Swish, swish, swish.
Wu Heng had already walked more than four hundred meters away.
But a series of scratching sounds came again from the rest bench across the road ahead.
Wu Heng glanced sideways. It was that same white figure, its arms frantically scratching its body as it twisted nonstop.
Only now, several more bright red stains marked its filthy white kimono. They hadn't dried completely yet.
Had it set its sights on him?
Wu Heng's expression darkened.
Forget it. A moment's patience could avert a storm. He quickly picked up his pace and strode forward.
The county road on the outskirts was empty beneath the moonlight. The only two people around were dead.
Now and then, a car sped past. Beneath the pale yellow streetlights, only a gentle breeze stirred the black branches, and the shadows of the trees swayed slightly.
Wu Heng's shadow shifted beneath the streetlights. His footsteps were the only sounds on the road. This should have been a peaceful, comfortable night, with someone strolling alone beneath the lights.
Swish, swish, swish.
The hurried, rasping sound of scratching came from ahead again.
This time,
the sound wasn't across the road.
It was on this side, in the grass beside the road, twenty meters ahead!
The eerie woman in the kimono stood there with her back to the road, her head slightly bowed. Her hair hung down, covering her face.
Her neck was rigid and motionless. Only her arms moved, pressed together as both hands frantically scratched at her forearms in turn. The contradictory sight made one's skin crawl.
Wu Heng stopped at once and glared at the white figure, anger in his eyes.
Why wasn't she sitting anymore? Was it because there weren't any benches on this stretch of road?
The moment he stopped, the eerie woman's scratching abruptly ceased.
Wu Heng stared fixedly at the motionless, eerie white figure. The woman in the white nightgown stood rigidly still as well.
The two of them faced off in eerie silence.
The moon appeared and vanished behind slowly drifting clouds. The night was pitch-black and eerily quiet, broken only by the soft rustling of leaves in the wind.
You won't take the easy way? Then take the hard way!
Wu Heng struck first. A grenade appeared in each hand. He pried the rings open with his thumbs, held them for three seconds, then hurled them at the eerie woman.
The moment he let them fly, Wu Heng turned, cut diagonally across the road, and sprinted onward.
It wasn't that he was afraid. He was just getting sleepy and wanted to hurry up and get some rest!
His sprinting speed could now rival that of animals like cheetahs and wild dogs, and he had far more stamina.
He could already see the edge of the street around the bend. Two-story houses lined both sides, and the streetlights grew denser.
Wu Heng quickly ran closer.
Just as he reached the bend, he abruptly stopped his headlong charge.
A pale, eerie woman's face had appeared less than a foot in front of him.
Her neck twisted, tilting down to the left, while her face pointed upward. Her eyes, filmed over in white, glared at Wu Heng with hatred.
When had she gotten here?! Wu Heng was shocked.
The eerie woman in the kimono kept scratching at her arms with both hands, making a scraping sound that raised goosebumps.
"Are you itchy? I'll scratch you!" Wu Heng was utterly furious.
Did she think she could pick on him just because he was nice?
He released the brain's 50 percent safety limit on his muscles and threw a punch with twice his normal power.
The crack of bone, the rush of air through his sleeve, and the whistle of his fist blended into a single sound, like thunder splitting a clear sky.
His fist plunged into the eerie woman's face.
He felt no impact at all!
It had gone right through!
It was like punching a cloud of air. The force of his fist even dragged him half a step forward, nearly bringing his face against the eerie woman's.
With his slightest movement, Wu Heng's muscles and bones made tearing and cracking sounds. That was the price of pushing his muscles beyond their limits. But the blood supplied by the Life Box in his chest quickly healed his injuries.
The eerie woman suddenly stopped scratching. Her cracked, deathly pale hands clamped around Wu Heng's neck.
He could even smell the stench of decay coming from the black scratches her hands had left on her arms.
His eyes bulged with fury as he swung both fists with all his might.
His fists whipped the air within a meter of him into a roaring frenzy, but he still felt no impact.
It was useless! Useless!
Still useless!
He could feel the ghostly hands around his neck gradually tightening.
The eerie woman's deathly pale face was now barely an inch from his. Her cloudy white eyes forced his to meet their gaze.
Her mouth slowly opened unnaturally wide, revealing teeth streaked with black blood. White insect eggs were even visible between them.
Wu Heng felt sick. What kind of bizarre things had he run into as soon as he got here? He was sure this wasn't the ghost from Hirao Haunted House.
The length and texture of her hair were different. The one in the haunted house had hair more like an old woman's.
This wasn't the time to think about that. Was he really going to die here this time? Wu Heng felt a little hopeless.
Five seconds passed, then ten, then twenty.
Something felt off. The woman in the kimono had been choking him for twenty seconds—making him sick for twenty whole seconds!
Why was her grip still the same? Why hadn't she killed him?
This strength might be enough to strangle an ordinary person, but to him, it was no more than a neck massage.
After all, his skin was now as tough as a bulletproof vest.
As he swung his fists, Wu Heng studied the woman in the kimono carefully.
The young man he'd transformed into this time looked perfectly ordinary, so he could rule out the possibility that the ghost was attracted to his looks.
And judging by her hateful gaze, there was no way this deranged ghost would hold back against a human.
Yet after tightening her grip a little at first, she hadn't squeezed any harder. It had remained constant ever since.
There was only one possibility!
This was as strong as the woman in the kimono could get. At this rate, she could choke him for a year and still not kill him.
But that disgusting ghost face was practically touching his. It even blocked his view of the road, which really got under his skin.
Things had happened too suddenly before, but now Wu Heng remembered that he could use the enhanced perception he'd gained after absorbing the Divine Child's remaining blood in Tumbbad to examine the ghost.
Through his perception, he saw that his punches weren't completely useless. They were just barely having any effect!
The woman in the kimono's form dimmed ever so slightly with each blow, though the change was almost impossible to see with the naked eye.
At this rate, he'd probably have to keep hitting her with all his strength for ten hours before he could disperse this annoying ghost who insisted on pressing her face against his.
But he had no choice. He had to keep fighting. Wu Heng continued throwing punches, making full use of Unrestricted Combat and targeting the ghost's vital points.
Just as Wu Heng slapped the woman across the face, he noticed something was different.
After that slap, the woman dimmed by a whole degree. One slap was worth more than a thousand punches.
Why?
Was there something special about the slap? Could the ghost be afraid of being slapped? Had she been slapped to death when she was alive?
No, that wasn't it either.
Wu Heng thought it over and understood:
Perception!
His perception only extended to less than a foot from his body. Only the ghost's face and forearms were within that range.
He threw two more punches, one at the woman's body and one at her face, comparing the results.
Confirmed! It was perception.
What was perception, exactly? Wu Heng guessed it came from something like mental or spiritual power. What people called perception was probably an additional ability that developed once the soul grew stronger.
He'd always thought this sort of perception might come in handy in a martial arts world, but it was somewhat useless to him right now. After all, it couldn't help him dodge a hail of bullets, and he didn't care about taking one or two.
Besides, using perception drained his mind and made him feel drowsy—a weariness that came from his soul.
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