Stranger Danger

“It always amazes me how small fries think that their petty tricks would kill me.”

Ye Qing smirked in ridicule and disdain as he stared at the layers and layers of invisible hair surrounding him from all sides.

His eyes slowly turned black as tar, and he tapped the space in front of him like he was knocking on the gate of heavens.

Buzz…

A strange vibration washed over the web of hair, shaking them a little like the wind. It looked like Ye Qing had done nothing at all, but the next moment, every strand of hair began snapping as if they were under great duress.

The hair had snapped into two soundlessly in the real world, but inside Thousand Feet Inferior’s headspace? It was like a thunderstorm was brewing inside his head. Every time a strand of hair broke, a thunderclap would break out and stun his thoughts. When the rest of his hair snapped in unison, all he could hear was rumbling thunder.

By the time it all ended, Thousand Feet Inferior’s headspace was in total chaos, and his Yin God was damaged beyond recognition. Outside his headspace, he stared at the smirking young man with widened eyes, opened his mouth as if he tried to say something, but collapsed before he could get anything out. He was dead.

“Heavens…”

In the shadows, everyone who was watching the battle and thinking about playing the fisherman gasped inaudibly when Thousand Feet Inferior collapsed to the ground. The chill spreading from their core was such that the flame of greed flickering inside their heart was snuffed out in an instant.

Ye Qing ignored the gazes around him and walked up to Thousand Feet Inferior’s lifeless corpse and waved his hand. After the man’s Nature’s Shell floated into his palm, he turned around and began walking back toward the outskirts.

After Ye Qing was gone, the hiding warriors finally emerged from the shadows and glanced at Thousand Feet Inferior’s corpse. Then, every single one of them rushed toward the memorial hall as if they had communicated their action beforehand.

That wasn’t the case, of course. They were running in unison simply because they happened to share the same thought: if the pair of bells hanging outside the roof were already this powerful, then what about the items stored inside the memorial hall?

Surely they would be even more valuable, right?

Although they didn’t know why that young but powerful warrior hadn’t entered the memorial hall, they saw no reason to give up on their fortune. That was why they rushed inside the memorial hall as soon as Ye Qing was gone.

“Hahaha! I knew there would be treasures inside!”

“Heavens… there are so many…”

“I’m rich! I’m rich!”

Everyone was expecting to find at least one or two treasures inside the memorial hall, but what they found still stole their breath away. It was because the exterior of the building did not match the interior at all.

They saw portraits glowing with spiritual power on the walls.

They saw radiant ritual objects sitting at the corners of the room.

They saw censers with hidden power sitting next to the offering tables.

They saw all sorts of spiritual fruits just lying on the floor.

Even the murals on the walls and the floor were twinkling slightly with power.

“Hahaha… it’s mine… all mine!”

One man could not resist laughing out loud when he saw the hoard of treasures in front of him. However, his laughter came to a swift and sudden end when a hand punched through his back and out of his chest. When he looked down, he saw a bloody hand gripping his still beating heart in its grasp.

A second later, the hand tightened and crushed his heart like an overripe fruit.

“Hmph. That’s what I thought.”

An eerie, ridiculing voice behind the man’s back.

The blood and voice were like a spark that lit the fuse of greed and bloodthirst in everyone’s heart. The next moment, everyone began fighting and spilling each other’s blood in the memorial hall; a place that should’ve been filled with peace, calm and tranquility. The bodies began to pil up rapidly.

No one noticed that the memorial tablets slowly began to bleed like they were alive, however. They were also shaking slightly.

It was as if they were weeping, vengeful spirits.

“Stop! Something’s not right! Stop fighting now!”

Finally, someone noticed the anomaly happening inside the memorial hall and called for a ceasefire. The survivors noticed the bleeding, trembling memorial tablets and felt an involuntary chill in their spine despite themselves.

“Hmph! It’s just some memorial tablets. Watch me!” [1]

The atmosphere was growing oppressive when a big, muscular man with a thick mustache let out a grunt and stepped out. He kicked a corpse blocking his way to the side before swinging his massive axe at the memorial tablets.

Boom!

The altar carrying the memorial tablets instantly exploded into smithereens. Most of the memorial tablets were either broken or thrown off by the impact as well.

“See? There’s nothing to be scared of, you cowards.” The big man scoffed in disdain while putting his axe back on his shoulders.

As if on cue, the big man suddenly trembled for seemingly no reason, and blood streamed down his widened, shocked eyes. Then, he let out a bloodcurdling scream.

As he screamed, bulges began growing out of the big man’s forehead, face, neck, limbs—his whole body, really. It was almost as if something was attempting to push their way out of his flesh and blood.

“Ahhhh! Ahhhhhh! AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”

The big man kept screaming, but he was unable to move a muscle as if someone had cast an immobilization spell on him, much less stop whatever was happening to him from happening. He could only watch in helplessness and despair as the bulges kept growing bigger.

No one tried to help him. They all seemed too shocked by this sudden occurrence to lend a hand.

Pssh!

Finally, the man’s flesh split open and sprayed blood everywhere. A sharp object crawled out of the big man’s forehead and stretched upward.

A few breaths later, it became clear exactly what the object was. It was… a memorial tablet. One that was exactly the same as the memorial tablets placed on the memorial altar earlier. The only difference was that the memorial tablets on the altar had names, birth dates and death dates inscribed on their surfaces, and the one that just pushed its way out of the big man’s body was blank.

As the spine-chilling noise of ripping flesh continued to resound throughout the memorial hall, more and more memorial tablets pushed their way out of the big man’s body. They were all blank.

In just the blink of an eye, the big man was completely covered in memorial tablets.

Right now, it felt as if the big man had become the memorial altar. Just one that was made of flesh, blood and bone.

Maybe it was because of the man’s terrible screams, maybe it was because of the sounds of the memorial tablets tearing through flesh and blood, maybe it was because of the swarm of memorial tablets covering the big man like mushrooms, or maybe it was because of all of the above. In any case, not a single person in the room could say a word for a time.

The memorial tablets did not stop growing until they had reached the pedestal. Naturally, the big man resembled a pincushion that was bleeding all over.

Even so, the big man was still alive and screaming at the top of his lungs. Painful, tragic, and horrified, it was such a scream that even the most indifferent man could not help but empathize with the big man.

“Look! The tablets… they’re…”

Someone exclaimed in surprise. When the warriors turned to look, they saw rows and rows of blood text appearing on the once blank surface of the memorial tablets.

“Zhong Zhen, born at 3 pm on May 12th in the third year of Lingfeng, died at 1.15 pm on March 3 in the fifth year of Chunhua.”

“Gong Xiangzhao, born at 9.45 am on December 5th in the sixth year of Wulong, died at 1.15 pm on March 3rd in the sixth year of Jingrui.”

“Yu Dazai, born at 11.30 pm on April 9th in the ninth year of Qingyuan, died at 1.15 pm on March 3rd in the sixth year of Jingrui.”

“Suo Yidao, born at…”

……

“Zhong Zhen? That’s me! That’s my birth date as well!”

A man exclaimed in bewilderment as he stared at the bloody text on one of the memorial tablets.

“Gong Xiangzhao… that’s me!”

“I’m Yu Duzai…”

“My… my name is Suo Yidao…”

“Why are our names and birth dates appearing on the memorial tablets?”

“That’s not all! There’s a death date as well! 1.15 pm on March 3 in the fifth year of Chunhua… 1.15 pm on March 3rd in the sixth year of Jingrui[2]… that’s today, isn’t it?”

1. You know, I’m honestly confused how Ye Qing barely made it to this Strange Realm (at least I think it’s a Strange Realm) when idiots and weaklings at this guy’s level made it here. But what do I know I’m not the author. ☜

2. This is mentioned in the