“What… What the hell is going on here?” Xiao Yang gulped. His lips were blue with fear.
“I don’t know, I’m not sure, don’t ask me!” Ye Qing shook his head and quipped a triple denial. It was the truth though. Just like Xiao Yang, all he saw was the You soldiers looking over the bridge, recoiling in fear, and dying in all sorts of bizarre ways. He had instinctively glanced at the direction they were looking at, but he couldn’t see anything that might have scared them to death, literally. All he saw was a bunch of clouds.
It wasn’t long before all the soldiers were dead. Their dead bodies and the pools of blood turned what was a beautiful scenery into a horror show. Then, just as abruptly as they had appeared at the beginning, the clouds churned, and they all disappeared like they never were.
“They’re… gone?!” Xiao Yang blinked a couple times in disbelief. “Is it finally over?”
But Ye Qing shook his head with a severe expression. “No. I think it has just begun!”
Xiao Yang followed Ye Qing’s gaze and looked over the bridge. He immediately noticed that the clouds were no longer floating peacefully like they used to. Instead, they were twisted and turned restlessly as if something massive and terrifying was swimming underneath the clouds.
Both men tensed up for some sort of horror to emerge from the depths, but a few seconds later, they realized that nothing was happening. Ye Qing let out a sigh of relief before urging, “Let’s get to the other side while it’s still safe!”
“Yeah!” Xiao Yang nodded and took a single step. Ye Qing did the same thing as well. As soon as they did this, Ye Qing abruptly shuddered and stared down the bridge in horror. It was because a corpse had suddenly appeared on the clouds. Its face was contorted in terror, and its eyes were bulging out of its eye sockets. Its tongue extended all the way down to its stomach not unlike someone who had died by hanging. The corpse was none other than himself!
“Gulp…” Ye Qing swallowed audibly. Unless he was gravely mistaken, the You soldiers must have witnessed their own dead bodies as well. That was why they had lost their composure so badly. Anyone would be shocked and terrified after meeting their own doppelganger, much less one who had died in such a horrifying fashion.
“Ahhhh!? W-Why is my dead body down there?” It was at this moment Xiao Yang let out a cry of terror. Clearly, he had seen his own corpse beneath the bridge as well. Suddenly, the man stiffened as if an invisible force had trapped him in place. Then, his head slowly turned toward his back. Ye Qing could only watch in horror as Xiao Yang struggled with all his might to no avail. Eventually—
Xiao Yang’s neck broke with an audible snap, and his head spun two full revolutions before it finally came to a stop.
Ye Qing thought that this was the end of Xiao Yang, but the Astral Refiner abruptly vanished in a poof and left a mysterious doll behind. The mysterious doll was small enough to fit on a palm, but it had baby-like skin and flesh and a life-like expression. It almost looked like it was alive.
It was at this moment the mysterious doll’s head spun around twice. The doll was still alive, however. Its face simply turned purple as if it couldn’t breathe. The doll then grabbed its head with its fat little hands and twisted it back to normal. Then, it started running toward Xiao Yang, who had reappeared a short distance away from it.
That wasn’t the end of the horror show, however. As it ran, the doll suddenly started bleeding out of its eyes, and an invisible force continued to twist its neck round and round. When it was just three inches away from Xiao Yang, the invisible force pulled its head right off its shoulders. The next moment, the mysterious doll exploded into smithereens, but instead of flesh and blood it spilled some sort of milky white worm that was about the length of a finger.
Substitute Worms… That’s the Substitute Doll!
The milky white worm was a Malice-class Stranger called the Substitute Worm. It could be refined and used to block non-fatal damage on behalf of its user. On the other hand, the Substitute Doll was a Strange Artifact that could only be made via an extremely cruel method.
Two ingredients were necessary when making the Substitute Doll. The first one was, of course, the Substitute Worms, and the second one was an unborn fetus that was ten months old. The mother of the baby was continuously fed with Substitute Worms so that they would consume and replace the baby completely, forming the Substitute Doll. After the Substitute Doll was fully formed, it was simply a matter of cutting it out of the mother’s stomach.
As the Substitute Doll was born like a human, it was semi-sentient and capable of blocking fatal damage for the owner.
Chen Cang’s Scapedoll could only block one fatal damage for its owner, but the Scapedoll could be used repeatedly so long as it wasn’t completely destroyed. It would recover naturally so long as the owner fed it Substitute Worms and cared for it for a time. Therefore, it was infinitely more valuable than the Scapedoll.
However, the method used to make the Substitute Doll was so cruel that the imperial count and many noble clans denounced it as heresy and put a ban on it. Only heretics and people who cared nothing for human lives would make a Substitute Doll.
The second the Substitute Doll was destroyed, Xiao Yang abruptly spat out a mouthful of blood and turned as pale as death. It was because the Strange Artifact was connected to him by his heart’s blood.
It was at this moment Xiao Yang saw something else beneath the bridge and opened his mouth to scream again. But before he could do so, Ye Qing put a finger to his own lips and shook his head rapidly.
Xiao Yang was a Astral Refiner, so he wasn’t so weak-willed that he couldn’t even keep his mouth shut. He immediately clamped a hand over his mouth.
Ye Qing sucked in a deep breath and took another step. As soon as he did this, a new corpse surfaced from the clouds. Again it was his own body, but this time it looked like it had been torn from limb to limb.
I was right! Ye Qing was both relieved and glad that his guess was spot on. Earlier, he noticed that the You soldiers had all screamed in terror before the Anomaly took action. It was the same for Xiao Yang as well. On the other hand, he remained perfectly unharmed. That was why he guessed that only those who screamed after they saw their dead bodies would trigger the Anomaly.
But of course, he wouldn’t know if his guess was true until he tested it out, so he forced himself to stay calm and performed an experiment. Thankfully, he was right. So long as he kept silent, the Anomaly could not harm him no matter how many bodies it generated.
Ye Qing took another step, and a new body appeared. This time, it was a drowned corpse that looked as inflated as a balloon. However, nothing happened to him because he remained silent. Now, he was absolutely certain of his theory.
By now, Xiao Yang had figured out the key to surviving this Anomaly as well. While keeping a tight grip over his mouth, he took a step forward and forced himself to stay silent when a new body rose from the depths of the clouds. Just like Ye Qing, nothing bad happened to him. The duo moved quickly after that, and it wasn’t long before they crossed the bridge and reached the other side.
Both men heaved out a long sigh of relief once they were safe. When they looked back, they saw all kinds of corpses still floating above the clouds. It was like a gallery of the one thousand ways to die: drowning, burning, hanging, falling, dismemberment, torture... It was creepy to put it mildly.
It was at this moment the clouds churned once more, and eyeballs suddenly appeared beneath the bodies. Or rather, the bodies had been inside the eyeballs this whole time! Each eyeball held exactly one body and manner of death!
A few seconds later, the eyeballs slowly closed their eyes. Naturally, the bodies were gone as well. Then, what looked like a gigantic shadow sank deeper into the clouds and vanished completely.
“What… what was that thing?”
When the clouds had returned to normal, and neither man could sense any danger anymore, Xiao Yang finally mustered enough courage to ask a question. He looked more shaken than Ye Qing had ever seen him.
Ye Qing licked his dry lips and shrugged. “Do I look like I know what that is to you? That said, I remember reading a file stating that a surprising number of travelers had gone missing in Coiled Snake Ridge, but no one has ever found out why. It’s most likely because of this Anomaly.”
“We can mull over this after we get off this mountain ridge, yeah?” Xiao Yang said impatiently and gave him a slap on the shoulder. “I’m still feeling the creeps, and I do not want to find out if my intuition is correct!”
“Yeah. Let’s leave.” Ye Qing had no intention of staying either. Both men immediately took off at their fastest possible speed. It wasn’t until Coiled Snake Ridge was completely behind them that they finally relaxed. It couldn’t be helped. That Anomaly just now was beyond bizarre, and it was pure luck that they had survived. Hell, it was completely up to daddy heavens whether weaklings like them could survive an Anomaly at all.
Xiao Yang let out a long sigh of relief and smiled. “Thank the heavens that’s behind us. Let’s make haste and find a place to stay. The sky’s almost dark, and I can use a drink to celebrate our survival!”
“I would agree, but we’re still a good distance from Jade Spring Village, and it doesn’t look like there’s an inn nearby…” Ye Qing looked around once before looking up at the clouded sky. “Also, it looks like it might rain very soon. I think we’ll have to sleep in a cave for the night!”
“Dammit, fine!” Xiao Yang nodded and started looking around. The good news was that they found an abandoned temple not long after they began their search. The bad news was that it looked like something straight out of a horror movie. The walls were cracked, the courtyard was overgrown with weed, the icon was tattered beyond recognition, and cobwebs were everywhere.
There was one thing that stood out compared to the rest of the building though. There was a wall that was covered in paintings of flying women. It was perfectly clean and unblemished as if someone had wiped it down everyday. Obviously suspicious, Ye Qing and Xiao Yang inspected it closely but could not find anything amiss. It probably was just a normal painting. So, they settled in the abandoned temple and tidied up the place a little.
They had just started a fire when a drizzle finally began to fall from the darkened sky.
“Have a drink, brother! It’ll warm you right up!”
Xiao Yang tossed a wine jar in Ye Qing’s direction and took a sip from his own wine. He looked so comfortable he could doze off this second.
Ye Qing caught the wine jar and produced the jerkies he had prepared beforehand. A sip here, a sweet jerky there, this is the life!
Alas, the peace was shattered when the door to the temple abruptly exploded into smithereens like it was struck by a tremendous force. A cold, watery wind blew into the temple instantly.
“Motherfucker! This rain came out of fucking nowhere! I’m completely wet!” A coarse, uncouth voice came from outside.
“Yeah, it’s pretty cold. Thank the heavens there’s a temple here. Let’s get inside and warm up with some wine already!”
A group of sixteen men filed into the room immediately. They didn’t just look powerful, not even the rain was enough to dispel the blood stench clinging to their bodies. It was obvious they were no one to be trifled with.
One man stood out among them all, however. He had a thick beard on his face and looked as brawny as a tiny hill. He was also clad in a wolfskin that made him look like a man-shaped brute. His eyes were what really drew attention though. They were dark green unlike most humans, and they glowed in the dark like a pair of cold, eerie lanterns.
The big man spotted Ye Qing and Xiao Yang immediately after he entered the temple. When he squinted, a sharp glint flashed across his eyes not like the edge of a sharp blade.
“It’s not empty?” One subordinate following behind the big man exclaimed in surprise when he saw Ye Qing and Xiao Yang. He shuffled closer to his leader and whispered, “Boss, should we…”
He made a cutting motion in front of his neck. His meaning was obvious.
“They’re two men camping out in the middle of nowhere. Do you really think they’d be easy to deal with? Control yourself!” The big man whispered back.
“Yes, boss!” The subordinate replied with a tinge of disappointment.