[Ding! All three of the host's attributes have surpassed human limits. Initiating autonomous awakening!]
Shock, bewilderment, incomprehension...
Those were the expressions on Wang Xiaoxue's face.
She didn't understand. No, she couldn't even begin to comprehend it.
Why? Why could this human, who hadn't been able to hinder her in the slightest just moments ago, now restrain her with one hand?
She wanted to struggle, to break free of that hand.
But no matter how Wang Xiaoxue struggled or thrashed, even whipping Fan Shang's arm with her barb-covered tentacles accomplished nothing.
But... but...
That hand gripping her was shriveled like a dried corpse's, yet the tremendous force coming from it was more than she could bear.
But that wasn't even the most important part.
The most important part was that the hand had clearly withered to this extent, its skin as pale as a dead person's.
Why? Why was this damned human still alive?!
If a normal person's hand looked like that, they shouldn't have been able to muster even a scrap of strength!
A normal person in that state should have died long ago.
Why? Why was this damned human still alive?!
Wang Xiaoxue was baffled, confused, her eye sockets brimming with venom.
But... naturally, Fan Shang didn't care how she felt.
He merely lifted his head slowly from the ground and opened his eyes. His abyss-black gaze held nothing but a chilling coldness.
Sensing this, the head in his hand thrashed madly, but its tiny barbs left only faint traces of blood on Fan Shang's skin.
It was useless. That withered hand was like indestructible steel, impossible to pierce.
At the sight, Fan Shang's lips curled into a grin on his face, gaunt from having been drained.
His short white hair stirred in the night wind as a cold, hoarse voice rang out.
"So... even horrors feel fear..."
That was what Fan Shang said.
But with that voice, his corpse-like, shriveled body, his white hair, and his deathly pale face, it was hard to believe he was still human.
No, rather, that he was still a living human.
His body was so emaciated, so little more than skin and bones, that it was hard to imagine where he found the strength to stand.
Yet Fan Shang had done just that.
Not only that, but his withered, jade-pale hand now contained several times the strength he had possessed before.
He hadn't died. He had... awakened...
Just as he was about to die completely.
He had awakened a Sequence!
The [Underworld Soldier] Sequence!!!
"Fan Shang, Fan Shang, Fan Shang, I want you dead, I want you dead..."
At that moment, the wildly struggling Wang Xiaotou seemed to sense it too.
Realizing the tentacles at her neck couldn't hurt him, she suddenly thrust them toward Fan Shang's eyes instead.
She refused to believe his vital points were as tough as his hands!
With her sharpest, most pointed beak caught firmly in Fan Shang's grip, this was the only solution Wang Xiaotou could think of.
But... she was disappointed.
Having awakened his Sequence, Fan Shang's reactions were already several times faster than before. How could he possibly give Wang Xiaotou a chance to ambush him?
So, the instant her attack was about to reach him, Fan Shang flexed his arm and slammed her down.
He gave the horror no time whatsoever to react.
The head struck the ground with a dull thud. Under Fan Shang's tremendous strength, cracks instantly spread across the once-solid pavement like a spiderweb.
And there was another difference from before.
This time, after taking that heavy blow, Wang Xiaotou's wounds didn't heal instantly as they had before.
Instead, wisps of black mist seeped from the wound. They began to writhe, forming a membrane-like structure over it as though trying to repair the damage.
But when it touched the eerie blue flames spreading over the ground...
That "membrane" disintegrated instantly.
Foul-smelling, viscous black liquid dripped from Wang Xiaotou's forehead.
For the first time-yes, for the very first time-Fan Shang truly saw... a horror get injured.
And those eerie blue flames were utterly familiar.
They... were his Sequence ability.
"So that's it."
Fan Shang understood. He understood why only Sequence Transcendents could deal with horrors.
It was because of the black mist. Because of that black membrane.
Only the Sequence energy of Sequence Transcendents could tear through that membrane and dissolve the black mist.
The injured Wang Xiaotou was clearly enraged as well.
She shrieked and muttered...
"Fan Shang, Fan Shang, Fan Shang, I want..."
"Heh..."
But a low chuckle from Fan Shang cut off everything she wanted to say. Beneath the night sky, he covered his face with one hand.
He chuckled, his voice hoarse and grating. Then it grew louder, beginning to echo through the night.
Rumble-
A thunderclap exploded overhead, and a curtain of rain came crashing down.
"Hahaha, so that's it, that's how it works, so..."
His voice abruptly stopped. Fan Shang moved his hand aside, and beneath his white hair, his pitch-black eyes blazed with a chilling coldness in the rain.
"...I can kill you now."
Sensing this, the horror heads on Fan Shang's hands and left arm instantly went berserk.
"Eat... eat the human... heehee..."
Countless barbed, fleshy tendrils sprouted wildly beneath their necks, while their pointed mouths strained open and shut, trying to inflict greater injuries on Fan Shang.
Not only that, but those barbed hooks thrust toward his eye sockets and other vital points at the same time.
It was nothing short of a deadly crisis.
Yet Fan Shang didn't panic in the slightest. Instead, a chilling smile curled his lips.
Then, in the next instant...
Fan Shang's right hand whipped out, clamping down on the head on his left shoulder with lightning speed.
Before it could react, he yanked hard.
The spike came free with a streak of blood, and the entwined fleshy tendrils snapped, spilling a puddle of thick liquid.
Before the head horror could react, Fan Shang's five long, well-defined fingers squeezed hard.
Crack!
Its skull fractured with a sharp snap, liquid seeping out. He gave it no time to scream.
Holding the head, Fan Shang slammed it straight into the ground.
Bang!
The terrifying force shattered the head outright. Red and yellow fluids sprayed everywhere, staining the ground crimson.
From Fan Shang's first move to finishing off the head horror, the entire process took less than three seconds.
[Ding! The host has killed the level 0 horror Skull Melon Seeds. Survival points +100]
He didn't hesitate afterward.
Fan Shang dealt with the remaining two heads the same way.
Without giving them a chance to escape, he tore the two heads straight off his legs.
Though this drew two crimson streaks of blood and left two hideous, bloody holes, it was nothing compared to his determination to kill these horrors.
Then Fan Shang raised his foot and stamped down hard. The venomously writhing heads burst like watermelons.
[Ding! The host has killed the level 0 horror Skull Melon Seeds. Survival points +100] [Ding! The host has killed the level 0 horror Skull Melon Seeds. Survival points +100]
Having done all this, Fan Shang raised his head again.
His cold eyes turned toward Wang Xiaotou as she crawled over the ground, and she saw him too.
Naturally, Wang Xiaotou had witnessed everything Fan Shang had just done.
And so, within those pitch-black eye sockets filled with venom...
For the first time ever, Fan Shang detected a trace of fear.
But it lasted only an instant, soon swallowed completely by the indescribable malice horrors bore toward humans.
"Fan Shang, Fan Shang, Fan Shang, I'll kill you, I'll kill you..."
"Is that the only thing you can say?"
Fan Shang spoke blandly.
Then he slowly stepped forward. Though his legs were now just as shriveled, little more than skin and bones, with skin as pale as a corpse's, his steps were steady, as though filled with some kind of power.
This was the power of a Sequence.
Awakening the Underworld Soldier Sequence had given him an extraordinarily powerful physique, even leaving his body in a half-dying state.
That was why Fan Shang still hadn't died, even after losing most of his blood.
Because this Underworld Soldier Sequence effectively made him half a dead man to begin with.
Bending down slowly, Fan Shang pulled a fire axe from someone's body.
Then he continued.
"But that makes sense. A horror is a horror, after all. How could it possess human intelligence?"
"But it doesn't matter..."
As he spoke, intense killing intent flashed through Fan Shang's eyes.
"Whether you're a horror or not, whether that's the only thing you can say or not, I don't care, because..."
"Fan Shang, Fan Shang, Fan Shang, you... your cause of death... your cause of death was not chopping my head to pieces..."
Perhaps sensing the malice in Fan Shang's eyes, Wang Xiaotou fled backward at speed. Though she was only a horror, the instincts left in her head from when she had been alive drove her to run.
Because she understood that she alone couldn't kill this damned human. Mother Body. Yes, she had to return to Mother Body first, then find a way to kill him.
But as he watched Wang Xiaotou flee at speed, Fan Shang didn't move at all.
He merely spoke quietly, picking up where he had left off.
"Because I just want to kill you. You're right... my cause of death was not chopping your head to pieces, so this time I'll make sure I do it properly."
His words faded.
In the next instant, Fan Shang lightly tapped the ground with his foot.
Then eerie blue flames ignited around his body.
They spread onto the pavement, racing forward along the road.
Everything touched by the eerie blue flames began to burn, wisps of ash drifting skyward on the breeze.
And not only that-even the pavement itself.
It burned as well, yet these flames gave off no heat whatsoever. Unknown flowers slowly grew on the road amid the fire, and an uncanny blue radiance filled the entire night sky.
Cold and uncanny, this was a Ghost Road.
A road only the dead could walk.
A hundred meters long and two meters wide.
Fan Shang stood on that road, his expression as indifferent as a dead man's, the bloody axe in his hand dragging along the ground and throwing up sparks.
He looked at Wang Xiaotou, who was now within the Ghost Road's range, then bent forward slightly.
In the next instant, Fan Shang took a single lunging step.
The nearly hundred-meter distance between the two vanished in an instant.
The entire process took less than two seconds.
Unable to react in time, Wang Xiaotou looked stunned. The moment her eyes caught sight of him, Fan Shang's axe blade was already swelling rapidly in her pupils.
"Die!!!"
There was no unnecessary preamble, no taunting along the way.
Only as the axe blade fell, sinking into Wang Xiaotou's forehead and splitting her skull, did that murderous shout reach her.
But by then, Wang Xiaotou could no longer make a sound.
She could only watch helplessly as the white-haired figure before her raised his axe and brought it down, again and again.
The Underworld Soldier claimed the road. The living stood aside.
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