Chapter 35: God of Slaughter
Chapter 35: Chapter 35: God of Slaughter
Body possession!
The first time Zhu Ge heard he was dead after transmigrating, he’d had his doubts.
He had mulled it over repeatedly in the days that followed. After experiencing the original host’s memories being tampered with, Xigui wanting to marry him, and other events, he finally reached a conclusion.
If everyone said he was dead, then perhaps he really was.
But this wasn’t death in the broad sense of the word. It was death in the narrow sense—a separation of soul and body.
In other words, while his connection to his body was still strong, they weren’t perfectly integrated as one.
It was like peeling a banana and then laying the peel back over it.
Although the original "Zhu Ge’s" body was now his, that didn’t mean he *was* the original "Zhu Ge."
This meant that if he wanted to, he could survive on his soul alone, becoming a true Ghost, just like Xigui.
This led him to the idea of body possession.
If his soul could leave "Zhu Ge’s" body and survive, why not pop out for a moment and possess Hua Liusha’s?
After all, Hua Liusha’s body was, in a sense, the same as his own.
Both were merely vessels occupied by foreign souls. The original owner’s spirit had long since scattered, with part of it becoming Xigui.
And so, Zhu Ge had engineered this very opportunity, luring out the bulk of the Fungus God’s power to possess Hua Liusha’s body!
Yu the Scholar and Xigui were quick to react. They must have guessed at least part of Zhu Ge’s plan, as they did their best to hold off the Fungus God for him.
At that moment, Zhu Ge’s giant egg-like soul sank into Hua Liusha’s body, and a sense of control immediately washed over him.
But this control felt sluggish and stiff.
’Hm? Mycelia?’
Zhu Ge "saw" the dense network of mycelia inside Hua Liusha’s body.
The strands coated every nerve and muscle fiber, acting in place of the body’s original tissues.
Zhu Ge immediately drove his egg-soul to rampage through Hua Liusha’s body. All mycelia in its path were instantly shattered and dispersed.
In an instant, a feeling of control, just like when he was in his own body, arose from his soul.
Zhu Ge opened his eyes.
’Hm, my eyes don’t feel sore. My jaw and mouth feel like they’ve been torn, but there’s no pain. That damn split-mouthed woman, treating my wife’s body like it’s modeling clay? Still...’
’Did I actually succeed?’
The sensation was incredibly strange for Zhu Ge.
He lifted a hand and saw a slender, delicate thing, its skin fair and smooth. The fingernails were like polished jade, perfectly round and full.
He then casually patted his body and felt a certain weight on his chest.
In short, it was nothing like his old body.
"Zhu Ge! Watch out for the Fungus God!" Yu the Scholar’s voice called from nearby.
Zhu Ge looked up to see a dense mass of mycelia blotting out the sky as it surged toward him.
It seemed that because Zhu Ge had forced Hua Liusha’s body to open its eyes, the bulk of the threads managed to rush into the body, despite Yu the Scholar and Xigui intercepting some of them.
Hua Liusha’s body, which had opened its eyes under Zhu Ge’s control, suddenly shut them and collapsed limply to the ground as the mass of mycelia poured in.
"Give me back my body!" Xigui shrieked, diving in after them.
Only Yu the Scholar remained, standing his ground to fend off the rest of the mycelia and sever as much of the Fungus God’s power as he could.
Inside Hua Liusha’s body, Zhu Ge’s giant egg faced off against a massive conglomerate of mycelia.
Xigui’s "囍" character floated beside the giant egg, while the mycelial mass resembled a large ball of yarn.
SWISH! SWISH! SWISH!
Countless fungal threads shot out like silver needles, stabbing toward Xigui and the giant egg. Ripples of bloody water spread from the "囍" character, surging to meet the mycelia.
The giant egg, meanwhile, simply used its body as a shield and smashed right through them.
’Mere mycelia?’
Zhu Ge’s thoughts were cold and sharp.
One must understand that the Kunpeng transcends not only the sea and sky, but also its own eggshell.
The eggshell is also a shackle!
Countless egg-laying creatures have died in their shells, unable to break through the very thing that was meant to protect them.
And among them all, the Kunpeng’s eggshell is in a league of its own—impossibly hard.
This hardness isn’t absolute, but relative.
The stronger the soul, the harder the shell!
Therefore, Zhu Ge felt no fear. He just had to smash his way through.
BANG! BANG! BANG!...
The tips of countless mycelia slammed against the surface of the eggshell, letting out a series of muffled thuds.
Meanwhile, the bloody water flowed against the tide, dyeing the mycelia crimson. The crimson threads then reversed course, turning to stab back at the ball of yarn.
"You dare oppose me within my own shrine?!"
The Fungus God’s voice was no longer clear and pleasant like Hua Liusha’s, but had become a dull, androgynous drone.
And as the Fungus God spoke, countless mycelia materialized out of thin air beside Zhu Ge’s giant egg-soul and Xigui.
"My body is endless!" the Fungus God roared.
But upon seeing this, Zhu Ge didn’t panic in the slightest.
"Oh? Inside the shrine? What about outside?" Zhu Ge laughed.
In that very instant, a terrifying ray of light shot in from below them.
"Zhu Ge! Zhu Ge! I did what you said! I stabbed the knife into Hua Liusha’s heart!"
A slightly nervous voice traveled up from below.
Their current location was inside Hua Liusha’s head, so the light piercing through the infinite distance below was, of course, coming from her heart.
"Well done, Ma Laizi."
Zhu Ge’s giant egg-soul instantly passed out of the body, but Xigui hesitated.
"Hua Xiaomei, your body has already become its shrine! We can’t kill the Fungus God without destroying it! We have to go, now!"
Perhaps his words had an effect. The "囍" character finally flew up and attached itself to the giant egg, falling silent.
Zhu Ge then turned his attention to the shackles before him.
It was easy to get in, but hard to get out.
Who ever heard of a soul leaving its body for a second possession right after completing the first?
Fortunately, this was no challenge for a "Kunpeng."
’Perfect, I still have a few seconds.’
Zhu Ge immediately "transcended" this body, his soul flying back into his original form.
Normally, after a soul possesses a new body, it naturally "settles in."
But this settling is tantamount to imprisonment—a cage of flesh. And the "Kunpeng" trait was the perfect way to transcend and escape it.
Besides, if he stayed away too long, his own body would die.
Thankfully, everything went according to his calculations, without any major hitches.
"Zhu Ge, are you alright?"
Yu the Scholar’s concerned voice reached his ears.
Zhu Ge opened his eyes, and his senses switched from the soul’s perspective back to physical perception.
"I’m fine. What about the shrine?" Zhu Ge said, getting to his feet and looking toward it.
He saw Ma Laizi holding a dagger that was plunged into the heart of Hua Liusha’s body.
The blade was coated in a blood-red substance—the very rooster’s-heart blood that Yu the Scholar had prepared earlier.
"Is... is it dead?" Ma Laizi asked nervously.
"Let me see." Dragging his weakened body forward, Zhu Ge went to Ma Laizi’s side and leaned over to examine Hua Liusha.
After a moment’s observation, Zhu Ge stared intently at Hua Liusha’s head and held out his hand. "Give me the dagger. There should be one last step. You have to strike a snake at its most vital point."
Ma Laizi seemed to understand. He nodded, immediately pulled the dagger from Hua Liusha’s chest, and handed it to Zhu Ge.
Zhu Ge took the dagger without looking back, his eyes fixed on Hua Liusha’s neck. He gripped the handle tightly and slowly bent over, exposing his back to Ma Laizi.
And at that very moment, Ma Laizi’s gaze fixed on the back of Zhu Ge’s head, and a strange, sinister smile spread across his lips.
PSHCK!!!!
Zhu Ge was still facing Hua Liusha, but the dagger in his hand had shot backward, plunging straight into Ma Laizi’s heart.
"Now it should be dead."
’A single Fungus God... with its first and second shrines destroyed, it’s dead for sure.’