459: Chapter 459 Flying Needle Subdues Hungry Ghosts

Chapter 459: Flying Sorcery, Needle Sorcery, Hungry Ghost Sorcery

Whoosh——

In the empty living room, something seemed to have swept past.

The curtains moved without wind, lifting into a tiny arc.

In the darkness, the marble floor tiles reflected the moonlight from outside the window, looking like a frosted mirror.

"Hoo... hoo..."

An extremely faint sound of breathing arose, coming from nowhere in particular.

The sound reverberated through the spacious living room along with an invisible current.

Wherever it passed, the temperature seemed to quietly drop by a few degrees.

In a dimension imperceptible to ordinary people, a terrifying "thing" was wandering.

There were no colors in its field of vision, only a sheet of blood red.

The entire world was as if it had fallen into Hell, soaked in a bloody mist.

Walls, furniture, floors...

All lifeless objects were a dim grayish-red, like long-dried bloodstains, exuding a rotting and dead aura.

Only living creatures capable of movement would turn into bright light clusters emitting heat in its perception.

Once upon a time, there were many such light clusters in this large house.

In the cold and dark world, like flickering candlelight, they made it experience a long-lost warmth.

But now, most of them had disappeared, locked into a place it instinctively loathed.

It drifted in the darkness, as if patrolling its own territory.

Its crimson gaze penetrated the walls, able to "see" those few faint lights in the servants' quarters flickering in their sleep.

An impulse originating from instinct was frantically instigating it to pounce over and devour those light clusters entirely.

Yet it was tightly suppressed by another deeper thought, making it restrain the temptation to pounce.

Its gaze glued to those light clusters, full of greedy yearning.

In the end, it still turned its direction, floating silently along the stairs toward the second-floor guest room area.

It seemed to be searching for a specific target, passing through those tightly closed doors one by one, hovering and patrolling through empty rooms.

Suddenly, it stopped.

It seemed to perceive an aura that made it uneasy yet was filled with fatal temptation.

Through several walls, it startlingly "saw" a cluster of light unlike anything before.

The core of that light cluster was the ultimate bright red, but its edges faintly revealed a layer of pale gold.

Just like the morning sun hidden beneath the horizon at dawn, about to pierce through the endless darkness.

Within the light, it seemed to contain endless vitality.

Merely perceiving it from afar caused its illusory body to produce near-substantial yearning and trembling.

"Hoo... hoo... hoo..."

Its breathing suddenly became heavy, like a dying beast seeing a life-extending Spirit Medicine.

But at the same time, an innate fear made it hesitate and hold back.

That light was too blazing, making it feel uneasy and even somewhat stinging.

Yet that temptation was truly immense.

In the end, hunger defeated fear.

It no longer hesitated, turning into a gust of gloomy wind that swept across the corridor, directly penetrating the wall in front of it and bursting into the room where the light cluster was located.

At the very first glance upon entering, it "saw" the man sitting cross-legged on the floor.

The man's face was calm, his eyes closed, and his breathing was long and deep, as if he had already fallen into deep sleep.

It was precisely that exuberant blood qi emanating from within him that formed the unusually bright red and clear light.

To it, who had broken into the room, this light was like a traveler in the desert cut off from water for three days seeing a clear oasis.

The darkness was dispelled a little, and its figure correspondingly faintly emerged in the air.

That was clearly a distorted shadow twisted together from countless black smokes, floating just like that in mid-air, greedily observing its prey.

As long as it devoured this man...

As long as it could make his flesh and blood its own...

Perhaps it could grow a new body...

Even... get rid of that devil's control!

This vague yet intense thought instantly filled its consciousness.

Without hesitating even half a bit more.

The black shadow emitted a silent screech, turning into a gust of gloomy wind as it violently lunged toward the sleeping man!

Just at the moment when it was about to touch the other's body.

A layer of pale golden light flames unexpectedly erupted from the man's body surface, instantly enveloping his entire body.

Sizzle——

Like boiling oil poured onto ice and snow.

As soon as the black shadow touched the golden light flames, the contact area was scorched and vaporized by the terrifying high temperature, rising with bursts of blue smoke.

"Ah——"

A screech filled with resentment and pain suddenly echoed in the room.

Fang Cheng, sitting cross-legged on the ground, abruptly opened his eyes.

Deep within those pitch-black pupils, raging flames seemed to be burning.

He grinned, revealing a mouthful of pale white teeth, his voice cruel yet carrying mockery.

"Got you!"

The black shadow scorched by the golden light flames emitted waves of mournful wails, its illusory form violently twisting, terrified as if it had seen its natural enemy.

It no longer had the slightest greedy thought; what remained was only the purest fear.

The black shadow abruptly shrank backward, like a charred cinder that was struck flying, instantly penetrating the thick wall and fleeing outward into the night.

Inside the room, the eardrum-piercing screech abruptly stopped.

On the bed, Lin Chuqiao and Bailing breathed evenly, still deep in sweet sleep.

Clearly, the sound emitted by the black shadow earlier only existed on the mental level and did not disturb them.

Fang Cheng glanced at the two women without the slightest hesitation, his figure flashing as he appeared by the window.

With a gentle push of one hand, the window slid open silently, and the night wind carrying the damp, cool scent of grass and trees surged in.

The next moment, his entire body leaped down from the second-floor window like a civet cat.

His feet stepped onto the soft lawn without making even the slightest sound.

Chen Family Manor was extremely large, with its backyard connecting to a private garden.

Pavilions, towers, rockeries, and flowing water were left with only blurry outlines in the night, resembling a splash-ink landscape painting.

It was so quiet all around that one could hear the soft sound of grass blades being brushed by the wind, and even the chirping of insects had vanished.

Only the moonlight wrapped in mist made the surrounding environment appear all the more eerie and terrifying.

In the darkness, a fireball floated in mid-air like a will-o'-the-wisp, traveling rapidly close to the ground.

It bypassed a rockery and drilled into a bamboo forest, moving at an astonishing speed, desperately fleeing toward the depths of the manor.

It was as if some ferocious beast that fed on ghosts and monsters was baring its fangs and pursuing relentlessly.

And dozens of meters behind it, a figure was following unhurriedly.

The pace seemed leisurely, but in reality, it concealed extremely strong explosive power; with every step taken, the figure moved forward by a dozen meters instantly like a phantom.

It constantly maintained a distance neither too far nor too close from that fireball.

Fang Cheng raised his eyes to look, staring at the frantically fleeing fireball dozens of meters away.

After the golden flame stuck to the black shadow, it was like bone-gnawing maggots, impossible to extinguish no matter what.

In this pitch-black night, it seemed to form an unusually conspicuous marker.

Fang Cheng was not in a hurry to kill this thing.

It was obviously just a controlled pawn, a tool used to commit harm and murder.

Destroying it directly was meaningless; only by tracking along this clue could he figure out the true face of the mastermind behind the scenes.

The two shadows thus one fled and one pursued, shuttle-running rapidly through the garden.

The fireball bumped against the bamboo leaves, causing them to rustle and wither as they fell, yet it dared not linger for a fraction.

Fang Cheng followed closely behind stepping on the moonlight, his footsteps calm, not even shaking the hem of his clothes a bit more.

The black shadow finally realized it couldn't shake off the pursuit of the person behind, suddenly stagnating in mid-air, its distorted form trembling violently.

As if enduring an invisible command from afar, yet struggling to resist.

Suddenly, it emitted an even sharper screech, completely giving up running, turning its direction and viciously pouncing toward Fang Cheng.

Was this being driven into a desperate situation and wanting to perish together with him?

Fang Cheng's gaze turned cold, no longer holding back.

Without even making a dodging movement, right at the moment when the black shadow was about to pounce on his face.

His right hand reached out like lightning, fingers spread wide, precisely choking that mass of black smoke engulfed by flames.

"Pop!"

With a soft sound, like pinching a water bubble to burst.

The illusory figure twisted from black smoke didn't even have a chance to struggle before it completely annihilated in Fang Cheng's palm.

Subsequently, it turned into a few wisps of blue smoke and dissipated in the night wind.

The clue was thus cut off.

Fang Cheng stood in place, yet his face showed no trace of annoyance.

He slowly closed his eyes, concentrating on Visualization.

That blazing great sun in the Inner Scene World suddenly bloomed with boundless light.

Strips of naked-eye invisible golden threads, composed of pure Mental Energy, spread outward in all directions with him as the center.

Just like opening an invisible giant net, successively establishing connections with believers and worshippers distributed all over the world.

At the same time, those individuals who harbored strongly directional emotions such as fear, hatred, and resentment toward him would also reveal their tracks on this net.

Fang Cheng resided at the core of the entire network, gathering all his consciousness, carefully sensing the movements coming from every single thread.

In fact, as early as when he was attacked by the black shadow just now, he had already quietly attached a trace of extremely minute Sun True Intent onto the Mental Energy manipulating the black shadow.

Along with the retraction of the Mental Energy, that trace of True Intent would inevitably return to the source together.

The opponent obviously wouldn't expect that he still kept such a trick up his sleeve.

Almost at the instant the "Sun Heart Network" opened, a faint abnormal fluctuation suddenly came from the end connected by one of the golden threads.

Through the flashing images within the fluctuation, it could be judged that the enemy was not far away, right at the northwest corner of the manor.

"Found you!"

Fang Cheng abruptly opened his eyes, his figure flickering into a blurry afterimage as he rapidly swept toward that direction.

The night wind whistled past his ears, the lawn beneath his feet rapidly retreating; within just a few breaths of time, he crossed the heartland of the manor and approached the edge of the northwest corner.

Ahead was a meticulously tended flower bed, and a dense camphor tree forest blocked the vision.

This belonged to the edge area of the manor, with tall trees and lush branches and leaves.

The mist seemed to have become even heavier, and the moonlight spilled through the gaps between branches and leaves, appearing exceptionally hazy.

Just as Fang Cheng dashed into the forest without taking many steps, a fishy gust of wind suddenly struck.

In the darkness, several black shadows darted out like lightning from the bushes on both sides, lunging straight at his face.

Fang Cheng's reaction was extreme in its speed.

While charging forward at high speed, he violently twisted, his waist and abdomen exerting force, spinning his entire body half a circle like a top.

Without even looking, his left hand reached out with a backhand, precisely gripping an attacking black shadow.

The touch was icy and slippery—it was actually a pitch-black venomous snake!

The snake's head twisted frantically, trying to bite his wrist with its venomous fangs.

Fang Cheng's five fingers abruptly exerted force.

"Crack!"

Amidst the crisp sound of bone cracking, the snake's head was crushed and exploded by him alive, and the foul-smelling blood splattered all over the ground.

However, this was only the beginning.

"Hiss hiss—— hiss hiss——"

Densely packed hissing sounds sounded from all directions, as if the entire forest had come alive.

Over a hundred colorful venomous snakes, like arrows leaving the string, flew out overwhelmingly from the tree branches, the grass, and the mud, instantly sealing off all his retreat routes.

The opponent had obviously set an ambush here early on, with extremely bizarre and vicious methods.

Fang Cheng's gaze turned slightly cold, and he took a deep breath.

The ocean of True Qi within his Dantian instantly split into a branch, surging toward the ten fingers of both hands.

A layer of cicada-wing-thin azure light subsequently lit up on the edges of his palms, as if transforming his hands into two indestructible sharp blades.

The next second, his body spun at high speed like a top.

Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish!

The palm blades waved rapidly, stirring up fierce sound-breaking noises.

Like lightning streaking across the dark night, blooming into deadly arcs of light in the forest.

Those venomous snakes flying over, whether it was their hard skulls or flexible bodies, were like paper in front of the sharp palm blades.

All of them were slashed into two, without the slightest hesitation or stagnation!

Fang Cheng's figure spun rapidly in the midst of the snake swarm, and wherever he passed, it was like chopping melons and vegetables.

The snake corpses broken into two halves scattered down like rain, and the thick, pungent smell of blood instantly permeated the entire forest.

In just a few short seconds, over a hundred venomous snakes had been slaughtered by him completely.

However, just as Fang Cheng finished dealing with all the venomous snakes and prepared to pursue again, his heart couldn't help but sink.

That "thread" connecting himself and the mastermind behind the scenes had quietly broken just now when he was besieged by the snake swarm.

It was as if the opponent had used even stronger Mental Energy to forcibly cut off the connection.

Fang Cheng's gaze was piercing, abruptly sweeping across the heavy night all around, his heart crystal clear.

The opponent was very likely hiding nearby.

This snake formation was not meant to kill him.

Rather, it was to buy time, so as to create an opportunity for that person to shield the tracking induction and erase their own traces.

Fang Cheng's gaze condensed, and he quickly made up his mind.

Anyway, the person was nearby; where else could they hide?

Continuing to search down, he would eventually discover some clues.

Just as he strode forward, preparing to investigate a small building behind the forest.

From the direction of the distant mansion, a few faint exclamations suddenly came.

Following closely, the lights of several windows lit up one after another, exceptionally glaring in the pitch-black night.

Fang Cheng looked toward the source of the sound, slightly startled, and then his heart jumped abruptly.

Could it be... this was a diversion tactic to lure the tiger away from the mountain?

The opponent's true target was Lin Chuqiao and Bailing in the house?

At this thought, Fang Cheng's heart sank, and without hesitation, his feet violently exerted force.

Bang!

Along with a muffled sound, the soil on the ground was stepped into a shallow pit.

His entire body, like a cannonball leaving the barrel, ran rapidly along the original path.

The originally desolate and spacious Chen Family mansion was now brightly lit.

The successive calls of the servants added an abnormal hustle and bustle to this place.

Fang Cheng flipped through the window into his own room, glanced at the empty bed, and immediately strode out the door.

Following the direction where the sounds were concentrated, he quickly walked upstairs.

Just arriving at the third floor, he saw more than a dozen people crowded outside the master bedroom.

Those servants who still appeared well-trained during the day were all pale-faced at the moment, whispering to each other.

Amidst the panic, painful groans were still transmitted from the room from time to time.

Fang Cheng's gaze pierced through the gaps in the crowd, quickly locking onto two figures.

Lin Chuqiao stood there with a calm expression, but her clasped hands betrayed a trace of tension.

Bailing was hiding behind her, her small face pale, occasionally poking her head out to look into the door.

Seeing that the two were safe and sound, Fang Cheng's taut heartstrings relaxed slightly.

He then walked quickly to their side and asked in a low voice:

"What's going on?"

Seeing Fang Cheng appear, Lin Chuqiao first flashed a trace of pleasant surprise in her eyes, which was then replaced by anxiety.

She couldn't care less about asking where Fang Cheng had just gone, and immediately explained:

"The Chen Family's Old Matriarch seems to have been hit by a sorcery curse, and... it's a very vicious Needle Sorcery!"