His field of vision had changed.
His right eye could see the real world, but through that azure-gold pupil...
Fan Shang could clearly see small, pitch-black handprints on the backs of some of the survivors running about.
They had clearly been marked.
And clinging to the backs of those terrified survivors...
Were bluish-purple infants.
Their arms encircled the survivors' necks, their tiny bluish-purple hands squeezing relentlessly.
One terrified man felt himself suffocating, his face turning pale, but when he tried to grab the hand strangling him, his own hand passed straight through it.
He couldn't touch it.
He couldn't touch it at all.
"Save me! You're a Sequence User, right? You're that new Sequence User! You have to save me... You must save me...!"
"With great power comes great responsibility! You Sequence Users have to protect ordinary people like us!"
As he spoke, the man screaming so hideously spotted Fan Shang and ran toward him with everything he had.
Seeing this, Fan Shang stayed silent for just 0.1 seconds before raising the fire axe in his hand.
Save him?
The man was bringing a weird entity straight to him. Fan Shang had never shown mercy to anyone who threatened his life like this.
Still, this was perfect timing...
At that thought, Fan Shang's gaze sharpened instantly. Little Black jumped off his shoulder, and Fan Shang stepped forward.
Then he shot ahead.
His axe struck the man's neck, its tremendous force severing his head outright, before continuing its swing behind him.
But just as it was about to reach the infant on the man's back...
To Fan Shang's surprise, the axe passed straight through the bluish-purple infant.
"Can't cut it? Just as I thought!"
Fan Shang murmured.
Then the weird entity turned its head and stared at Fan Shang with venomous hatred.
A trickle of bloody tears ran from its eyes.
"Boo-hoo... Boo-hoo-hoo..."
Crying, the infant reached toward Fan Shang's neck from where it sat, as though it wanted to strangle the human who had killed its prey.
But how could Fan Shang give it that chance?
The instant it reached out, he put distance between them.
He returned to Liu Tie and the others.
Little Black followed close behind.
Seeing Fan Shang retreat, the weird entity didn't chase him. It merely withdrew its hand and shot him a hateful glare.
It crawled off the corpse and toward another person with a handprint on their back.
Once it touched that person, Fan Shang saw a blood-red handprint appear on their back through his right eye.
They... had been chosen.
Meanwhile, Liu Tie and the others nodded in greeting as Fan Shang approached.
Then Zhou Ping spoke up fearfully.
"Brother Tie, we can't get away. What do we do now?"
His voice trembled. Zhou Ping had even placed his cooking pot in front of himself, as though terrified that the weird entity might suddenly pounce on him.
Hearing this, Liu Tie felt a surge of irritation.
His fingernails dug a little deeper into the handle of the hoe resting on his shoulder.
This was the kind of weird entity he hated most.
Against an incorporeal weird entity like this, Liu Tie had no way to fight back.
"What do we do? What else can we do? Fight for our lives! I never thought we'd be this unlucky. There was actually a Grudge-Crying Ghost in that town, and it even followed us here."
"If it were one of those things with a physical body, I could at least put up a fight, but this kind..."
Liu Tie left the rest unsaid.
But his meaning was obvious. Clearly, dealing with this kind of weird entity wasn't his forte.
"But no matter what, we have to try. I'm not about to sit here waiting to die. I refuse to believe this thing really has no weakness, that we really can't hit it."
As Liu Tie spoke, he took something out of his clothes. It was a stick of incense.
Half of it had rotted away, and it gave off a foul stench.
Seeing the incense, Fan Shang couldn't help feeling puzzled.
What was that?
But Zhou Ping soon answered that question.
"Brother Tie, you... you're already going to use a Sacrificial Object?"
Fan Shang could hear the surprise in his voice.
He seemed astonished that Liu Tie had taken out something so precious right away.
"A Sacrificial Object?"
Hearing that unfamiliar term, Fan Shang spoke up.
Confusion showed on his face.
Seeing this, Liu Tie spoke before Zhou Ping could answer.
"Has water gotten into your brain, kid? If I don't use a Sacrificial Object now, when am I supposed to use it? After I die, so you can burn it as an offering for me?"
With that, Liu Tie glanced at Fan Shang.
Then he continued.
"Now's not the time to explain all that. You just need to know this thing works on weird entities."
"This half stick of incense makes weird entities inhale its smoke uncontrollably, letting us locate them. Otherwise, we don't even know where it is. Killing it would be a pipe dream!"
As he spoke, Liu Tie prepared to light the half-rotten stick of incense in his hand.
But the next instant, Fan Shang suddenly stopped him.
"Wait."
Liu Tie looked up in confusion to see Fan Shang watching him as he plucked the half stick of incense from his hand.
Before Liu Tie could speak, Fan Shang said...
"Don't waste it. Give me this half stick. I can see where that thing is."
Without giving Liu Tie time to react, Fan Shang stuffed the incense into his pocket.
Liu Tie didn't mind. He merely looked at Fan Shang in surprise and uncertainty, clearly not expecting him to have such an ability.
But when his gaze met the azure-gold vertical pupil in Fan Shang's left eye, Liu Tie narrowed his eyes.
Clearly, this was some ability of Fan Shang's.
There was no time to question it.
Liu Tie spoke at once.
"All right, the half stick is yours. You point out its location!"
Liu Tie didn't consider it a loss. After all, Fan Shang could see those Grudge-Crying Ghosts, making him a dangerous opponent for those weird entities, and he would have to risk becoming their target.
Giving him the half stick of incense was reasonable.
[Name: Bloodstained Rotten Incense] [Type: Sacrificial Object (consumable)] [Rank: 6555] [Description: One stick from a bundle of rotten incense in an ancestral hall. Stained with too much blood, it became corrupted upon entering the Weird World and gained a peculiar power. Weird entities love its smoke and will involuntarily inhale it. Each stick can burn for 10 minutes.] [Price: The incense smoke attracts weird entities, but it also attracts the person who lights it. You will involuntarily want to inhale the smoke. The more you inhale, the more you will love it. Weird entities are involuntarily drawn to the incense smoke, and so am I. But I'm human, right? Note: Please do not inhale more than three sticks' worth of incense smoke.] [Note: Sacrificial Objects are miraculous objects tainted by corruption. Every use comes at a price.]
The instant he touched the rotten incense, information about it appeared in Fan Shang's mind.
After reading it, Fan Shang finally understood what a [Sacrificial Object] was.
He hadn't expected something like this to exist alongside Sequence Transcendents.
As he pondered this, a cool voice rang out.
"Fan Shang, point me in the right direction. I'll attack."
"We have to try to kill these things! Otherwise, we're all going to die here today."
As those words fell, Fan Shang immediately felt the surrounding temperature drop a little.
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