"Go help them!"
Mi Ke said to K anxiously.
Master Xuanzang looked like he was having a hard time holding on.
"How am I supposed to help?"
K complained inwardly. "I can't beat them either!"
What annoyed him was the realization that he had no way to get involved in the battle between the monk and the Bronze Armored Zombie.
He had to admit that if he went over there, he'd be nothing but cannon fodder.
That left K, who thought highly of himself, quite annoyed.
He almost wanted to cry, "Why was I born in the same era as such a genius?"
Why had they assigned two veterans to a perfectly good mission?
If only he'd been the only one...
Well, that wouldn't have been enough.
"That's not important right now. We need to deal with the Corpse Controller first!" K came up with a perfectly reasonable excuse.
Capture the bandits' leader first. It made perfect sense.
"..."
The problem was, where was their leader?
As if responding to K's words, the previously hurried, "distant" jingling suddenly grew much closer.
Now there was a clear direction the sound was coming from.
K turned around and saw a man who had appeared near the small room at some point.
He wore loose black clothes that looked very much like a burial shroud.
His head hung low, and his long hair covered half his face.
Only the lower half was visible. His mouth hung slightly open, exhaling eerie white vapor.
Unlike the driver, who had two small bells hanging from his wrist, the Corpse Controller held a handbell in his right hand.
His hand shook as if it were having a fit.
The rapid ringing controlled the Bronze Armored Zombie.
But he wasn't watching Tang Lou's battle with the zombie. He was staring fixedly at the three of them.
"Who are you?"
K asked a completely pointless question.
"And who... are you?"
The Corpse Controller asked in reply, his voice mechanical, each word popping out of his mouth one at a time. "You killed the Feng Family's people, and still dare to come to the Feng Family's territory. You don't know what's good for you."
"The Feng Family? What Feng Family?"
K felt thoroughly aggrieved.
They hadn't wanted this to happen either!
There was a terrifying, powerful, unknown entity looming over them.
They'd been told to spend the night at the Terminal Station. What else could they have done?
Besides, they hadn't been the ones to strike first.
The driver and the ticket seller had clearly been up to no good.
The Feng Family had wanted to "kill them and take their corpses," but they hadn't been strong enough.
So they'd been killed instead.
How was that their fault?
All those feelings came down to a single question.
Which was—what Feng Family?
Some mission worlds in the God and Demon Game felt like places made solely for completing a mission, basically game dungeons.
For instance, the Jack the Ripper mission Tang Luo had gone through the first time.
Others, however, were more like complete worlds.
The God and Demon Walkers were simply thrown into them to do certain things.
"You don't even... know the Feng Family." The Corpse Controller said, "So you're just..."
Before he could finish speaking,
K abruptly raised his hand toward him, a flash of blue light glinting from it.
Gale Slash!
An ambush was that simple!
A crescent-shaped blade of wind shot toward the Corpse Controller in an instant.
Faced with the sudden attack, the Corpse Controller seemed to try to dodge, but he was a fraction too slow and only avoided half of it.
One of his arms was severed by the blade.
His black clothes tore, and a line appeared across half his chest.
Then it gradually spread into a hideous gash.
"Too bad."
K thought to himself. He'd originally meant to cut the Corpse Controller in two.
But the man had dodged.
Worse, the hand holding the bell was unharmed, and the ringing hadn't stopped.
"For now, we should be safe."
K watched the Corpse Controller.
With an injury like that, the blood loss alone should have been enough to—
Wait!
Where was the blood?
Why wasn't a drop of blood coming from the severed arm or the wound?
"Interesting."
The Corpse Controller raised his severed arm. What poured out wasn't blood, but black vapor.
The stench of a corpse made them want to vomit.
K and the others hurriedly backed away.
"I'm starting to want to turn you into corpses and add you to my collection."
His words flowed smoothly, revealing his love of corpses.
He had a true professional's dedication to his craft.
As soon as he finished speaking, the Corpse Controller lunged forward.
A crackling sound rang out beside K.
It was as if something invisible had exploded, sending a gust of wind surging around them.
His second skill—Air Burst—let him use "the power of the air" to dash forward.
K's body swept to the left in an instant, putting ten meters between them.
The Corpse Controller passed right by K, glanced at him, and didn't change direction.
K could dodge the Corpse Controller.
But Auntie Shufen and Mi Ke clearly couldn't.
Seeing the terrifying Corpse Controller right in front of her, Mi Ke's eyes suddenly hardened.
She reached out and shoved Auntie Shufen hard in the back.
Then she ran off without looking back.
"Heh."
The Corpse Controller let out a mocking chuckle and casually kicked Auntie Shufen, who was falling toward him, away.
Auntie Shufen's body flew through the air like a ball and landed on the ground without moving.
At the same moment Auntie Shufen hit the ground, the Corpse Controller caught up with Mi Ke.
He raised his severed arm, and black vapor poured out of it.
The vapor writhed like a living thing, engulfing Mi Ke's head.
It surged into her mouth and nose, each tendril racing to get in first.
Mi Ke's face turned ashen. She fell to her knees.
She futilely tried to claw at it with both hands, but could only grasp empty air.
As the black vapor entered her brain, Mi Ke's eyes began to roll back.
Combined with her makeup, it gave her an indescribably eerie look.
Her bright red lips began to darken, little by little.
The struggles of her curled-up body gradually weakened.
Then, like a final spasm before death, she jerked violently twice and lay still.
The Corpse Controller walked over to Mi Ke. Black vapor stretched between them like several threads.
It turned Mi Ke into his marionette.
As the black vapor writhed, Mi Ke slowly stood up.
Her lips were now entirely black. Her skin remained pale, but her eyes were like those of the other zombies, without pupils.
They were nothing but a ghastly white.
"Hmm?"
The Corpse Controller looked Mi Ke up and down, frowning beneath the hair that hid his face.
He seemed dissatisfied.
This corpse was no different from an ordinary one.
Could it be...
The Corpse Controller looked at K. Among this group, only K and the monk fighting the Bronze Armored Zombie seemed unusual.
"One can be used to make a new Bronze Armored Zombie."
The Corpse Controller glanced at Tang Luo, then looked back at K. "I wonder what this one can be made into."
That monk was skilled enough to fight the Bronze Armored Zombie to a standstill.
He could certainly be made into a brand-new Bronze Armored Zombie, better than the current one.
As for the one in front of him...
Even the Corpse Controller wasn't sure what special kind of zombie he'd turn into.
"Go."
He murmured the word and raised his severed arm.
Mi Ke, who had been forcibly made into a zombie, sprang into action and charged at K.
With the Corpse Controller deliberately controlling her, Mi Ke was stronger than those disposable zombies.
Without his skills, K was forced onto the back foot and struggled to keep up.
Several scratches now marred his face.
Mi Ke's manicured nails had done the damage.
The Corpse Controller was distracted controlling Mi Ke, and that caused a slight shift in the battle on the other side.
Slaps against the Bronze Armored Zombie began to ring out more frequently.
Their crisp sound had turned dull.
The Corpse Controller's expression didn't change. He shifted most of his control back to the Bronze Armored Zombie.
K immediately seized the opening and kicked Mi Ke away.
He threw a stone he'd somehow picked up, smashing Mi Ke's head open.
Even that wasn't enough to stop the zombie from moving.
But at least it took away one of their "weapons."
K had nearly been bitten several times just now.
Mi Ke stood motionless where she'd been hit.
Her body had clearly shriveled compared to how it had looked in life.
There was nothing about her that could make anyone think of "taking advantage while she was still warm."
K panted softly and reached up to wipe the blood seeping from his face.
After wiping twice, K stopped.
"You..." He looked at the Corpse Controller.
The Corpse Controller laughed, his laughter continuous and unnerving. "Can you feel it? The corpse poison."
K wasn't feeling any corpse poison.
He just felt his cheek gradually going numb.
When he'd reached up to wipe it, he hadn't felt pain—or even touch.
So he'd been poisoned?
A dizzying sensation began to wash over him.
K's world swayed and spun.
"Making a living corpse is a very painful process." When he talked about his professional specialty, the Corpse Controller's words flowed smoothly. "It's much like being sliced a thousand times. Don't be fooled by her not crying out. That's because I damaged certain parts."
"My corpse poison has corroded and numbed your brain, so you won't feel much pain during the process that comes next."
"Don't bite off your tongue or anything. As a collectible, I'd like you to be more complete."
As the Corpse Controller spoke, K could no longer stand upright.
He sat on the floor, barely propping himself up with his hands, his head swaying hard from side to side.
He tried to make it sway at the same pace as the world before his eyes.
That way, the world wouldn't wobble in his eyes.
The sound of footsteps rustling.
The Corpse Controller walked up to K and slowly aimed his severed arm at K's head.
The black aura that had been surging all this time reached toward K.
As a collectible, not cannon fodder, he deserved a little more care during the making.
It wouldn't do to mess him up.
"Hmm?"
The Corpse Controller, who had just licked his lips, suddenly changed expression and whipped around to look at the battle between Tang Luo and the Bronze Armored Zombie.
The bell that had been ringing without pause suddenly fell silent for about half a second.
Then it started ringing again.
Much more intensely than before.
If the bell had merely sounded urgent earlier, now it was a chaotic din, as if demonic music were pouring into his ears.
But no matter how the bell changed,
the Bronze Armored Zombie still stood motionless, its back to the Corpse Controller.
Tang Luo stood beside the Bronze Armored Zombie, holding one hand upright before his chest as he watched the Corpse Controller.
His face wore an expression of compassionate pity.
"I've actually... fallen this far."
Tang Luo wasn't pitying anyone else. He was pitying himself.
Who would've thought that even I, the great Tang Xuanzang, would finally end up taking the flashy route?
The One-Punch Tang Monk of old—the one who'd say, "Master Xuanzang thinks you're all flash and no substance," then blow your head apart with a single punch—seemed to be fading into the distance.
Before you continue