Strange Contraptions All the Way 2

Swish, swish, swish.

Wu Heng had already walked more than four hundred meters away.

However, the rhythmic scratching sound drifted over once again, coming from a bench on the opposite side of the road ahead.

Wu Heng glanced sideways. It was that same white-clad figure, her arms frantically clawing at her body as she writhed incessantly.

Only now, the filthy white kimono was stained with several fresh, crimson marks that had yet to dry.

Am I being targeted?

Wu Heng's expression darkened.

Forget it, forget it. A moment of patience brings peace. He quickly picked up his pace, striding forward with long, determined steps.

There were no pedestrians on the suburban county road under the moonlight; the only two who had been there were already dead.

An occasional car sped past. Under the pale yellow streetlights, there was only the soft, quiet rustle of a breeze brushing against black branches, causing the shadows of the trees to sway slightly.

Wu Heng's shadow flickered and shifted under the streetlights. The only sound on the street was his own footsteps. This should have been a peaceful night, a man strolling alone in the light, enjoying the quiet comfort.

Swish, swish, swish.

The urgent, scratching friction sounded from ahead once more.

This time, the sound was not across the road.

It was right here on this side, on the grass by the roadside, just twenty meters ahead!

The eerie woman in the kimono stood there, her back to the road, head slightly bowed, hair hanging down to obscure her face.

Her neck was stiff and motionless, but her arms were pressed together, her hands interlaced as they frantically raked across her forearms. The contradictory combination was deeply unsettling.

Wu Heng stopped in his tracks instantly, staring at the white figure, his eyes filled with rage.

Why aren't you sitting anymore? Is it because there are no benches on this stretch of road?

The moment he stopped, the eerie white woman's scratching sound abruptly ceased.

Wu Heng stared fixedly at the motionless, ghostly white back, and the woman in the white sleepwear stood there just as stiffly.

The two were locked in a bizarre standoff.

Moonlight flickered through slow-moving clouds. The night was pitch black and eerily silent, save for the rustling of leaves in the wind.

If you won't drink the toast, you'll be forced to drink the forfeit!

Wu Heng struck first. A grenade appeared in each of his hands. He pried the pins open with his thumbs, held them for three seconds, and hurled them at the eerie woman.

The moment he threw them, Wu Heng turned and dashed diagonally across the road, sprinting forward to continue his journey.

It wasn't that he was afraid; he was just tired and in a hurry to get some sleep!

His current sprinting speed rivaled that of a cheetah or a wild dog, and his endurance was even greater.

He could already see the edge of the street at the bend ahead. The houses along the road were two-story structures, and the streetlights grew more dense.

Wu Heng ran up quickly.

The moment he rounded the corner, he slammed on the brakes.

A pale, ghastly woman's face had appeared less than a foot in front of him.

Her neck was twisted, tilted toward the lower left, yet her face was turned upward. Her eyes, covered in a white film, stared at Wu Heng with resentment.

When did she...! Wu Heng was shocked to his core.

The eerie woman in the kimono continued to scratch her arms, producing a sound that made his skin crawl.

"Are you that itchy? Let me scratch it for you!" Wu Heng was thoroughly enraged.

So, the kind are meant to be bullied, are they?

He disengaged the brain's 50% safety limit on his muscles and threw a punch with double the force.

The cracking of bones, the sound of air being displaced by his sleeves, and the whistling of his fist merged into a single harmony, like a thunderclap in a drought.

His fist struck the eerie woman's face.

There was no sensation of impact!

He had missed!

It was as if he had struck a mass of air. The momentum of his own punch pulled him forward half a step, nearly pressing his face against hers.

Wu Heng's muscles and bones emitted a tearing, crunching sound from the slight movement—the price of pushing his muscular strength beyond its limits. However, fueled by the blood supply from the Life Box in his chest, his injuries began to heal rapidly.

The eerie woman suddenly stopped scratching. Her dry, cracked, pale hands instantly clamped around Wu Heng's throat.

From the black, clawed wounds on her arms, Wu Heng could even smell the stench of rot.

Gritting his teeth in fury, he swung his fists with all his might.

The force of his punches whipped the air within a meter into a frenzy, yet he felt no impact at all.

It's useless! It's useless!

Still useless!

He could feel the ghostly hand gripping his throat gradually tightening.

The eerie woman's pale face was now only an inch from his own, her clouded, white eyes forcing a stare into his.

Her mouth slowly stretched open in an unnatural way, revealing teeth dripping with black blood, with white insect eggs visible even between the gaps.

Wu Heng felt utterly disgusted; what kind of freakish things had he encountered right after arriving? He was certain this was not the ghost from the Hirao Haunted House.

The hair length and texture were completely different; the one in the haunted house had hair more like an old woman's.

Now was not the time to ponder such things. Was he going to die here? A sense of despair welled up in Wu Heng's heart.

Five seconds, ten seconds, twenty seconds passed.

He sensed something was wrong. This Kimono Ghost had been gripping his throat for twenty seconds, disgusting him for a full twenty seconds!

Why was the pressure still the same? Why hadn't she killed him yet?

This level of force might be enough to strangle an ordinary person, but for him, it was no more than a neck massage.

One had to remember that his skin was currently at the level of a bulletproof vest.

As Wu Heng swung his fists, he carefully observed the Kimono Ghost.

The young man form he had manifested this time looked completely average, so he first ruled out the possibility that the ghost had taken a fancy to his appearance.

Looking at her venomous eyes, such a crazed ghost would never show mercy to a human.

Yet, her arms, which were gripping his throat, had not changed their pressure at all since that initial slight increase; they remained at a constant value.

There was only one possibility!

This Kimono Ghost's ability was limited to this; at this strength, she couldn't kill him even if she strangled him for a year.

However, having such a disgusting ghostly face pressed so close to his own, even blocking his line of sight, made him feel incredibly repulsed.

The situation had been sudden, but Wu Heng now remembered to use the sensory abilities he had strengthened after absorbing the god-child's residual blood in Tumbbad to observe the ghost.

Through his perception, he observed that as his punches landed, they weren't entirely useless—the effect was just weak!

He could see the Kimono Ghost's figure dim ever so slightly, a change barely perceptible to the naked eye.

At this rate, he estimated he would need to keep punching at full strength for ten hours to disperse this annoying ghost who insisted on being in his face.

But there was no other way; he had to keep fighting. Wu Heng continued to throw punches, unleashing his Unrestricted Combat to its fullest potential, targeting the ghost's vitals.

Just as Wu Heng slapped the ghost across the face, he noticed something off.

After that slap, the ghost dimmed significantly; the power of that one strike was worth a thousand punches to the front.

Why?

Was there something special about that slap? Was it because he hit her face? Was the ghost afraid of being slapped because she had been slapped to death in her previous life?

No, that wasn't it.

Wu Heng pondered for a moment and realized:

Perception!

His perception only extended within a foot of his body, and only the ghost's face and forearms were within that range.

He threw two more punches, one at the Kimono Ghost's body and one at her face, to conduct a comparative analysis.

Confirmed! It was his perception.

What was perception? Wu Heng guessed its source was likely spiritual power or soul energy; this so-called perception was likely a byproduct of having a powerful soul.

He had always felt that this perception might be useful in a martial arts world, but for him, it was somewhat of a chicken rib—it couldn't help him dodge a hail of bullets, and he didn't care about one or two bullets anyway.

Moreover, using perception consumed mental energy, leaving one feeling weary—a weariness that came from the soul.