When that crisp sound of bone shattering was swallowed up by the boiling steam around them, Lin Jie's figure had already pierced through the thick white fog like a black lightning bolt.
This was not a reckless charge.
In his ntal world, the ntal Staircase module, representing absolute calmness and computational power, was operating at a near-overload frequency.
Everything around him beca extrely slow and viscous in his senses. The listone dust dancing in the air, the light distorted by high temperatures, and the black oil gushing from the monster's shattered joints all transford into static fras that could be disassembled and analyzed.
He could clearly see the hell that the monster nad "Oil Ghost" was undergoing.
The physical immunity that had once left him helpless had now beco a laughable and miserable sculpture. The black oil that could slide away any attack had undergone irreversible chemical denaturation under the intense exothermic reaction of quickli and water.
It had turned into a grayish-white, hard shell filled with bubbles and cracks like cheap soap, tightly imprisoning the resentful spiritual entity below that still attempted to wriggle and transform.
This was not rely physical tornt.
It was a dinsional reduction strike against its very form of existence.
Lin Jie's steps showed no hesitation on the slippery li slurry covering the ground, the sound of his footsteps perfectly masked by the noisy roar of the exhaust fans around.
Although the monster's limb joints had been broken by Julian's Discipline, although its mobility had been sealed by the li crust, Lin Jie knew very well that this UMA, ford from resentnt, would not die so easily.
A cornered beast fighting for its life is often the most dangerous mont.
Just as Lin Jie was about to step into the two-ter range in front of the monster, the black creature lying on the ground, seemingly on its last breath, suddenly made its final struggle.
A large crack suddenly split open on its featureless face, followed by a high-pressure jet of black acid that had been building up for a long ti, shooting straight toward Lin Jie's face!
The speed of this acid jet was astonishingly fast, and its angle was extrely tricky, almost sealing off all possible dodging routes for Lin Jie.
If it were an ordinary hunter, they would likely have been corroded into half a skeleton by now.
But in the eyes of Lin Jie, who had activated ntal Staircase, this supposedly fatal acid spray was as clear as a slow-motion replay.
Half a second before the monster's facial muscles even began to twitch, he had already predicted this attack through subtle body movents.
Lin Jie did not retreat.
In his high-speed charge, he suddenly lowered his center of gravity, his entire body performing a sideways slide along the ground.
"Sizzle—!"
The deadly black acid grazed his flying hair and shot onto the concrete pillar behind him. With a sizzling sound of corrosion, it ate a large, smoking hole into the pillar as thick as a person's embrace.
Using the montum from this slide, Lin Jie had successfully entered the monster's inner circle.
Its execution range.
At this mont, the monster was in a brief state of stiffness after expelling its life-saving acid jet. Its gaping mouth hadn't had ti to close, and the resentful eyes hidden beneath the oil were filled with fear as they stared at the human who had appeared beneath it.
"Surgery begins."
Lin Jie silently recited these words in his heart.
He did not choose to pierce what appeared to be the heart area, because through previous probing in the warehouse and research on various UMA materials, he knew that the core of such spiritual entities often wasn't in the chest cavity.
Their core was the "Anchor Point" connecting resentnt with its physical vessel.
For this monster composed of oil, that Anchor Point was precisely at the junction of its dulla oblongata and cervical spine.
That was the master valve controlling the flow of oil throughout its body, and its only true weak point that couldn't be completely liquefied.
Lin Jie's Silencer suddenly swung upward.
This ti.
The blade didn't transmit that despair-inducing slippery sensation, nor did it produce the sizzling sound of tal being corroded.
The alloy blade infused with Withered Cicada fragnts activated the Extinction ability the mont it contacted the gray-white crust.
The calcified oil beca fragile as paper under the suppression of this law. The sharp blade cut through the shell without obstruction, severed muscle fibers, and finally precisely entered that spiritual node flickering with faint black light.
"Shhh—"
A barely audible cutting sound flashed briefly amidst the noisy background noise.
The monster's body froze.
The spiritual force that had been madly surging within it, attempting to repair the injury, was forcibly interrupted by this single cut.
Lin Jie turned his wrist, the blade performing an extrely clever flick and slice within the gap of the monster's cervical vertebrae.
A head encased in li, turned gray-white, rolled off the body.
Only after this head had rolled two or three ters away did a plu of thick black smoke gush from the severed neck.
That wasn't blood.
It was the resentnt that had lost its vessel's restraint and was rapidly dissipating.
Lin Jie quickly sheathed his weapon and retreated, avoiding the corrosive smoke.
He stood several ters away, coldly watching the corpse undergoing violent changes.
As its core was destroyed, the supernatural power maintaining the monster's existence began to rapidly collapse.
That disgusting body began to lt and collapse.
The gray-white li crust peeled off piece by piece, revealing the black oil boiling and evaporating beneath.
An even stronger, more pungent stench perated the entire ice factory. It was the final roar of centuries-accumulated resentnt as it returned to heaven and earth.
"Success?"
Evelyn poked her head out from the second-floor platform, her small face sared with coal dust filled with tension and anticipation.
"Don't co down."
Lin Jie raised a hand, signaling her to keep her distance.
"It's not over yet. The gas here is toxic."
After saying this, he took out a specially made gas mask from his backpack, put it on, and then walked back to the side of the bubbling black puddle.
By now, the monster's physical body had completely disappeared.
Only a large puddle of slowly cooling black liquid remained on the ground, mixed with white li residue.
But in the center of that murky black water, sothing floated quietly.
That thing hadn't dissipated with the monster's death, nor had it been destroyed by the intense chemical reaction earlier.
On the contrary.
Against the backdrop of the surrounding chaos, it appeared exceptionally clean, even carrying a bizarre sense of sanctity.
It was a skin.
Or more accurately, a mbrane as thin as a cicada's wing, semi-transparent and black.
It resembled a black bodysuit that had been taken off, completely retaining the humanoid contour, with even the shapes of fingers and toes clearly visible.
On the surface of this skin, a faint, ghostly blue halo flowed.
When Lin Jie shone the carbide lamp on it, the light wasn't reflected back. Instead, it disappeared into that black surface as if being consud, giving an illusion of visual distortion.
This was the Oil Ghost Skin.
The most essential, and also most dangerous, part of this UMA's entire body.
It was the root that allowed this monster to freely traverse between reality and illusion, and to ignore most physical attacks.
Lin Jie put on a pair of specially made gloves and carefully fished that skin out of the black water.
The feel in his hands was extrely peculiar.
It was so light it had almost no weight, feeling like holding a wisp of black smoke in his hand.
But when he pulled on it forcefully, it displayed astonishing toughness comparable to steel.
What made Lin Jie even more amazed was that when his fingers gently brushed across the skin's surface, he could clearly feel a "slipping sensation" transmitted to his fingertips.
It felt as if his fingers weren't truly touching this skin, but were separated by an invisible spatial mbrane.
Even without applying force, this skin would automatically slide in the opposite direction along his force, as if it inherently rejected any form of contact or restraint.
Phase slip.
Physical deflection.
These two terms instantly surfaced in Lin Jie's mind.
If this thing could be made into armor...
A flash of blazing light appeared in Lin Jie's eyes.
That would be an absolute defense that would make any assassin or gunman despair.
Bullets would slide off, blades would deflect, even shockwaves from explosions would be unloaded by this special property.
Moreover, its weight was negligible, completely unaffected the wearer's flexibility.
This was practically divine-grade material tailor-made for his high-agility, low-defense combat style.
"It seems Su Sanniang didn't lie to us."
Julian walked down from the second-floor stairs. The Discipline in his hand had already been re-holstered, but so of that cold, chanical expression still lingered on his face.
He walked to Lin Jie's side, pushed up his glasses, and looked at that black skin shimring with flowing light.
"This intensity of spiritual fluctuation... at least town-class peak material."
"Possibly even higher."
Lin Jie folded the skin and placed it into the prepared lead box lined with sealing runes.
"This thing seems to have undergone a secondary tempering during the li reaction earlier. Impurities were burned away, leaving only the purest properties."
"Does this count as a blessing in disguise?"
Evelyn also ca over, looking at the box with curiosity in her eyes.
"I thought my li would burn it."
"Exactly the opposite."
Lin Jie closed the box lid. With a "click" of the lock, that heart-palpitating spiritual fluctuation was finally isolated.
"You gave it a bath, washing it into its most perfect state."
He turned around, looking at these two teammates covered in gri but radiating the joy of victory.
Julian's sleeves were stained with oil and rust, and his glasses had a fine crack.
Evelyn was even more disheveled, her face sared black and white like a little calico cat that had just crawled through a chimney.
But their eyes had changed.
They now held the look that only appears after experiencing life-and-death trials and overcoming fear through one's own strength.
Especially Julian.
Although the side effects of Discipline left his reactions sowhat sluggish, that originally scholarly, weak temperant on him had completely vanished.
"Clean up the scene."
Lin Jie surveyed the ice factory that had beco unrecognizable.
The ground covered in quickli slurry, corroded pipes, and traces left by explosions.
"Although this is an abandoned place, we made quite a commotion. Police or people from other factions might co soon."
"Understood."
Evelyn nodded and began skillfully dismantling the previously set up sonic devices and circuits.
"I'll handle the traces."
Julian took out a bottle of potion that could eliminate spiritual residue and began spraying it in the core combat area.
Lin Jie, carrying the lead box containing the Oil Ghost Skin, walked to the wide-open main door.
Outside, the air after the heavy rain was exceptionally fresh.
The eastern horizon already showed a faint trace of fish-belly white. The morning star hung in that purple-black sky, shimring with cold, clear radiance.
That was the sign of dawn.
And also the signal that they had passed the test.
Lin Jie took a deep breath of the earthy-scented air, feeling the foul air in his lungs being swept clean.
"First hurdle, passed."
He murmured to himself.
This was just a small victory. Compared to the challenges they would face in Borneo, this wasn't even a warm-up.
But he now held this admission ticket in his hand.
With Su Sanniang's promise, with this top-grade material, and with this rapidly growing team.
He felt sowhat more confident about the journey ahead.
"Let's go."
When Julian and Evelyn had packed up their equipnt and ca out, Lin Jie turned around, slinging that heavy box onto his back.
"To the funeral parlor."
"To witness the true skills of that Paper Tailor."
"I'm also very curious."
Lin Jie touched his old trench coat, which had been sowhat tattered by acid corrosion, a smile of anticipation curling at the corner of his mouth.
"What kind of... new clothes she can make for with this skin."
...
Chinatown.
Guangfu Funeral Parlor.
When the first rays of morning light had just illuminated those two pale lanterns, the black lacquered door was gently knocked.
As if knowing who had co, the door emitted a soft creak and automatically opened a crack inward.
The hundreds of paper effigies in the courtyard still stood quietly, but shrouded in morning mist, their pale faces seed to possess an additional trace of eerie vitality.
The three of them passed through the paper effigy formation and arrived at the main hall entrance.
Su Sanniang wasn't in the master's chair.
In the center of the main hall stood a huge redwood altar table. Besides the usual incense, candles, and offerings, on the table lay a pair of ancient-looking black iron scissors and a roll of red silk thread.
A young apprentice wearing a blue cloth short jacket was squatting nearby, boiling a pot of paste emitting a pungent odor.
Seeing Lin Jie and the others enter, the young apprentice stood up and pointed toward the direction of the back hall.
"Master is waiting for you."
Lin Jie nodded and led the other two around the screen, entering the inner chamber that had never been open to outsiders.
The furnishings here were exceptionally simple, with only a large bed and a huge workbench.
Su Sanniang stood with her back to them in front of the workbench.
She had changed out of her black cheongsam, now wearing gray short clothes convenient for movent, her hair wrapped in a blue cloth scarf.
She was sharpening scissors.
"Scrape. Scrape. Scrape."
Hearing footsteps, she didn't turn around, asking lightly:
"Brought it back?"
"Brought it back."
Lin Jie walked forward and placed the box on the workbench.
Su Sanniang stopped her movents.
She turned around, her eyes sweeping over the three of them, finally landing on the box.
She reached out a hand, pressing it on the box lid, a satisfied smile appearing on her face.
"Not bad."
"Strong blood energy, heavy resentnt, and..."
Her fingers lightly tapped the box lid twice, as if listening to the resonance inside.
"Handled very cleanly. That annoying greasy sll is gone, leaving only the purest 'slipperiness'."
"It seems you truly used your brains."
Su Sanniang picked up the scissors, giving them a final rub on the whetstone, then blew on them, testing the sharpness of the blade.
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