Chapter 248: 244 Loss of Sensation

Noisy, furtive whispers, a world interwoven with flesh and blood—all the long-absent, maddening physical sensations once again assaulted He Jia'an's entire body. After losing the protection of the New Year Red Envelope, all the malicious sensations struck like arrows rebounding from the bottom, instantly piercing his gradually chilling heart.

His eyes were avoiding normal vision, his ears were absorbing maddening sounds, his body was slowly losing its temperature... All his senses were gradually spiraling out of control. He Jia'an was situated within a circle where no evil spirits would approach within a hundred-meter radius, yet he did not feel a shred of safety; those negative sensory experiences were slowly dragging him into the abyss.

"You can do this." He Jia'an tremblingly took a crumpled, broken cigarette from his pocket, comforting and encouraging himself to stand back up.

It seemed to be the backlash from using the New Year Red Envelope; the influence of the corruption he was currently under was far more intense than when he stayed in the mental sanitarium. He felt that everything related to normalcy was turning away from him, deeply loathing his gradually decaying and fallen individual self.

He Jia'an walked slowly outward. Although fear was grinding away at his sanity, he had not forgotten the goal he wanted to complete. He still had to continue finding those Space Channels hidden in Kisaragi High School, then destroy the Strange Array that set up the channels, and demolish the source of the Curse.

He walked very slowly. Suddenly, the tip of his shoe kicked some kind of metal object. The thing made a metallic clanging sound on the ground. Looking down, it was a familiar katana.

It was the Magic Blade that had caused Matsumoto Gin to be left without even a corpse—the Kusanagi Sword. He Jia'an looked at it, seemingly understanding a bit of the sentiment Matsumoto Gin had when he insisted on keeping it back then. After hesitating for a few seconds, he picked it up.

To outsiders, it was just an ancient and precious sword, but in He Jia'an's eyes now, the reflection on the blade of the Kusanagi Sword was currently mirroring the tip of an iceberg of a terrifying giant beast. Blood-red snake pupils were staring fixedly at him through the cold blade light. Its rotting, broken black body seemed as if it wanted to swallow He Jia'an's reflection inside it; his soul was about to be snatched away by this giant beast.

Although the hidden power of this demonic katana further eroded his spirit, its existence also seemed to arrogantly expel those negative states that were plaguing him. The maddening whispers, bizarre phenomena, and abnormal physical sensations all received a certain degree of resistance after holding the blade.

It was not that the Magic Blade was protecting He Jia'an. He Jia'an was very clear that this was merely an arrogant and powerful beast competing with other starving "jackals, wolves, tigers, and leopards" for food, wanting to exclusively enjoy him, this "delicacy" about to fall.

"If you can help me stop the Blessing and the Thousand-Illusion Moon from invading the Real World, I will offer myself to you." He Jia'an bit the bullet and tried to negotiate a deal with the entity behind the katana.

As soon as he finished speaking, the Magic Blade shuddered. Immediately after, He Jia'an felt a sharp pain in the palm holding the blade, and then discovered that it was as if ten thousand flesh worms had bitten open huge wounds on his hand, then crawled in along the bloody holes, crazily gnawing on his flesh and blood, and absorbing the nutrients of his body. Those thick conduits squirmed wildly inside his arm, as if wanting to completely replace the flesh and blood of his own arm, but they stopped at the shoulder and did not drill deeper.

He did not know if this meant the other party had agreed to the deal, or if it had opposed his request, but He Jia'an felt it did not matter anymore. At least for the time being, he did not feel like he would slowly fall into a state of madness like Matsumoto Gin. He could still control the use of the blade; perhaps he had not yet reached the limit of losing control.

With the Magic Blade by his side, He Jia'an temporarily had the power to confront the Abnormal, although he did not know how long it could be maintained...

He Jia'an was like a mobile piece of beautiful meat exuding a wonderful fragrance at any time and place. As he walked on campus, countless lurking dark creatures were driven mad by it, trying every possible way to gnaw him away.

Those seemingly endless Vampire flesh worms were difficult opponents. It was not easy to kill them; ordinary blades could not cut them down. A slash would only split them, dividing them into two and turning them into two individuals. However, the Kusanagi Sword could absorb the life force of most creatures, including abnormal creatures. He Jia'an using it to slash at creatures easily caused wounds on the Vampire flesh worms that were difficult or even impossible to heal, which was a quite fatal weapon for the Vampires.

After a burst of successive attacks, the Vampire flesh worms quieted down quite a bit, but they had not given up the intention of eating He Jia'an. In their eyes, He Jia'an possessed immense value for being eaten by them.

Although He Jia'an relied on the Magic Blade to kill many Vampire flesh worms, this did not mean he gained much benefit from them.

Those Vampire flesh worms appeared to be jelly-like soft-bodied creatures of flesh and blood, but in reality, their undersides were also their mouths. They had suction-cup-like oral cavities, covered with yellow teeth and sharp fangs, and a quite fatal, ejectable and retractable tongue-tooth. Once bitten by it, the oral cavity would clamp tightly onto the skin like a suction cup, and it was difficult to pull out after countless sharp teeth pierced in simultaneously. Forcibly pulling it out would instead tear off a large chunk of flesh and blood. And these greedy creatures were not satisfied with this level of predation; in order to deliver a fatal blow or entangle an opponent forever, they would also fire their tongue-teeth when necessary. That thing could instantly pierce steel plates like a harpoon, let alone human tissue.

He Jia'an was bitten several times, but he always preemptively used the Magic Blade to slice off their bodies before they could fire their fatal tongue-teeth, finally leaving only a ring of the toothed part embedded in his body.

Those teeth presumably still carried unknown secretions with anesthetic-like effects. The moment he was bitten, it would hurt suddenly, but then the pain would turn into numbness. For a period of time, he would not feel any pain, but He Jia'an could clearly feel the existence of those foreign objects piercing his skin.

In order not to let himself bleed profusely, He Jia'an did not choose to remove those suction-cup mouthparts at the first opportunity, but continued to move forward while carrying them.

"Here... there is another one." He Jia'an found another place in a school corridor where an Advent Ritual had been drawn, and destroyed the ritual with two slashes.

Regarding He Jia'an's act of destroying the Advent Ritual, the Vampire flesh worms were quite angry. A large portion of them, who had originally intended to wait for an opportunity, chose to launch an attack again.

Consequently, He Jia'an suffered a siege once more, only he did not fight those guys to the end, but retreated while fighting.

Even so, He Jia'an inevitably could not take it anymore. Moreover, every time the Magic Blade was used, those conduits that had gnawed away and occupied his entire arm would penetrate deeper into his body by another fraction. Now, at least nearly one-third of his body parts had been replaced by the Magic Blade's conduits. If this continued, the time for him to follow in Matsumoto Gin's footsteps would only be shorter.

Just when He Jia'an felt he was about to be unable to hold on at any moment, a large expanse of human arms suddenly surged out. Those arms poured down like a flood, dense and numerous, grabbing those Vampire flesh worms that were attacking He Jia'an.

Those Vampire flesh worms originally wanted to open their mouths to resist, but unexpectedly, these human arms suddenly split and transformed into incomprehensibly complex mouthparts one by one, directly swallowing those Vampire flesh worms alive, leaving them with no power to resist.

"It seems you still need my help, Captain He." Amidst the broken limbs and stumps spread all over the ground, filled with chilling chewing and gnawing sounds, a voice came from the "waves" of arms that had surged up. The bulging part gradually squeezed and merged, deforming into a humanoid creature with two heads—one male and one female. The male among them said to He Jia'an in a slightly teasing tone.