Chapter 50: A Showy, Substance-less Road

Come on, go help!

Mi Ke anxiously said to K.

Xuanzang Grand Master looks like he's struggling to hold on.

How am I supposed to go?

K was unhappy, thinking to himself, "I can't beat them again!"

The reason for his displeasure was that he realized he had no way to join the fight between that monk and the bronze-armored corpse.

He had to admit that going up there besides delivering vegetables, he was useless.

This made the high-and-mighty K quite unhappy.

He almost wanted to utter the lament, "Since Yu was born, why was Liang born?"

What a perfectly fine mission—why assign two veterans?

Clearly, one of him would be enough—

All right, not enough.

"That's not important; we need to deal with the corpse wrangler first!" K found a reasonable excuse for himself.

"Capture the bandit by capturing their leader"—very sound reasoning.

……

The problem is, where's the king?

As if in response to K's words, the originally urgent and "distant" bell chime suddenly became close.

Now there was a clear direction for the sound source.

K turned his head and saw a man appear near the small room out of nowhere.

He wore a rather loose black outfit that resembled a burial shroud.

His head was lowered, and his long hair covered half his face.

Only his lower face was visible, his mouth slightly open, exhaling a strange white vapor.

Unlike the driver with two small bells hanging from his wrist, this corpse wrangler held a bell in his right hand.

His palm trembled as if shaken by wind.

He controlled the bronze-armored corpse with the urgent jingling of the bells.

But he didn't look at the battle between Tang Tower and the bronze-armored corpse; instead, he stared straight at the three of K.

Who are you!

K asked a meaningless question.

"Who are you all, again?"

The corpse wrangler retorted, his voice somewhat mechanical, each word popping out of his mouth: "You dare kill Feng family members and still come to their territory? You don't know death!"

"Feng family? What Feng family?"

K felt greatly wronged inside.

They didn't want this to happen either!

Above them loomed a terrifying, powerful, unknown existence.

Having told them to spend the night at the terminus, what could they do?

Besides, they weren't the ones who struck first.

Clearly, it was the driver and ticket seller who harbored ill intentions.

You Feng people want to "kill and seize corpses," but you lack the strength.

They ended up being counter-killed.

Could this be our fault?

All these emotions turned into a single question.

Namely—what Feng family?

In the Gods and Demons game's mission world, some feel like pure places to complete tasks, equivalent to a game dungeon.

For example, Tang Luo's first experience with the Jack the Ripper mission.

But some are more like a complete world.

Gods and Demons Walk is merely being cast into this world to do certain things.

"Even the Feng family doesn't know." The corpse wrangler said, "It seems, just…"

His words hadn't even finished.

K suddenly raised his hand at him, a blue light flashing on his hand.

Gale Wind Slash!

Ambush, that's how simple it is!

An arc-shaped wind blade arrived instantly, appearing before the corpse wrangler.

Faced with this sudden ambush, the corpse wrangler seemed to want to dodge, but his speed was slightly off, and he only managed to avoid half of it.

One arm was cut off by the wind blade.

The black clothing tore, revealing a line on half of his chest.

Then it gradually spread into a ferocious scar.

What a pity.

K silently thought to himself, originally intending to split this corpse wrangler in two with one strike.

But he dodged it.

Not only that, the hand holding the bell was unharmed, and the bell's ringing didn't stop.

For now, there should be no danger.

K stared at the Corpse Handler.

Such an injury, just the amount of blood loss, is enough——

Wait!

Where's the blood!

Why is there not a drop of fresh blood flowing from the severed arm and the wound?

"Kind of, interesting."

The Corpse Handler lifted the severed arm, and what poured out was not fresh blood but a black aura.

A corpse stench that made one want to vomit.

K and the three others repeatedly stepped back.

"I kind of want to turn you into corpses and add them to my collection."

That statement was very coherent, showing its love for corpses.

It had the professional spirit of loving the work it does.

As soon as the words fell, the Corpse Handler lunged forward.

A burst of explosive sound rang out beside K.

It was as if something invisible had exploded, stirring up a fierce wind.

The second skill—Air Burst—allows one to dash using the power of air.

K's body instantly darted to the left, immediately opening a distance of ten meters.

The Corpse Handler that brushed past K glanced at them, without changing direction.

K could dodge the Corpse Handler.

But Aunt Shufen and Mi Ke obviously could not.

Seeing the terrifying Corpse Handler right before her eyes, Mi Ke's eyes suddenly turned fierce.

She reached out and shoved hard on Aunt Shufen's back.

Then she turned and ran away without looking back.

"Hah."

The Corpse Handler let out a mocking chuckle and, with a casual kick, sent the falling Aunt Shufen flying.

Aunt Shufen's body flew up like a ball, landed on the ground, and lay motionless.

At the same moment Aunt Shufen landed, the Corpse Handler caught up to Mi Ke.

The severed arm was lifted, and a black aura emanated from within.

It surged like a living thing, enveloping Mi Ke's head.

It rushed eagerly into her mouth and nostrils.

Mi Ke's face turned pallid, and she knelt on the ground.

She futilely grasped with her hands, catching only air.

As the black aura entered her brain, Mi Ke's eyes began to turn white.

Matching her original makeup, it gave an indescribably eerie feeling.

Her vivid red lips began to turn black bit by bit.

Her curled-up body on the ground struggled, and her movements gradually weakened.

Then, like a final flicker, she twitched violently twice and fell still.

The Corpse Handler walked over to Mi Ke's side, and the black aura seemed like several threads linking the two.

It made Mi Ke into his marionette.

With the twisting of the black aura, Mi Ke slowly rose to her feet.

Her lips were already completely black, her skin remained pure white, and her eyes, like those of other zombies, showed no pupils.

There was only a deathly pallor.

"Huh?"

The Corpse Handler looked up and down at the living corpse it had created, with the brows hidden beneath its hair furrowing.

It was somewhat dissatisfied.

This corpse is no different from an ordinary corpse.

Could it be that……

The Corpse Handler looked at K; among this group, only this person, and also that monk fighting the bronze-armored corpse…… seemed somewhat special?

"One that can forge a new bronze-armored corpse."

The Corpse Handler glanced at Tang Luo, then at K, "I don't know what this can be refined into."

That monk's abilities are extraordinary; he can fight the bronze-armored corpse on equal footing.

It could completely forge a completely new bronze-armored corpse, better than the existing ones.

As for this one here……

Even the Corpse Handler itself wasn't sure what special zombie it would forge.

"Go."

He muttered a low word and lifted the severed arm.

The Mi Ke that had been forged alive into a zombie moved and charged at K.

Under the Corpse Handler's deliberate control, Mi Ke's combat prowess surpassed that of the fodder zombies.

K, deprived of his skills, was for a moment hard-pressed by her.

His face now had several scratches.

That was the damage caused by Mi Ke's nail art.

The Corpse Handler, distracted, exerted more control over Mi Ke, and the situation on the other battlefield changed slightly.

The sound of slaps striking the bronze-armored corpse began to come out frequently.

It went from being clear and crisp to dull and muffled.

The Corpse Handler's expression unchanged, he shifted most of his control back to the bronze-armored corpse.

K immediately seized the opportunity, kicking Mi Ke away with a foot.

At some point, he threw a stone he had been holding in his hand, smashing Mi Ke's head open.

This still could not stop the zombie's movements.

But at least it could reduce the enemy's "one weapon."

Just now, K had almost been bitten several times.

Mi Ke, whose head had been smashed, stood still in place.

Compared to when he was alive, his body had visibly shriveled considerably.

It made it impossible to have any thought of taking advantage of the heat.

K panted slightly, reaching up to wipe the blood seeping from his face.

After wiping twice, K's motion stopped.

"You…" he looked at the Corpse Handler.

The Corpse Handler laughed, his laughter continuous and eerie: "Do you feel it? The corpse poison."

What K felt was not corpse poison.

He merely felt his cheeks beginning to go numb.

When he had just reached up to wipe, there was no pain, not even a sensation.

So he had been infected with corpse poison?

A dizzy feeling began to come over him.

K's world swayed and spun.

"Actually, refining a living corpse is a very painful process." Speaking of his own professional work, the Corpse Handler's words became coherent: "It's almost like being cut to pieces; don't think she doesn't cry out because I've damaged some parts."

"My corpse poison has corroded and numbed your brain, so the subsequent refining won't cause you too much pain."

"Above all, don't bite off your tongue or anything; as a specimen, I want you to be as perfect as possible."

As the Corpse Handler spoke, K could no longer stand upright.

He sat on the ground, barely propping himself up with his hands, his head shaking vigorously.

Trying to shake at the same frequency as the world before his eyes.

Then the world before his eyes would stop swaying.

A "shasha" footstep sound.

The Corpse Handler walked up to K, his severed arm slowly aiming at his head.

From earlier, the black aura that had been surging now slowly reached toward K.

As a specimen, not cannon fodder, when making it, one must be more serious.

You can't mess it up.

"Huh?"

The Corpse Handler, who had just licked his lips, suddenly changed expression and spun around to look at the battle between Tang Luo and the bronze-armored corpse.

The bell ringing that had continued nonstop since earlier paused for about half a second.

Then it rang again.

It was much more intense than before.

If the earlier bell could only be called hurried, the current bell is chaotic, like demonic music flooding the ears.

But, no matter how the bell changes,

the bronze-armored corpse still faces away from the Corpse Handler, motionless.

Tang Luo stands beside the bronze-armored corpse, one hand raised before his chest, watching the Corpse Handler.

His face bears a sympathetic, sorrowful expression.

"I… have fallen to this point."

Tang Luo's sympathy is not for others, but for himself.

I never imagined that I, the venerable Tang Xuanzang, would also end up walking the path of "showy frivolity."

The once "Master Xuanzang thought you were showy and punched your head apart" punch of Tang Sanzang seems to be fading away?