Chapter 246: Fierce Battle
Chapter 246: Fierce Battle
The entrance of the cave was pitch black. As he went deeper into the sloping cave entrance, a light suddenly appeared.
After emerging from the dark passage, his eyebrows furrowed because he realized something was wrong.
The source of the light was a lamp. It was a motion-sensor light, but it was flickering at his feet. To his right was a door, followed by several others.
These doors were very strange. They had no thresholds and were attached directly to the ceiling. The doorknobs were positioned at least above his head.
Ahead was a corridor, and on the other side was granite.
“This… this is the top floor of the apartment!”
Suddenly, the thought occurred to him. Then, after looking around, he finally understood what was going on.
Right now, he was standing on the ceiling of the apartment. The space he was in was like an upside-down Ichinose Apartment.
The floor of the corridor had become the ceiling after being inverted, and the original ceiling had become the floor.
The doorknobs were so high because the rooms were upside down.
He checked the doorplate and determined he was on the original sixth floor of the apartment.
Fang Jing leaped lightly and smashed a door with one punch. He jumped into an upside-down room and carefully inspected it. Unfortunately, he found nothing unexpected.
The room was empty. There were no people or anything else. Only the layout was the same as the original Ichinose Apartment, but here, everything was upside down.
The sofa, dresser, tables, and chairs were all stuck to the “ceiling,” as if cast as one piece. Unless punched, these things remained stuck overhead, hanging upside down in mid-air.
Since he found nothing, he went to the staircase and searched floor by floor, descending the stairs.
He felt that underground in this inner world, someone had built another apartment, and the entire apartment was completely upside down, as if buried underground.
The exterior looked completely like an underground scene and couldn’t be easily destroyed.
He didn’t come here just to destroy the map and cause damage; he needed to find the source of the Curse.
He was also skeptical about the “blood writing” theory, but since he had the Stone Wedge Spear in hand, he naturally had to go deeper and test it out.
Moreover, this Mirror Image Space was much larger than the ones he encountered before and had strong regenerative abilities. Simply destroying the buildings seemed ineffective here.
“For the Curse, it’s better to find the source and destroy it…”
The back of his neck felt burning. He could feel that the Curse on the back of his neck was connected to something here.
It was as if an invisible thread was tied to something deep inside the apartment.
The upside-down scene in the apartment was indeed bizarre, but considering this was an inner world constructed by the Mirror Image Space, he didn’t pay too much attention to it.
He walked down the stairs and finally reached the first floor. At the first floor, he actually found an entrance.
The entrance was an old-fashioned wooden door. When he pushed it open, he suddenly realized the place he arrived at looked familiar.
It was an empty area surrounded by stone walls, as if he was trapped inside a stone cave.
Fang Jing turned around. Behind him appeared a small, exquisitely built wooden temple.
The place that should have been the apartment’s entrance had completely disappeared.
“…Defiled Temple? Why is it here?”
His tone was filled with strong surprise.
To Fang Jing, this place was vividly remembered.
The time spent in the “Defiled Temple” had once been a psychological shadow for Fang Jing.
Back then, he hadn’t obtained supernatural powers. At that time, if he encountered even slightly powerful Strange Phenomenon, he could have been crushed like a bug.
“I never thought I’d return to the ‘Defiled Temple’ here.”
Left, right, and behind were all gray stone walls. Only directly ahead was an arch-like cave opening, which was the only exit from the cave.
He strode forward, moving toward the cave opening. He passed through the cave entrance and found that what lay ahead wasn’t the scenery of Sagirimiyama, but a larger cave.
From the ground to the top of the cave was nearly fifty meters. The entire cave was dome-shaped, and the highest point was probably close to sixty or seventy meters, pressing down on his head like a canopy.
The overall area of the cave was huge, both in width and depth, equally astonishing.
Stone pillars appeared one after another in the cave, each so tall that he had to look up to see the top.
These stone pillars were irregular in shape, arranged without any sense of order. Thanks to this, even though he was here, he didn’t feel confined at all.
How to explain it… although it was exceptionally eerie, it had a grand and majestic aura.
Being in this space made one fully realize how small they were.
This was a feeling that couldn’t be generated unless one was here personally. It was different from watching natural wonders or magnificent buildings in a documentary on TV. After all, scenery separated by a screen didn’t provide this direct experience.
And at that moment, something appeared.
It was a clumsy thing, taking slow steps and moving toward him.
Stone… man.
At first, he was stunned.
He stared carefully and realized it was a “Nio Statue.”
He remembered… Fang Jing had seen this thing before. It was like a stone-carved Nio Statue, or possibly another Buddhist stone sculpture. However, “it” was only half made of stone; the other half was flesh molded from white mud, with no eyes or ears, and its entire face was collapsed.
Thump!
The Nio Statue seemed to be shouting, roaring something, but it made no sound.
Its movement speed wasn’t fast. Fang Jing didn’t wait for it to get close. He threw a punch, his fist blurring. Suddenly, a powerful force struck the Nio Statue’s chest.
With a cracking sound, the heavy force exploded the thing from inside.
“I’m completely different from before.”
He looked at the Nio Statue shattered into a pile of stones on the ground and muttered to himself.
As he spoke, several more clumsy stone men slowly moved toward his location.
This time, there were quite a few. At a quick glance, there were dozens, and more were slowly following behind.
Perfect timing!
He thought to himself, his expressionless eyes revealing a sense of satisfaction.
The next second, he bent his body, knees flexed, coiling up like a spring.
Boom!
His body launched at full speed, his figure disappearing in the air. In the high-speed world, the surrounding scenery slowed to an extreme. In less than a tenth of a second.
The Nio Statues in the surrounding area almost simultaneously exploded. None of them could withstand a single punch from the current Fang Jing. They were all smashed into a mixture of mud and stone fragments.
“This really… has no challenge at all.”
His eyes were cold. Killing these things didn’t yield any Growth Value; it only provided a slight Stamina Attribute feedback. This made him impatient, so he ended the battle quickly.
Suddenly, the ground shook violently.
Even Fang Jing was stunned for a moment. He couldn’t help but look up as he heard a terrifying roar.
“Roar!”
Like a muffled thunder in the sky, a tall shadow emerged from the area beyond the stone pillars.
It was a giant humanoid creature, nearly ten meters tall, covered in dense scales, surrounded by countless black, smoke-like mist.
As soon as this humanoid creature appeared, the surroundings became blurry and unclear. Its presence was abnormally massive. Each step it took caused the area around to become fuzzy, as if his senses were separated by a thick, hazy cloth, and his perception also dulled.
This was a state Fang Jing had never experienced before. Everything was now distorted, blurry; he couldn’t see details, couldn’t hear sounds, and even his sense of time disappeared.
The source of everything was the giant humanoid creature’s single enormous eye. It was a dark red eye. When it stared at him, this weird state occurred. His spirit became dazed, and he felt heavy from head to toe.
This feeling was completely unstoppable!
Bang!
At that moment, terrifying power blasted toward his chest.
In an instant, he only felt a numbing sensation in his chest, as if nothing had happened.
Crack!
Yet he could hear the sound of his own ribs breaking. Due to his hazy awareness, he didn’t react at all.
Not good!
He was under attack.
His dazed mind realized this, but his body couldn’t move an inch.
Boom!
Another wave of terrifying force came from above and below. It was a giant foot that suddenly appeared, pressing him almost to the ground. His hands instinctively tried to block, but even his bones let out a painful snapping sound.
It was the most daunting crisis he had never faced before. What was most bizarre… he couldn’t fight back at all, as if his spirit was paralyzed. Not even countering was possible.
“Get lost…”
He muttered under his breath.
But saying just that didn’t change anything.
“Get away from me—!”
Suddenly, anger flared in his heart. Deep in his eyes, a blood-red savage beast gradually appeared. A fierce roar echoed from somewhere, making a layer of crimson light burn all around him.
The Primal Rage Beast deep in his heart roared out again. Terrifying rage swirled wildly from his chest.
Annihilation Wheel Fist! Fifteenth layer! All out!!
That second, amidst a deafening explosion, the foot of the ten-meter humanoid creature stomping down was lifted by a hand.
It was a crimson palm.
Veins bulged all over his arm as his muscles fiercely expanded. Red patterns flowed like magma under his skin, floating one by one. The palm and the giant foot kept squeaking with the struggle of force.
Beneath his feet, the ground shattered. Cracks spread evenly in all directions like a spider’s web.
“…Want to kill me? Trash like you, bring a hundred more!”
Without hesitation, he unleashed the Inner Ghost Gate. He directly entered the third form of Esoteric Energy Pore’s power mode.
His instinct told him this enemy was incredibly dangerous.
To face it, he had to go all out.
His body violently expanded again, growing over four meters tall. A triple surge in force made his Three Core Attributes shatter their limits. His fists and legs were his own most fearsome weapons.
He let out a furious roar. With one hand propping up the humanoid monster’s foot, his other fist clenched. In a flash, he punched out. Thunderous sounds filled the air as a red streak shot through like lightning, crashing into the monster’s body.
Boom!
It was like a rocket exploding up close. The immense force instantly slammed down on it, with a horrifying impact.
The humanoid monster was hit head-on. In pain, it roared and staggered back several steps.
But this was only Fang Jing’s first strike. Now a four-meter giant, he shouted savagely. His fists swung forward relentlessly. With the Annihilation Wheel Fist at full power, he shuddered and vibrated. The Resonance Field spun and exploded. The ground beneath shook violently, with debris and stones flying everywhere from a whirlwind.
The monster’s single eye glowed strangely. Its hand reached down suddenly, and an odd force formed in its palm for the second time. This made the surrounding matter warp and blur, condensing into a field of vibrations.
Yet Fang Jing didn’t notice, just throwing a simple punch. Red light collided with the warped vibrational field in its palm.
For that brief instant, the two forces crushed against each other. The crimson Resonance Field clashed with the other vibration field. Out of thin air, a black rift seemed to tear the edge of space.
At that moment, it felt like a bomb had been dropped. White shockwaves became visible surges blowing outward.
The ground beneath their feet vanished in chunks, turning into a meteor crater.
This clash sent the huge humanoid monster flying dozens of meters away. After a massive explosion, it skidded off the ground. Where it passed formed deep trenches as mud and sand spewed forth, as if the earth was ripped open into a long path.
On the other side, countless stones and soil flew skyward. White dust stormed from the center, reducing visibility.
Right then, a figure emerged. He threw a fist, instantly clearing the smoky haze, and stepped forward one stride at a time.
Fang Jing took a deep breath. His muscles boiled as if scalded. Gazing at the massive humanoid monster, his fighting spirit surged higher and higher.