My lord, this is the place.
The woman stopped before a gate. Compared with the gates of ordinary villagers, this one looked somewhat imposing. But to Wu Ling, who had spent six years living in Spirit City, it was merely passable.
Good. Step back, but do not go too far. Three to five meters is enough.
Wu Ling told the woman to step away because he wanted to guard against her. But no matter how he looked at her, she seemed like an ordinary person, so he only guarded against her to a limited extent. If he found no clues on Galen Holdfast, then as the only existing clue, she could not be allowed to run. That was why he set the distance at three to five meters.
Once the woman backed off, Wu Ling kicked the gate. The wooden gate shattered at once. At the same instant, a pair of blue-green hands suddenly pierced through the broken door and grabbed toward Wu Ling's ankle.
Wu Ling's eyes sharpened. He had clearly sensed no Spirit Power behind the door, but those hands, and the figure gradually appearing through the dust, told him one thing clearly: this was a person.
Ember, who had already been prepared, leapt out of Wu Ling's shadow. Wu Ling and Ember instantly switched places. Then Ember dodged the grab by returning to Wu Ling's body.
All of this happened in only a few seconds. On the surface, Wu Ling seemed unharmed, but before the battle had even begun, one of his life-saving tricks had already been exposed to the enemy.
Behind him, the woman had collapsed to the ground in fright. Wu Ling had kept part of his attention on her the entire time, and that reaction filled him with doubt.
If she and the thing inside had attacked me from both sides just now, even with the clone-swap Spirit Skill, I would have taken at least some injury. But her behavior right now really is no different from an ordinary person.
Her body, which has not a trace of essence left, clearly says she is dead. But everything she does is almost indistinguishable from a living person. Even if this is for the sake of gaining my trust, why would the mastermind go this far?
While Wu Ling's thoughts raced, the figure walked out from inside the gate. The moment Wu Ling saw it clearly, his brows furrowed. Surprise and disgust flashed through his eyes, but anger was stronger than both.
The thing stood almost three meters tall. Its skin was mostly blue-green and covered with corpse spots large and small. But more than the bruised color and corpse spots, what Wu Ling cared about were the stitch-like scars covering its body.
Its face matched what the woman had described: the eye sockets held no eyeballs. But the thick, long arms that almost reached its ankles when it stood upright, and the swollen belly rising high from its body, were things the woman had never mentioned.
The monster first opened its mouth as if roaring, but no sound came out. Then it swung its gibbon-like arms and slapped toward Wu Ling.
Wu Ling sidestepped, then slashed at the monster's neck.
With Rose's Reinforcement Magecraft, that long blade was sharp enough to wound an ordinary ten-thousand-year Soul Beast. Yet the instant it touched the monster's neck, it met resistance.
To Wu Ling, it felt as if he were cutting through a huge pile of plastic bags with a dull knife.
He wanted to pull the blade free and strike again, but even though it had only cut a few centimeters in, the weapon was stuck like a kitchen knife jammed into a chopping block.
The monster looked bloated, but it was terrifyingly agile. Its other arm looped around behind its own back and reached toward Wu Ling from an angle so strange it barely seemed human.
With no better choice, Wu Ling abandoned the long blade. Fortunately, the weapon was part of his Spirit Skill. As the blade stuck in the monster's body dissolved into countless particles, Wu Ling reached into his yellow first Spirit Ring and drew out two fresh blades.
He threw one into his shadow for Rose to enchant and used the other to keep fighting.
From then on, Wu Ling relied on his movement technique and swaps with Azure and Ember to dodge the monster's attacks. After every dodge, he sacrificed one long blade to open another cut on the monster's neck.
When the twelfth blade struck the monster's neck, Wu Ling suddenly realized he could pull it back out.
Before he could feel relief, the monster's whole body began to tremble violently. Afraid it was about to unleash a major move, Wu Ling hurriedly retreated with his blade until he was seven meters away.
After backing off, Wu Ling found that the monster was not using a major move. Instead, the circle of wounds he had cut around its neck was slowly widening. The skin all across its body began to surge like waves, as if something inside wanted to burst free.
Wu Ling waited, but nothing burst out. What came instead was an explosion.
Yes. When the wounds around the monster's neck connected into a full circle, the monster suddenly exploded.
Something unknown shot toward Wu Ling in the blast. At first, he thought it was a chunk of flesh, but when he blocked it with his blade, he realized he was terribly wrong.
It was not a chunk of flesh at all. It was a sheet of human skin. More precisely, it was the monster's facial skin.
After Wu Ling saw what it was, he looked back at the monster and found that the thing that had just exploded was still standing there. Only its face had changed into that of a woman.
There is another layer of skin?
Aside from the face, the female-faced monster's body had also burst open, but it had not changed much. The wound on its neck had become imperceptibly shallower. Then, after another surge, the monster exploded again.
It exploded ten times in total, and each time, its appearance changed.
Wu Ling had originally planned to take advantage of the explosions and rush in for a few more cuts, but when he drew near, he discovered that aside from skin, the monster also sprayed a pale yellow, sticky fluid similar to bodily fluid whenever it burst.
In the end, because of his mild obsession with cleanliness, Wu Ling simply stood there and watched it explode until all ten layers were gone.
After the repeated explosions, the monster's body had not shrunk. On the contrary, it seemed to have swelled slightly.
More importantly, the wound around its neck was still there, but it had become as thin as a needle mark.
Looking at the monster after it finished shedding, Wu Ling tightened his grip around the blade. His voice was low, anger pressed beneath every word.
No wonder the sensation felt wrong when I cut you. No wonder I did not meet a single villager on the way here. No wonder I could not sense the Spirit Power hidden deep inside your body. So this is why.
You are wearing the skin of every villager in this village. Nearly a hundred layers of skin for defense, nearly a hundred layers of skin for concealment. That is how a monster like you was made.
After speaking, Wu Ling took his stance.
I have decided. I will send you on your way directly.
The monster seemed to feel Wu Ling's provocation. With a silent roar, it charged again.