Only a short stub of the Dog-Blood Peachwood remained in front of the handle in Hao Ren's hand.
Hao Ren's physique was about the same as Su Nian's, but the difference in their equipment made their performances worlds apart.
There was no helping it. When an adult faced a vicious dog, having a weapon and being unarmed were two completely different things.
Two-legged creatures spent their whole lives trying to win without getting hurt.
Su Nian spent two hundred Survival Points each to upgrade his physique and spirit, restoring his depleted stamina and mental energy to their peak.
[Physique: 14 → 15 points] [Spirit: 11 → 12 points]
Just as Hao Ren thought Su Nian was coming to help him, Su Nian stepped onto a nearby cabinet shelf and leaped upward, swinging the Sin-Cleaving Butcher's Knife in a crescent arc.
Thirty-four points of Sin-Cleaving Power unleashed.
Sin-Cleaving Slash!
The light bulb overhead shattered within the crescent arc, its fragments raining down with a crackling clatter.
A hideously bloated, deathly pale scalp, as though stuffed with wet cotton, fell with it.
It landed with a dull thud and rolled into the moonlight spilling through the window, faceup. Thick, dark yellow fluid continually seeped from its hollow eye sockets, and deep within them seemed to lurk a pair of deathly still eyes.
A headless Wraith Skin followed, looking as though it had been "unevenly stuffed with cotton." Sticky red fluid oozed out of it, accompanied by eerie, rasping sounds.
A nauseating, sickly sweet stench of blood filled the air.
"The real body!" Hao Ren roared, leaping up and planting a straight kick in the wraith's chest.
He had assumed he was fighting the human skin the Lamp-Skin Wraith was currently wearing. Apparently, he wasn't.
The wraith staggered four or five steps backward and crashed into the shelves behind it, bringing them down with a thunderous crash.
Hao Ren stepped onto the fallen shelves and jumped to the side of the computer desk, grabbing a can of insecticide.
Fighting back his nausea at the sickly sweet, bloody stench, Su Nian lunged forward and became a "corpse-dismemberment expert."
Unless the Lamp-Skin Wraith's skins were chopped to pieces, they could easily join back together.
In the end, he couldn't hold it in any longer and stabbed while vomiting. Fortunately, it was late, and he had mostly digested his dinner. Only a few scraps of food came up with the sour fluid.
The smell inside the supermarket grew even more unbelievable.
"Su Nian, move!"
Hao Ren relit the Red Candle, and the insecticide mist poured out in billowing streams of fire.
Su Nian also picked up a can of insecticide and started spraying.
The relatively intact Wraith Skin Hao Ren had kicked away writhed and screamed in the flames.
Its wails sounded like those of a tormented ghost in hell. Together with the arms it raised the instant it "stood up," they formed a brief, frozen tableau of horror.
Outside the supermarket, the two men at the fuel pump took turns cranking the metal handle, driving the primitive pump gears around and around.
They repeatedly wiped away cold sweat as they turned the gears with every ounce of strength they had. Without electrical assistance, the flow of fuel was meager.
The tank still wasn't full... and there was such a commotion inside the supermarket.
It felt like experiencing a zombie movie's "deep-fried ghost" scene in real life, only ten thousand times more terrifying.
Farther out on the road, the survivors bringing up the rear on foot ran as though pumped full of adrenaline.
Some slapped their thighs as they ran... Move, you useless legs!
[Ding! Killed one roll of Wraith Skin. Gained 500 Survival Points.] [Ding! Killed one roll of Wraith Skin. Gained 500 Survival Points.]
With two successive system announcements, the Lamp-Skin Wraith's final two skins turned to ash.
A clump of dark red sinewy threads tried to flee, but Su Nian pinned it to the floor with the Sin-Cleaving Butcher's Knife.
Amid sizzling sounds, the threads turned into gray-black wraith energy and dissipated.
[Ding! Killed the Lamp-Skin Wraith. Gained 6,200 Survival Points.]
Unconcealed delight spread across Su Nian's face. Then a White Bone Token appeared on the spot.
"What's this?"
"Wraiths usually drop something when they're killed. It could be fruit, special flesh and blood, transcendent plants, or some unusual wondrous item. Anything's possible. Whatever it is, it's good stuff," Hao Ren explained.
He also had an item obtained from killing a wraith, a precious lifesaving treasure. It couldn't compare to a Wraith Artifact, but in certain situations, it was more valuable than one.
Back then, there had been seven Sequence Transcendents, and they had only managed to kill one Class C Wraith at the cost of four lives.
Yet tonight, the two of them had killed one without even getting seriously hurt.
It was all thanks to Su Nian's Blood Eye. Not only could it see through a wraith's killing rules, it could also expose concealment. It was practically stripping the wraith bare before beating it, rendering its killing rules useless.
With an offensive Evil-Breaking Wraith Artifact thrown into the mix, the wraith's death was well deserved.
Su Nian picked the item up.
[White Bone Token] [Type: Wondrous item] [Details: Contains a trace of the Lamp-Skin Wraith's rule power. Can summon a skeleton to fight for you.]
"What is it?" Hao Ren asked curiously.
Just as Su Nian was about to answer, a creepy giggle echoed through the air.
Both men's scalps prickled.
"There's another wraith!" The smile instantly vanished from Hao Ren's face. He grew wary, while a trace of confusion rose within him.
If there was another wraith in the room, why hadn't it attacked earlier?
Wraiths could hardly resist the aura of the living emanating from humans. That was true even of high-tier wraiths, let alone low-tier ones.
"Retreat. We've burned through a lot of our strength. If we stay, we're dead." Hao Ren instinctively tried to step forward, only to discover that he couldn't move.
His legs felt embedded in hardened concrete. He couldn't pull them free at all.
"My feet won't move."
Su Nian felt it too... He opened his Blood Eye and spent another 400 Survival Points.
[Physique: 15 → 16 points] [Spirit: 12 → 13 points]
Neither of them was standing in the moonlight, yet their shadows eerily appeared. At their feet, white threads formed close, fine stitches, sewing their shadows to the floor.
"Hee-hee, you burned all my husband's skins. Why don't you become my husbands instead...?"
"Go!" Su Nian roared, slashing the Sin-Cleaving Butcher's Knife across Hao Ren's shadow. The White Threads instantly snapped.
Hao Ren was already tugging his feet free as Su Nian spoke. The moment they loosened, he scrambled outside.
After cutting through the fine threads on his own shadow, Su Nian ran outside too.
Without knowing what kind of wraith it was or what its killing rules were, he wanted no contact with it whatsoever.
Without a healthy fear of wraiths, you could die without even knowing how.
Su Nian leaped through the supermarket doorway. Hao Ren withdrew the hand he had reached into his bag with and scattered a handful of Evil-Breaking Sea Salt in a fan, coating Su Nian with quite a bit of it as well.
Sizzling sounds rose all over Su Nian's body, accompanied by a puff of gray smoke, as though he were a zombie sprinkled with glutinous rice.
Agony!
When Su Nian touched the Ink-Reel Line, a red screen of light repelled him, as though he had hit a wall covered in protective padding.
Only then did Su Nian notice the dense white stitches that had appeared on his hands. His hands looked like those of a sewn rag doll.
A killing rule! When had it happened? He'd only killed the Lamp-Skin Wraith. He hadn't done anything else, and there was nothing wrong with the token. He'd checked it with the system before picking it up.
An icy chill crawled up his spine.
"Husband, why are you running?"
Before you continue