Chapter 364

Dazed, stunned.

Just moments ago drinking wine from big bowls and eating meat with their own hands, the Fanhe Gang brothers now let out inhuman screams, their arms twisting into octopus tentacles that slammed toward Cao Meng with a gust of wind.

No time to grieve, Cao Meng rooted his legs to the ground, leaned back sharply, avoiding the crab claws with an iron plank bridge, then seized a wooden stool, snapped its leg with a crack, and as he rose to his feet, drove the broken leg straight into the waist of his mutated brother.

Pukki-pa.

Blood sprayed, the Fanhe Gang member staggered—but refused to fall.

From his mouth shot out a tongue like a lamprey, its tip—a mouth full of sharp teeth—buried deep into Cao Meng's shoulder, tearing out a large chunk of flesh.

The same thing happened to others; these mutated servants and guests were all fearless, possessing immense vitality—even with shattered spines or torn throats, they kept moving.

Worse still, they retained fragments of their former combat instincts, still using punches, kicks, throws, and knee strikes.

One Embroidered Uniform Guard, unable to dodge, was struck by a mutated martial artist using the Northern Tan Leg technique, a close-range kick that shattered his jaw.

Blood gushed from the Embroidered Uniform Guard's mouth; his arms were seized by a swarm of Tu family servant mutants, and with a tearing sound, both arms were ripped off.

On the other side, a mutated body with a towering, iron-tower frame, trained in hardening arts, swung its massive crab claws toward Kuyu, the monk of Daxiangguo Temple.

Elbow strike, elbow strike, still elbow strike.

Facing his former friend, Kuyu's face showed sorrow and compassion; he whipped out the wide sleeve of his monk's robe, wrapping it around the man's arms and yanking him forward to the ground.

Then he activated Daxiangguo Temple's Thousand-Pound Drop technique, driving his right foot down like a massive ramming log, crushing the mutant's skull outright.

"Amitabha, all virtuous ones, only by smashing the head can you kill them!"

Smash the head?

Tang Men's Xi Cai flipped his sleeve and pulled out a black iron tube, aimed ahead, and pressed the trigger.

Zing!

Steel needles, slightly thicker than toothpicks, shot forth like lightning, embedding into the eye sockets of the foremost mutants.

The mechanism hidden inside the needles triggered automatically, releasing fine, sharp spines that completely shredded the mutants' brains.

This iron tube was a modified version of Tang Men's hidden weapon, "Rain of Pear Blossoms Needles," capable of controlling the number of needles fired per trigger pull, unlike the original that discharged them all at once.

And its power had also been enhanced.

If forged with the deep-sea sunken silver mother from the Douluo Continent, it could at least pierce the true body of a Ranked Dou Luo and instantly kill a Soul Emperor or Soul Saint.

But

Creak creak creak creak.

The sound of bones grinding rose in waves; among the banquet guests who had died in illusions, they all rose in grotesque postures, their bodies sprouting marine organism organs.

Including the Embroidered Uniform Guard whose arms had been severed and bled to death—he slowly rose amid his comrades' screams, fish fins growing from his shoulder stumps, a starfish sprouting from his broken nose bridge.

The number of the "resurrected" grew, surging like a tide toward a corner of the wall.

DONG!!!!

The thunderous clang of a massive hammer echoed; in stunned silence, Huiyu—returned to her true form—lifted a skull-crushing power hammer taller than herself, smashing one mutant into the air, sending it flying across the entire courtyard and embedding it into the high courtyard wall.

With a reverse swing, she crushed another mutant attempting to ambush her into the ground.

"What are you standing there for? Run!"

Huiyu led the charge out of the courtyard; the remaining survivors snapped to attention and followed her through lantern-lit corridors and passageways, racing toward the mansion's exit.

"Li Cheng, come back quickly."

Huiyu strode forward, but her inner mind was far from as calm as her expression.

She was a nanobot, after all—calling her immune to all poisons was an understatement; she drank cobra venom and pufferfish toxin like sweet water, and CIA interrogation drugs like Midazolam were no different from digestive tablets.

The key was she had no human nervous system—illusions like Moon Reading couldn't trap her in hallucinations.

To make her lose herself in fantasy,

there was one, and only one, possibility.

Memetic infection.

Low-level memetic infection could add or erase memories, alter emotions; high-level memetic infection could twist the mind, overwrite personality, and even affect non-human objects.

And

Huiyu glanced at the back of her hand; the liquid metal where mutant blood had splashed was now crumbling like tin pest (the phenomenon where white tin transforms into powdery gray tin at 13.2°C), turning into fine metallic particles.

Huiyu silently returned the metal dust to her pocket; she could sense that the liquid metal had been severely disrupted and could not re-integrate into her body for the short term.

Memetic infection again, and now nanobot disruption too.

No matter what secret the Tu family hid, its mystery level was high enough—at least on par with the headless elk Li Cheng had seen on the Killing Train.

Thinking of this, Huiyu, while running, turned her head to the survivors and frowned: "Everyone else either passed out or turned into monsters—why are you unaffected?"

Wu Ge, the Huashan swordsman, hesitated: "We… we didn't eat that white fish sashimi?"

Kuyu shook his head: "It's not the sashimi—the girl Huiyu ate it and was fine, and others at other tables who didn't eat it still turned into undead."

"Perhaps it's because of this family heirloom?"

Su Konghu, the young master of Wanzhang Valley, paused, then picked up the milky-white jade pendant hanging at his waist, carved into the shape of a tian gou.

It glowed with a soft luster under the sunlight.

In the Yin Mountains there is a beast called Tian Gou; its cry is like "liu liu," and it can ward off evil.

Su Konghu was still running when the middle-aged man behind him, Song Zhong, suddenly grabbed his wrist and pulled him to a stop.

The group stood in a narrow corridor, left side lined with jagged rockeries, right side with a lotus pond in full bloom.

"What is it, Uncle Zhong?"

"Visitors are coming."

Song Zhong, dressed in plain brown robes and with an unremarkable face, strode forward, reached for his waist, and drew a hidden softsword disguised as a belt.

His entire aura shifted instantly, sharp as a blade.

His gaze fixed on the rockery behind him—four figures stepped forward slowly, all mutants.

Its head was covered in a chaotic jumble of marine-organ-like appendages, but from the clothing it wore, one could still barely make out its identity.

The abbot of Guangxian Temple, the castle lord of Xunmei Fortress, the master of Wuya Grotto, the island lord of Yelu Isle.

All four were at the peak of Innate Realm.

The oppressive pressure ahead of the corridor was deep as an abyss, vast as a sea; the dense sound of footsteps behind grew closer and closer. Lu Hu of the Embroidered Uniform Guard gripped his Xiuchun Saber, Monk Kuyu silently recited Buddhist scriptures, Wu Ge's face went pale, Xi Cai's gaze drifted, his eyes scanning back and forth across the rockery and courtyard wall, searching for a way out.

"I'll hold them off,"

Song Zhong stepped forward with his hand on his sword, tilted his head slightly toward Su Konghu, paused, and said: "Run."

The instant his words fell, the four peak-Innate living corpses had already pounced.

Song Zhong flicked his flexible sword—sometimes exploiting the blade's pliability to thrust, slash, flick, and sweep from impossible angles,

sometimes pouring his thick internal force into the sword to stiffen the blade and shear off the mutants' superfluous limbs.

"Be careful not to get splashed by their blood—there's something strange about it."

Hui Yu kindly called out a warning, then kept sprinting. Seeing Su Konghu still standing there dumbfounded, she frowned and barked: "What are you gawking at? Have you already forgotten Song Zhong's last instructions? Don't waste his sacrifice!"

Hey, I'm not dead yet!

Song Zhong's eyelid twitched wildly. He hooked a hand onto a beam, vaulted up onto the corridor's roof, and led the four ferocious living corpses away.

(End of chapter)