It happened in the span of a single breath. Old Daoist Linghu felt his body betray him, control severed as if a marionette's strings had been slashed. An indescribable, pervasive coldness originated from his left shoulder, cascading through his veins with terrifying speed. It was a sensation akin to drowning in freezing ink, a dense darkness that sought to swallow him whole.
He attempted to raise his right hand to weave a protective sigil, but the limb was dead weight, frozen by an eldritch force. He couldn't move. He couldn't even unhinge his jaw to let out a scream.
Panic, thick and suffocating, replaced his composure. The world began to blur as he felt himself being dragged backward. It was as if invisible, colossal hands had clamped onto him, hauling him violently into the shadowy maw of the mine tunnel behind him.
How is this possible? The thought screamed in his mind. I am a Quasi-Dragon level master! How can I be rendered helpless like a babe?
He hadn't even sensed the trap spring. He was helpless, a fly caught in a web he never saw. As the darkness deepened and the distance from safety grew, Linghu's despair mounted. His lips twitched in a futile effort to beg for salvation.
Then, the darkness was torn asunder.
It wasn't light that broke the gloom, but heat—a terrifying, torrential wave of scorching Yang energy. It hit him like a physical wall, accompanied by a roar that sounded less like a man and more like a dragon breaking its chains.
"Presumptuous!"
BOOM!
Jiang Dao burst onto the scene. He was a juggernaut of violence, his momentum carrying the weight of a landslide. The muscles of his right arm violently expanded, veins bulging like subterranean roots, rapidly turning a deep, bruised indigo. His skin bristled with hardened barbs, and his five fingers, wreathed in Extreme Yang Baleful Qi, hooked into claws.
He didn't aim for Linghu. He aimed for what was attached to him.
Through Jiang Dao's eyes, the reality was grotesque. Perched on the Old Daoist's shoulder was a middle-aged man wearing a twisted, rictus grin. The creature's face was the color of bone ash, death energy coiling around its neck like a noose. Its ghastly white hands were the clamps dragging Linghu into the abyss.
Seeing the approach of Jiang Dao's monstrous claw, the entity didn't panic. The smile remained plastered on its face. It moved with lightning reflexes, one hand shooting out to parry Jiang Dao, the other snapping toward Linghu's skull.
But Jiang Dao was faster, and he brought his own atmosphere with him.
The "Scorching Sun Field" expanded instantly. It was a sphere of pure thermal domination, enveloping Linghu in a halo of blistering heat. With a sound like water hitting a skillet, the supernatural frost paralyzing the Old Daoist evaporated.
Freed, Linghu reacted on instinct. He spun around, weaving a spell with frantic fingers, blasting a bolt of violet energy at his assailant.
The spirit had intended to rip Linghu's head from his shoulders. The sudden movement caused it to miss its mark, but the consequences were still gruesome. The grip slipped, shoving Linghu's head laterally. There was a sickening pop, like a wooden joint dislocating, and Linghu's head shifted a full centimeter to the right, looking as though it had been shunted onto his shoulder.
He screamed, a sound of pure agony, as his own spell slammed into the spirit. It fizzled with a muffled pfft, ineffective.
Then, the heavy artillery arrived.
CRACK!
Firelight erupted, carrying with it a cocktail of baleful energy and virulent poison. Jiang Dao's [Fire Demon God-Tearing Hand] collided with the spirit's palm. The impact was cataclysmic. The muscles on Jiang Dao's arm swelled again, doubling in size as he poured more power into the strike.
"Die!"
The shout was a shockwave. Jiang Dao's strength was absolute. With a wet crunch, the spirit's arm shattered. The force didn't stop there; the blow acted like a battering ram, launching the entity off Linghu's back and sending it hurtling into the darkness.
The creature let out a high-pitched, ear-splitting shriek. It didn't land; instead, it seemed to dissolve into weightless gray streamers, retreating backward with impossible speed.
"Running?" Jiang Dao's eyes burned with electric intensity. Without a word, he engaged his pursuit, a blur of heat chasing the shadow.
Behind him, Old Daoist Linghu collapsed, clutching his head with both hands. He tried to push his skull back into alignment, but it felt fused, locked in that agonizing, off-center position. Every attempt to fix it brought nothing but blinding pain.
Gritting his teeth against the agony, Linghu forced himself up. He couldn't stay here. He scrambled forward, chasing the trail of heat Jiang Dao had left behind.
Deep in the mine, the sounds of destruction echoed—rumbling collapses and the roar of flames. It sounded as if a prehistoric beast was thrashing through the tunnels. Linghu knew that sound. It was the sound of Jiang Dao working.
Linghu sprinted through two, then three connecting tunnels. Suddenly, he skidded to a halt.
The air had changed. The heat was gone, replaced by a damp, creeping chill.
Ahead of him, the tunnel was choked with a bizarre, luminescent blue mist. It swirled with a mysterious, unsettling rhythm. It was cold to the touch, and merely looking at it triggered a primal alarm in Linghu's hindbrain.
Jiang Dao was nowhere to be seen. It was as if the mist had swallowed him whole.
"Gang Leader Jiang... Gang Leader Jiang, are you in there?"
His voice echoed, thin and reedy in the oppressive silence. The darkness seemed to mock him. There was no response.
Linghu's face paled. He reached out, his trembling fingers grazing the rough stone of the tunnel wall. He needed an anchor. Keeping his hand firmly on the rock, he stepped into the blue fog.
It was a mistake.
The moment he entered, the mist reacted. It boiled, surging forward to envelop him. He spun around to retreat, but the path behind him had vanished, erased by the rolling azure clouds.
"Calm down," he whispered to himself.
He focused his will into the white horsetail whisk in his hand—his Sacred Artifact. The strands began to glow with a soft, milky light, cutting a small radius of visibility through the gloom. Emboldened, Linghu moved forward, sliding his hand along the wall.
Ten meters. Twenty.
The mist was endless. It felt less like weather and more like an ocean. The deeper he went, the more his courage eroded. He was out of his depth. He didn't even know how the first attack had happened; walking blindly into this was suicide.
Retreat, his instincts screamed.
He turned around, keeping his hand on the wall, and began to walk back the way he came.
He counted his steps. He had taken forty-two steps in.
Forty-two. The exit should be here.
Fifty. Still mist.
Seventy-two.
Linghu stopped, sweat beading on his forehead despite the cold. Something is wrong.
Maybe the mist had expanded? He forced himself to continue, pushing the Sacred Artifact to shine brighter, casting long, dancing shadows against the fog.
One hundred and two steps.
Nothing but blue.
His heart sank into his stomach. He was trapped. The geography of the tunnel had been rewritten, or his mind was being fooled. Just as he was considering using brute force to blast a hole through the wall, a silhouette materialized in the fog ahead.
It was tall. Burly. imposing.
"Who goes there?" Linghu hissed, his whisk poised to strike.
"Don't be nervous. It's me."
The voice was deep, gravelly, and familiar. The figure stepped through the haze, revealing the brutish, muscular form of Jiang Dao.
The relief that washed over Linghu was nearly enough to make his knees buckle. "Gang Leader Jiang!"
It was ironic. Before today, he had been terrified of this violent man. He wanted nothing more than to put miles between them. Now, Jiang Dao's presence was the only thing anchoring him to sanity. He had become dependent on the monster to keep the other monsters away.
"Did you find the evil spirit?" Linghu asked, his head still cocked at its gruesome angle.
"No," Jiang Dao said, his expression dark. "It's fast. I lost it." He looked at Linghu. "Did you find anything?"
"No," Linghu admitted. "This place is a maze. The mist blinds the senses. I've been walking in circles. Gang Leader, can your Heavenly Master God Eye pierce this fog?"
Jiang Dao looked around, squinting into the gloom. He shook his head. "The miasma is too thick. Even I can't see far. We're in trouble."
"Even you?" Linghu felt the cold grip of despair return. "Then we have to feel our way out."
"Agreed," Jiang Dao said.
"The walls don't change," Linghu reasoned, turning his back to Jiang Dao to touch the stone again. "If we follow the rock, we have to find an exit eventually."
"A sound logic," Jiang Dao's voice came from directly behind him. "I was thinking the same thing."
Linghu nodded, staring at the stone. He didn't see the expression on Jiang Dao's face shift into something predatory. He didn't see the massive hand rising silently, fingers spreading to grip the back of his exposed, crooked neck.
The hand descended.
Snap.
But not on Linghu.
Suddenly, a massive shape loomed out of the fog behind the 'Jiang Dao.' A hand the size of a shovel, radiating the heat of a blast furnace, shot out and clamped onto the impostor's skull.
"You miserable mongrel," the real Jiang Dao growled, his voice vibrating with suppressed rage. "I finally caught you."
The fake Jiang Dao froze. His reaction was inhuman; his arm snapped backward, bending at an anatomically impossible angle to claw at the attacker behind him.
But the real Jiang Dao was already moving. His eyes were cold flint. His fingers tightened, the heat intense enough to sear flesh, and he drove his fingers down.
PFFT!
Five fingers punched through the top of the skull like it was wet clay.
The impostor shrieked—a sound like tearing metal. Its face began to melt, the features sloughing off like wax, revealing a blank slate beneath. Yet, its claws still raked toward Jiang Dao's chest with lethal intent.
Hearing the scream, Linghu spun around. His brain short-circuited for a moment—two Jiang Daos?—before the reality clicked.
"A mimic!"
Linghu flicked his whisk. Hundreds of white threads exploded outward, hard as steel wire, wrapping around the fake entity to bind it.
But Jiang Dao didn't need help. He didn't dodge the incoming claws; he simply grabbed the creature by its ruined head and slammed it sideways.
BOOM!
The impact was devastating. It was like watching a hydraulic press crush a soda can. Jiang Dao slammed the creature into the tunnel wall with such force that the stone fractured, spiderwebs of cracks shooting up to the ceiling.
The creature didn't just break; it splattered. There was a sickening squelch, and the body went flat, bones pulverized, organs liquefied.
Jiang Dao pulled his hand back. He was holding a head. The rest of the body—a ruined sack of flesh—slid down the wall and hit the floor with a wet thud.
In Jiang Dao's grip, the head transformed. The melted features solidified into the face of a pale middle-aged man, the neck ragged and torn, reeking of carrion.
Jiang Dao looked at the severed head, then at Linghu. "You alive?"
"I... I think so," Linghu stammered, wiping sweat from his face. He stared at the carnage. "I couldn't tell... I couldn't sense any difference. No Yin energy, nothing."
"I don't know what it is either," Jiang Dao grunted. He checked his internal interface. Modification Points: 0.
He scowled. Whatever this thing was, the system didn't register it as a true Evil Spirit. It was something else. Something worse.
As the creature died, the blue mist began to recede, sucked away as if by a vacuum. The cave cleared.
The silence that followed was heavy.
"Look," Jiang Dao said, pointing his chin toward the far wall.
Now that the fog was gone, the horror of the mine was revealed. Dozens of bodies lay stacked against the wall like firewood.
They were all headless.
The clothes were tattered rags—miners' garb. Their skin was rough, calloused from labor.
Jiang Dao walked over, kicking through the pile. "No blood," he noted. "The necks are cauterized or healed over. And look at this."
He held up the head he had just ripped off. It was rapidly decomposing, bloating, and weeping pus within seconds of being detached from the host body.
"It can swap bodies," Jiang Dao deduced. "It rips off a head, takes the body. But the head doesn't last. It needs fresh hosts constantly."
He rummaged through the pockets of the oldest corpses, the ones already succumbing to rot. He pulled out a crumpled, oil-stained paper wrapper. It was a packet of herbs.
Zhang Family Village - Wang's Medicine Shop.
"He was a local," Jiang Dao said. "Let's go."
The wind outside the mine was biting, a sharp contrast to the stagnant air of the tunnels. They marched back toward the small settlement they had passed earlier: Zhang Family Village.
Yan Wushuang and the gang members were waiting. Jiang Dao tossed the rotting head at their feet.
"ID this."
A gang member gagged but stepped forward. "That's... that's Guo San. The foreman. I drank with him last week."
"Good," Jiang Dao said, wiping his hands on a rag. "We enter the village."
As they approached the cluster of houses, a sense of unease settled over the group. It wasn't a visible threat, but a psychic weight. The village felt less like a home and more like a graveyard waiting to be filled.
Jiang Dao stepped out of his carriage, his presence looming large. He scanned the silent houses.
A door creaked open.
An old man, back bent with age, shuffled out holding a wooden basin. He splashed dirty water onto the frozen dirt road, the liquid steaming in the cold air.
"Leader, there are people?" Yan Wushuang whispered, surprised.
Jiang Dao narrowed his eyes. He activated the Heavenly Master God Eye.
Nothing.
The old man glowed with the faint, warm aura of life. No death energy. No Yin spirits hiding in his shadow. His neck was seamless.
"Wait here," Jiang Dao ordered the men. He signaled Linghu. "With me."
They approached the house. The old man had already gone back inside. Jiang Dao hammered on the wood.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
"Who is it?" A fearful voice.
"Travelers. We need water."
The door opened a crack. The old man peered out, his eyes cloudy with cataracts. When he saw Jiang Dao—a giant of a man radiating violence—he flinched.
"Warriors... what do you want?"
Jiang Dao stared him down. "You live alone?"
"Yes. Just me."
"We heard people have been disappearing," Jiang Dao lied, watching the man's pupils. "Lots of missing persons in this area."
"Impossible," the old man stammered, shaking his head vigorously. "This is a small village. Eighty-nine souls. I know everyone. No one is missing. If someone was gone, I'd know."
"Eighty-nine people," Jiang Dao repeated. "And they are all here?"
"Yes, I swear it."
Jiang Dao was silent for a beat. Then, he moved.
His hand shot out like a viper, gripping the old man by the hair. The old man shrieked as Jiang Dao yanked his head back, exposing the neck.
Jiang Dao leaned in, scrutinizing the skin.
It was flawless. No scars. No seams. No makeup hiding a cut.
He let the old man go. The villager scrambled back, terrified. "Help! Bandits! Help me!"
Doors flew open all down the street. Men rushed out, wielding hoes and iron bars, shouting in defense of their neighbor. They were angry, loud, and alive.
Jiang Dao swept his gaze across the mob. Golden fire burned in his irises as he analyzed every single one of them.
Normal. Normal. Normal.
There wasn't a single trace of evil energy. No mimicry. No illusions.
"It doesn't make sense," Jiang Dao muttered, stepping back as the angry villagers advanced. "How can they all be real?"
The mystery wasn't that there were monsters. The mystery was that, in a place filled with death, everyone appeared perfectly, impossibly alive.