This sudden instinct was extremely intense. As the living body, Zuo Lin'an could still control it with his own willpower.
But as a specter body, he had no way of suppressing it.
It was only because of the rule that it couldn't act.
Because this instinct was suppressed and heavily restricted by the rule, the specter body's urge to fuse began to stack layer upon layer.
An hour later, the specter body's instinct to fuse had almost reached its absolute limit. When the time struck exactly three o'clock in the afternoon, the restrictions on the specter body were lifted, allowing it to make its move on him.
Even before his physical body had reached a near-death state, the frantic fusion process had already begun.
This made the entire execution and fusion process incredibly rapid and smooth.
From start to finish, it took less than a minute.
Thinking of this, his eyes flickered slightly.
Although his body had been numbed by the freezing specter aura, it only meant he felt less pain.
The sensations that should have been there were still present.
At the time, he had clearly felt the icy tip of the knife slicing open the skin on his back, followed by his entire hide being peeled off alive.
Then, the blade had sliced through his flesh, dismantling the bones hidden within one by one, before finally chopping him into pieces.
Terrifying.
It was truly too terrifying.
Even now, he still felt a lingering dread.
But despite the lingering fear, he didn't regret it.
Zuo Lin'an instinctively squeezed his own arm, then let out a long sigh of relief.
It had to be said that this ordeal was a blessing in disguise.
After all, now that he had successfully become a Human-Specter Symbiont and familiarized himself with the specter body's condition, he understood his own state.
If his specter body had actually attacked the moment it formed, there was a high probability that the fusion would have failed.
This was a very realistic issue.
He was an ordinary person, as ordinary as they came!
Whether it was physical fitness, combat skills, or anything else...
He was far inferior to Xu Youyou in every single one of those aspects.
He was even far inferior to the other students.
As a transmigrator, he didn't possess any extra advantages in terms of consciousness or perception either.
Vague things like luck, a protagonist's halo, or standard transmigrator cheats—he had none of them!
The only thing he could be glad of was that the rule he had established, through a series of coincidences, had led him to success!
While he was lost in thought, Xu Youyou leaned over and nudged him. “Brother An, what are you spacing out for?”
“Was what I said just now right?”
“Come on, tell me, I really want to know.”
Zuo Lin'an didn't deny it. “That's indeed what happened. What of it? Could you have broken free when your specter body pinned you down?”
Xu Youyou instantly fell silent.
It was true that he was incredibly strong, but when facing his own specter body back then, he really hadn't stood a chance.
“Now that I think about it, I really did respond to him, and he only attacked after I replied. I didn't even realize it at the time.”
Then, he looked back at Zuo Lin'an.
“But seriously, absolutely nothing happened during that hour?”
Zuo Lin'an retorted, “What else did you expect?”
“Did you think I'd be like some movie protagonist, gaining some massive stroke of fortune during that hour and instantly ascending to the heavens?”
“Like obtaining five rules and leaping from a total newbie to a Five-Star dungeon boss?”
Xu Youyou blinked. “Fair point.”
An Wen finally began to ask about what had happened after they entered Sin Hunter City.
Zuo Lin'an barely spoke, leaving Xu Youyou to do all the talking.
Over the course of their four days there, Xu Youyou recounted every single detail.
“To be honest, during those last few hours, we were really worried that Zhao Cheng would bring the rest of his men to cause trouble for us.”
“To be safe, we even moved to a different spot with the prey we had captured.”
“But luckily, Zhao Cheng never showed up. Did he just accept his fate?”
Those involved are often blind, while onlookers see clearly.
Zuo Lin'an had also been worried before, but now that he had left Sin Hunter City and was out of danger, his mind was much sharper, and a certain possibility occurred to him.
“Zhao Cheng might have run away.”
Xu Youyou blanked. “Huh? Why?”
Zuo Lin'an explained, “Think about it. From beginning to end, Zhao Cheng had no idea that Wang Hu was already dead. He only knew that twenty of the men he sent to make contact had vanished, and the twenty he sent to investigate afterward had also gone missing.”
“In his eyes, what do you think happened to those forty men?”
Xu Youyou stroked his chin. “Hmm...”
“Recruited by Wang Hu? Or imprisoned?”
Zuo Lin'an continued, “He suddenly lost forty of his brothers, and that night, nearly sixty more vanished right under his nose. What would he think then?”
Xu Youyou also realized a possibility.
“To be so familiar with their settlement, it had to be an insider.”
“So, those forty missing brothers had likely defected to Wang Hu's settlement, or they were being tortured for information.”
“Whichever it was, it was extremely dangerous for Zhao Cheng, because Wang Hu could lead his men to capture him at any moment and make his life a living hell.”
The more Xu Youyou spoke, the more excited and even indignant he became.
“So he took his remaining men and fled! And he didn't even send anyone after us because he completely forgot about us!”
Zuo Lin'an rubbed the space between his eyebrows. Had this guy completely missed the point?
Forget it, it didn't matter.
Upon returning to the training base, the two of them bid farewell to an exceptionally cheerful An Wen and headed back to their dormitory.
Xu Youyou immediately called his aunt to share the good news, while Zuo Lin'an went to take a shower first.
Only after putting on his own clothes did he feel like he had truly come back to life.
While Xu Youyou was in the shower, he sat on his bed and began to study his specter body.
With a mere thought, a figure materialized before him.
Its skin was deathly pale.
Several distinct blood-red lines traced across its back.
This was likely a mild manifestation of his deathly state.
His actual deathly state was one where his skin, flesh, and bones were completely separated.
The next instant, the specter body opened its eyes, revealing a pair of crimson eyes.
What startled him the most, however, was that the pupils had actually turned into vertical slits.
He was slightly puzzled.
The instructors had never mentioned that a specter body's eyes could undergo such a drastic change. Had it mutated?
He wondered what Xu Youyou's specter body looked like.
His specter body's eyes darted around slightly.
Zuo Lin'an felt a bizarre sensation.
After fusing completely, he and the specter body had become one. Although they could act independently, splitting one consciousness into two required multitasking, which he wasn't quite used to yet.
Particularly, having two visual perspectives at the same time.
His single brain struggled to process both, making him feel a bit dizzy.
Just as he wanted to familiarize himself further, Xu Youyou walked out of the bathroom. He casually tossed his prison uniform into the trash can, humming a tune as he looked over.
“Huh?!”
As if discovering some shiny new toy, Xu Youyou zipped over in a flash.
“Holy crap!”
“Brother An, why are your specter body's eyes different from mine?”
“Red slitted pupils? I want them too!!!”
Rate on N.U.
