Chapter 214: Yūmi Island (20)
Chapter 214: Yūmi Island (20)
Crack!
Fang Jing’s long slender tail at the end of his spine whipped and lashed, smashing a rock on the ground into several pieces.
Fang Jing calculated quietly. After opening the third Inner Ghost Gate, his Essence Qi was draining several times faster than before.
In terms of time, he could only maintain this for fifty seconds at most.
Because the time limit was almost up, his body gradually shrank back to its original size.
“Merging these three powers together actually created a new skill.”
Even after opening the third Inner Ghost Gate, it only simply increased his Three Core Attributes.
It was true that the power, speed, and physique gained from the Inner Ghost Gate were strengthened to an extreme, but it was still far from enough to fight against those Strange Phenomenon powers.
Now, in his skill bar, the word “Deduction” appeared once again.
Below it was a line of blurry text. He could not clearly tell what kind of new skill this was.
But Fang Jing roughly understood that this should be a new skill he derived by combining the “Corpse Poison Curse” from Seal of the Asura Hand, the Life Magnetism Fate Fragment, and the secondary talent of the Fate Beast.
“The combat skill I derived is not just simple martial arts. It is something built with the Fate Grade as the foundation and my own experience as the framework.”
The knowledge and experience gained from ancient martial arts and fighting techniques all tightly revolved around the Fate Fragment as the core, giving birth to various abnormal powers.
“The Fate Fragment is the core existence that dominates my growth. Other combat skills and knowledge-based skills are like branches and leaves added to this central tree…”
By now, he understood the nature of his own power more and more.
Fate Grade was his core power.
Through the abnormal occupational ability of Fate Devourer, he could continuously plunder other Fate Grades to change himself, strengthen himself, and perfect himself.
This was an abnormal path of sublimation and evolution.
Fang Jing had a feeling that he had grasped the pulse of fate.
He glanced at his status again.
In the heat of the fierce battle moments ago, the skill bar for Seal of the Asura Hand and the Star Magnetism Fate Grade had both disappeared.
In their place, a line of text in the skill bar gradually became clearer.
(Anomalous Martial Art: Extinction Wheel Fist, Uninitiated; Self-Deduction Failed. Proceed with second deduction?)
The deduction symbol appeared again, reminding him to further improve this skill.
“The conditions for deduction were probably triggered during the battle. This skill was produced by combining Seal of the Asura Hand, the Life Magnetic Field of Life Magnetism, and the secondary talent of the Beast of Rage…”
He noticed that after Seal of the Asura Hand disappeared, the skill bar was replaced by this “Anomalous Martial Art: Extinction Wheel Fist”. On the other hand, the symbol for the Fate Beast “Beast of Rage” also changed into a leopard-face icon.
This leopard-face icon emitted a faint circle of red light.
The text annotation below also changed.
(Fate Beast: Former Beast of Rage)
Some detailed explanations also appeared after it.
“Fused with the ‘Life Magnetism’ fragment, the degraded Fate Beast obtained Primal Rage power. The holder can increase focus through rage, enhancing willpower to a greater extent.”
He noticed the words “Primal Rage power”, but he was not very clear what that meant.
However, he found that he had gained another secondary talent.
While holding the Fate Beast “Beast of Rage”, he obtained a secondary talent “Rage Blood Aura”.
And now he gained a new secondary talent—Primal Rage Heart.
“Primal Rage Heart—The angry Primal Rage Beast resides in your heart. When you release Primal Rage power, the fierce beast from your heart will also activate the ‘Primal Rage Resonance Field’…”
Fang Jing was also stunned. What was this new ability? He was completely confused.
Forget it!
He would study it slowly after going back.
What he needed to do now was to collect his spoils. The first thing was to find the important “Wedge”.
The “Wedge” was his true purpose for traveling thousands of miles to this isolated island overseas.
He pushed aside the messy pile of rocks in front of him and found the body of Hayasaka Taeko… no, it should be Hayasaka Muko.
Fang Jing could confirm she was dead. The abnormally evil aura that had occupied her body had also left.
“The body has completely reverted too?”
Although her limbs were broken and her face was beyond recognition, the body was still a human corpse.
“Hayasaka Taeko was probably just attached to her body. That woman should have died long ago. She turned into something like a Spirit and possessed people to do evil.”
From the bloody female corpse, he searched and found a stone spear.
“Could this thing be the so-called ‘Wedge’?”
Just from the first glance at this object, Fang Jing had a strange feeling.
It was a sensation that made his heart tremble with fear.
It was a stone spear weapon, only the size of a palm, with just the spear tip. Below the spear tip, he could see a line of “Ancient Divine Script” carved on it.
This was the same type of script he had seen on the box and that divine tree.
This made Fang Jing believe he probably had not found the wrong thing. The moment he touched the stone spear weapon, a continuous stream of cold Yin Energy surged up.
Instantly, a large amount of Growth Value surged forth. Fang Jing’s face showed a hint of excitement. He never expected that an ancient stone spear tip would give him so much Growth Value.
What surprised him even more was that he discovered this ancient spear tip still had a hidden potential, as if the Yin Energy inside had not been fully absorbed by him.
“Could it be that this thing can generate Yin Energy from within…”
Fang Jing absorbed over three hundred points of Growth Value in total, and he felt this stone spear tip still had a very deep “undercurrent”.
“If there really is more Growth Value, then this trip can be considered worthwhile.”
He did not continue absorbing but put the stone spear away.
He planned to research the situation regarding the “Wedge” after returning.
The only disappointing thing was that after killing most of the abnormal life forms on the island and defeating Hayasaka Taeko, Fang Jing only obtained Miscellaneous Fate.
These Parasitic Entities possessed a lot of Miscellaneous Fate but no other Fate Grades. Even Hayasaka herself was the same.
He fed all these Miscellaneous Fate to the Fate Beast “Primal Rage Beast”.
For some reason, this thing really liked eating Miscellaneous Fate.
…After making plans, he met up with several survivors on the island. A series of tragedies had occurred on Yūmi Island, and now there were very few living people left.
“Are you the only ones left?”
Fang Jing glanced around and saw four living people: the trembling Kase Mi and Sakuma, and Yuki Ham who had been missing for most of the day.
Besides these three, there was one extremely unexpected survivor—the journalist Shusu Yuki.
However, Shusu Yuki was clearly somewhat injured. He was rescued by Yuki Ham.
He seemed to have sprained his foot and was limping, supported by Yuki Ham as they walked over.
“Not sure. We walked around the area and didn’t see anyone else.”
Sakuma could hardly lift his head in front of Fang Jing. He stammered a few words.
“No need to look. No one from the Cult could have survived. They were all Sacrificial Offerings. When the gate to the Alternate Realm opened, they all turned into Parasitic Entities…”
Shusu Yuki seemed to have aged several years for no reason. He waved his hand, sighed, and told everything he knew.
“The one who created all this was probably Hayasaka. She might have… anyway, she was the key to everything. If I’m not mistaken, she was trying to ask me for help before.”
Journalist Yuki held a diary in his hand as he recalled everything that had happened before.
In the secret room, Hayashizaki Ichi and Kuzunoki’s subordinates suddenly went berserk. They instead captured these two men. The reason was simple: Hayasaka seemed to have used some ability to control these believers.
She ordered these believers to kill the two men, then forced him at gunpoint to pull out the stone spear from the door.
“Only a human can pull out this spear. Both I and my kin are powerless to do so.”
Hayasaka muttered to herself.
Shusu Yuki was also helpless and confused. He could only be forced to pull out the stone spear.
When the stone spear was removed, the door on the mural suddenly opened. A dark hole appeared, emitting overwhelming terrifying black shadows. Hayashizaki Ichi and Kuzunoki, who were used as Sacrificial Offerings, screamed as their bodies decomposed into green spores and were sucked into the hole.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Shusu. I always wanted to leave here with you, but for me, this might be fate.”
Hayasaka Muko’s face showed a struggling expression as she whispered these words.
It was conceivable that she had been fighting against the spirit possessing her body all along. But she finally gave up. The next second, her calm face was replaced by the expression of another woman full of resentment. It was the spirit of her mother Taeko attached to her.
“Hayasaka Taeko”, attached to her daughter’s body, sneered and passed through that door.
And Shusu Yuki’s memories ended there.
He was not killed. He didn’t know if it was out of Hayasaka Muko’s mercy, or perhaps receiving Hayasaka Taeko’s sympathy. He was knocked unconscious and abandoned in the forest outside the “Shrine” where the Cult was located.
After hearing Shusu Yuki’s account, Fang Jing combined it with the information he had obtained and began to reason.
“It seems the events on the island are all related to the Hayasaka mother and daughter. However, the excavated archaeological site should be related to a certain mysterious force among the ‘Strange Phenomenon’…”
The Other Realm, that should be the name, right? They probably came from another alternate dimension.
Fang Jing felt these Strange Phenomenon existences were extremely dangerous. Hayasaka Taeko was probably an ordinary person with a Spirit Medium Constitution. During her lifetime, she had contact with higher beings from the Other Realm.
“Hayasaka Taeko probably only came into contact with this power and tried to use it. I don’t think those Alternate Realm beings cared about her ‘revenge’. Those abnormal entities might have just used her or toyed with her.”
Tomatsu should have been controlled by Hayasaka Taeko before this.
He might have come to the island early, just like Professor Horikawa.
Tomatsu’s task was probably to provide the Sacrificial Offerings for opening the “gate”, which were the “Living Sacrifices”.
After the hospital incident concluded, Fang Jing specifically investigated and found that in ancient Occult Studies theories, sacrifice was an extremely important contractual condition.
Those killed by Tomatsu completely disappeared without a trace.
Fang Jing had a very bad suspicion. He believed that not all of those people died.
The vast majority of them were probably sent to another world alive.
That is to say, they were sent to the “Other Realm”.
No one knew what kind of world that was. The only thing that could be determined was—it was not a world where living humans could go. It was an evil domain adjacent to hell.