A Curious First Turn

"He survived?" The Student Kid, who had been lying motionless on the ground, breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing the door close beside him, but still showed no intention of moving.

However, his reluctance to move did not mean that the ghost within him was also unwilling to move. After devouring all his competitors, the Ghostly Shadow formed by the bluish-black flames had already entered the memorial tablet, and the ghost within the Student Kid began to stir restlessly once again.

Fine, dense marks climbed from his abdomen toward his limbs, forming tiny teeth marks that were at least two-thirds smaller than those of an average person.

As these "teeth marks" spread, the Student Kid's body became increasingly emaciated, but his already swollen abdomen grew even larger.

If he initially resembled a beer belly, and after being "baptized" by the Moon Eclipse, he looked like a pregnant woman about to give birth, then now he looks more like a sumo wrestler with a mummy growing on his stomach.

"No, the curse can't be suppressed anymore."

The Student Kid strained to turn his head toward Feng Xue's Room Door, confirming that she still had no intention of coming out. Finally, he gritted his teeth, raised his left arm, whose skeletal outline was now clearly visible, and bit down hard.

"Snap!"

The sound of bones breaking was much crisper than expected. With that Student Kid actually tore off his left forearm. Strangely, not a drop of blood flowed from the broken end, which was covered with bits of flesh and bone.

"Click, click."

The Student Kid began gnawing at his elbows like he was chewing sugarcane, swallowing the broken bone fragments and shriveled flesh. As he did so, his swollen abdomen throbbed with each bite, as if a second heartbeat was forming.

The Fire Ghost, who was enjoying the incense offerings, was startled by the sound and floated out of the memorial tablet. It looked with some surprise at the Student Kid who should have been burned to death by its special move, around the head. Between the two deep, pure black flames, it suddenly opened its arms, and the tide surged towards the Student Kid again.

This time, however, the Student Kid suddenly opened his mouth, which looked more like a skull than a human, and his jaw dislocated in an instant, his mouth opening so wide that it tore the skin and tendons of his mouth apart.

But this mouth, whose jaw seemed to have been forcibly ripped off, suddenly unleashed a terrifying suction force. The bluish-black flames that almost filled the entire Living Room transformed into a torrent, rushing directly into the student's mouth. Accompanied by a chilling swallowing sound, he leaped up in an inhuman posture, swinging his jaw, now devoid of bone and muscle support, and pounced towards the Fire Ghost—

No, his target wasn't the Fire Ghost, but the offering table!

He devoured the plate of pork belly in one gulp, like a bulldozer. The hot pot dish that the Red Face- faced, balding man had transformed into was disappearing from the table at an exaggerated speed, and the Fire Ghost watching all this had its flames swell a bit.

"Slap! Slap!"

A crackling sound like flames exploded in the room, followed by a continuous rise in temperature. The Student Kid's hair began to curl, his clothes started to smoke and turn black, and even his withered skin gradually turned red and then blistered.

But the Student Kid seemed completely unconcerned about his physical injuries, frantically devouring all the flesh and blood. When the "ingredients" on the table disappeared, he turned around and pounced on the corpses that had died in the indiscriminate attack of the Fire Ghost.

These unprocessed "ingredients" burst forth with a bloody and foul stench that is unacceptable to humans the moment they are bitten into, but the Student Kid completely ignore it.

Despite its attacks failing to work, the Fire Ghost showed no impatience. Streaks of bluish-black flames began to spread upwards along the student's blister-covered, wrinkled skin, gradually obscuring the chain-like pattern originally formed by fine teeth.

The Student Kid ignored everything else, and only when the flame pattern started to rise above his shoulders did he tear off the skin with the flame pattern in a bizarre and twisted manner.

The Student Kid quickly gnawed himself until he looked like a mannequin, but what was truly shocking was that, in his skinless, shriveled body, leech-like growths were rapidly sprouting from the gaps in his dry muscles.

Seemingly realizing that its curse was ineffective, the Fire Ghost's actions finally became more aggressive. It transformed into a pitch-black fireball and rose into the sky once more. Although it was called Moon Eclipse, it looked more like a black sun at this moment.

The student's body was rapidly turning into charcoal, but as the black flesh turned to ash, even more granulation tissue sprouted from under his skin.

More fine teeth marks began to appear, gradually forming a pattern with a peculiar regularity. They clustered around the Student Kid's huge belly, which had completely ripped his clothes and seemed to have liquid flowing inside, forming a pattern that looked like a big mouth made entirely of ink.

"Sizzle!"

The sound of flesh tearing, accompanied by a sticky, wet sound, rang out as a large amount of blood gushed from the Student Kid's abdomen like a fountain. However, the blood was not the usual bright red or dark red, but rather a bluish-purple filled with an ominous aura.

Although the design resembled a mouth, the student's abdomen did not actually transform into a giant mouth. Beneath the split belly, the disproportionately large internal organs, unlike the withered body, wriggled like maggots covered in sharp teeth. Mouths with gleaming white teeth bit each other, splattering large amounts of black blood.

The splattered blood seemed to be alive, crawling rapidly across the walls, floor, and ceiling of the Living Room. Once it came into contact with the corpse, it would sizzle and dissolve the body like strong acid, before flowing back into the student's abdomen and being sucked up and recycled by the mouth-like internal organs.

A strong stench filled the entire room, and the Student Kid's bodies became increasingly deformed. What should have been a single, intact intestine had broken apart as they devoured each other, using their mummy-like bodies as vessels for further consumption. The black sun hanging from the ceiling, however, seemed more like an irrelevant backdrop.

Finally, only one "maggot" remained in the student's abdominal cavity. It stretched and twisted itself continuously, while tiny fleshy buds extended from its mucous membrane-like surface.

The student's ruptured belly was pulled back into place, but perhaps due to the reduction in maggots, it no longer appeared as swollen.

Within those carbonized limbs, the rate of granulation regeneration finally surpassed the rate of scorching, Student Kid had previously become completely unrelated to humans, began to regain his human form once more.

The fleshy buds intertwined, some losing their color and turning into bones, others stretching and twisting into tendons. The Student Kid had quickly transformed from a monster into a human, leaped high into the air in a twisted posture with his face up and limbs on the ground. His waving mouth seemed to have turned into a sack, about to engulf the dark sun at that moment.