Chapter 18: Remnants of the Dead
Lu Li had no idea what role the witch played in all this, but he was certain it was not a simple one. The flesh-like organism could quickly enhance one's abilities, but aside from the known physical mutations, personality changes, and photosensitivity, there might be other hidden effects the witch had placed. Thus, Lu Li had no intention of yielding to his body's instincts to consume those things. His current concern was how to bring that mass of flesh back.
The flesh mass was about the size of half a room and firmly attached to the wall. Even with all his shadow abilities, Lu Li couldn't transport much of it. However, the witch had demanded he bring it back.
Returning to the passage, it had grown even narrower. This thing was growing fast, given enough food. Lu Li's shadow surged, piercing the flesh mass and searching within.
"According to the diary, this thing wasn't this big initially. Otherwise, a flesh ball half the size of a room would have been discovered long ago," Lu Li thought as the shadow tendrils continued probing the flesh, black-red blood oozing from the wounds, making the place look like hell.
"Found it..." Lu Li moved closer, using the tendrils to tear open the flesh, revealing an inverted, pulsing "heart." Countless thin black threads connected it to the surrounding flesh. The shadow severed these threads, causing the "heart" to unfold like a flower or a lingzhi mushroom. This wasn't a heart at all, but a curled-up flower bud.
Without the support of this lingzhi, the surrounding flesh rapidly withered, releasing a gas. Lu Li smelled it briefly, and a hunger surged within him, as if every cell in his body were screaming to consume the drying flesh.
Lu Li immediately shut off his breathing and all his pores. His shadow tendrils extracted the lingzhi from the pit, carefully holding it as he quickly left the area. As he moved away, the flesh withered faster, black-red blood pooling together, condensing and deforming, slowly taking a human shape. Kneeling in the dried waste, this blood-formed creature let out a hateful roar.
Death was not the end, and corpses were more than just decaying flesh. Various entities inhabited them, and improper handling could lead to strange occurrences. Disrespecting the dead brought bad luck at the very least, not to mention the potential for corpse mutations.
In folklore, when a cat jumps over a corpse, it can cause the corpse to reanimate. This reaction is due to the entities within the corpse reacting to the cat. The ghouls fed corpses to the lingzhi, generating a large amount of flesh, most of which became nutrients. However, some of the entities within the corpses were not digested. These remnants, whether called debris or resentment, were emotions from the dead.
If the flesh remained active, these remnants would eventually dissipate. But once the flesh lost its vitality and the lingzhi was removed, the dead's resentment and the hatred of being consumed would gather, taking form.
"Destroy it, destroy it, destroy it..." The creature muttered in a strange tone, stepping forward only to collapse into a puddle of blood, then reforming, this time not even humanoid, just a formless, writhing black-red mass moving forward.
In the passageway, Lu Li stopped. The extreme malice behind him was evident. With his heightened soul quality, his sixth sense was sharper. He clearly felt something malicious approaching.
Pausing briefly, Lu Li summoned a shadow assassin. "Stay here and intercept, prevent anything from passing..."
The shadow assassin kneeled and nodded before blending into the darkness, silently awaiting to fulfill its master's command. The shadow assassin, essentially part of Lu Li's shadow, was freed from many limitations due to skill modules. Normally, his shadow couldn't extend more than ten meters, but the skill allowed the assassin to act independently, though too much distance would make real-time control impossible.
Leaving the shadow assassin as a guard, Lu Li quickened his pace. Based on previous information, ghouls feared light. Perhaps the source of this ghoul did too. To be safe, Lu Li wrapped the lingzhi in shadows.
Emerging from the cave, the increasing light reduced the shadows he could control. Despite the leaves blocking some light, his shadow shrank to the size of a basketball, tightly enclosing the lingzhi.
Simultaneously, Lu Li sensed the shadow assassin engaging with something. A few minutes later, he felt the assassin's shadow return to him, indicating its demise.
"Not bad. Assassins aren't meant for frontal combat. If I can solve the shadow quantity issue, I must develop different units for various situations." Lu Li planned his skill upgrades, thinking of shield-bearing units, ranged attackers, melee fighters, fliers, and more. [TL: One man Army]
Currently, Lu Li's three skill slots were used up: one for a meditation method to enhance mental power, one for summoning shadow assassins, and the last was half a skill, combining two modules into "Touch of Fear."
After this game instance, he needed to refine this skill. Despite his thoughts, his pace didn't slow as he swiftly returned the way he came. Meanwhile, in the ghoul's cave, the creature was drawing the dark green blood from the ghoul's corpse, becoming increasingly chaotic and terrifying.
[End of the Chapter]