Chapter 18: Is This Bug Exploitation? (Part 3)

The counterfeit Zhong Kui, whose appearance was as ferocious as a malicious ghost, and Da Huang finally met beside a cliff under drifting black clouds and a faint black wind…

…

Captain Ye had never entered this world inside the painting before, but perhaps because he had nurtured this painting for too many years, combined with the restrictions imposed by the tags of the aberration in the painting, after staying in the painting world for a period of time, he gradually felt a connection between himself and this painting world.

It was very mysterious.

It was as though this painting world contained his aura. If he focused all his attention to sense it, he could vaguely know the changes in the painting world, what the counterfeit Zhong Kui had done, and even its thoughts.

Could it be that because this aberration had eaten his essence and lifespan, it was as if it had been becoming him bit by bit, which was why he had this special feeling?

Tsk. Surely it would not end up raising a painted-skin thing later on that would replace him, right?

Captain Ye did not dare think too deeply about it. He carefully sensed for a while, then rushed rapidly in the direction of the aberration.

This uncanny world was not large, but because there were cliffs, mountains, and rivers, he had to take detours.

However, Captain Ye had a certain degree of control over this world. When he encountered mountains, he crossed mountains. When he encountered rivers, he waded across rivers. Before long, he saw the aberration and Da Huang in the valley from afar.

At this glance, it was truly hard to say which of them looked more like an aberration.

Although the aberration had an ugly face, a green complexion, and fangs, the red official robes it wore looked a little ridiculous. The precious sword in its hand was raised high, and the bat flew toward Da Huang, waiting for an opportunity to attack.

In contrast, Da Huang’s fur had turned black and white. Each strand stood up like a hedgehog’s quills, and its expression was fierce, its canine teeth protruding violently. The entire dog was many times larger than it was outside. Including its tail, it was a full three meters long. Every movement shook the earth and mountains as it fought the bat with savage menace.

Captain Ye froze, unable for an instant to distinguish friend from foe.

He felt that although Zhong Kui was ugly, the clumsy way it leaped left and right was a little cute. In addition, he kept feeling an indescribable closeness to it.

He thought of how, if not for this painting immortal’s help all this way, he would have died long ago. Was it not only asking for a little lifespan?

When you invited someone to work, you had to pay them too. It was perfectly normal for him to settle the bill with his lifespan…

No!

No!

No!!!

While Captain Ye thought this, his soul was screaming, reminding him that everything was wrong.

But that voice was too small. It was covered by his thoughts from all sides, and he could not hear it at all.

He only knew that this aberration was his aberrant tool. They had once experienced life and death together. That vicious dog was too hateful. Not only was its appearance detestable, it even wanted to eat us.

Kill it!

Stop it from devouring us!

Yes!

As long as we join hands, we can easily behead this vicious dog…

…

Outside the scroll, Chen Yi frowned.

He discovered that Captain Ye’s face was gradually becoming twisted and ferocious. His eyebrows became thick, and his lips thickened, becoming like a bloody maw.

He looked more and more like that counterfeit Zhong Kui. It even seemed that his clothes were slowly turning red.

What was going on?

Chen Yi watched the battle with concern, preparing to act.

…

To the west.

Pang Xiaolei and Xun Shiming were advancing cautiously. As far as the eye could see, it was hell.

There was no soil beneath their feet at all. Instead, there were dead, severed limbs and broken corpses. Some had already turned into bare white bones, while others were rotting bodies.

Ahead of them, a half-rotten head lay faceup. Sparse hair scattered behind it, and the decaying face was turned in their direction.

Suddenly!

A pair of eyes abruptly bulged out from the originally hollow sockets, looking at them while shedding tears of blood.

It made an ugly, babbling “gaga” sound, and its laughter struck straight at the soul.

It was an extremely terrifying scene.

Even though Xun Shiming was an elite of the protection team, this was his first time seeing such a thing, and sweat still flowed down his forehead.

Pang Xiaolei, however, said, “Don’t think about it. Don’t listen. This is all contamination. We’ve cultivated the technique, and Sect Master Chen said that as long as we firmly believe in our hearts, we can see through falsehood and reach the core directly.

“Stay calm. Treat aberrations scientifically.”

Xun Shiming: “…”

You’re talking to me about science at a time like this?

Pang Xiaolei took it as a matter of course. “Naturally, we have to analyze aberrations from a scientific angle before we can digest them in a way we understand. If I kept talking to you about spiritual energy and illusions, you would only think more and sink deeper.

“In short, these are all illusions. This scroll is full of spiritual energy contaminated by the aberration. As long as we don’t breathe in this spiritual energy and quickly find the aberration to destroy it, we can get out.

“After achieving success in cultivation, I still haven’t killed an aberration yet.”

Pang Xiaolei, who had entered Qi Refining, was quite confident.

He had personally seen Chen Yi eliminate an aberration, and he felt that he had more experience than everyone else.

However, even though Pang Xiaolei kept talking, Xun Shiming’s breathing still grew heavier.

After being contaminated, countless illusions sprang up before his eyes. But there was still a faint double image, with Pang Xiaolei serving as an “anchor,” pulling him out of the contamination from time to time and allowing him to catch his breath.

For someone who had only just entered Qi Refining, it was still somewhat forced to be inside an aberrant domain whose strength was comparable to the first stage of Qi Refining.

The two people to the north, without Pang Xiaolei nearby to remind them, were performing even worse. They had already begun wildly chopping at the air.

Chen Yi grew anxious watching them, yet he did not have the ability to fish people out.

His cultivation was low right now, and he still had too few methods.

After thinking for a moment, a ball of light appeared in Chen Yi’s hand. It was precisely the Light Art.

He tentatively moved it toward the position of the two people in the north.

Before it even approached, the stench of flame scorching flesh emerged. Looking closely, the scroll was actually covered densely in pores, and its skin tone was lustrous and delicate, like a piece of living human skin!

But after Chen Yi shone the Light Art on it, the Light Art, which perfectly countered aberrations, easily injured the human-skin scroll. Immediately afterward, a foul black smoke surged out together with black blood.

“Aaaaaah…”

The aberration’s cry of pain sounded as if it came from another dimension.

Chen Yi froze for a moment. Was the counterfeit Zhong Kui not on the other side? Why was it the scroll letting out the scream?

In the next second, the injured scroll abruptly flew up and lunged toward Chen Yi’s face.

Chen Yi’s expression turned solemn.

He understood.

So this was an aberration within an aberration.

The scroll was a human-skin scroll. It was the greater aberration.

Zhong Kui was an incense aberration. It was the lesser aberration.

Fortunately, he had not gone in. If they had all gone in to destroy the counterfeit Zhong Kui, while this human-skin scroll ran rampant outside, then his parents, son, and daughter would have…

That was why being a lurker was forever the kingly path!

Since he was outside and had not actively jumped into that trap, Chen Yi was no longer afraid.

He suddenly enlarged the Light Art. In an instant, the light covered half the sect’s space, like a blazing sun in broad daylight. Its dazzling power shone on the human-skin scroll, making it scream repeatedly as it turned and tried to flee.

But how could it possibly have the chance to run? In less than two seconds, the scroll was shone until it became dry and shriveled, as if all its moisture had completely evaporated. It was like a wrinkled dried corpse.

It fell weakly to the ground, with only twitching left.

Chen Yi walked over without any change in expression.

He looked down at it from above.

If not because he was worried something would happen to the people inside the scroll, he would probably have directly destroyed this human-skin scroll.

So, how was he supposed to save these people?

In the book, every aberration had rules for killing people, as well as rules to oppose it.

But none of those were easy to use on Chen Yi’s side.

For aberrations, people like them who had orthodox techniques and cultivated spiritual energy were simply too fragrant. It was to the point of “even if my hands and feet are cut off, as long as my belly and mouth are still there, I have to eat you.”

Likewise, orthodox techniques had also given Chen Yi and the others the strength to ignore the rules and violently destroy aberrations.

It was just that some things still could not be broken.

For example, this aberrant domain formed by relying on the scroll. Once the human-skin scroll was destroyed, the people inside would probably be gone too.

The key was that, a few years later, as long as humans were still imagining human-skin scrolls and still recalling some accident that had led to the birth of a human-skin scroll, it would be born again from nothing.

Aberrations could not be destroyed.

At least with Chen Yi’s current strength, he still could not do it.

Chen Yi thought for a moment, took out the peachwood sword from behind him, avoided the people inside the scroll, and stabbed the tip of the sword into the edge of the human-skin scroll.

The human-skin scroll twitched, and black blood flowed out with a gurgling sound.

Chen Yi changed places and stabbed again.

Black blood gurgled out once more.

Change spots!

Keep stabbing!

…

In the ink-wash world, Captain Ye, who was currently on the path of assimilation, felt clarity flash through his mind.

No!

This was wrong!

What was I thinking?

Why would I stand on the same side as this aberration?

When he came back to himself, he discovered that the entire ink-wash world had faded considerably.

It felt as if the ink had suddenly run out.

On Pang Xiaolei and Xun Shiming’s side.

Xun Shiming could no longer control the hand he used to swing his saber. Before his eyes was a hell of blood, with countless malicious ghosts crawling out from underground and tearing at him.

The hand holding the peachwood dagger trembled, veins rising on the back of it. Even Pang Xiaolei’s constant muttering had become like the Tang Monk’s tightening-headband spell, making him wish he could hack him to death with one slash.

No!

He could not!

This was an illusion!

He could not be infected. As long as he did not listen, did not think, he would not be infected!

Just as he was about to lose control, the malicious ghosts pressing in on him vanished like gravel blown away by the wind.

Even the blood-red color that had blocked out the sky before his eyes receded.

He blinked his dry, bloodshot eyes and finally saw the front clearly.

It was like watching television through a pot lid in the old days and running into a bad signal. The world before his eyes would flash with a vast sheet of snowy white from time to time, blocking out all the scenes of hell.

After a while, it would get better again.

Pang Xiaolei looked puzzled. “Have I been infected? Why did static suddenly show up?”

Outside, Chen Yi was having great fun poking with the tip of his sword.

Every stab would make a great deal of blood bulge out. Although it stank badly, it was somehow a little stress-relieving.

Poke. Poke!

Chen Yi’s wicked amusement made the human-skin aberration unable to bear the burden. It was like a weak woman being tormented by a tyrant. At first, it tried its best to resist, but after being slapped into submission, it could only tremble and endure.

If it had eyes, it would look tearfully at the sky, its gaze miserable and numb: just destroy me…

The world inside the painting became on the verge of collapse. The people inside the painting felt that they seemed about to leave this place. Some were excited, and some were relieved.

The counterfeit Zhong Kui aberration did not have much thought, but it also realized the danger and turned to run.

Da Huang barked and swallowed the scarlet bat in one bite.

In an instant, its body surged larger. Its fur stood like needles, and it became even more vicious and ferocious. One step was like Kua Fu chasing the sun. In two or three steps, it caught up to the counterfeit Zhong Kui.

It pinned the counterfeit Zhong Kui to the ground from behind, opened its jaws, and bit off the counterfeit Zhong Kui’s entire head.

In legend, Zhong Kui ate ghosts, yet now it was being eaten.

All one could say was that a fake was a fake. Compared with a true incense god, the difference was like heaven and earth.

Captain Ye had already completely returned to normal and was now filled with lingering fear.

He clearly realized what his future outcome would have been if he had continued feeding this aberration.

Would he have become a malicious ghost in the mortal world?

Having his body stolen and becoming an aberration truly would be worse than death.

However, very soon, that lingering fear was replaced by shock at Da Huang’s ferocity.

He had never imagined that even a dog raised by the Sect Master was a divine beast that could destroy aberrations.

The foundation of the Sect Master and the sect was far, far stronger than he had initially imagined.

With strength like this, would it still be difficult for Xia to face aberrations? Perhaps they could even go abroad to earn some extra money.

He also had confidence that they could contend with those lives from the ancient past.

Finally.

After Chen Yi stabbed a few more times, the human-skin scroll trembled, unwillingly spat out one last package of black blood, then quivered with a lingering aftershock before going completely still.

At the same time, five people and one dog appeared beside Chen Yi.

As soon as they came out, they saw Chen Yi expressionless, with the air of an expert, using a large sword to torment the scroll. The edge of the flattened, wrinkled scroll had been stabbed by him until it was riddled with holes, like a rag casually thrown by the roadside. It was beyond miserable.

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