The Paper Immortal raised her hand and flicked her fingertips gently.
Countless pieces of joss paper gushed from her sleeves like a swarm of startled white butterflies, blotting out the sky as they flew toward Yue Shi.
The paper money stuck to Yue Shi’s body, layer upon layer, wrapping him up completely.
The Paper Immortal watched the joss paper gradually tighten, a smile playing in her eyes. “It’s over.”
The Pottery Immortal stood beside her, repairing the cracks on her body while mocking him. “I thought he’d be more troublesome. He’s nothing special.”
The Tablet Immortal sank the tombstone into the ground; he had gained a new collection.
Just as the joss paper was about to wrap Yue Shi into a complete paper cocoon, a sudden, juvenile roar echoed through the air.
The snow leopard cub lunged from the grass, its silver-gray fur shimmering with a dull luster. Its body was tensed like a drawn bow as its four paws tore at the earth, charging straight toward the Three Immortals with astonishing speed.
The Paper Immortal was taken aback. A snow leopard cub that hadn't even finished growing its teeth had zero lethality in her eyes.
Although the snow leopard was cute, the Paper Immortal showed no mercy. The joss paper spun toward the cub, its blade-like edges aimed at its neck.
The snow leopard continued its mad dash, tilting its head at the last second before the paper could slit its throat. The paper money brushed past its ear, cutting only a few tufts of fur.
The Pottery Immortal frowned and flicked a pottery shard at the snow leopard. The shard arched through the air, even faster than the joss paper.
The snow leopard pushed off the ground with its front paws, leaping into the air. The shard flew beneath its belly and slammed into a withered tree behind it, smashing a large hole into the trunk.
The Tablet Immortal didn't care about these trivial matters at all.
“The little beast is quite agile. I’m going to skin it,” the Paper Immortal said with a chuckle.
The Pottery Immortal added, “If it can dodge our attacks, it must have some skill. Why don't we bake it into a cat figurine and keep it as a pet?”
Neither of the two women was angry. After all, it was just a small cat, not a serious opponent.
In their eyes, the snow leopard’s suicidal charge was merely a pathetic display of a doomed creature.
However, they never expected that while the snow leopard appeared to be pouncing on the Three Immortals, it was actually diving toward Yue Shi.
The snow leopard rushed in front of Yue Shi and opened its mouth, its fangs sinking deep into him.
Its teeth pierced through the joss paper on Yue Shi’s body and tore through his skin. Blood seeped out, flowing directly into the snow leopard’s mouth.
Yue Shi’s body jolted. He immediately jolted back to life from his death-like state, his eyes snapping open with a fierce, murderous light.
The joss paper stuck to him peeled away in layers.
The expressions of the Three Immortals shifted drastically. They couldn't understand how Yue Shi had done it. The Tablet Immortal’s curse held an extremely high status; they had never failed before, except against the head of the Ximen family, Ximen Aotian, who could break it by force.
To think they would encounter a second person today who could forcibly break the curse!
Yue Shi picked up the snow leopard. The cub licked the blood from the corner of its mouth, its gaze cold.
“An eye-dotted paper effigy, a funerary pottery figurine, and a tombstone. Since you're all from the funeral industry, have you considered the date of your own deaths?”
Having their true natures exposed by Yue Shi’s words, the Three Immortals felt their throats tighten.
At this moment, Yue Shi’s temperament underwent a drastic change. Previously, he felt like a vicious desperado, but now he seemed even more profane and distorted, like a humanoid evil object.
The Paper Immortal’s joss paper was still drifting down. Yue Shi reached out and caught a piece.
As soon as the paper money landed in his hand, it immediately lost its regular shape. Densely packed pustules erupted across its surface before it exploded into powder with a bang, scattered by the wind.
The Paper Immortal’s eyes widened as waves of discomfort washed over her. It was as if an eerie power was projecting onto her through that piece of paper money.
Then, Yue Shi seemed to release some kind of restriction.
Hum!!!
An incredibly intense, sinister aura radiated from Yue Shi, spreading in all directions.
Everything in the world was dyed with a layer of uneasy, chaotic color.
“What... is this...” The Paper Immortal, who was most affected, saw her red lips fade to a grayish-white.
“Hahahaha!” The only response she received was Yue Shi’s wild laughter.
The surrounding plants withered in patches, their surfaces growing foul-smelling abscesses and deformed, scaly skin.
The Pottery Immortal realized something was terribly wrong and tried to flee, but it was already too late.
She felt something awakening inside her. Looking down at her hands, the skin on the back of her hands had begun to change color. The originally porcelain-white glaze turned a sickly gray-green.
Something seemed to be wriggling inside her, like countless tiny insects swimming in her veins. Her nails gradually grew longer and blacker, curving into hooks.
The Pottery Immortal tried to suppress the change, but the harder she fought, the more gray-green spread across her body.
The abnormal changes in her body seemed to stem from the mutation of her own power!
The tiny paper-dolls in the Paper Immortal’s sleeves drifted out uncontrollably. Each of the originally white paper-dolls was adorned with exquisite facial features and clothing patterns.
But now, the colors of the paper-dolls became garish and chaotic, and patterns that shouldn't exist emerged on their faces.
Those patterns grew on their own, twisted and eerie. The dolls' originally upturned mouths curled into frowns, and their closed eyes snapped open. There were no pupils in their eyes, only a turbid, pus-like liquid.
The Paper Immortal threw away all the mutated paper-dolls. Once they hit the ground, they stood up on their own and twisted their bodies, walking toward her with staggering steps, like infants who had just learned to walk.
The Paper Immortal backed away in terror.
One tombstone after another suddenly erupted from the ground, a forest of thousands of tablets surrounding Yue Shi.
The Tablet Immortal grabbed the Paper Immortal and the Pottery Immortal, turning to run.
“Big Sister, Second Brother, what is going on with that killer?” the Pottery Immortal cried. “He suddenly became so strange!”
“I don't know,” the Paper Immortal replied. “It feels like someone else took over his body. Second Brother, you can see a person's True Name. Did that man's name change just now?”
The Tablet Immortal was about to speak when Yue Shi broke through the dense forest of tombstones and pursued them.
“Three wretches, where do you think you’re going!”
“Sinister Growth!”
In an instant, the Pottery Immortal collapsed to the ground. Her pottery body suffered total contamination, turning entirely gray-green. Fungal growths spread from within her, mutating to a maddening degree.
The Paper Immortal stopped to help her, only to be swarmed by countless paper-dolls. Those paper-dolls no longer obeyed her; they had developed their own wills. They crawled over her, sticking to her body as they tried to wrap her into a cocoon.
The Tablet Immortal saw tumor-like growths erupting from inside his own body.
But he was made of stone!
His hard, stony body shattered in patches, revealing mutating and proliferating rotten flesh.
“Ah! No, stop!”
The Tablet Immortal fell forward, one hand reaching desperately toward the Paper Immortal and the Pottery Immortal as pus sprayed from his seven orifices.
Ultimately, his body was torn apart by the tumors and rotten flesh growing from within, turning into a pile of stinking rubble and shredded meat.
All three of the Immortals died in an extremely gruesome manner. Their corpses had mutated to such a degree that a single glance would make anyone feel utterly profaned.
Yue Shi collected the remains of the Three Immortals.
“An eye-dotted paper effigy, a funerary pottery figurine, and a tombstone... all of them are top-grade artifacts.”
Rate on N.U.
