The moment he heard that voice, Jian Changsheng felt his scalp tingle.
At the cusp of nightfall, a paper figure had suddenly appeared in the deserted woods and it could speak… If not for Jian Changsheng’s hardened nerves from past experiences, he might have been scared out of his wits on the spot.
Without hesitation, he bolted from the doghouse, sprinting in the opposite direction of the paper figure. At the same time, his short sword flashed into his palm, and he slashed it across his hand, drawing a streak of crimson blood.
He flung his bloodied hand outward, sending droplets flying through the air and in the next instant, his figure vanished from sight.
Jian Changsheng wasn’t stupid. That paper figure couldn’t be a natural phenomenon; someone had to be controlling it… And whoever could do that was undoubtedly a holder of a Divine Path—and definitely not the Path of the Soldier.
In Aurora City, the sudden appearance of a Divine Path holder targeting him could only mean one thing…
One of those outsiders hired by the Stellar Chamber of Commerce? But hadn’t Liu Chen said they hadn’t been mobilized?!
Jian Changsheng cursed Liu Chen vehemently in his mind, regretting how swiftly he’d killed him earlier. Now, it seemed likely that the strange bird he’d spotted during his return had been the culprit… Otherwise, how could they have tracked him all the way here without him encountering a single soul?
Jian Changsheng activated [Blood Drop Step] twice in succession, covering hundreds of meters in mere seconds. The original paper figure was no longer in sight, but he didn’t stop.
As if to confirm his fears, the next moment, he felt a weight settle on his shoulder—as though something had latched onto his back.
Jian Changsheng’s pupils contracted. He instinctively turned his head to look…
The gaudy face of the paper figure was now pressed against his back, its hollow eyes staring eerily at him.
The moment their gazes met, Jian Changsheng’s heart seemed to skip a beat. He had no idea how the paper figure had caught up to him across such a distance in an instant… and he had no time to ponder it.
The paper figure gently raised a hand and tapped his shoulder. A muffled sound, like distant thunder, reverberated through Jian Changsheng’s body and half of it instantly went numb!
Jian Changsheng didn’t even feel pain before his balance failed, sending him crashing face-first into the ground!
The paper figure clinging to his back floated upward like a kite the moment he fell, hanging upside-down from a nearby tree branch, its negligible weight barely bending the tip.
"Who are you?!" Jian Changsheng struggled to his feet, his eyes bloodshot.
As [Blood Robe] sensed his critical state, it surged into overdrive, flooding his body with relentless power. A murderous aura erupted through the deserted woods.
The paper figure showed no intention of speaking. It simply hung silently from the branch, swaying faintly in the cold wind like a discarded New Year’s painting.
Gritting his teeth, Jian Changsheng kicked off the ground, launching himself at the figure like a cannonball!
If even [Blood Drop Step] couldn’t shake it off, then fighting head-on was his only option. His short sword flashed as a streak of cold light shot toward the paper figure’s face!
Just as the blade was about to strike, the paper figure trembled and vanished before Jian Changsheng’s eyes…
No, "vanished" wasn’t the right word. Jian Changsheng saw it being "unfolded," as though someone had disassembled it into several creased sheets of paper, which then twisted into slender "snakes" that slithered up his sword arm and coiled around his body in an instant!
Jian Changsheng froze. He had never anticipated such a possibility—this scene defied everything he understood about "combat." When had the straightforward, brutal Path of the Solider ever fought such a bizarre battle?
Well… except against Chen Ling.
Instinctively, Jian Changsheng tried to slash apart the paper strips entangling him, but several of them instantly wove into chain-like bindings, immobilizing his limbs, while another coiled around his throat and hoisted him into the air, dangling him from a branch.
Jian Changsheng thrashed violently, but even his steel-shattering strength couldn’t break free from these paper restraints. The strip around his neck dug deep, cutting off his breath as suffocation overwhelmed him!
Only then did he see a hunched figure emerge from the shadows of the woods, limping toward him.
It was a gaunt, pallid man, his back bent like a hunchback, his gait unsteady—as though malnourished since birth, resembling a refugee.
In his hands, he idly folded a sticky note, deftly shaping it into a human figure, then a paper crane, then a flower…
His drooping eyes lifted slightly to glance at Jian Changsheng, strung up in the tree, devoid of any emotion.
"This one… capture alive…"
As he spoke, the paper strip around Jian Changsheng’s neck loosened, and he plummeted to the ground, landing with a heavy thud.
Jian Changsheng gasped for air, his face purpling, his glare fixed on the pale man. He tried to rise and continue fighting, but the paper snakes binding his limbs refused to yield.
The pale man paid him no mind. As he unfolded the sticky note in his fingers, sheets of paper sprouted from the soil beneath his feet, writhing like living tendrils that coiled around Jian Changsheng’s body, encasing him like a white coffin.
Watching this, a flash of terror crossed Jian Changsheng’s eyes.
"A Domain… You’re a fourth-tier?!"
As the pale man folded the sticky note into a tiny rectangle, Jian Changsheng’s body disappeared entirely—leaving only a white paper figure trembling on the ground.
The pale man crouched slowly, retrieving a red pen from his pocket. He dabbed two crimson dots onto the paper figure’s face—its eyes—and it immediately stilled, lifeless.
Silence reclaimed the woods.
The pale man reached out, hoisting the paper figure onto his hunchbacked frame. In the deathly stillness of the dark forest, he trudged soundlessly toward the distance, like a funeral director en route to a burial.
"Two left… This time, no need for live captures," he murmured to himself.