Fifteen days of practice? Merely learned a little? Was he joking?
That slash… almost split the river in half!
Qu Shui’s lips twitched. Because her main body’s shadow had been shot by arrows earlier, her eyes were still bleeding, causing the appearance of Dr. Gu in her eyes to be very blurry.
But she could sense… he was also very weak.
“You… must be out of energy now, right?” Qu Shui laughed softly. “That slash was indeed powerful. I’m no match for you.”
As she spoke…
A withered skeleton twitched ever so slightly in the dark cave.
No one could see… in the darkness, a withered and rotten shadow silently spread out. This shadow was more weak, damaged, and haggard than the ones before. If it appeared under the light, people would find that this shadow was as thin as a dried-up tree, and even the body was no longer complete. After struggling to break free from the ground, it crawled slowly, ever so slowly, toward Gu Shen.
This shadow was very weak.
But it was still a shadow.
“Dr. Gu… I wasn’t lying to you. I really encountered that strange man. He was hugging a strange stone sculpture,” Qu Shui said. “After that day, it was very difficult for me to sleep… until I went to your clinic.”
Gu Shen frowned. I see. So Qu Shui’s mental fatigue wasn’t just an act.
Sister Xin’s pocket watch could alleviate insomnia in a way, but it couldn’t completely cure it.
Due to the intuition of a transcendent, she had set her sights on him, and at the time, his Blazing Fire had not fully awakened. He had only felt that his power was being snooped on and didn’t realize it was from Qu Shui.
After a moment of silence, Gu Shen repeated his initial question. “How many people have you killed in River Shoal?”
“…” Qu Shui smiled. “Is that important?”
She tilted her head and murmured, “You have that strand of fire and that ruler. We are both existences beyond order, so we should make the rules, right?”
Gu Shen didn’t reply.
“We all have desires, cravings. I just like to collect shadows, that’s all. You must have a similar hobby. What’s wrong with getting the world to make a small concession to satisfy a small wish of ours?”
Again, no reply.
Qu Shui giggled softly and asked, “In that case, are the lives of those people still important? It’s just a game—”
“You shouldn’t be like this,” Gu Shen interrupted Qu Shui.
The girl looked puzzled.
The next moment, her face suddenly distorted in pain, almost reaching a grotesque level.
Gu Shen suddenly stepped back, stomped hard into the darkness, and twisted his toes as though he were extinguishing a cigarette butt!
A hoarse and painful roar came from the darkness.
Immediately after, a ball of Blazing Fire shot out from between Gu Shen’s eyebrows, illuminating the fragile and withered shadow on the ground. The shadow was so damaged that it was barely holding together. Just as it emerged from the ground and was about to raise its hands to bind Gu Shen, he discovered its whereabouts.
“I said, don’t move.” Gu Shen stared at Qu Shui expressionlessly. “Regarding your nonsense theory just now, I don’t understand, and I don’t want to understand.”
The Ruler of Truth had emptied his thoughts.
After he made the slash, his mind had been buzzing incessantly, and he didn’t hear what Qu Shui said at all. He had only caught a few scattered words when his mind calmed down. Just like determining something was dog poop didn’t require tasting it personally, sometimes, confirming that a statement was nonsense didn’t require listening to the whole thing. Just a few words were enough.
Gu Shen was using all his mental power to capture the abnormalities around him.
She probably still didn’t know… what a mental-type transcendent was.
When the broken and feeble shadow left Qu Shui’s father’s skeleton, Gu Shen had already sensed it. He had been processing the backlash of the Ruler of Truth with difficulty while quietly waiting for the arrival of the broken shadow.
It was ridiculous and ironic.
Due to the various abuses when the shadow was alive, this one was the weakest. Qu Shui hadn’t even hoped it would be useful in the battle earlier… Compared to the shadow of the young man hanging on the wall, this should be her most cherished collection, her imprisoned, nailed down, powerless ‘loved one’.
Previously, she didn’t even feel a shred of sadness over the shattered shadows.
But this shadow was different.
This shadow… seemed to have a close connection with her main body.
If he was in pain, she would also be in pain.
Feeling the struggle under his feet, Gu Shen looked at Qu Shui with a complicated gaze.
Was there an innocent, struggling soul hidden in this fragile shadow?
A gust of wind could annihilate it.
A firm press with the toes could crush it.
“No… I was wrong… I was wrong, Dr. Gu!”
After the shadow was stepped on, the girl’s expression suddenly changed. She gave up all resistance and let the silver scissors fall to the ground. She screamed and knelt on the ground. Her bleeding eyes couldn’t see, so she fumbled around like a headless fly.
This girl abandoned all her dignity. After groping around in vain, she kowtowed hard on the ground. “I know I was wrong… I know I was wrong…”
Gu Shen silently took a step back.
He loosened his foot and released the pained shadow.
Swoosh!
Qu Shui, her face covered in blood, hugged her father’s frail and withered shadow tightly and slumped on the ground. Her face was a mixture of blood and tears.
The shadow in her body emerged and also hugged the shadow.
[“You can’t have the slightest mercy when fighting against out-of-control individuals. You have to exert all your strength.”]
Gu Shen recalled Mr. Tree’s teachings.
The out-of-control individuals referred to people who had made serious mistakes in their transcendental cultivation, and their minds were no longer under their control. Before this, they might have been good and kind people, but afterward, they lost their subjective consciousness, and their transcendental instincts took over their bodies’ minds.
As fellow transcendents, it was very easy to be moved by compassion.
Especially for mental-type out-of-control individuals… Merely out of their transcendental instincts, they could manipulate people’s hearts as they pleased.
Therefore, it was crucial for members of the Adjudication Bureau to remember one thing when carrying out missions.
No matter what the considerations were, when facing out-of-control individuals, it was imperative to execute them with firm resolve and never waver!
Once someone lost control, there was no turning back. This was an ironclad rule!
The transcendental essence of these individuals would undergo uncontrollable distortions. Just as Senior Sister Luo had said, they could no longer be regarded as living people.
The broken shadow in Qu Shui’s arms couldn’t resist the summons of her transcendental ability, but its dark face struggled to turn away bit by bit. Finally, it looked at Gu Shen and tried its best to make a whimpering sound.
“…” Gu Shen didn’t understand, but from the Profile, he could roughly sense some emotions.
Let me… release you, Gu Shen whispered softly in his mind.
The silver saber stabbed gently.
Qu Shui fell.
The embracing shadows slowly collapsed into a pool of blood, melting and disintegrating bit by bit, becoming one with the darkness of the night.