Chapter 151: Predicament

Fang Mu had no idea what Ghost One was thinking. With a slight bend of his knees, he leaped toward the glowing speck in the sky.

Channeling true qi into his legs, Fang Mu drew closer and closer to that pinpoint of light.

To be honest, it was quite an issue that Fang Mu still didn't know how to fly.

Although he wasn't sure if other profound practitioners possessed the ability of flight, Fang Mu personally found it terribly inconvenient.

While this catapult-like method of springing into the air was even faster than flying, flight was a man's dream nonetheless.

Reaching out to touch the beam of light, Fang Mu already had a plan forming in his mind.

When he had some free time, he simply had to capture a few flying-type anomalies to make up for his own shortcomings.

"Boom!"

The moment Fang Mu touched the speck of light in the sky, a sudden change occurred...

A deafening roar erupted, surging in from all directions.

Fang Mu landed back on the bridge and drew his butcher's knife, standing on guard.

Dense cracks spread across the sky like spiderwebs, and then these fissures began to merge, transforming into a single, thin thread.

The thread plummeted straight down, plunging into the river water.

The previously calm and flowing river began to boil, churning just like heated water.

An object emerged from the depths of the river, hoisted up by the thin thread.

As soon as the object appeared, the pale human corpse began to stir.

Its hollow eyes flickered with movement, staring viciously at that object with boundless resentment.

It was a rectangular piece of wood, glistening with faint water stains.

"Splash—"

The pale human body straightened up, sitting up from the water with its upper torso exposed to the air.

"Hum—"

The rectangular piece of wood in the sky vibrated, and the upright pale corpse instantly dissolved into ashes, absorbing into the wooden block.

The thin thread vanished completely, leaving the rectangular block of wood floating in mid-air.

A human figure slowly solidified, revealing a short, plump middle-aged man.

The middle-aged man landed on the bridge, and the rectangular block of wood from the sky drifted down gently, transforming into a set of vine armor upon his body.

"Heh, heh, heh..."

Fang Mu sneered, "Finally caught you, you little bastard!"

Raising his butcher's knife, the middle-aged man vanished.

A heaven-filled sea of crimson blade-light sliced through empty air, causing Fang Mu to turn his head with a slight frown.

Not far behind him, that middle-aged man had abruptly reappeared.

He vanished so quickly that Fang Mu hadn't even caught how the man had disappeared.

"Die!"

The middle-aged man pressed his hand against the bridge.

Alarm bells rang in Fang Mu's heart as he instantly activated the Triple Golden Body Incantation.

Spikes of wood burst forth from the bridge surface, slamming directly into the barrier of the Triple Golden Body Incantation.

The outermost two layers of the golden barrier shattered instantly upon impact, and even the innermost layer began to teeter precariously.

"So powerful?" Fang Mu was startled.

To be able to break through two layers of the golden body incantation, this attack was undeniably formidable.

On the other side, Ghost One manipulated the zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting, launching an assault toward the middle-aged man.

The four arts descended from the sky, smashing down directly toward the top of the middle-aged man's head.

This time, the middle-aged man did not dodge, instead raising both hands to block above his head.

"Boom!"

Another deafening explosion echoed, and the middle-aged man's body was shattered to pieces.

"Master, he's not dead yet," Ghost One shouted loudly, keeping the zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting revolving around him.

The shattered fragments of the middle-aged man began to reassemble, returning to their original state in the blink of an eye.

"What kind of ability is this?" Fang Mu rubbed his chin, deploying the Double Shadow Evasion technique to charge forward.

His unoccupied left hand reached out and swiped across the middle-aged man's body, passing straight through him as if he were nothing more than air.

"He's not a physical entity?" Fang Mu was taken aback.

He had just been thinking of trying out his Corpse-Touching Technique; after all, since this middle-aged man could be blasted into pieces by Ghost One, he was very likely anYin-corpse type anomaly.

Yet things looked very wrong now—his hand had actually passed right through him. This middle-aged man lacked a physical body.

The middle-aged man let out a weird chuckle, and once again, rows of wooden spikes erupted, surrounding Fang Mu and his companion.

This attack was even fiercer than before, causing cracks to appear even in Fang Mu's innermost layer of golden light.

Ghost One let out a fierce roar, causing the zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting to vibrate violently as an invisible barrier materialized, barely blocking the onslaught of wooden spikes.

The wooden spikes swarmed forward like continuous, towering waves of the sea. Fang Mu and Ghost One were tossed about like tiny boats amidst the tempestuous currents, seemingly on the verge of capsizing at any moment.

Fang Mu's expression grew grave as the true qi within his body rapidly depleted.

This sensation was thoroughly excruciating; the opponent was essentially a submachine gun with infinite ammunition, unleashing wave after wave of wooden spikes without a single moment of respite.

Although his defenses hadn't been breached yet, at this rate, breaking through was only a matter of time.

"Something's wrong! Something is deeply wrong!"

The more perilous the situation, the more one needed to remain calm.

From the very beginning, this middle-aged man had given Fang Mu a profound sense of wrongness.

The wood transforming into vine armor could be interpreted as a defense, but this defense was far too trivial.

Ghost One's attack had effortlessly shattered the middle-aged man into pieces—what use was this vine armor anyway?

And that was just one aspect; the other was Fang Mu's own attacks.

During his first strike, the middle-aged man had vanished, leaving absolutely no trace of his trajectory.

The second time was when Fang Mu attempted his Corpse-Touching Technique, and his hand had effortlessly passed straight through the man.

So here lay the question: Ghost One's attacks were able to take effect, yet when it came to Fang Mu's turn, why couldn't he touch the middle-aged man at all?

This couldn't possibly be an issue with the method of attack; both were attacks, so why was Fang Mu's form of assault useless?

Fang Mu pondered secretly, sensing that the answer was hovering right at the edge of his consciousness, yet perpetually just out of reach.

The wooden spikes continued in relentless waves, growing increasingly frequent, and the true qi within Fang Mu's body had already depleted by more than half.

The situation had turned unprecedentedly perilous; if he waited until his true qi was entirely exhausted, he wouldn't even be able to cast the Triple Golden Body Incantation.

Fang Mu raised his butcher's knife and once again unleashed a sky-full of fiery red blade-light.

The blade-light passed right through the middle-aged man, vanishing into the distant horizon.

"Still like this?"

Fang Mu fell into deep contemplation, feeling as though he were drifting further and further away from the truth.

Yet the wooden spikes attacked with increasing frequency, draining his true qi at an even more terrifying speed.

"Roar!"

At that very moment, Ah Bai, perched upon Fang Mu's shoulder, let out a low growl that instantly captured his attention.

The sound carried a hint of threat, anger, and something distinctly abnormal.

Because Ah Bai was squatting directly on his shoulder, Fang Mu could clearly discern that the direction of Ah Bai's roar was wrong.

Turning his head, Fang Mu discovered that Ah Bai was glaring downward with its head lowered, and the target of its growling was none other than the bridge surface beneath Fang Mu's feet.

"The bridge surface?"

In that single instant, the doubts in Fang Mu's mind cleared away like parting clouds.

Ah Bai was a ghost-devouring beast; it would never howl without reason. There was something wrong with this bridge!

"So that's how it is, I understand now!"

Fang Mu leaped into the air, slashing down a torrent of blade-light from top to bottom, with the very top of the middle-aged man's head as his final destination.

The brilliant cascade of blade-light moved with blinding speed, crashing squarely onto the head of the middle-aged man.

This time, it didn't pass through; it landed solidly with a devastating chop.

In a fraction of a second, the middle-aged man shattered to pieces, only to reform into his normal state an instant later.

The onslaught of wooden spikes abruptly ceased, granting Fang Mu a brief moment to catch his breath.

"Hahaha! So that's the trick!" Fang Mu sneered coldly, "Are you ready to die?"