Chapter 125: May I Touch Your Blade? (1/3)
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After the battle, Shiratori Saki was like a salted fish emptied of its insides. Leaning against a flimsy door, she gasped loudly, the terror not yet gone from her eyes.
Endless crimson light filled her vision. Before her stood a figure as straight and sturdy as an ancient pine, like a god of slaughter who had emerged from a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood. Terrifying killing intent clung to him as the blade in his hand flashed repeatedly, hacking several black-haired zombies into pieces.
“I never would have guessed that Ito-kun was such a highly skilled swordsman hiding his true abilities. But why would he keep it a secret? Well, no matter what, at least we survived.”
The tension in Shiratori Saki’s nerves eased slightly. Her gaze fell upon the pitch-black long sword in Su Cheng’s hand, a blade that could cut through iron as easily as mud, and she found herself unable to look away.
The black long sword was slightly longer than an ordinary katana, with a gentler curve to its blade. A chilling, sinister gleam flickered along its icy edge. It was practically a perfect work of art.
Shiratori Saki had a rather tomboyish personality. She loved martial arts, fighting, and swords, and her family even collected several famous blades. She had fallen in love with Su Cheng’s sword at first sight.
The icy blade tore through the air. A green-faced, fanged head was flung high into the air, and on the silent country road, a headless corpse crashed heavily to the ground.
At that moment, Su Cheng noticed several tiny cracks had appeared along the blade of Gale Shadow, and his brows drew tightly together.
Although the long sword he carried was peerless in sharpness, it was still only a rare-grade weapon. After enduring so many high-intensity dungeons, it was perfectly normal for it to suffer some damage.
Fortunately, the system possessed a repair function. As long as the weapon had not been completely destroyed, its durability could be restored.
Even so, Su Cheng could feel that as the difficulty of the dungeons increased, rare-grade weapons were gradually becoming inadequate.
After steadying herself, Shiratori Saki stared curiously at the peerlessly sharp sword in Su Cheng’s hand. With an expectant expression, she asked, “Ito-kun, can I touch your sword?”
Su Cheng raised an eyebrow, a strange glint appearing in his eyes. The expression on his face seemed to say, “I consider you a companion, and you want to touch my sword?”
When he showed no reaction, Shiratori Saki pursed her lips in disappointment and muttered, “Letting me touch it won’t make a piece of it fall off. What a cheapskate.”
The moment her voice fell, Shiratori Saki saw Su Cheng charge toward her, his entire body wreathed in killing intent. Her heart gave a jolt, and panic spread across her face.
I only wanted to touch your sword. Was that really a reason to react so violently?
Terror filled Shiratori Saki’s eyes. She widened them and did not dare move an inch, watching helplessly as Su Cheng thrust his sword toward her delicate neck.
Swish!
The next second, foul-smelling blood splattered across Shiratori Saki’s snow-white cheek.
Wail, wail, wail—
A horrifying, bone-chilling cry rang out beside her ear. Impaled on the cold blade was a corpse infant, its entire body blackened and its features twisted into a ferocious mask.
According to ghostly legends, the resentment carried by infants who died prematurely was far heavier than that of ordinary spirits. When an infant’s corpse was corrupted by sinister energy, it could undergo a corpse transformation and become an extraordinarily powerful zombie. Compared with ordinary zombies, corpse infants were far more savage and possessed several unbelievable abilities.
The corpse infant before Su Cheng seemed to possess the ability to become invisible, making it impossible for ordinary people to see with the naked eye. It was only through his Eye of Sin that Su Cheng had detected it quietly approaching Shiratori Saki.
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If he had not reacted quickly, Shiratori Saki would likely already have been drained into a dried corpse.
Looking carefully, the monster appeared to be a newborn infant. What was terrifying was that its skin was blue-black, its blood-red eyes gleamed with murderous intent, and a hideous row of fangs protruded from its rotting mouth.
Its appearance was grotesque, and sinister energy rolled from its body in waves.
“I-Ito-kun, what kind of monster is this?” Shiratori Saki trembled like a frightened quail. She normally did not even dare watch horror movies; when had she ever seen such a hideous and terrifying zombie? The thought that it had just been at her throat sent a chill through her entire body.
“A corpse infant—a zombie formed from the transformed corpse of a dead baby. The sinister energy around these zombies is extremely heavy, and they possess the ability to become invisible. They are not easy to deal with.”
As he spoke, the expression on the corpse infant’s face grew increasingly savage. Suddenly, it let out a hysterical, terrifying shriek.
A frightening wave of sound swept in every direction. Shrieking under its influence, Shiratori Saki was nearly scared into wetting herself.
Caught off guard, Su Cheng’s mind wavered for an instant.
In that brief moment of distraction, the monster’s figure flashed and vanished from his sight.
“Trying to escape?”
At that moment, a string of black footprints remained on the country road before Su Cheng.
His gaze suddenly turned cold. This corpse infant was no ordinary monster. If he allowed it to escape and absorb enough sinister energy, it would surely return to seek revenge.
When cutting the weeds, one must pull out the roots as well!
With a furious roar, he stamped his foot against the ground, and a powerful surge of spiritual energy burst out from beneath him. His figure became a fleeting shadow as he rapidly caught up with the corpse infant.
Under the scrutiny of the Eye of Sin, the corpse infant’s ghostly form was completely exposed.
But just as Su Cheng swung his sword at the terrifying corpse infant, intending to destroy the menace once and for all, a blazing mass of fire suddenly descended from the sky and struck it with perfect accuracy.
With a thunderous boom, the flames exploded, and a heart-rending wail reverberated throughout the village.
The corpse infant was instantly refined by the searing fire, leaving behind only a pool of black corpse oil that gave off a nauseating stench.
“Someone stole my kill!”
Seeing this, Su Cheng frowned and grew secretly wary.
Before long, a slender figure slowly emerged from the hazy night and appeared before Su Cheng and Shiratori Saki.
“Who are you?”
Su Cheng placed one hand on the hilt of his sword, his cold eyes sharp as lightning.
In the sky, a strange azure ghost moon cast a sinister shadow over the land. A short-haired monk dressed in black clerical robes walked toward them beneath the moonlight.
“A monk?”
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The expression on Su Cheng’s face shifted slightly. He sensed a fairly powerful fluctuation of spiritual energy coming from the monk. If his guess was correct, this monk should be an onmyoji.
“There is no need for the two of you to be nervous. I am Ichinen, an onmyoji from Hozenji Temple. I happened to pass through this village and sensed the presence of monsters, so I came to take a look.”
Master Ichinen was still young, with delicate features, red lips, and pearly teeth. His eyes seemed to ripple with light, and he was even more beautiful than many girls.
If Su Cheng had not possessed the unwavering will of an utterly straight man, this master might well have turned him.
However, Su Cheng did not quite believe Master Ichinen’s claim that he had merely happened to pass by and sensed something unusual about the village. He remained secretly on guard.
“Master Ichinen, I am a police officer from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, and this is my colleague. Everyone in this village has undergone a corpse transformation. Those monsters you saw just now were the result. We should leave immediately and return to headquarters for reinforcements.”
Shiratori Saki had not the slightest suspicion of Master Ichinen. Her face filled with unease as she spoke.
Master Ichinen, however, shook his head helplessly. “When I arrived, I discovered that someone had erected a barrier around this village, cutting it off from the real world. My spiritual power is insufficient to break through it. I am afraid leaving this place will not be simple.”
“How could this happen?”
Hearing Master Ichinen’s words, Shiratori Saki’s unease grew stronger and stronger. The oppressive atmosphere of terror made it difficult for her to breathe.
“However, leaving this place is not entirely impossible. If we can find the core of the barrier and destroy it, we will be able to escape.”
After thinking for a moment, Su Cheng continued, “If my deduction is correct, the core should be located in the place with the densest sinister energy in the village.”
“Ummmm… I don’t understand any of that.”
Shiratori Saki wore a completely blank expression, looking as though she understood nothing yet found it all profoundly impressive.
“In other words, the place with the heaviest yin energy—somewhere like a funeral home or a graveyard.”
Shiratori Saki immediately understood. “I remember there used to be an abandoned graveyard nearby, though it has been deserted for a long time. Is that where you think we should go?”
“That is possible,” Master Ichinen said, after considering it for a moment.
“But do we really have to go to that abandoned graveyard? I heard it is supposed to be terrifying.” Shiratori Saki trembled. She never wanted to encounter another one of those hideous zombies.
Suddenly, Su Cheng and Master Ichinen both changed expression.
From the abandoned graveyard southeast of the village, a column of black smoke surged into the sky. Terrifying sinister energy erupted, and beneath the graveyard, something horrifying seemed about to emerge into the world.
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