's the point of pretending to be tough?" the Shadow Person sneered.

By now, the guards had caught up. At least twenty of them surrounded the area from all directions.

"My god, is that even human?"

"What the hell is that thing?"

"Where's Danmu?"

The guards stared at the Shadow Person, hesitating.

Bai Ge said calmly, "Danmu should be inside its body."

"Inside its body?" Everyone was confused.

The Shadow Person was surprised instead. "You know that too? That's right. I've already eaten it."

"Are you human or a ghost?" No one was surprised that it had eaten Danmu. What shocked them was that the Shadow Person could speak human language.

The Shadow Person smiled and could not be bothered to answer.

Instead, it gave Bai Ge a deep look and said, "You're impressive. I thought I was already invincible, but you showed me my shortcomings and taught me the importance of technique... Good. I'll remember you... I'm leaving!"

With that, it turned and charged straight toward the crowd.

It ignored the guards surrounding it and sprinted in one direction.

The guard who stood in its path was horrified. Just looking at the enemy's appearance was enough to crush his courage.

The collision was silent. One guard was sent flying, vomiting blood in midair before landing unconscious on the ground.

The Shadow Person was about to leave so brazenly.

However, in the next second,

while everyone's attention was focused on the Shadow Person, Bai Ge swiftly pulled a rope from behind his head.

The rope already had a slipknot tied into it, forming a lasso.

He casually threw it, but its trajectory was absurdly far off!

In midair, however, the lasso turned, tracing a bizarre arc as it shot straight toward the Shadow Person.

The Shadow Person also noticed the incoming rope. It immediately changed direction and dodged at high speed.

But the lasso was even more outrageous. In midair, it changed its landing point once again.

This time, it turned at an unbelievable sharp angle.

"Huh?" The onlookers were already dumbfounded.

Even the Shadow Person was greatly startled. Seeing that it could not dodge, it simply reached out to grab the rope.

But at that moment, the rope changed direction for a third time.

After a bizarre bounce, the lasso went around the Shadow Person's hand and directly encircled its neck.

The lasso immediately tightened, but that was not the end.

Bai Ge rushed forward and kicked the Shadow Person down. The rope trembled repeatedly.

In his hands, the rope moved as flexibly as an arm. In just a few motions and a matter of seconds, the Shadow Person was bound tightly.

In the eyes of the others, his skill had reached an astonishing level.

"This is impossible!"

The Shadow Person shouted, but Bai Ge stepped on it and pinned it to the ground.

Its hands and feet were all restrained, and it had even been bound into a compact bundle.

"Come help! It can break free of the rope!"

Seeing everyone staring blankly, Bai Ge hurriedly reminded them.

This was merely an ordinary Earth rope stored in his imagination. The Shadow Person's strength was enormous and had absolutely exceeded the rope's tolerance.

But if more than a dozen people swarmed it at once, the Shadow Person would be helpless.

"The police will be here soon. Let's lock it in the lounge first."

"It's incredibly strong... Even now, I still can't believe it..."

A group of guards rushed over and pressed it to the ground, their expressions strange.

The Shadow Person looked bizarre enough with the naked eye. Once they touched it, they could sense even more clearly that it seemed completely naked, as if it had naturally grown that way.

In reality, seeing a hairless, thin person whose every inch was pitch-black—

what kind of feeling would that give someone? Especially with those snow-white teeth and enormous eyes, it looked like a ghost.

As the guards dragged the Shadow Person indoors,

Luo Wendi suddenly walked over to Bai Ge's side and looked at him seriously. "Your skills are the best I've ever seen. That monster couldn't fight back at all in front of you!"

"How did you do that with the rope? It was too bizarre."

Three unexpected changes in direction, as if the rope itself were alive.

Bai Ge had secretly added an anomalous setting to the rope within his imagination.

Forced restraint, with a trait duration of thirty seconds.

Bai Ge designated the target. As long as the other party did not immediately destroy the rope, the binding process could not be resisted.

No matter how it dodged or struggled, the rope would ultimately restrain it.

The entire process was actually completed automatically by the rope. Bai Ge had merely pretended to manipulate it, going along with the flow.

But to the onlookers, it appeared that Bai Ge had mastered rope manipulation to an extraordinary level.

Bai Ge said, "It's a rope-control technique, a skill passed down by our ancestors. It's probably... almost lost."

Utter nonsense!

However, Luo Wendi believed him. What else could he do if he didn't? To an ordinary person, this was the most reasonable explanation.

Compared with many ancient magical tricks, this rope technique didn't look all that outrageous.

"Oh, so it's the art of controlling ropes... You can do this too?" Luo Wendi was starting to pretend he understood.

Bai Ge smiled. "I know a little about everything..."