Chapter 26: It's either you die or I live!
Through the moonlight streaming through the window, Xie Xun saw that the corners of their mouths were being pulled upwards by a thin, almost invisible thread, slowly revealing a smile to him.
And at the end of the thread, baby teeth were tied.
Xie Xun frowned slightly.
He had sensed something was wrong as soon as he entered, but the situation was too urgent for him to think about it deeply. Then, a flash of inspiration struck him – it was that vague record in his great-grandfather's notebook:
Using baby teeth as bones and blood from one's closest relatives as a medium, it can summon souls and spirits, creating puppets to bring others back to life—a truly insidious and vicious act.
This is also the most insidious and evil technique among the so-called Liu family puppetry, known as the Soul-Tethering Thread.
Who is it?
Who could use such vicious methods to control so many paper figures at the same time?
Whom are they going to revive?
Just then, the old TV in the living room flickered on and turned on again by itself!
But this time, instead of a distorted ghost face, the screen showed a blurry home video.
The image is slightly shaky, but the lighting is warm.
This living room, though small, was clean and tidy, brimming with life. The man wore a calm, gentle smile, his wife was setting the table, and their two young children were laughing and playing on the sofa.
A warm and cozy atmosphere.
However, the man smiled and took out three small teeth tied with red strings from his pocket.
He held the strings, turned around, and respectfully bowed to the black smiling Buddha, his voice so gentle it was chilling.
"Don't be afraid, sweetie."
"Our family will always be together."
"To bring glory and honor to our Liu family and our ancestors!"
As soon as he finished speaking, the bloodline in his hand suddenly taut, and his wife and children's eyes instantly became empty. He laughed as he dragged his own corpse out from the corner and walked step by step towards the center of the blood-red rune array that had already been drawn in the living room.
The video abruptly ended there, and the television screen went dark.
Xie Xun was unable to calm down for a long time, his hands and feet were ice cold.
Just as he was so frightened that his sanity plummeted, the three paper figures controlled by the soul-binding threads suddenly laughed.
They opened their mouths and suddenly sprayed out countless black, sticky hairs, accompanied by a nauseating stench, which swarmed towards Xie Xun.
The speed is astonishing!
Xie Xun felt a wave of nausea wash over him. The bloody scene of the human sacrifice he had just witnessed combined with the filth before him made him feel utterly disgusted.
"roll!"
He growled and instinctively retreated from his side and back, his hand already reaching into his robes.
Xie Xun's heart skipped a beat, and the talisman pouch he touched with his fingertips was almost empty.
I had already used up almost all of the talismans in the corridor, and now I see that only the life-saving golden talisman I kept close to my heart is still there.
It must not be used unless absolutely necessary.
So what if I die!
His eyes sharpened, he bit his fingertip and quickly drew a simple blood incantation to ward off evil in front of him.
With a "hum," a flash of blood and gold light appeared, and the powerful force rushed forward and collided with the surging tide of hair, producing a sizzling corrosive sound, temporarily halting the flow.
Xie Xun retreated step by step, searching for any openings in his defenses.
He couldn't keep wasting his time here with these paper figures. He had already tried the endless loop, and although he didn't die, he was on the verge of a mental breakdown.
He had to find a way to break the deadlock, no matter what.
However, although his blood curse was effective, his hair was too thick and too fierce, and the blood curse's light quickly dimmed.
Worse still, the resentment in the center of the living room began to gather wildly once again as the paper figures attacked.
The black, smiling Buddha suddenly opened its eyes, which were filled with thick, bloody light, and a twisted malice descended upon it.
Damn it!
Xie Xun watched as the smiling Buddha emanated a palpable aura of resentment, and the paper figure suddenly stopped attacking him, merging together tightly.
The cracking sound of bones dislocating was enough to make your teeth ache.
Ultimately, in Xie Xun's horrified gaze, a two-meter-tall, deformed, four-legged fusion monster was formed.
It has no fixed shape, like a constantly writhing mountain of flesh.
The surface sometimes shows a man's hideous and distorted face, sometimes a woman's painfully scratching arms, and sometimes the heads of children giggling and crying.
Four faces rapidly shifted across the chunk of flesh, coalescing into a gigantic eyeball that occupied most of the living room space, covered in scarlet blood vessels.
Countless tentacles, composed of severed limbs and broken arms, stretched out haphazardly from its massive body, contracting and waving.
Wherever they went, even the air reeked of the stench of blood and decay.
At this, Xie Xun's pupils shrank sharply, and he was so frightened that his legs felt like lead, and his whole body stiffened, unable to move.
"Uh...ooh..."
His stomach clenched violently, and his throat tightened. Then he bent over abruptly, unable to hold it in any longer, and vomited with a loud "whoosh."
The little food left in my stomach was vomited up, mixed with acid. The extreme physical discomfort was far less than the psychological impact.
That's disgusting!
It stinks!
How can such disgusting things exist in this world?!
The smell was pervasive, as if thick grease had coated his mouth and nose, and even seeped into his skin.
"Descendant of the Xie family, we've finally found you, hehehe—"
The man's head roared menacingly from the top, its tentacles lashing out at Xie Xun.
The overwhelming stench and visual pollution nearly destroyed Xie Xun's last psychological defenses.
The string in his mind snapped completely!
"Heh..." A barely audible chuckle escaped from his throat.
The tentacles of the fusion monster are already upon us!
Xie Xun saw the tentacles reflected in his pupils, then suddenly tilted his head to dodge and rolled to the side and backward.
"Sizzle!"
The tentacles, sharp as blades, grazed his left arm and cheek, instantly slicing open bloody gashes that gushed out, starkly contrasting against his pale skin.
The searing pain only fueled his excitement.
Then, the laughter grew louder and more out of control, turning into a near-manic burst of laughter!
He laughed as he violently wiped his cheek with the back of his trembling hand, spreading the blood. The pale beauty's face flushed crimson from the maniacal laughter.
His narrow, sharp fox-like eyes burned with a do-or-die spirit.
"The magical artifacts are gone? The talismans are gone? We're at our wits' end? Heh..."
He seemed to be talking to himself, or perhaps mocking someone driven to desperation. His laughter abruptly stopped, replaced by a sharp roar, "So what?!"
"Today, it's not you who dies—"
He suddenly tore open his shirt, revealing the life-saving golden talisman that he had hidden close to his body, which shimmered with a dark golden light. He then raised his hand and poured the last bit of his magic power into it.
The golden talisman burst forth with a dazzling light like the sun, illuminating his pale, beautiful face as if he were a god or a demon.
"I'm the one who lives!"
He roared and shot the golden talisman, which contained all his power, at the fused monster.
"Clearly, the ending was already predetermined."
"You'll only die! Break this!"
The moment the golden rune collided with the amalgam, it was as if a small sun had exploded in the living room. The dazzling light surged and devoured all the filth, and the golden light, like countless sharp swords, pinned the amalgam down from within.
"No!!!"
Amidst the overlapping screams of the Liu family's owner, wife, and children, the fusion monster's massive body was torn apart by golden light!
The four wronged souls that had been forcibly mixed together were returned to their original forms.
The souls of the man, the woman, and the two children, like kites with broken strings, were blasted back to the corner of the living room.
Their souls dimmed, as if they might vanish at any moment. They huddled together, whimpering in fear, a stark contrast to their previous ferocious state.
At first glance, they seem like the victims of persecution.
The golden light slowly dissipated, and Xie Xun knelt on one knee, exhausted, breathing heavily, each breath aggravating his wounds.
Blood trickled down his forehead and dripped onto the floor. But he still forced himself to lift his head and look at the four trembling, wronged souls, a slight smile curving his blood-stained lips.
He really did it.
"Ha...ha...the Xie family...they really are a bunch of despicable and shameless scoundrels!"
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