Chapter 156: Something Unusual
The situation seemed to be turning back into a stalemate, but Zhang Qian had no intention of continuing to drag it out.
Two hands, one above the other, gripped the fierce ghost’s upper and lower jaws respectively.
The wounds on his arms slightly opened, revealing the wriggling muscles inside. As the strength in his hands gradually increased, the fierce ghost’s mouth slowly opened amid a groan of bones.
Accompanied by a clanging sound, the wooden stick in the fierce ghost’s mouth suddenly slipped out and smashed onto the floor.
“About right.”
Zhang Qian’s eyes lit up, and the two ghost hands waiting on the fierce ghost’s body immediately sprang into action. With stiff movements, they slowly crawled into the pried-open mouth.
First the fingers, then the palm, then the wrist…
The fierce ghost’s mouth opened wider and wider, and the two ghost hands soon smoothly crawled inside.
Normally, such a thing wouldn’t even qualify to approach the fierce ghost, but at this special moment, the severed limb ghost had little spare energy to deal with it.
The two ghost hands thrashed about wildly inside, stretching the fierce ghost’s mouth nearly to the bursting point.
But soon, that bulging curve suddenly disappeared.
Yet the fierce ghost didn’t become docile; instead, it seemed to be suffering some torment, emitting a sob-like whimper.
Listening carefully, that sound wasn’t coming from inside this head at all.
The sound was very faint, as if the thing making the noise was isolated by something, easily overlooked if not listened to carefully.
Following the sound, Zhang Qian’s line of sight finally stopped at the aisle.
The fierce ghost had only poked in its head; most of its body had never entered from start to finish, and that body now seemed to be crying.
“Is it another kind of supernatural power…” Zhang Qian murmured.
He didn’t delve into this change and continued controlling the ghost hands before any possible attack could arrive.
Soon, a strange bulge suddenly appeared on the fierce ghost’s neck.
Like an Adam’s apple, only four or five times larger than a normal one.
And this bulge kept moving, seemingly using the fierce ghost’s throat as a passage to head toward the nearby body.
The other ghost hand wasn’t idle either, stirring around inside the fierce ghost’s head, trying to cause as much damage as possible.
“Plop…”
A lump of grayish-white viscous substance suddenly flowed out from the fierce ghost’s ear hole.
Immediately after, a pale ghost hand followed, poking out and turning around in all directions, as if checking for any missed spots.
After a few more pushes, more contents were shoved out by the ghost hand until the inside was completely empty.
However, this thing didn’t seem essential to the severed limb ghost. Even with all its brain matter squeezed out, its struggling strength didn’t weaken in the slightest.
Was there really no way to deal with this thing?
Even with true qi continuously output, suppressing the fierce ghost from controlling the remains on the floor was already the limit. Completely suppressing the fierce ghost’s main body was simply impossible.
If this fierce ghost didn’t concern the safety of the subsequent exploration, Zhang Qian would have just let it go.
After all, the confrontation with the fierce ghost wasn’t one-sided domination. He himself was injured, and continuing would only make the situation worse.
“That sobbing sound should be the crucial point. There seems to be something inside the stomach of the severed limb ghost…”
Narrowing his eyes, Zhang Qian saw that the bulge on the fierce ghost’s throat had already crossed most of the distance and would soon enter the stomach of the severed limb ghost for a look.
He wasn’t sure if it was an illusion, but the temperature in the room had dropped slightly.
A faint stinging sensation was already coming from his hands.
Looking down, both hands now resembled nearly shattered porcelain, covered in dense cracks.
Moreover, the fierce ghost’s fresh blood was seeping into Zhang Qian’s body through these cracks, continuously consuming his internal true qi and further increasing his burden.
“Maybe I really have to let this thing go.”
Though reluctant, Zhang Qian knew this wasn’t the time for rash decisions.
Right now, the severed limb ghost’s corrosion on him wasn’t deep; the wounds it left still had a chance to recover.
But this corrosion intensified every moment. Once his arms were fully assimilated by the fierce ghost, there would be no hope at all.
At that point, forget confronting the fierce ghost— even self-preservation would be a huge problem.
“Wait for the ghost hand to explore inside. If no clues are found, let it go first and plan later.”
Having made up his mind, he observed the fierce ghost’s reactions while watching the steadily advancing ghost hand, planning one last attempt.
Suddenly, strange changes appeared on the fierce ghost’s mutilated, blurry ghost face.
The eye socket area kept bulging and receding, as if something wanted to drill out.
But the fierce ghost’s face, eroded like by strong acid, had long lost any facial features and couldn’t open its eyes at all.
Plus, the ghost hand couldn’t harm the fierce ghost, so it could only keep trying, attempting to find an opening that should exist.
“Pfft.”
A half-finger-long slit suddenly opened at the fierce ghost’s eye socket. Several pale fingers found the spot, pried open the fierce ghost’s fused eyelid, and drilled out from inside.
“This is?”
The fingers slowly spread open, revealing a strangely shaped orb.
The orb was entirely grayish-white overall, with only a small black dot visible in the center.
Just as Zhang Qian was puzzled, the orb suddenly rotated on the ghost hand, and the position of that black dot shifted, pointing straight at Zhang Qian’s eyes.
“Is this the fierce ghost’s eyeball?” Zhang Qian was somewhat surprised.
“With the body rotted like this, I thought the eyes had rotted away too. Turns out they were just stuck shut by the eyelids, not opened.”
Now that there were eyes, in theory, the ghost face ability could be triggered.
But this eyeball was just a smooth, bare orb without even blood vessels behind it; it was unclear if it still counted as part of the fierce ghost.
The ghost hand over there was about to reach its goal, and investing true qi into an attack of unknown success seemed unwise.
Just as Zhang Qian planned to ignore it, a bizarre change suddenly occurred in the surrounding environment.
The brightness in the room seemed to be gradually darkening.
But looking up, the lights showed no flickering; it was as if the brightness had just lowered.
“The room can have problems too? I’ve only seen darkened rooms there at that foot…”
Zhang Qian was stunned at first, then realized, “No, more likely I’m the one with the problem.”
Even if the lights went out, with true qi enhancing him, he could easily see the surroundings in the darkness.
But now his vision was like someone had turned down the brightness, slowly shifting toward darkness.
Looking down, the needle-tip-like pupil on his eyeball had unknowingly expanded, reaching normal pupil size in little time.
It wouldn’t be long before it occupied the entire eyeball.
