Chapter 173: Chasing Shadows and Slaying Beasts (2)
A strange figure in a painted robe quietly appeared behind Chu Hengkong, the two animal ears on his head twitching. He or she, defenselessly, turned their back to the killer, seemingly admiring the mural as well.
"To be honest, I'm very satisfied with this work. The aura of Lord Vansalar, who thinks he's very handsome but looks a bit foolish to others, has been perfectly reproduced. It makes me very happy just looking at it!"
"You like your job." Chu Hengkong said.
"As you can see, I'm a painter. If I were tired of brushes and paints, I would have asked you to let me change my clothes long ago." The strange man turned around with a smile and bowed. "I haven't introduced myself yet. I'm Vaklo Rockwa, the bringer of fear. I have no gender, so you can call me Mr. or Ms.."
"I'm Chu Hengkong, a killer, a man." Chu Hengkong answered in a serious tone.
"Nice to meet you! There's one thing I need to remind you of..."
Waklo grew taller and taller, exceeding ten meters in the blink of an eye. He smiled and bent down, his overly tall body like an arched bridge passing over Chu Hengkong in front of him. His smiling face fell backwards, and his pupilless eyes reflected the firelight.
"It takes considerable courage to light the fire here. You must pass the test before you can move forward." Waklo blinked. "I'm confident in my speed. You can compete with me. If you can outrun me, you can get out."
"It's really tiring to make such a scene just by passing by."
Waklo sighed softly, "That's the rule. We have to do our part. Or maybe you have a better idea?"
Chu Hengkong stuck the torch into the ground and stretched his hands and feet.
"I'll kill you first, then I'll pass on."
"That's no problem—" Waklo said with a smile, "Mr. Little Snake!"
The tall, lanky painter reached back and pulled out a paintbrush. He swung the brush across the air, a dark, shadowy stroke streaking between the two men, transforming into a vivid black snake. The painter's brushstrokes in the air transformed the snake into the killer's left arm. The snake, wrapped around the arm, soared upwards, opening its maw and biting down on the killer's head!
The clashing fangs crackled, and the strike, poised for a blow, swallowed only air. The black snake remained on Chu Hengkong's arm, seemingly moving further and further away. The chains on the silver arm unraveled, the outer armor nestled within it detaching segment by segment. The black, blood-red limbs within extended with the force, like another massive, ferocious silver snake lunging at him.
Chu Hengkong swung his left arm to the ground, flattening the painted black snake with one blow. With a flick of his right hand, a pure white spear emanated from his sleeve, aiming for Waklo's eyeball. His thrust was blocked by the blade, and the painter's five fingers deformed and extended, becoming five sharp razors. Waklo brought his two blades together, blocking them up and down, his deformed claws scraping the spear's shaft as he slashed at Chu Hengkong's wrist. Instead of retreating, Chu Hengkong advanced, using the spear's advantage to charge forward, the tip of the spear piercing Waklo's right eye first.
"Hit!" Waklo shouted.
It had indeed struck a vital spot. This man lacked the extraordinary defensive capabilities of Luohun, and the shot, condensed with murderous intent, struck his flesh with pinpoint accuracy. The feel was flawless. The claw attack could be dodged. But a wave of unease swirled within him. Chu Hengkong withdrew his left hand, shattering Waklo's upper body. A scream emanated from the messenger's broken body. "I'm going to die!" But something was still wrong. The sense of crisis deepened!
Chu Hengkong turned his head and looked at the source of the crisis that his intuition suggested. He was looking at his own shadow, and a strange smile appeared in his shadow. "I've been hit!" Waklo was still screaming. "Next is my turn--"
An arm like an animal's claw stretched out from the shadow, and Waklo chuckled in the shadow.
"——Please come into the painting."
The beast's claws touched the killer's trouser leg, too fast for him to react. An inexplicable force crushed his mind. His vision narrowed, his thoughts clouded, and a suffocating emotion lodged in his brain. Chu Hengkong felt like he had returned to the moment of his summons, as if he had been flattened, reduced to a paper figure without any thickness...
He truly lost his thickness, becoming a flat surface floating in mid-air. Waklo gently grasped the shapeless figure and placed it within the scroll. The flattened Chu Hengkong melted into the painting, Waklo's wounds patched and healed by the shadows. He smiled and picked up the brush.
"Let's start painting."
·
The sound came from far away, echoing in the vast expanse. Chu Hengkong stood on the charred earth, the air filled with the stench of blood and corpses. Not far away stood a pyramid-like platform, upon which was enshrined the statue of the Demon King.
From the perspective of a warrior, the platform exuded a sinister, ghostly aura, like a gathering of evil spirits. It was hard to imagine how many lives had been lost to create such an ominous atmosphere. Chu Hengkong immediately looked at his prosthetic arm. The iron chains wrapped around his arm had been untied at the start of the fight. After confirming everything, he turned ninety degrees away from the platform.
He counted silently in his mind: 1, 2, 3. One second was enough to leave the edge of the platform in reality, but here, the situation deviated from common sense. The platform was extending "forward" as he ran. After three seconds of running, the objective distance had not changed at all.
"Invite you into the painting." He thought of Waklo's bizarre statement. Chu Hengkong stopped decisively. He stared at the eerie platform, positioned it directly in front of him, and then ran backwards, like a reverse recording of the sprint stage of the Shendongjie Marathon! This decision was an unprecedented success. The platform retreated at a speed that defied common sense, shrinking to a tiny dot at the end of his sight.
"I see. It's a painting, which means it's two-dimensional."
"Correct answer~" Waklo's voice came from the sky, "Most people don't realize what's happening. You reacted faster than I thought!"
"My score in advanced mathematics is 87!" said Chu Hengkong.
"That doesn't sound like a very good ranking."
"What do you know? This is a subject where you desperately pray before the exam that the examiner is in a good mood and you're just thankful if you pass."
"Even though I don't understand, you seem to be trying very hard. Thank you for your hard work!" the painter said cheerfully. "So, can advanced mathematics solve this?"
Waklo's smiling face appeared in the sky, looking at the painting from the outside like a child looking at the puppet soldiers in a building block castle. He casually swiped the pen, and a black mark fell across Chu Hengkong's back, adding a diagonal line to the painting.
This diagonal line, falling across the painting, becomes a black cliff that appears out of nowhere. The black wall rises from the ground, sloping upwards into the endless sky. Glancing along the wall, one sees an infinite black wall stretching out into infinity, a limitless expanse. Like a platform of infinite length, like a road that never ends, this inky wall is literally infinite. Because the painting is a two-dimensional space, in a world without "thickness," zero is equivalent to infinity.
"You're terrible at clairvoyance." Chu Hengkong cautiously stepped away from the black wall and threw his Calamity Rain Water Blade for a test. The water blade sank into the wall, leaving a burr-like black mark, but failed to completely penetrate. This strange, two-dimensional power was the authority shared by Vansalar, equal in status to the prosthetic hand, and even more powerful.
"I just don't understand your 'three-dimensional'~"
Waklo drew his second stroke, this one swerving from where he'd left off, forming a triangle with the ground. Chu Hengkong braked suddenly, a new black wall blocking his way. Two infinite expanses of black, one in front and one behind, formed the end of this small world.
The giant painter whistled as he applied a third stroke, then a fourth, meticulously blackening the tiny triangle. This action, translated into the painting, was like an infinite stream of black falling continuously, shrinking the space at an unpredictable speed. The empty space within the triangle was reduced to only half... a third... and in the blink of an eye, only a fifth...! Chu Hengkong's space was reduced to a tiny dot, barely bigger than a fingernail!
What would become of him once enveloped by the darkness? Would he still exist within the black wall? Or would he vanish utterly the moment he was touched? Chu Hengkong had no idea what to say. He punched the black wall with all his might, his frantic steps stirring up a cloud of dust. But the black wall remained motionless! Conventional means were powerless against the evil god's lackeys!
Chu Hengkong pounded the ink wall like a desperate prisoner. Waklo, outside the painting, added the final stroke, filling the triangle with black… The killer was nowhere to be seen. He had vanished!
"Please enjoy this impromptu work, 'Ink Coffin'~"
Waklo put away his brush and placed his eye on the painting, examining it carefully. The composition of the painting was very simple: in the center was a stone-stacked execution platform, and not far away was the newly painted triangular coffin. Apart from these two, there was nothing else.
"The battle ends here..." Waklo muttered to himself, "This doesn't feel right."
——So far, so good.
In the silent darkness, Chu Hengkong breathed a sigh of relief.
Chongming's explanation was too vague, and the only useful intelligence he had before the battle was "you'll definitely get caught the first time you go" and "certain tactics might work." Therefore, he was sent alone as bait to understand the enemy's tactics so that the reinforcements could decide the outcome.
To be honest, even a brave man like him would have thought that he would fail when he was photographed in the painting. But the killer was not lacking in mental strength. Before the deadly ink coffin was completed, he thought of a way to escape from danger...
Dig a hole!
He used his pounding on the wall to mask his digging, used the flying dust to conceal his expression, and then at the last moment, he fled underground. Because the space within the painting was covered in black, all traces of his escape were erased. Anyone outside the painting who hadn't anticipated the technique would be unable to discover Chu Hengkong's hiding place, no matter how much they observed the painting.
Because now he has left the painting and entered the frame by escaping underground.
(It takes a lot of imagination to fight this thing... Fortunately, I have played a few games with Ma Xao...)
Chu Hengkong muttered to himself as he advanced at a snail's pace in the dark. He was now a mere scratch on the painting frame, like an earthworm; even with careful observation, it was difficult to discern his movement. But in a world of two dimensions, closing the distance became surprisingly easy. In just a few breaths, he was at the foot of the execution platform in the painting.
He was pondering what to do next when his ears moved and he heard a faint sound coming from the "soil" above.
“Come…here…” “Come here…” “Come…”
Chu Hengkong crawled along, following the sound, until he was directly beneath it. He used his prosthetic hand to dig the soil, carving a passage as quietly and quickly as possible. Suddenly, a bare foot pierced through the earth and dropped down. "Hurry!" the person above whispered. The toes curled desperately. He grasped the dangling ankle with one hand.
Upward. Space expanded. The suffocating feeling instantly vanished, as if he had regained his strength. When he came to his senses, the world had turned upside down, and Chu Hengkong slammed into a soft body. A familiar cry came from beneath him.
"Mr. Chu!!" Qingye said excitedly, "Yes, yes, there is salvation! ahh ...
(End of this chapter)
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