Centipede

Fang Han covered his face with a cloth, revealing only his eyes.

Cold moonlight spilled down, illuminating the gradually cooling corpse.

Looking at Chen You's body on the ground, Fang Han's eyes held neither joy nor sorrow.

Chen You was about the same age as him. They were both fishermen from Mud Bay Alley, struggling to survive at the very bottom.

Yet Chen You was even more ruthless, sinister, and vicious than Fang Han, willing to stop at nothing to achieve his goals.

Fang Han fell silent for a moment, feeling not the slightest pity.

Someone like that deserved to die.

He crouched down and began feeling around the corpse, carefully searching Chen You from head to toe.

He overlooked no place where something might be hidden.

Before long,

he pulled a heavy money pouch from Chen You's clothes.

He opened it.

Inside were gleaming silver ingots and several pieces of broken silver, roughly totaling around forty taels.

Aside from that, there was also a key.

The key was completely black and cold to the touch, about two inches long.

Its teeth were quite unusual, unlike an ordinary key used for common doors.

Fang Han stared at the key in his hand, lost in thought.

The fact that Chen You had kept it so close to his body was enough to show how important it was to him.

Perhaps... it was used to open something important.

At that thought, Fang Han's eyes shifted as his mind began to turn.

He carefully put away the key and tucked it into his clothes, already having a plan in mind.

Later, he would investigate where Chen You lived and the places he frequented.

Following the trail might lead to some discovery.

Fang Han had originally hoped to get some "loot" out of Chen You.

Yet, to his speechless dismay,

this guy had nothing on him besides silver and that key.

Fang Han shook his head and prepared to get up and leave.

Suddenly!

A powerful sense of unease surged into his heart like a tide. His scalp prickled, and every hair on his body stood on end!

Danger was approaching!

From Chen You's corpse!

Without the slightest hesitation!

His survival instincts made him spring up in an instant, his feet pushing off the ground.

His body shot backward like a startled wildcat.

At the same time!

His pupils contracted sharply as he saw Chen You's corpse begin swelling at a visible rate.

It swelled at an astonishing speed!

It was as though someone were frantically pumping air into the corpse.

Its skin stretched taut, and its clothes split apart!

In just one or two breaths, Chen You's corpse had inflated into the shape of a human balloon!

Round and bloated, with stiff limbs and a hugely swollen belly.

Under the pale moonlight,

the sight was horrifyingly bizarre, enough to send chills down anyone's spine.

"Fuck me...!"

"Damn it!"

Fang Han watched as "Balloon Chen You" expanded larger and larger, cracks already appearing across its surface.

Seeing that it was about to swell to the point of exploding, he could not help cursing.

He did not dare pause for even a moment, retreating frantically as fast as he could.

He swiftly put at least ten meters between himself and the deforming corpse.

Just then,

Bang!

A muffled explosion erupted across the forest clearing.

"Balloon Chen You" exploded directly into a cloud of blood mist, and a thick stench of blood instantly spread through the air.

The moonlight was obscured by the blood mist, casting everything around them in an eerie red hue.

Fang Han raised an arm to shield his face, but his eyes remained fixed on the center of the explosion.

From within the blood mist, a crimson shadow shot into the air!

It was the bizarre centipede Chen You had swallowed alive earlier!

At this moment, the centipede was even stranger than before.

Its entire body was blood-red and glowed with a faint crimson light. Its hundred legs moved in unison, making it incredibly fast.

It burst from the blood mist and shot straight at Fang Han's face, as though it had chosen him as its new host!

"Get lost! What, do you think you're a facehugger?!"

Everything he had seen and encountered tonight was simply too bizarre and unbelievable.

Even Fang Han, who was normally steady and composed, could not stop himself from cursing.

A cold glint flashed through his eyes as his right hand instantly gripped the short blade.

The crimson centipede came at him fiercely, as fast as lightning.

In the blink of an eye, it had closed in on Fang Han's face.

Just as the saying went, no sooner said than done.

At the instant the crimson centipede was about to touch Fang Han's face, a flash of cold light streaked past.

Fang Han twisted his wrist, drawing a fierce arc through the air with his short blade.

The blade struck the centipede flying through the air with flawless precision.

The crimson centipede was cut in two midair, its severed halves tumbling down to the ground.

Even after being sliced into two, the creature did not die immediately.

Its two halves writhed and rolled wildly on the ground, emitting shrill, miserable cries.

The sound was sharp and piercing, like the wail of an infant!

It echoed through the silent woods, making one's skin crawl.

Fang Han's gaze turned icy, and he immediately raised his right foot and stomped down.

Crunch!

The sole of his shoe came down hard on the two still-struggling pieces of the centipede.

Fang Han ground his foot down, crushing them into pulp.

The bizarre cries abruptly ceased as well.

Fang Han looked down at the sole of his shoe and confirmed that the centipede was utterly dead before slowly withdrawing his foot.

He raised his head.

His gaze swept across the clearing stained red by the blood mist, and his brows furrowed tightly.

This sudden turn of events had been far too unexpected.

That crimson centipede was clearly no ordinary creature...

The ability to seek a new host after its own host died was simply unheard of.

Fang Han had no choice but to seriously reconsider whether he should still go to Chen You's residence to search for treasure.

What if the key did not open a cache of valuables, but a nest of crimson centipedes like this...

After thinking for a moment, Fang Han made his decision.

He would keep the key for now. Once he became stronger and made more preparations, it would not be too late to investigate.

Chen You's explosion into a cloud of blood mist had also spared Fang Han the trouble of disposing of the body.

Fang Han looked around and confirmed there was nothing left behind. He did not linger any longer.

He turned and strode away from the clearing, his figure soon vanishing into the dark woods as he hurried along the path he had taken here.

Meanwhile, inside an estate somewhere outside Azure Cloud City.

The vast estate was deathly silent, without a single human sound.

The air was filled with a thick stench of blood, so heavy it seemed impossible to disperse and nauseating to smell.

The scene within the estate was even more unbearable.

Bodies lay everywhere—in the courtyard, along the corridors, and inside the main hall.

They were strewn about in all directions, each corpse having died in a different manner.

Inside the estate's main hall, a woman in a blood-red robe sat cross-legged.

She possessed an enchanting beauty, her skin white as snow and her delicate features as exquisite as though she had stepped out of a painting.

Her figure was graceful, and although her red robe hung loosely around her, it could not conceal her alluring curves.

Yet the most eye-catching thing about her was her eyes.

They were long and seductive, carrying an indescribable air of wickedness.

At this moment, her eyes were tightly shut and her red lips lightly pressed together as she cultivated some secret technique.

The blood flowing across the floor resembled countless thin streams.

It gathered beneath her from all directions.

The blood seemed to possess a life of its own, creeping upward along her red robe before finally entering her body.

The entire hall was steeped in an exceedingly eerie atmosphere.

Suddenly, the enchanting woman's eyes snapped open.

Her gaze was cold and completely devoid of emotion.

Her red lips parted, and in a lazy voice carrying a hint of surprise, she murmured to herself.

"Hmm? I can no longer sense one Scarlet-Blood Centipede?"

The woman frowned slightly, as though sensing something.

A moment later,

an eerie smile slowly appeared on her lips.

"Once I finish my secluded cultivation, I'll go see who destroyed the pawn I set in place..."

After saying that, the woman closed her eyes again.

Blood continued gathering from all directions, while her aura rose bit by bit through this bizarre cultivation.