Chapter 67: Chapter 67—You Just Have Brute Strength
Chapter 67—You Just Have Brute Strength
The ice crept upward past Lei Cheng’s knees, reaching for his thighs. He rubbed his forehead, focusing his senses—nothing. No sound, no sight, no smell. His senses had been muted entirely. He could still feel his own body, the warmth pooling within it, but the outside world had simply vanished. It felt less like blindness and more like being buried alive.
He wrapped his arms around himself as the chill worked to freeze that inner heat away.
"Kekeke." A sharp female laugh cut through the silence. He turned to find a woman draped in a white robe, her face hidden behind long black hair, floating with her legs entirely absent—half her body dissolving into pure nothingness.
She dropped to the ground with a crack, crawling forward on clawed hands, her head twisting a full circle, hair drifting upward as if gravity no longer applied to her. Every movement deliberately ignored the natural laws his mind expected.
’What kind of ability is this?’ Lei Cheng clicked his tongue. He’d seen illusion powers from Bizarre foxes before, but this felt different. ’It seems shadow manipulation and using fear itself.’ His Life Intent and Supreme Nine Yang sat ready to detonate at a moment’s notice, but he held back.
Another woman flashed directly in front of his face, screaming, "Ahhhh!" He stumbled backward, falling onto the ground, shaking his head rapidly. "Didn’t see that one coming. This is beyond my senses entirely."
For a split second, he instinctively nearly triggered his Nine Yang Intent. He exhaled and stood back up, watching the second woman with her head turned upside down, grinning in an eerie, chilling tone, "Gegegege."
His heart raced briefly—then calmed within moments. He snapped his fingers. "Shadow creature. Is that really all you’ve got?" If this was its greatest manipulation, then it had already failed to understand its prey.
He hadn’t been afraid—just startled by the suddenness of it. ’I’m stronger than that thing. Why would I fear it?’ A faint smile spread across his face. The ice around his legs had broken away from his movement. ’Of course—it’s not trying to actually hurt me. It’s still bound by the seven-hour time. I still have plenty of time to even save the kids.’
He folded his arms and faced the crawling women calmly. "Go ahead. Show me what you’ve got."
Above, the Shadow observed through its crimson eye, tilting its round head. ’What’s wrong with this kid? He’s not scared of ghosts at all.’ It mused.
It paused for a few moments, rubbing its round head. "Human children usually fear their parents’ punishment most." It grinned, black saliva stringing between its cracked mouth. It wasn’t creating random nightmares anymore—it was selecting the ones most likely to succeed.
Minutes passed. Another woman popped up beside Lei Cheng’s ear and screamed, "AHHH!"
"My ear. Don’t scream loudly." He merely stepped aside, rubbing his ear, expression unchanged.
The woman before him dissolved into fog, and so did the rest, reforming into a handsome young man in a blue brocade robe—Lei Cheng’s own illusory father, the very disguise he’d used earlier to trap the creature.
Lei Cheng clicked his tongue as the illusion raised a stick and swung. "Watch what you’re doing, kid!"
He caught the stick effortlessly. "Shadow, I know this isn’t my father at all. Stop the theatrics." The moment it became predictable, it had stopped being frightening.
The Shadow scowled, half its face twisting. It focused every sense on Lei Cheng. ’Nothing. This brat carries no power at all. He’s not a Bizarre Cultivator.’ It paused. ’Is his resolve really this strong?’
It shook its head. "Let’s take this to the real world, then." It snapped its black, foggy fingers, and the shadow illusion shattered like glass around them.
Lei Cheng found himself back in the underground tunnel, and the fainted children were scattered nearby. Above him, ten Shadow clones floated, one still scribbling notes.
"The last child needs testing," the note-taker announced, tossing the paper aside. Its mouth split open, and a tentacle-tongue lashed out, coiling tight around Lei Cheng’s chest.
"Let’s see if this scares you," it grinned, wrapping him in Bizarre Qi and hauling him skyward, bursting up through the same muddy passage they’d entered by. The Shadows had quietly abandoned fear alone. Now they wanted desperation as well.
Lei Cheng watched the city shrink beneath him as they climbed. At the peak of their ascent, the Shadow released him. "Now—let’s see if you stay calm without a net." As he began to fall, Lei Cheng laughed. "So this is your plan?"
He snapped his fingers as he plummeted, a green vine forming below the street ground and stopped right when it touched the edge. ’I’m not foolish enough to bet my life on this creature’s whims. What if it decides to just break its own Bizarre Rule and end me right now?’ He needed to find it within seven hours to break the rule—but the Shadow itself could murder its prey outright anytime it chose and shatter the rule from its own end. ’It’s a double-edged risk, but I won’t give it that chance.’
He smiled as the ground rushed closer. Every new trick only confirmed one thing—the Shadow had begun improvising.
The Shadow’s expression darkened. ’He’s still not afraid?’
Just before impact, another Shadow swooped in, catching him and hauling him back into the sky. It hovered there, pondering, tilting, and shaking its head.
Lei Cheng gazed at it calmly. "Can’t even decide what to do? Pathetic." Every hesitation widened the crack in the Shadow’s confidence.
The Shadow’s eye blazed crimson with killing intent, its foggy hands clenching. "Damn you, brat. Prey is supposed to act like prey."
"You can’t even scare a five-year-old," Lei Cheng shot back. "Is murder really the only trick you have?"
The Shadow’s head rotated fully, eye dropping low to inspect him, cracked mouth hovering above. It turned him over, checking every inch. "You’re human. A human child. There’s no power in you at all." It rubbed its own head. "I feel like I’m forgetting something." It shook itself and gave up.
’Of course you can’t sense me properly,’ Lei Cheng thought with quiet satisfaction. ’It’s not that I’m hiding well—it’s my Illusion Intent warping your perception entirely.’
They landed back on the ground on a desolate street. Shadows emerged, one hauling over a large steel bowl, another gathering wood and setting it ablaze with infused Bizarre Qi, a third fetching water.
Lei Cheng tilted his head plainly. "Boiling me alive now, since fear didn’t work?"
"Enough, brat," the Shadow holding him snapped.
Minutes passed as the bowl heated. The Shadow lifted him several meters above it. "In you go. Don’t worry—only your legs will cook." The Shadows no longer cared about proving fear. They simply wanted to win.
Lei Cheng smugly said, "So you’re admitting defeat to me, your prey... a Five-year-old kid."
"Defeat? What defeat?" Shadows hissed.
"You’re resorting to pain because fear alone can’t touch me," Lei Cheng sighed, glancing at the sky cockily. "Which means all you actually have is brute force. If I were stronger than you, you’d already be dead." Without fear, all that remained was violence—and violence alone wasn’t enough to impress Lei Cheng.
Every Shadow froze in stunned silence before black veins erupted across their bodies. One Shadow, examining the firewood, stood abruptly and kicked the bowl and burning wood aside, extinguishing the flames. The street fell into an uneasy silence. Every Shadow stared at Lei Cheng with undisguised hatred, no longer seeing him as frightened prey but as an opponent who had repeatedly humiliated them.
"You insufferable brat. You’re testing my patience." Its voice dropped, turning genderless, "Let’s see if you can handle my true form."
Lei Cheng kept his expression blank—while internally, he grinned. ’Finally. Finally.’ Once he saw its true form, he could end this creature for good.
A Shadow yelled from the side, "No, don’t! Don’t show our true form!"
"And why do you need to do it?" another Shadow, half its body below ground, roared.
