Chapter 197: Chapter 196: Porcelain Doll (14)_1
The second Air Bullet hit its target, shattering the Snake Person’s skull to bits. It was dead beyond any doubt.
And, as expected, Fu Qian harvested yet another Boneless Finger.
Fu Qian gave it a try but then gave up the idea of reverting it, instead focusing his energy on maintaining the state of his other body parts.
Once he felt stable, Fu Qian stepped forward and bent down to observe the monster that now lay dead.
Although it had the head of a snake, the creature indeed had arms and legs and even now was standing erect.
What he had thought to be a skirt was actually layers of shed skin.
Years of accumulation had built up, layered one atop another to form the shape of a floor-length skirt.
That was why the corpse hadn’t fallen over—it was propped up.
How absurd… For a moment, Fu Qian didn’t know how to react.
Regardless of its combat abilities, the mere sight was enough to drop SAN Points.
[SAN Points decreased by 1]
No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than a prompt appeared beside Fu Qian’s ear.
?
Could there be such a thing, a literal case of “speak of the devil” in another sense?
Fu Qian was momentarily at a loss for words.
He lost a point in SAN Points for no apparent reason.
Losing one SAN Point wasn’t a big deal, but not knowing what caused it was the scariest part.
But he could try to deduce it simply.
The Snake Person was thoroughly dead, so then—Fu Qian turned his head, squinting as he surveyed his surroundings.
Was it some other kind of demon or monster?
The next moment, he was surprised to discover that at each passageway in his field of view, there appeared the figure of a Snake Person.
And all of them had their backs to him.
What’s the matter? Do real Snake People never look back at their enemies?
After a moment of internal commentary, the Snake People at each cavern entrance began to move simultaneously.
But they still did not attack; instead, they walked in direction they faced, slowly vanishing into the dim corridors.
At the same time, Fu Qian heard a strange sound echoing in the space, like something singing a song.
Almost instantly, his head felt like it was struck heavily, and he became momentarily disoriented.
[SAN Points decreased by 1]
While still trying to gather his wits, his SAN Points dropped by another point.
This… Fu Qian furrowed his brows.
The last time he lost SAN Points this rapidly was during the fight with the Demigod, Li Weixuan.
At this rate, it wouldn’t take half an hour for his SAN Points to reach zero.
Fu Qian watched the multitude of Snake People heading in all directions. The singing was exceedingly ethereal, making it impossible to listen and pinpoint the direction, to determine which one it was, even if they were the ones singing.
Fu Qian thought for a moment, quickly memorized the direction of several passageways, and then chose the first one on his right to travel down.
Moving silently through the corridor, Fu Qian quickly caught up with the Snake Person ahead.
And almost the moment he drew near, the creature stopped, its head whipping out towards him.
This time, Fu Qian didn’t use Air Bullet, but sent a slap flying instead, sending the Snake Person’s head soaring through the air.
The singing didn’t stop.
Fu Qian turned and left without a second glance, retracing his steps without paying any attention to the Snake People that might be following him.
[SAN Points decreased by 1]
No sooner had he returned to the main hall where he had started than his head felt heavier, and he lost another SAN Point.
Trying each one in turn could lead to heavy losses!
Plus, what if none of them was the source of the singing? Not to mention the myriad of side passages here.
Transcendence was of course simple, but it wasn’t time for that yet.
After all, if he didn’t figure it out this time, he would face the same situation the next time he came.
As Fu Qian thought, he didn’t stop moving and chose another passage to proceed down.
This time, the Snake Person had already gone far ahead, and Fu Qian, without any courtesy, caught up and similarly, slapped it with a palm.
The singing continued without pause, while the number of Snake People chasing after him increased to two.
Fu Qian controlled his speed and returned the same way he came.
This time, he didn’t choose a different path but instead led the two Snake People around in circles.
[SAN Points -1]
So that’s how it is, I think I know what’s going on!
After the fourth hint of losing SAN Points came, Fu Qian realized something—the intervals at which SAN Points were lost were not fixed.
Although the singing had no variation in pitch, the frequency at which he lost SAN Points was constantly changing.
Among them, the interval between the second and third time was the longest.
This was quite peculiar; what determined the frequency of losing SAN Points?
It wasn’t a fixed frequency, could it be related to the distance between himself and the singer?
Fu Qian quickly mapped out a route in his mind, leading the two Snake People around each cave entrance in turn.
But it was just a roundabout; he didn’t delve into any of them.
Eventually, after the prompt for decreasing SAN Points sounded more than ten times, Fu Qian, kiting the two Snake People, arrived at a corner.
[SAN Points -1]
It should be around here!
Amidst another prompt of SAN Points reduction, Fu Qian, without a second word, stomped on the empty ground.
With a booming sound, rubble shattered, and the ground beneath was forcefully stomped into a crater.
In the next moment, the singing abruptly stopped, and the two Snake People chasing him vanished into thin air.
At the same time, a figure appeared out of nowhere in the blank space before him, swaying as if about to fall.
It really was as I suspected; I was almost tricked by my decisive actions!
Fu Qian looked at the monster before him, which was not much taller than himself.
This time, it was truly a human!
Although the long dress was too decayed to discern its color, everything below the chest was still in a human shape, but everything above was too horrific to bear.
How horrific? It resembled quite a bit like if a grenade had detonated inside a head, and every fragment that exploded grew into a new head, which then struggled to clump together.
The heads varied in size, and most of them were missing several features.
The one thing they all had in common was that they each had more than two eyes, and at this moment, all of them blinked and looked at him.
It became clear now—just now, it had been this Multi-Brain Sister using her abilities to hide here and sing.
While using the singing to launch mental attacks, she also created illusions of Snake People to lure him into pursuit.
In fact, regardless of which Snake Person, they weren’t the ones singing.
If he had mindlessly chased after them, he would likely have paid a huge price to eliminate all the Snake People, only to still be faced with the unending singing, eventually unable to withstand it anymore and resorting to Transcendence.
The reason the frequency of losing SAN Points was strange was that the closer he was to her, the faster he lost SAN Points, and every time he came back, he was very close to this Multi-Brain Sister.
Having guessed at this possibility, Fu Qian planned out the route and tested it, narrowing down the area step by step until he pinpointed her location.
Although it sounded easy, the mortal danger involved was still quite high in hindsight.
If his judgment had been wrong, then he would have wasted nearly twenty SAN Points for nothing.
Now, one could only say that, regardless, it was a nice fight.
Fu Qian silently gave himself a thumbs up.
And facing Multi-Brain Sister, who had been exposed and was charging at him with open arms, Fu Qian took off a ring from one hand, aimed his middle finger, and fired an Air Bullet straight at her.