Yaksha

Wu Pifu strode toward the nunnery. Halfway there, his eyes suddenly narrowed, and he began sprinting forward like mad.

In the pitch-black night, a red glow had appeared!

This was ancient times. He could not yet determine the dynasty, but there was definitely no electricity or lamps. Nor was this some enormous ancient city, so there naturally could not be such a powerful Light Source at night...

A fire!?

Or could it be...

Wu Pifu's expression darkened as he sped toward the nunnery.

By the time he reached a point a hundred meters from the nunnery gate, Wu Pifu's face had turned utterly livid.

This light was both Fireglow and bloodlight, as well as the baleful aura of a Nightmare.

Of course. That Level 2 Nightmare had followed close behind. Even after arriving in the world of Baseline Reality 0.7, where its power had greatly diminished, it was still an unfathomably terrifying Nightmare to ordinary people. If it had hidden in this nunnery, not far from him, then the moment it erupted, the entire nunnery would become a slaughterhouse!

What had this Level 2 Nightmare turned into?

As a Level 2 Nightmare from Baseline Reality 0.8, it would be weakened by the dilution of the bizarre upon entering the world of Baseline Reality 0.7. It also had to find an anchor in this world—perhaps a tree, a stone, a corpse, or even a fox—something closest to its original nature to serve as its anchor.

Wu Pifu was certain that this Level 2 Nightmare had anchored itself inside this nunnery!

The question now was... what should he do!?

This was a Nightmare, and a Level 2 Nightmare at that. Even weakened by the difference of one reality level, it was not something he could fight in his current state!

But... but!

Wu Pifu's rational mind kept telling him to run, to flee as far away as possible.

As long as one did not die in a Dream World, even without establishing a Sanctuary, staying for five full days would allow one to locate the Main Brain and have it guide them back to reality. He had already been in this world for three days. If he could just endure another two, he could return...

He was missing an arm, and his body was weak from lack of food. He might still be able to throw his weight around against ordinary people, but against a Nightmare...

Reason told him that charging in meant death, a death so miserable that even his corpse and consciousness might never find release.

But... but!

Little Mute had saved his life!

That single tear that had fallen from her plain little face...

"Ah... ah!!"

Wu Pifu roared. He stomped down hard and lowered his body as he charged into the nunnery.

As soon as he rushed into the nunnery courtyard, the first thing he saw was a tall, broad-shouldered man nearly two meters tall.

The man's skin was dark, his muscles knotted. His skin was covered in countless tears, as though his body had rapidly grown taller and stretched his flesh apart, exposing great swathes of muscle beneath.

Most terrifying of all, the man had a pair of horns on his head. Though they were only half an inch long, they were unmistakably genuine horns!

This hulking man looked like a Yaksha from myth!

At that moment, many buildings in the nunnery were ablaze. Filthy blood and severed limbs covered the ground. On the platform before the main hall, a heap of corpses mixed with a few living people had all been skinned and piled together by the Yaksha-like man. Wu Pifu had no idea whether Little Mute was dead or had been skinned alive and stuffed into the pile.

The Yaksha man held a still-struggling body in one hand. Hearing movement behind him, he slowly turned his head, his hand never stopping as he tore open the body's skin alive.

The Yaksha man actually spoke in a refined tone. "This humble monk truly must thank you, fellow Daoist."

Wu Pifu said nothing. He merely stood still, his one hand curled into a claw and pointed ahead.

The Yaksha man continued, "This humble monk had long heard that the martial world contained strange creatures, gods and Buddhas, immortality, and all manner of things. Yet I had only heard of them, never seen them with my own eyes. Who would have thought that through you, fellow Daoist, this humble monk would receive such a tremendous opportunity? Hahaha! Rest assured, fellow Daoist, this humble monk will carefully peel away your skin and sculpt a fine fleshly body for my Buddha and my patriarch!"

Wu Pifu looked at the devastation within the nunnery, at this human slaughterhouse. His eyes gradually became bloodshot as he asked coldly, "Among those you killed, was there a thin, tiny mute girl who could not speak?"

The Yaksha man scratched the little horns on his head, bared his teeth, and laughed. "They all were. They're everywhere around here."

Wu Pifu spoke no more. He stared fixedly at the Yaksha man, inching his feet bit by bit to slowly adjust his position for an attack.

The Yaksha man did not care in the slightest. Laughing loudly, he strode toward Wu Pifu, both hands reaching out to grab him.

There was no technique to this posture at all. But the Yaksha man was at least a head taller than Wu Pifu and far broader besides. At over two meters tall, he looked like a bear, and his arms reached farther than Wu Pifu's. He did not need any technique at all—his body alone could crush an opponent... if that opponent were merely an ordinary person.

But Wu Pifu was no ordinary person. He practiced National Arts!

As the Yaksha man rapidly approached, spreading his arms to crush him directly, Wu Pifu suddenly kicked up with one foot, sending sand and gravel from the ground into the Yaksha man's face.

The Yaksha man reflexively raised an arm to block, his eye narrowing for an instant. In that lightning-fast moment, Wu Pifu lowered his body and shot forward like a tiger pouncing on prey, covering five meters in a flash. In the blink of an eye, he reached the Yaksha man's side. His claw struck beneath the man's armpit. Without checking the result, he immediately moved with his momentum, circling around the Yaksha man from the side near his eye toward his back.

The Yaksha man instinctively turned to look at Wu Pifu, but he saw only Wu Pifu's retreating silhouette. His peripheral blind spot caused him to lose his target at once. Then a tearing sensation came from the side of his back. The Yaksha man immediately twisted his head to look behind him, but his body still faced the direction where Wu Pifu had stood moments ago.

The instant the Yaksha man turned his head, a black shadow fell across his retina. Then came a soft splat. One of his eyeballs, along with half his face, was raked away in a single swipe, gouged into ruin. As that claw withdrew and struck downward again, it was aimed straight for his throat and windpipe!

"Ah!"

The Yaksha man let out a furious roar. A horrifying blue-black color began spreading over his skin, and his body swelled another size. His speed became unbelievably fast. Twisting his arms, he bent them at an impossible angle and struck Wu Pifu's claw. With another crisp crack, the Tiger Claw Digs the Heart move was broken, along with the bones of Wu Pifu's entire hand.

Wu Pifu immediately retreated three or four meters. The searing pain in his hand made his entire body tremble. Looking closely now, his hand had twisted like a wrung-out rope. Bone fragments even protruded through the skin at his wrist. His entire hand had clearly suffered a comminuted fracture.

But the Yaksha man was no better off. Half his face had been torn apart, and one eyeball along with its socket had been ripped empty. His entire face was as terrifying as a vicious ghost, the sort that needed no makeup for a horror film.

But at that moment, black sludge began pouring from the Yaksha man's wounds, gradually plugging them. It did not transform into flesh, yet what flowed out was certainly not blood!

"Ha, haha! Splendid, truly splendid!"

The Yaksha man hissed a few times, then actually laughed and cried out in delight. His remaining single eye stared at Wu Pifu, and he shook his head. "What marvelous skill. Your flesh is perfectly suited to become my master's Dharma body!"

As he spoke, the Yaksha man charged at Wu Pifu once more, his speed more than doubled from before.

The force of his charge howled through the air. Wu Pifu only had time to lower himself slightly before his whole body was rammed into the Yaksha man's chest.

The tremendous force drove Wu Pifu rolling forward, and as the Yaksha man struck his target, both hands scooped up. One reached for Wu Pifu's back, the other for beneath his crotch. This was no wild, random grab, but a genuine attacking stance—a sumo technique. Once he secured his grip, his next move would flip his opponent upside down and slam their head straight into the ground. At best, they would be knocked unconscious. At worst, their brains would burst and they would die.

At this critical moment between life and death, the demonic thoughts, stray thoughts, and malicious thoughts in Wu Pifu's heart surged ever more violently. His eyes turned completely crimson, and a tiger's roar burst from his mouth. Yet rather than resisting the Yaksha man's pulling force, he stomped both feet against the ground and leaped with the force of the Yaksha man's sumo throw. After his body rotated half a circle, his legs suddenly clamped around the Yaksha man's neck. Borrowing the force with which the Yaksha man had thrown his back upward, he exerted force through both legs and actually hurled the Yaksha man away as well.

The two became tangled together, rolling across the ground before crashing with a bang into a burning guesthouse. With a thunderous crash, a large section of the blazing wooden wall collapsed.

That sound awakened some of the living people within the pile of corpses.

All of them had been skinned. Each looked like a bloody, mangled monster. There were nuns and patrons among them, perhaps seven or eight people in total. They wailed and rolled about, shrieking miserably amid the corpses.

Among them was a petite woman. She too groaned and wept, then tried to stand, but pain consumed every inch of her body. She could only curl up, trying to hold herself, but even that was impossible. Not a single patch of skin remained on her body. The slightest touch brought piercing agony.

As she cried and moaned helplessly, the sounds of fighting continued to ring out from the burning guesthouse in the distance.

She struggled to look over, but she could not stand. As she gazed around, she suddenly saw that the Buddha statue at the center of the main hall looked incomparably savage and terrifying beneath the Fireglow.

Black sludge flowed from the Buddha statue's eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. The sludge traced a vicious, terrifying smile across its face.

She remembered. The Yaksha that had peeled away her skin, and the traces of black sludge around the Yaksha's eyes, ears, nose, and mouth...

She was frail and tiny, perhaps not even one and a half meters tall, pitifully thin. Now, all the skin on her body had been stripped away. An ordinary person would already have been rolling around, unable even to think. But somehow, she found strength and courage from nowhere. She rolled down from the pile of corpses, pressing her skinless flesh against the sandy ground as she inched toward the Buddha statue in the main hall...

She...

Was going to save her man!!