Apocalypse Spectral Artifacts: Sin-Cleaving Butcher's Knife and Paper Effigy Door Guardian Talisman

Just as Su Nian reached the intersection, several survivors eagerly crowded around him.

"Hey, young man, what were you talking about with the captain and the others?"

"Yeah, yeah, I saw you all laughing and chatting."

"What did the captain give you?"

"Move. Don't waste my time." Su Nian's voice was cold. He ignored their "enthusiasm" and walked straight past them.

They were all people who swarmed over the moment they smelled a benefit.

Anyone in the convoy who managed to make a connection with an awakened became incredibly "popular."

The survivors fawned over them like desperate sycophants.

Connections... whether in a peaceful society or the apocalypse, they were always valuable.

Once Su Nian was out of earshot, quite a few people started cursing under their breath. They didn't dare insult him openly, but surely they could do it behind his back?

"He only exchanged a couple of words with an awakened. What's he acting so high and mighty for?"

"Exactly. Anyone who didn't know better would think he was awakened himself."

"He's just an awakened's dog. Pah!"

As he walked, Su Nian checked his talent. Advancing from Sequence Nine to Sequence Eight required 3,000 survival points.

For now, his weapon definitely needed to keep up.

His grandfather's butcher's knife was only an ordinary weapon, yet it was already better than the dog-blood peach wood. It was certainly worth upgrading.

[Ding! Spend 200 survival points to upgrade the butcher's knife?]

"Upgrade!"

[Ding! Upgrade complete!]

White light flashed, and the butcher's knife grew longer, gaining five centimeters over its original length of roughly twenty centimeters.

Its edge looked sharper, too.

[Butcher's Knife]

[Type: wondrous item]

[Details: steeped in large quantities of intensely yang-aligned blood from pigs, cattle, chickens, dogs, and other animals. Can inflict a certain amount of damage on specters.]

One upgrade had turned it into a wondrous item. What would another upgrade do?

That was what Su Nian wondered.

[Ding! Spend 600 survival points to upgrade the butcher's knife?]

After thinking it over, Su Nian chose to upgrade it.

[Ding! Upgrade complete!]

The butcher's knife reached forty centimeters in length. Three golden streaks flowed along its blade, while a blood-red glow clung to its edge.

[Sin-Cleaving Butcher's Knife]

[Type: apocalypse spectral artifact]

[Rank: 129]

[Abilities]

[Its evil-banishing attribute is permanently fixed. Every slash absorbs a trace of spectral energy to strengthen the Sin-Cleaving Butcher's Knife, stacking without limit. The more stacks accumulated, the greater its power. Ultimately, Sin-Cleaving Slash can be unleashed, releasing all stored "sin-cleaving power" in one ultimate strike.]

[Containment requirement: find a living Mutated Bull and fearlessly withstand its full-force charge without dodging or evading. This fulfills the containment requirement. (Rank has no relation to containment requirements.)]

[Note: if you are Su Nian, you can use it without containment.]

Su Nian gripped the Sin-Cleaving Butcher's Knife and gave it a light swing. A hauntingly beautiful red streak flashed through the air.

That was 600 survival points well spent.

Its rank alone told him how precious it must be. People who owned something like this had to be exceedingly rare.

It could absorb spectral energy and stack its power indefinitely, even setting aside the might of Sin-Cleaving Slash.

If he stabbed a specter with this knife enough times, could he kill it?

Could he break the curse that specters couldn't be killed?

Of course, these were only the fantasies of a clueless beginner. He still knew far too little about this world. Finding a vehicle came first.

Vehicles were everywhere in the city, but they were either burned out or smashed to pieces.

Su Nian headed left. There were plenty of electric scooter shops along the way, so he would get something to ride first.

He entered a Yadea dealership. It was mostly empty, with only a few electric scooters left. The footprints on the floor were still fresh, so there probably wasn't much danger.

He hopped onto a little electric scooter and sped off at thirty-five kilometers an hour. As he passed through a street paved with bluestone slabs, a woman in a tight camisole and blue jeans ran out.

The sound of braking rang through the street.

"Sorry, I... I didn't mean to." The woman's chest heaved, drops of sweat trickling down her neck and into the deep valley between her breasts.

She forced down her terror and put a smile on her face.

"You're looking for supplies, right? There's plenty inside. It's safe."

"Help yourself! I'll look somewhere else."

Su Nian tried to ride around her, but she grabbed his rearview mirror.

"I'm scared. Could you stay with me? I'll let you sleep with me. Please."

The blood eye in the center of Su Nian's brow opened.

The sight of a blood eye opening on his dark forehead startled the woman, and she stumbled back.

Su Nian simply rode away on the bicycle. The system had identified her as an ordinary person, but his blood eye could see strange ligature marks around her wrists and ankles.

The woman had been afflicted by a specter, one he knew nothing about. Su Nian twisted the throttle all the way, but the little electric scooter could still only manage thirty-five kilometers an hour.

After Su Nian left, the woman approached a middle-aged man.

Under her brazen seduction, the middle-aged man pushed her into the supermarket and pinned her against the wall... soon, moans and grunts filled the air.

The woman twisted her waist, her breathy gasps brushing his ear.

"Sweetheart, if a specter comes for me, would you die in my place?"

"I would!"

The man answered without hesitation. Women were there to be deceived. It was the apocalypse; if a specter showed up, he would shove her toward it immediately.

Even though he would hate to lose such a wonderful body.

Before the apocalypse, how could a manual laborer like him ever have had the chance to enjoy a woman of this caliber?

"Thank you, sweetheart!"

As her words fell, the last hideous scar on her back disappeared.

The man let out a terrified scream, instantly going limp and slipping out. Three hideous wounds appeared on his back.

The woman shook the sticky fluid off her hand and ran out in terror, pulling up her clothes as she fled to cover her conspicuously exposed flesh.

She had originally come in to gather supplies, only to become afflicted by a specter when she looked into a mirror.

Again and again, she had endured deaths by falling from a building, drowning, hanging, being skinned alive, and more.

Fortunately, she had spent enough time in the apocalypse to know that this kind of specter was called a Substitute Death Specter.

Its killing rule could be broken. If, within twelve hours, three people in succession agreed to die in her place, she could transfer the killing rule to someone else.

This man had been exactly the third.

The chain had broken several times before. She had been "loaded with ammunition" more than twenty times here. Those damned men wouldn't even tell a lie while enjoying themselves.

She had even encountered someone who hardly seemed like a man at all, with a third eye to boot.

A Sequence Transcendent!

By then, Su Nian had stopped outside a paper effigy shop. There was a small door inside.

A door guardian image was pasted on it.

Perhaps it was because he had awakened, but one glance told him that this door guardian was no ordinary thing. It felt like seeing a stone emit light.

The instant his finger touched the door guardian-

[Paper Effigy Door Guardian Talisman]