Chapter 225: Shaken
Chapter 225: Shaken
After getting off the bus, the Maeda girl angrily chased after Fang Jing but couldn’t keep up with his pace.
She noticed something strange.
Fang Jing’s movements seemed slow, but he was moving surprisingly fast.
If she paid close attention, she would see that his arm and leg movements didn’t match his speed.
His steps looked slower and slower, but he still moved faster than her.
“How… How is this even possible!”
Staring intently at Fang Jing, Maeda felt increasingly sick from the strange mismatch.
“This is a combination of footwork and body movement from Ancient Martial Arts. The feet move quickly to the target position first. Then, without being noticed, the upper body follows. Even the swaying of the hands can create an illusion of slowness, while the feet glide close to the ground. This makes others feel a mismatch between distance and speed.”
Fang Jing explained as he walked forward.
“This technique, originally from the Chongmian area, is sometimes called ‘Shrinking the Ground’ because to ordinary people, it feels like the ground is being shortened!”
“Don’t walk so fast while explaining.”
Maeda panted, her cheeks pink, and a light sweat covered her body.
“Still, your stamina isn’t bad.”
Fang Jing suddenly stopped.
Following his gaze, Maeda saw the reason ahead.
A wooden sign for a town stood by the roadside.
At the same time, a gray wild dog stared in their direction.
It was an old gray dog with a bald tail, baring its teeth at the two of them.
Maeda quickly moved closer, staying tightly behind him.
It was clear she was quite nervous and scared.
“That dog looks really fierce.”
She whispered softly.
Fang Jing didn’t waste time watching the wild dog. His eyes shifted to the other side, toward the sign at the town entrance—Naomori Town.
So, he had finally arrived.
This was indeed “Naomori Town.”
For some reason, as they approached the town, a chilling wind blew from the north, making an unpleasant whistling sound.
It sounded almost like the town was crying.
It really was a desolate and remote town.
“I plan to go into the town now, Maeda. Do you still intend to follow me?”
He turned around and asked the girl who was a head shorter than him.
“Give me back my pendant, and I’ll leave.”
She puffed her cheeks and rolled her eyes upward.
“Fine.”
Fang Jing grabbed her hand and placed the pendant in her palm.
“You…”
The Maeda girl hadn’t expected him to be so straightforward.
“This town is not a safe place. If you keep following me, you might run into danger!”
This time, Fang Jing spoke very seriously.
This completely changed Maeda’s impression of him.
At first, she thought he was a pervert, then she thought he was a weirdo, and just moments ago, he claimed to be a martial artist.
Now, in this moment, he spoke seriously and sternly, making him seem quite handsome and mature in a mysterious way.
“What’s with that…”
Her face slightly flushed, but she still chattered on, “Where I go is none of your business!”
“Suit yourself, then.”
Fang Jing spoke coldly and walked straight into the town.
“Nonsense… How could there be any danger in a place like this!”
Maeda thought Fang Jing was just making things up to sound mysterious. Still, instead of leaving, she followed him, a bit curious.
————————
“The aura of the Collection Artifact is getting closer.”
The bandaged man sneered. He hadn’t expected his target to come to him willingly.
Collection Artifact… actually the “relic” of a certain Witch.
Unlike the secretive Clans on the island, Witches were quite active on the Old Continent.
However, after World War I, it was said that the Witch forces began to decline on the Old Continent. Now, the last influential group of Witches had retreated to the Americas.
These were just rumors he had heard, and he wasn’t really interested in the secrets of the “Witch.”
After the scheme at Kagome Hall ended, he finally regained a healthy body.
Years ago, his younger brother Hirakawa Shun poisoned his food. Though he didn’t die, he lost almost all bodily functions.
To get revenge on Hirakawa Shun, he decided to join forces with Old Man Qiao. Using the family heirloom, the Witch’s tool—one of the Collection Artifacts, the “Mirror”—they performed a Ritual to awaken latent bloodline powers.
Thanks to that Ritual, he gained a body that could move, but it wasn’t the normal body he desired. Instead, it was like a monster, pieced together like mud.
This was a body forged through the power inherited from the blood of a Demon Human descendant.
“The real body of Hirakawa Tsurutada died the moment you completed the ‘Ritual.’ The you now is a new person, reborn through transformation.”
The ugly old man’s nasty laughter still echoed in his mind.
“That doesn’t matter to me…”
He muttered. Simply put, he had no interest in the obsession of his so-called “Demon Human” ancestor or Old Man Qiao’s vision.
He only wanted to focus on his own affairs and had no interest in anything else.
Recovering the Witch’s relics—yes, that was now the most important thing to him.
But he also had to keep his promise.
That was why he joined Old Man Qiao to recreate a past “Strange Phenomenon.”
Unlike Nocturnal and Evil Filth, the true “Hunterghost” had a very unusual origin. Its hidden source was an anomalous barrier that could cause widespread, terrible disasters.
To seal this spreading abnormal disaster, even the Three Noble Houses sent people and went to great lengths. In the end, they managed to suppress the crisis.
“That ‘Seal’ was too dangerous and was hidden by the Clan leaders. Finding it is extremely difficult, with no clues to search for… but it’s okay. We can create a fake to shake certain people!”
Old Man Qiao grinned.
“Shake them?”
He just frowned.
“Exactly!”
The ugly old man who looked like a monster snickered, “Those who don’t trust the Clan, those who oppose the Clan, and those who took part in that incident back then—this kind of unrest will create an atmosphere of fear and suspicion. I think, when the time comes, someone will surely be unable to sit still any longer.”
—————-
After escaping from that terrifying old house,
Nishizuka Satsuki and the short-haired girl named Suzuname ran out onto the street.
The clatter of their footsteps finally stopped.
As they ran, they kept looking around but didn’t see any sign of the Red Cloak following them.
Both of them had the same terrified expression on their faces.
Then, the two of them fled into a narrow alley. They had run too fast and were too panicked, so both were exhausted.
“I can’t go on… If I keep running, I really won’t have any strength left.”
Satsuki’s stamina could only be described as average.
On the other hand, Suzuname seemed like she exercised often and had much better stamina.
“Even if you say that, there’s no place to hide here. Come on, let’s go into that house up ahead.”
Suzuname thought that if they stayed there, they might be caught. She spotted a mansion up ahead with its door slightly ajar, grabbed Satsuki’s hand, and carefully pushed the door open.
The courtyard inside the wall was empty and silent, overgrown with weeds. They softly closed the gate, slipped into the yard, pushed open the mansion’s door, and leaned against the doorway, heaving a small sigh of relief.
“I think, here, ‘it’ probably won’t find us.”
Suzuname suspected that the Hunterghost might have gone after someone else. When they escaped, the other three people had run off in different directions, and she had no idea where they had ended up.
“But, that thing… what exactly is it? Could it really be the ‘Hunterghost’? And why is ‘it’ so determined to hunt us down?”
Just thinking about what had happened earlier made Satsuki’s legs tremble uncontrollably.
It was just too horrifying!
All she wanted was to go home early—who would have thought something like this would happen!
“Your name is Satsuki, right?”
Suzuname leaned against the Entrance Hall, her face turned away, and said in a detached tone, “Everything that happened today felt like a dream to me. None of it makes any logical sense.”
“Is that so?”
Satsuki patted her clothes, searching for her Phone, but as soon as she pulled it out, she found it had turned off by itself.
“Just a moment ago, it still had one bar of battery left.”
She felt puzzled by this.
Tap-tap!
Right at that instant, Satsuki thought she heard something.
“Miss Suzuname, did you hear that sound?”
“Sound?”
Suzuname also listened carefully for a moment.
“No, there’s no sound.”
“Sorry, I must be too nervous.”
Satsuki gave a helpless, bitter smile.
“It’s alright.”
Suzuname straightened up and stretched.
“Satsuki, please come help me…”
She moved through the hallway, going further into the house.
“Let’s go to the Kitchen and other places to find some weapons!”
“Weapons?”
“That’s right. You saw it too—that freak isn’t normal, and on top of that, this place is too weird. It’s not good to be empty-handed.”
After suddenly encountering so many frightening events, Suzuname had also been too tense, her mind in chaos. But after some time had passed, her nerves gradually calmed, and she could finally think more clearly.
As she stepped into a corner of the hallway, she turned back.
“We have to figure out a way to leave this town. It’s really too dangerous here…”
Suzuname said with a firm expression, “Once we find weapons, we won’t have to be so afraid. Then we can figure out how to meet up with the others. Believe me, as long as we stick together, we’ll definitely find a way to get out of here.”
Satsuki felt a bit doubtful about Suzuname’s words in her heart.
Still, her words gave Satsuki a warm, familiar feeling, as if someone had said something similar to her before.
It was really strange—why did she feel like she knew Miss Suzuname?
She tried to think about it, but her mind still couldn’t come up with any clues. So, she didn’t dwell on it any longer and instead chose to go help Suzuname look for “weapons.”