Chapter 212: Yūmi Island (18)
Chapter 212: Yūmi Island (18)
In Hayasaka Taeko’s estimation, even someone of truly genuine Clan bloodline might not withstand the authority of the power she had just unleashed: “Ring Finger’s Laurinser”.
That power could send the living deep into the hidden realm, to be devoured by the gates of that other world, trapped within “Aganistis’ Court” — this was the exclusive authority of “Ring Finger’s Laurinser”, one of the five apostles symbolizing the Elder King’s Hand.
(This move was practically prepared just for those Clan types. Yet, unexpectedly, it failed the first time it was used.)
A huge wave rose in her heart. The “Ring Finger’s power” was arguably one of her most relied-upon trump cards.
“Is it because he hasn’t used Curse Entanglement at all, making it impossible for the Ring Finger’s power to unfold fully?”
With her own strength, disconnected from that other realm, she typically couldn’t measure up to the Clan on equal footing.
Moreover, the power granted to the Clan by their own bloodlines possessed a very unique and special potency.
These Espers were extremely dangerous. They could be called the greatest enemies the existences of the other realm encountered in this world.
Considering the power of Curse Entanglement wielded by Espers from the “Clan”, the apostle of the Ring Finger specifically bestowed upon her this special power. This force was designed specifically to counter the Clan.
Hayasaka Taeko was also a born Medium. Unlike Hayashizaki Ichi who called himself a psychic, her constitution granted her a far more terrifying level of supernatural perception.
After arriving on this island, she gradually connected with the lingering will from another world that remained there.
The hatred, grudges, and curses she herself held were also amplified, further swelling under the influence of that malevolent power.
It was also because of this that Hayashizaki Ichi seized an opportunity to assassinate her.
Hayashizaki Ichi also possessed a certain level of Spirit Medium Constitution. He only understood bits and pieces of the hidden powers residing on the island. This was while Hayasaka Taeko’s displayed “supernatural powers” completely overshadowed his own.
This made Hayashizaki Ichi fear this woman. To prevent the followers from knowing this truth, he executed this woman who stood within the cult.
His authority as cult Founder could not be challenged. At the time, it was Kuzunoki himself who carried out the assassination. Because she died full of resentment, her Spirit was saturated with hatred and obsession, attaching itself to her daughter Muko, who possessed the same psychic medium Spirit Medium Constitution as her.
She secretly guided the Shinzaki Tenrikyo Sect to discover the underground ruins. She further guided the cult founder Hayashizaki Ichi and Kuzunoki to pursue deeper exploration of the island’s anomalies.
This exploration led Hayashizaki Ichi and the others to perform their Ritual. They took the patterns found on pottery unearthed at the excavation site and tattooed them onto the bodies of their followers.
This was tantamount to helping Hayasaka Taeko turn ordinary believers into footsoldiers for the “Apostle of the Ring Finger”.
Anyone whose skin bore this etched pattern, within the immensely powerful special field of Yūmi Island, faced a foreseeable end.
They were inevitably devoured by entities from the other realm. And this was also Hayasaka Taeko’s goal, fixated on her act of revenge. Driving them with her intent, these innocent followers were naturally replaced by parasitic species from the other realm.
The Parasitic Entity from another world was also part of the “Apostle of the Ring Finger’s” banner, a lower species dwelling in that different world.
Humans replaced by the Parasitic Entity died completely, their flesh, blood, soul, and spirit ultimately drained, becoming the entity’s “food”.
She wanted to destroy the cult, so naturally, she wouldn’t spare anyone.
Everyone who set foot on this island would become a Sacrificial Offering to this act of vengeance.
“Forget it! Even if I can’t use the Ring Finger’s power, the strength I have now is easily enough to secure victory.”
If only Muko’s personality hadn’t completely vanished from this body yet.
Hayasaka Taeko believed she could have achieved all this long ago; she wouldn’t have needed to drag the situation to this point.
“Come! Dance! Awaken from ancient times! Sprout forth from the Earth!”
At this moment, she recited the words like a chant. Behind her, tentacles, one after another, plunged deep into the ground.
As the tentacles took root into the earth like tree roots…
Rumble!
The earth began to churn. A powerful tremor emanated from beneath their feet.
The ground cracked, fissures appearing one after another. Thousands of tentacles, each dozens of meters long, surged up from the depths, as if a colossal undersea beast stirred beneath the earth.
Multiple tentacles, wielding enough force to roil seas and overturn rivers, lashed down towards Fang Jing’s position.
The scene was utterly terrifying and dreadful. Just its appearance radiated terrible pressure. If they truly struck, they would likely devastate the surrounding area.
Fang Jing dragged an afterimage, vanishing in a flash. The next second, his feet landed on a patch of rubble.
Before his front foot even touched down, tentacles like giant octopus limbs stretched from the fissures beneath the earth, shooting towards him lightning-fast from all directions.
“SCATTER!”
Fang Jing unleashed a high-speed slash with his open hand. This time, he wised up. Channeling Hidden Force from Mountain-Blasting Thunder within his attack, mingled with the assault of the Corpse Poison Curse. As his palm wind sliced out, the force simultaneously exploded into the tentacles, causing them to be sheared off and swallowed by lingering Black Flames.
He continuously evaded, sidestepping a sweeping tentacle with a sideways flip. He then tumbled three times forward, surging ahead.
Another shadowy mass darted through the air with a whoosh, heading straight for his face.
“EXPLODE!”
He swung his left fist, stirring the air like wind and thunder. Vast amounts of dark, fiery light centered around his fist. Under his deliberate control, it blasted straight forward. The tentacles sweeping towards him were all smashed to particles within seconds.
Shaking off luminous spores clinging to his hand, Fang Jing scanned his surroundings. The threat persisted.
He still couldn’t find Hayasaka Taeko’s real body. She seemed entirely invisible; even the skill “Illusionless Mind’s Eye” failed to pinpoint her location.
“If I can’t find Hayasaka Taeko’s true location, it’s wasted effort.”
Which brought him back: where exactly was Hayasaka Taeko hiding?
Illusionless Mind’s Eye had a limited sensing range, roughly around ten meters or so.
She couldn’t be hiding too far away.
If she was too far, it wouldn’t be practical to command tentacles to attack him. Yet, her position was clearly beyond the range of his Illusionless Mind’s Eye.
Moreover, Fang Jing felt deeply unsettled by that “illusion” attack Hayasaka Taeko had used earlier.
If she unleashed a few more attacks of that caliber, he’d probably get severely hurt.
He needed to figure out a solution.
But he didn’t have the luxury of stopping leisurely to devise one. This was a battlefield. The moment he paused slightly, countless tentacles entangled him from every direction.
“Still not using ‘Curse Entanglement’ to break through?”
The opponent stubbornly refused to use “Curse Entanglement”. She couldn’t leverage her “trump card” either, resulting in the fight hitting a stalemate.
Fang Jing continuously dodged. Shadows writhing and swelling constantly appeared on the earth beneath his feet. Long tentacles shot out from splitting fissures underground, lashing, stabbing, and lunging at him.
“There are too many… and it feels like this whole ground has become part of that thing’s body…”
Fang Jing felt a surge of deep astonishment in his mind. He had a feeling Hayasaka Taeko had used some method to completely transform the nearby terrain.
As if turning reality into an Alternate Realm.
Or replacing the earth with the monster’s own body.
Making the original hues shift, dyeing them with new shades.
Abnormally shaped tentacles pursued him as prey, launching reckless attacks again and again.
“In that case…”
Fang Jing furrowed his brows. He stepped hard onto the ground. A colossal power erupted from his body. Without hesitation or fear, he burst forward in a rapid dash.
Fleshy tentacles blocking his path closed in like living serpents. Each tentacle surged towards him as if aiming to bite, tear, and rip him apart.
Yet, facing the overwhelming tidal wave of flesh threatening to bury his vision, Fang Jing disdainfully spat out a single word.
“SCATTER!”
A mocking smile touched his lips. He drove his fist directly into the mass of tentacle-flesh towering overhead.
Just a simple punch. Ripples spread through the air. The next instant, an utterly violent force, unleashed along with Fang Jing’s punch, surged torrentially towards the mountain of flesh formed by tentacles in front.
His entire body tore through an opening. He sped rapidly towards the forest outside the battlefield.
That’s right. He decisively abandoned the zone of conflict with Hayasaka Taeko, choosing to flee the battleground.
“What—?”
Hayasaka Taeko was also startled. She never expected Fang Jing would choose to run away without caring about his pride.
This was completely different from what she knew about the Clan Espers and the information on the Dharma Protectors.
Those Espers always thought highly of themselves, never easily leaving a fight or choosing to retreat.
But this time, she found the recorded information was incorrect.
“Trying to escape is impossible…”
She pulled the tentacles that grew from her back out of the ground, her body floating in the air as if gliding over the land. She quickly chased in the direction Fang Jing had gone, filled with killing intent.
…
Fang Jing ran at high speed across the earth.
With each step, he covered five or six meters, his feet moving in a continuous line, his whole body dragging a fierce gust of wind behind him.
As he ran, he was also thinking.
“The tentacle attacks have stopped. It seems they were indeed controlled by Hayasaka Taeko. This also proves she can’t summon tentacles from the ground endlessly.”
“Her invisibility ability can’t ignore my Illusionless Mind’s Eye. She must be attacking me from outside my effective range. As for why she doesn’t get closer, it’s probably because if she came too close, she might get caught in the aftermath of my attacks.”
“Since she specifically stays invisible and doesn’t fight me up close, this shows her true body is afraid of facing me directly. This likely means two things: first, she thinks I’m a Clan Esper and fears my abilities as a Clan member; second, her close combat skills are inferior to mine, so she avoids direct conflict as much as possible.”
His mind rapidly made deductions as he tried to figure out the enemy’s thought process.
“I don’t know much about Clan Espers either, but in any case, Hayasaka Taeko wasn’t surprised by my appearance and even showed an attitude of not caring much about the Clan. No, it’s more like she was confident, sure she had a way to deal with me, a member of the ‘Clan’.”
If analyzed from the first point, she wouldn’t need to fear the Clan too much because she must have a hidden trump card.
In that case, why would she keep her invisibility and cautiously attack from the outside as if testing?
So, the first point doesn’t perfectly explain Hayasaka Taeko’s choice. I lean more toward the second guess.
Because since they met and fought, Hayasaka Taeko kept saying, “Show your true power! Without using Curse Entanglement, a human has no chance at all” and “What your Clan relies on is nothing but Curse Entanglement.” The underlying message seemed to be urging me to use Curse Entanglement.
Could it really be as I guessed?
A slight smile formed at the corner of Fang Jing’s mouth.
He raced forward like lightning, then suddenly stopped. By now, he was standing on a cliff.
It was a solitary cliff at the edge of the sea, carved by crashing waves.
The black crag was jagged, with a crescent-shaped ledge jutting out sharply. Steep, straight layers of the cliff stood in rows.
And Fang Jing stood at one corner of the cliff.
He slightly raised his eyes and glanced ahead.
“Why keep hiding? I think you should be here by now?”
“The boring game of hide-and-seek is over.”
Hayasaka Taeko, appearing like a night demon, finally showed herself before him again, revealing her ugly, twisted, non-human form.
“Or perhaps, you’ve already decided to die here.”
“…”
Fang Jing smiled and calmly said, “Aren’t you curious why I still haven’t used ‘Curse Entanglement’ until now?”
He posed this question.
Hayasaka Taeko was also taken aback because she noticed Fang Jing’s attitude had become somewhat strange.
“The truth… is actually very simple.”
Fang Jing spread one hand open and said plainly, “Because the truth is, I don’t have ‘Curse Entanglement’ at all.”
Hayasaka Taeko hadn’t yet processed it.
“Still don’t get it?… I’m not from any Clan, just an ordinary human, so—”
At that moment, Fang Jing stomped his foot hard on the ground. It was a full-force step, causing the ground to shake as if in an earthquake. The entire cliff shattered in an instant.
His roar echoed from below the cliff, a voice filled with madness.
“And there won’t be any ‘Curse Entanglement’ either!!”
Inner Ghost Gate, the third path opened.
Fang Jing’s nearly three-meter-tall frame swelled again, his gray muscles turning deep red. Tumorous muscles surged and squeezed under his skin, growing more and more, swelling larger and larger.
With a boom!
The ground beneath him and Hayasaka Taeko gave way, and they both fell downward.
At that moment, a flash of white light burst in Fang Jing’s mind. The world before his eyes slowed down like a movie in slow motion.
He could feel that in this instant, he had grasped something. Intense, swelling pain rampaged violently inside him.
Meanwhile, Hayasaka Taeko tried to float in the air, but he, falling first, reached out and grabbed one of her legs.
Everything unfolded in the slowed time, as if the scene was broken into countless frames.
“Come on! Either die or live!”
He shouted this in his heart, following that spark of insight. He focused his spirit entirely, merging the fluctuations, rhythms, and frequencies of three forces: the black ghost flame generated by the Secret Corpse Hand, the Life Magnetic Field born from the Fate Grade Life Magnetism, and the secondary talent “Rage Blood Aura” of the Beast of Rage.