Shadow Lord

Wu Zhong stopped dwelling on it. The urgent matter was to contact the two who had been separated from them.

"Here, your cucumber. Hurry up and contact Xia."

Yang Chunsha took the cucumber and pursed her lips. "Um... since we've already been scattered, why do you have to go looking for them?"

"How about the two of us form a team?"

"We could find somewhere secluded and peaceful, only take on simple delivery jobs, and live free and easy. Wouldn't that be wonderful?"

Wu Zhong shook his head. To be honest, he had imagined such a leisurely life.

But he also knew it was impossible.

The matter of the Ghost-God had yet to be resolved. It was like a sword hanging over his head—how could he possibly live in peace?

Besides, one day he would definitely have to go back and find his grandfather. Whether he returned in disgrace or earned equal respect, he would have to give him an answer. He could not simply live carefree and dream of nothing but good things.

"Say no more. People like us don't have that right."

"At least I don't. Whether it's to deal with the Ghost-God or repay Xia for investing in me, I have no reason to slack off."

"I can tell that meeting Xia was a stroke of luck. The starting line he can give me is already incredibly high."

"I had no choice in the past, but now... I want to become somebody important."

Wu Zhong's tone was exceptionally firm on that last sentence.

Yang Chunsha froze, then nodded wistfully. "O-okay... you're right. I'd actually guessed it too. Sooner or later, I'll get swept into trouble. I can't keep living so peacefully forever."

"Seven years without getting dragged into anything really was a miracle... but good days always come to an end."

"Um, you said you let Feipeng go. Doesn't that mean your information got exposed too? That's even worse."

Wu Zhong sighed. "That's why we need to contact Xia as soon as possible and properly discuss what to do next."

Yang Chunsha said no more and immediately held the cucumber to call Endless Summer.

Before long, she began speaking with Xia Heng. As expected, Xia Heng was fine. He had not even been injured.

Instead, Matsutake and Gourd had been wiped out and captured by Unit 985. Xia Heng had seen it with his own eyes before leaving.

"Gourd was captured?" Wu Zhong felt a lingering chill. Luckily, he had not pursued too deeply or gone back to find Xia Heng. He had just slipped away.

Yang Chunsha relayed Xia Heng's words. "It wasn't easy for you two to escape. Luo Yi is with you, right?"

Wu Zhong was stunned and had Yang Chunsha reply, "No. Didn't he get caught in the illusion with you?"

Xia Heng was clearly stunned as well. After a long pause, he answered, "Didn't I tell him to stay behind and protect you? Didn't Luo Yi take you and escape?"

Wu Zhong was even more shocked. "Huh? You told him to protect me? He got caught in the illusion and went to support you directly!"

Xia Heng replied, "Illusion my ass. He has Observation Haki. Matsutake's illusions can't fool him."

Observation Haki? Wu Zhong blinked.

Well, damn. Luo Yi really had Haki?

Wu Zhong remembered that when Luo Yi had been driving, he had mentioned the stalker's aura-reading technique and said something about "my Haki, as outstanding as a firefly in the night, impossible to conceal."

So Observation Haki really existed.

"He wasn't caught in the illusion?" Wu Zhong scratched his head furiously.

The two sides exchanged a few more words, recounting everything that had happened in detail.

Once they compared notes, Xia Heng laughed in anger. "When he pretended to be caught in the illusion and went to support me, did he have no shadow?"

Wu Zhong thought back and said, "I didn't notice. When he rushed over to support you, I was so anxious that I shouted after him. Looking at his back, it did feel a little off."

"The odd feeling you had was probably because you didn't see the shadow beneath his feet..." Xia Heng explained.

Wu Zhong was startled. "Huh? A person without a shadow? Is that his ability?"

Xia Heng had Yang Chunsha relay, "He's the Shadow Lord. His shadow is his permanent clone. It can separate from his main body and act independently, and they can instantly swap positions."

"Sigh, just call out a few times. He's definitely nearby... That damn Luo Yi. I told him to protect you, yet he actually went to investigate your ability and didn't show himself even once."

Wu Zhong was amazed and quickly shouted.

"Master Luo! Are you here?"

His shout drew no response from the surroundings.

He shouted louder. Birds and beasts scattered in all directions, but there was still no one there.

Just as he began wondering whether Xia Heng had made a mistake, a lump of humanoid shadow suddenly burst out from among the many tree shadows in the distance, as though it had only just arrived from far away.

It looked somewhat like the "Shadow Lord" culprit from an animated show, simply walking out like that.

The shadowy figure blended perfectly into the shadows of its surroundings. If it had not deliberately revealed itself, no one would have been able to spot it.

"M-Master Luo?" Wu Zhong stared wide-eyed.

He could tell that the shadow was holding a cigarette between its fingers.

Sure enough, the next second, the black shadow flashed and turned into Luo Yi.

Luo Yi grinned with a cigarette between his lips. "You run pretty fast. I stopped following you for a while, and you vanished."

Wu Zhong said gloomily, "Wait, you've been following me the whole time?"

"You were there while I was fighting for my life too? You just watched?"

Luo Yi looked a little embarrassed and chuckled awkwardly. "Weren't you doing pretty well?"

"I figured you didn't need my help."

Wu Zhong took a deep breath. "How did I not need help? I was desperately hoping someone would come help me, okay?"

"Relax, I knew what I was doing." Luo Yi looked innocent. "I actually wanted to show up and save you several times, but you never gave me the chance. Kid, you actually won..."

Wu Zhong pointed at him. "Oh, so it's my fault for winning?"

Luo Yi said, "Blame Old Xia. He told me not to help you too much. Just keep you safe and let you build up some experience."

Wu Zhong's mouth twitched. "Is that what you call not helping too much? You didn't help at all!"

"I was too amazing to give you a chance? How was there no chance? How many times was I driven into a corner... Debiao was practically about to die. Her neck was even broken!"

He knew full well that Luo Yi simply wanted to investigate his traits. Xia Heng had not told Luo Yi much, so Luo Yi had taken this opportunity to deliberately make him face things alone and observe his traits.

Luo Yi smacked his lips. "Madblood Clan members aren't that easy to kill. In a situation like hers, even with her neck broken, she could hold on for a minute without dying completely."

"As for you, don't even mention it. From start to finish, you never suffered a fatal injury."

Wu Zhong became even more agitated. "How not? When Feipeng poured his inner force into me, I really felt death."

Luo Yi tilted his head. "He poured his inner force into you?"

Wu Zhong froze, realizing that Luo Yi did not know about that.

"You said you stopped following me for a while. When was that?"

Luo Yi shrugged. "After I saw you use the First Generation trait to survive a desperate situation, I knew you'd be fine, so I didn't pay much attention to you anymore."

Wu Zhong said, "But Feipeng came back, and my injuries hadn't healed yet."

Luo Yi spread his hands. "I knew he came back, but wasn't he worse off than you? Damn, that Sword in the Anus of yours made my balls shrivel."

"You already knew you were a First Generation member and had discovered the First Generation mechanism. With Yang Chunsha and an old lady there to let you farm mental illness, you wouldn't have lost unless you were an idiot."

"Xia Heng really wasn't being decent. He actually didn't tell me you had a mental resistance-type effect. No wonder he was so eager for me to pass Madblood to you. You really are a perfect match for the Madblood Clan."

Wu Zhong pressed on, "So after you saw Debiao come help me, you left? What did you go do?"

Luo Yi grinned. "What did I go do? Of course Unit 985 showed up."

"The advance team also came from the Chengdu direction, so they reached Old Xia first."

"My main body was there too. If Old Xia got pushed too hard, he could just teleport away, but I didn't have it so easy. I had to make sure my shadow was somewhere safe before swapping places with my main body."

"Then I controlled the shadow and escaped the scene."

"My shadow can ignore many kinds of attacks, but mental power can hurt it. There were mental power users among the Unit 985 people, so I had to be cautious."

"By the time I completely got away and came back to my senses, the fight was already over, and you had left the village."

"Luckily I have Observation Haki. After searching around, I found your footprints and followed you here. You really run fast—I only just caught up."

Wu Zhong's expression turned solemn. So that was what had happened.

Luo Yi had only seen the first half of the battle. He had not paid attention to how Wu Zhong ultimately turned things around... because he had been dealing with Unit 985.

During that period, Wu Zhong had happened to complete his final reversal. He had swallowed Feipeng's inner force, used the old lady's illness to recover his injuries, killed Arborvitae, and finally chased Feipeng out of the village.

"Footprints... I was careful to cover my tracks along the way..."

Luo Yi said, "Heh. Wherever a person walks, no matter how careful they are, they will leave traces and scents behind."

"If I could follow you, then Unit 985, with its invincible tracking dog, could do it even more easily. Your skills are still far too crude."

"But don't worry. I cleared all your tracks along the route. There won't be any pursuers behind us."

Wu Zhong's heart chilled.

Right. Unit 985 had that invincible tracking dog. Back then, it had chased him across several mountain ridges, and he had been unable to shake it off no matter what.

Could he really have escaped Unit 985's pursuit on his own?

In truth, Luo Yi had still helped him escape. Otherwise, Unit 985 would surely have caught up to him by now.

"So that's how it was... Then thank you, Master Luo. Without you, I couldn't have gotten away," Wu Zhong said honestly.

Luo Yi waved a hand. "It was nothing, just a small matter!"

"I came to help at Old Xia's request. He owes me a huge favor for this."

"I just didn't expect your Ghost-God Mark to have so many effects. Hey, what was that shield? Can you create derivatives?"

Wu Zhong replied casually, "Yes. According to Xia, the shield I empower is quasi-invulnerable. So Debiao's Triple Rashomon Gates were blessed by me too, since the ghost-face window in the middle also counted as a shield."

Luo Yi rubbed his chin. "Interesting. So your trait is related to shields. No wonder you also have a mental resistance-type effect... It's actually a mental shield, right?"

"Heh, could your Ghost-God Mark be a shield-shaped tattoo or symbol?"

Wu Zhong shook his head. "I don't have any tattoos or marks on me."

"Is that so..." Luo Yi neither confirmed nor denied it, then beckoned. "Hey, let me play with that shield."

Wu Zhong tossed the shield directly to him, but the broken sections on it were scraped away by the wind pressure midair.

When it reached Luo Yi's hand, it shattered completely with a shake and scattered everywhere.

"Huh? Wasn't it quasi-invulnerable?" Luo Yi asked in astonishment.

Wu Zhong tilted his head. "Uh, I can destroy it myself. It's just that no one besides me can."

"It was already covered in cracks. When I threw it, that counted as me exerting force to attack it, so it shattered. It's fine, I'll make you another one."

He went to chop down a tree while thinking to himself.

Although Luo Yi had been watching him for a long time, he had only seen the surface.

He knew the Ghost-God Mark granted effects such as Mental Bastion, Incurable, forced silence, and so on.

But like Arborvitae and the others, he believed these had been granted by the Ghost-God Mark.

No, not necessarily. The Ghost-God Mark was merely the only anomalous object on him with a known name. Saying these were the Mark's abilities and saying they were Wu Zhong's own abilities amounted to the same thing in this context.

"Hey, no need. Do you abuse your trait like this?"

"How can you be sure that the Ghost-God Mark, with so many functions, only has the one cost of draining your life force?"

Luo Yi rejected Wu Zhong's offer to make another one for him to play with and told him not to use his trait so casually.

Wu Zhong paused. "True. Who knows what other costs those Ghost-Gods have waiting for me? No one can say for sure..."

"I've learned my lesson, Master Luo. Unless it's a life-or-death situation, I won't abuse it."

Luo Yi wore an expression of approval, while Wu Zhong's heart stirred.

He believed it. He believed it!

When Wu Zhong had been desperate and made up that cost to fool Arborvitae, Arborvitae had believed it, which had given Wu Zhong the chance to give him the First Embrace.

Yet he had not expected Luo Yi, who had been watching from the shadows, to believe it too.

That was right. From an observer's perspective, the cost was perfectly reasonable, because Xia Heng truly had spared no expense and desperately wanted him to become a Madblood Clan member.

His explanation—"I need the Madblood Clan's life force to withstand this cost"—matched Xia Heng's actions.

These people believed it not because they trusted Wu Zhong, but because they believed there had to be logic behind Xia Heng's actions. Even if that was not actually his motive, no one had a god's-eye view.

Only facts can deceive people, Wu Zhong murmured inwardly.

Just as Xia Heng had taught him, in the anomalous world, facts were the only trustworthy thing.

When speculating about the traits of anomalous objects, one had to judge and expand one's thinking based on facts.

And in turn, people could easily be misled by "facts." So when making up a story, one also had to build it around facts as much as possible.