Chapter 649: Chapter 523: Trust
Through the Mirror World, Yang Xiao noticed the man seemed to hear something, swiftly lifting his head to look toward the door, yet Yang Xiao pricked up his ears and heard nothing.
The man quickly stuffed the envelope back under the bed, moved to the door with caution, and pressed his ear against it. After a brief moment, evidently discovering nothing unusual, he slowly turned around and walked back to the bed—a scene all too familiar to the onlooker, Yang Xiao.
Sure enough, before the man could even sit down, he abruptly spun around, his eyes wide with terror as he stared at the bathroom. At the same time, Yang Xiao clearly saw the old wooden bathroom door quivering for no apparent reason. It all felt extremely familiar, as if he were watching a silent film.
There was no mistaking it; after he had eluded the ghost, it had found the man donned in mourning attire. What the man was experiencing was nearly identical to what Yang Xiao had encountered not long before.
The man in mourning attire clearly misunderstood the situation. He gradually approached the bathroom door and softly called out, "Little brother, is that you?"
Despite his words, his actions were anything but courteous. The water sleeves of his mourning attire clenched in his palm, muscles tensed under his clothes, ready to strike as soon as the door opened to cut Yang Xiao down once and for all. Unfortunately, there was no Yang Xiao in the bathroom—only a ghost.
Seeing no response from the inside, the man lifted his leg and delivered a standard side kick, breaking the already frail wooden door. In the next second, a white water sleeve shot out like an arrow, heavily striking the bathroom cabinet behind the door. In the blink of an eye, the wooden cabinet decayed at a visibly rapid rate until it collapsed into a pile of rotten wood.
The man’s attack was undeniably forceful, and with two magic artifacts at his side, Yang Xiao deduced that this fellow must have at least an upper middle Fierce Grade level of ability. Even if not quite on par with Venerable Jile and City God Master, he wasn’t far behind. It was unclear which faction’s expert he was, but using the ghost against him today was certainly the right choice.
Barging into the bathroom and not finding a trace of Yang Xiao, the man grew panicked. What made him even more frantic were the marks of a sharp weapon chopping behind the bathroom door—a thing unlikely to have been done by a person. It had to be a ghost, definitely a ghost!!
It was at that moment the man realized Yang Xiao hadn’t lied to him; there indeed was a ghost hunting him down from behind, and Yang Xiao’s sudden disappearance meant the ghost had lost its target and now, the ghost had set its sights on him!
No, the purpose of this person was to draw the ghost to himself. Recalling the content of the envelope, the man immediately identified Yang Xiao’s identity—he was a resident living in the same apartment building, the one residing in room 1047!
What a clever move to divert disaster eastward, using himself to escape from the ghost’s pursuit. The man gritted his teeth in hatred—this kid was malicious and meticulous; he couldn’t be left unchecked!
However, now was not the time to settle scores with Yang Xiao. He had been targeted by the ghost, a fact that could not be changed. He had to survive the ghost’s attack.
For the man, the best escape plan was to find another decoy. But with limited time, he couldn’t run far and could only consider someone else in the building. However, building 3 housed only two people, and since the other person had managed to attract the ghost, he would naturally guard against a repeat trick to send the ghost back. Therefore, he concluded that Yang Xiao must not be in his room right now. Room 1047 was empty, going there would be futile.
With no other options, he had to brace himself. Confident in his abilities, the water sleeve mourning attire he wore had been stripped from the body of a long-renowned Great Heretic Cultivator and provided top-notch protection. Combined with the stilts he wore, if he could withstand the ghost’s first wave of attacks and the ghost then left, he would survive.
The man in mourning attire chose to stay in the room and observe the situation. A minute later, his attention was drawn to the closet. Accompanied by the sounds of axes chopping through flesh and bone, the firmly shut closet doors trembled violently. The man did not approach any door or window, which looked dangerous; instead, he stepped onto his stilts and leaped onto the bed.
At that instant, Yang Xiao’s vision seemed to blur, and he thought he saw the man in mourning attire’s body duplicating, with 3 or 4 iterations of the man jumping onto the bed with speed perceptible to the naked eye, eventually overlapping into one person.
No, that wasn’t a trick of the eye; it was the man’s ability related to the stilts beneath his feet!
Before Yang Xiao could think further, the man in mourning attire abruptly looked down at the bed. Yang Xiao knew that the ghost had arrived beneath the bed.
Outside the door, in the bathroom, in the closet, beneath the bed... the ghost was drawing closer and closer. In the next second, the man in mourning attire’s body twisted strangely—one foot remained still as his body turned counterclockwise a half-circle with his right foot leading the motion. Yang Xiao widened his eyes in surprise, only to see that aside from the man who spun, another identical man was left in the original spot, repeating the action a total of three times. There were now 4 men in mourning attire standing on the bed, each with the same appearance and posture.
All four "men" caused indentations on the soft bed; it was impossible to distinguish the real one with the naked eye alone.
Of these four, only one was real. Although this sort of trick was nearly useless against Yang Xiao’s Ghost Lantern, for an Angel Envoy without an illusion-breaking magic device, it was incredibly tricky to handle. Fighting and suddenly facing 4 duplicates of the opponent was unimaginable.
After the four men appeared, they immediately sprang into action. The two closest to the door leaped down and charged towards it, upon opening the door, they split up, one to the left and one to the right, fleeing in separate directions. The remaining two on the bed stood motionless like mountains, with rigid gazes, like abandoned puppets.
