Chapter 489: I

Wu Xian suddenly remembered.

The Scaled Man had once vanished mysteriously when entering the third room.

Could he possess an ability like invisibility or instantaneous teleportation? “What the hell am I supposed to catch?”

Wu Xian muttered a curse and crept forward cautiously, fearing the room might harbor more traps.

But when Wu Xian reached the window, his body suddenly trembled.

On the ground, his own shadow stretched long—and atop it rode the upper half of a headless shadow, the headless corpse!

But what startled Wu Xian was not that.

At the far end of the shadow stood a limping man in red robes, waving at Wu Xian. “When did he appear?”

“Did I zone out just now?”

Wu Xian swallowed hard, his expression tense with unease.

Yet no matter how bizarre the scene, he still had to catch him! Wu Xian sprinted toward the Scaled Man—but this time, the Scaled Man did not vanish; he merely circled the room, limping desperately as he ran.

Yet even with this painfully slow escape speed,

Wu Xian still could not catch him.

This was not due to the Scaled Man using some special technique like “Slow Walk to Evade Pursuit”—it was because the corpse on Wu Xian’s shoulders grew heavier.

At first Wu Xian could still take a few steps, but later it felt as if he were carrying several sacks at once; just standing still exhausted him completely.

Yet Wu Xian did not give up. He lifted his heels slightly, assuming a stance.

The Scaled Man was within arm’s reach. If he unleashed “Aggression Like Fire” now, he could close the distance and easily seize him!

“Three, two, one!”

Crack! Wu Xian remained rooted in place—and one of his legs snapped.

“Aggression Like Fire” did not activate. An unknown force had locked Wu Xian’s body in its standing posture; the headless corpse on his shoulders pressed harder, slowly forcing him downward.

It was clear now.

They meant to crush Wu Xian from a standing man into a flesh-paste! With what little mobility he still had, Wu Xian scrambled to think.

“Blessing didn’t trigger. The shadow vanished. Light…”

“Cough—I get it!”

Wu Xian found the key—but the pain intensified, leaving him no time to refine his insight.

At this moment, the Scaled Man stood directly across from Wu Xian, clapping mechanically, his dog-skin face, full of wrinkles, twisted in sneering mockery.

Wu Xian mustered all his strength to lift his chin, glanced at the clock above the doorframe, then spat a gout of gum-blood at the Scaled Man.

“I’m at my limit—but next time…”

“I’ll definitely catch you!”

With that threat spoken,

Wu Xian seized the plastic tube and thrust it violently into his own throat.

The Scaled Man flinched in surprise.

Wu Xian’s body, already under immense pressure from the headless corpse, now erupted in a gushing stream of blood as the tube pierced through.

And so,

Before being crushed into a pulp, Wu Xian’s consciousness ceased.

When Wu Xian first picked up the plastic tube, he knew it was useless against malevolent spirits.

So why had he kept it on him all along? Precisely for a moment like this!

Having learned definitively that after death everything would reset, and that his enemies would make him die in excruciating pain, a means of self-termination became vital.

Wu Xian stood upright, eyes wide open, unblinking; the headless corpse retreated slowly. But the Scaled Man remained where he stood, one foot crushing the still-bleeding tube, grinding it into shards.

…

First time awkward, second time familiar.

By the fourth cycle, Wu Xian felt like he was returning home.

He skillfully kicked the nail-ghost, knocked down the crawling-ghost, dodged the hanged spirit, let the headless corpse possess him, refined his thoughts mid-motion, and finally encountered the Scaled Man again in the large room.

Throughout the entire process, only one thing differed noticeably from before.

This time, Wu Xian could not find the white plastic tube.

That meant the Scaled Man did not want Wu Xian to die too easily—he had hidden the tool Wu Xian could use to end himself, leaving him no way to commit suicide.

In the dim golden light,

Wu Xian and the Scaled Man faced each other.

This time, Wu Xian did not rush to grab him. He stared fixedly at the Scaled Man, waiting until the headless corpse’s pressure became unbearable before moving.

He closed his right eye, then reached out and gouged hard at his left eye.

“Ooohhhhh!”

Wu Xian screamed in agony! He lacked Xiahou Dun’s ability to pluck out his own eyeball—but his grip was so fierce he nearly blinded himself.

As Wu Xian clawed at his eye, the Scaled Man vanished.

Wu Xian flung his hand hard—and a thick clump of blood and gore flew outward.

From within that blood, a humanoid monster rose: skinless, its entire body covered in eyes.

Besides the two normal eyes, every eye on the monster oozed blood—this explained the concentric rings of varying bloodstains on the Scaled Man’s clothing!

In Wu Xian’s hand, he held a set of clothes—and inside them, a loose human skin.

The skin was loose, and except for the skull, large portions had been gnawed through by insects—this was why the Scaled Man’s face looked so grotesque: his skin was never his own!…

Before his last death,

When Wu Xian realized “Aggression Like Fire” could not activate, he understood the Scaled Man’s existence was peculiar.

The effect of “Aggression Like Fire” was to let Wu Xian dash toward any enemy within five meters—since the dash failed to trigger, it meant the man was not where Wu Xian saw him. So where was the Scaled Man? Wu Xian recalled the Scaled Man’s two mysterious vanishings: once just before entering the third room, and again when Wu Xian crawled from the third room into the fourth.

Both vanishings shared a common trait:

Wu Xian had moved from a place with golden light into one without.

The first time, Wu Xian fled in panic—from the golden-lit doorway into the dark corridor—and the Scaled Man vanished then.

The second time, Wu Xian scrambled through a wall hole; golden light only reached the center of the large room, not the walls’ edges—and the Scaled Man vanished.

With this realization, Wu Xian recalled every encounter with the Scaled Man.

Without exception, he could only see the Scaled Man when standing within golden light; once he stepped outside the light, the Scaled Man disappeared.

So was the Scaled Man hiding within the golden light itself?

No—because when the Scaled Man crawled through the wall hole, Wu Xian had seen his entire body, yet the other side of the wall held no golden light.

Add to this the golden eyes on the exterior of Golden Eye Tower, and the Scaled Man’s own golden eyes—all of it pointed to eyes.

Thus Wu Xian concluded:

The Scaled Man existed only within the golden light reflected in Wu Xian’s own eyes!

And so, just before his fourth death, Wu Xian clawed fiercely at his eyes—and pulled the Scaled Man out from the surface of his eyeball! Wu Xian stared at the Scaled Man, eyes alight with triumph.

“I’ve got you. I won. And now?”

(End of Chapter)