Infinite Terror: Infinite Reversal

Chapter 136 Pickman

After Mu Xiang and the other three met up, they slowly walked towards the hotel.

"Actually, the reason I've never been in a hurry is that I'm afraid to be in a hurry," Mu Xiang said to Zhan Lan in his heart. "Although I won't be affected by Sutter Kane's behavior like you and Liu Xi, I'm still jumping into his script after all."

"Are you going to wait for the plot to develop on its own?" Zhan Lan replied.

Mu Xiang affirmed, "That's right... He must think he's keeping me busy with all sorts of unexpected events. If he can't handle it, not only will we be unable to destroy the manuscript, but we might not even be able to leave Hobbes Town for a while. At that point, how much time has passed outside and what state the situation has reached will no longer be up to us."

Qi Teng knew that Mu Xiang and Zhan Lan were communicating in their minds... Although he didn't know the specifics, Mu Xiang's abilities were enough to reassure him.

When Qi Tengyi snapped Zhang Heng's neck earlier, the fighting power he unleashed startled even himself. This fake Zhang Heng's movements were incredibly fast; the crossbow was instantly aimed at Qi Tengyi.

But as the fake Zhang Heng raised his hand, Qi Tengyi's body involuntarily shifted into a blind spot, and then he snapped Zhang Heng's neck with one hand. After this fatal blow, Qi Tengyi finally realized how effective Mu Xiang's earlier talk about combat instinct was in actual combat.

This feeling... is something I didn't experience during training in the God's Space.

As Qi Tengyi twisted the neck of the fake Zhang Heng, he vaguely felt something about to burst out of his neck... So he subconsciously uttered the word "sever," severing the object in his hand from its inside and outside at the same time.

This is also why the fake Zhang Heng didn't turn into a bunch of tentacles... The tentacles under this skin were also destroyed at the same time by the hand that was given the meaning of "severance".

"So what do we do now?" Liu Xi asked Mu Xiang.

Mu Xiang pondered for a moment: "You guys shouldn't come with me... Their combat strength may not be great, but if Sart Kane writes down all their weapons, it will be really easy for them to beat you."

Zhan Lan touched her forehead: "Then I'll use my mental energy to hide us?"

“Okay,” Mu Xiang nodded. “Although I think it might not work… let’s give it a try. Contact me immediately if anything happens. I need to go back to defend; no one can stop me.”

Zhan Lan's mocking laughter echoed in Mu Xiang's mind: "Is this the aura of a strong person?"

Mu Xiang was somewhat puzzled; why did Zhan Lan like to joke about him so much? But he still gave her a couple of instructions before disappearing into the air.

"He doesn't look that old..." Liu Xi asked casually, watching Mu Xiang's figure disappear. "Is he your captain?"

Zhan Lan thought for a moment, "Yes, whether it's planning or execution, he's definitely the key figure... We all acknowledge him."

Liu Xi didn't say anything more, and the three of them remained silent under the shield of their mental energy.

When Mu Xiang returned to the hotel, the upper floors had been completely destroyed, leaving only the first floor barely standing... it was basically a ruin.

"Heh... Luckily we didn't leave anything there, otherwise it would have been a loss from moving in, wouldn't it?" Mu Xiang sneered, and then rushed towards the basement.

Although the identities of the people in Zheng Zha's room were not yet fully confirmed, Mu Xiang was not worried... because apart from Ling Dian, everyone else was highly suspicious. And Ling Dian had a B-level Buddhist wheel protecting him; if attacked, he would probably be killed by the others before his defenses were even breached.

The sound that Mu Xiang was very familiar with was coming from the basement... With his hearing, he could of course hear the strange screams and the sound of flesh being chopped.

"Mrs. Pickman, you're not dead yet?" Mu Xiang kicked the basement door open impatiently. "Was it because I didn't handle things properly last time?"

Countless tentacles emerged from Mrs. Pickman's body, tightly binding a naked man at her feet. Her one still-intact hand held an axe, hacking at the man's body repeatedly.

Unlike in the movie, Mrs. Pickman's head was missing... After Mu Xiang smashed her head, her body lay behind the counter on the first floor. It wasn't until the chaos of the night that the headless corpse twisted and distorted, turning its decaying flesh into tendrils.

Several thinner tentacles also extended from her neck, intertwining into the shape of a flower.

Seeing Mu Xiang approach, the flower made of tentacles twisted backward, and something in the center of the flower seemed to be staring at Mu Xiang. "Oh..." Mu Xiang's eyes lit up with a dazzling red light, and then a hot gaze slammed into the flower made of tentacles, burning the tentacles so badly that they all turned to ash in less than two seconds.

Mu Xiang's gaze moved downwards, cutting Mrs. Pickman's body in half.

Only then did he notice the difference in the man on the ground... In the movie, Trent was so frightened when he saw him that he ran away, but little did he know that this was because the God had added something to it.

This man must be Mr. Pickman? Mu Xiang initially thought this guy was a victim, but seeing the current scene, he changed his mind…

Okay, to survive so many hits, it's abnormal to call someone normal...

The old man's chopped-off parts revealed rotting flesh, and the severed limbs were also rapidly decaying... Then the rotting flesh merged into the floor, and the old man's body began to heal again.

Of course, the pungent stench during the healing process made Mu Xiang realize that the so-called healing was only a matter of restoring the body's size; in reality, the flesh inside was still rotting.

"Rotten flesh..." Mu Xiang muttered to himself, "Pickman..."

"A ghoul?"

As if to confirm his conjecture, tentacles sprang out from Mrs. Pickman's slashed body. Some of them remained firmly attached to the old man, while the rest wrapped around the axe and began to chop it down fiercely.

Mu Xiang was too lazy to stop this performance art, but then he suddenly thought of a possibility.

"Isn't this Mr. Pickman?" Mu Xiang looked at the rotting flesh that splattered and then disappeared on the floor. "Rotting flesh, Pickman... this all points to a tribute to 'Pickman's Models.' If we're talking about ghouls, wouldn't Mr. Pickman be the most reasonable choice?"

He seemed to see a green hat appear on the head of the hotel owner…

[When Trent was escaping the hotel, he saw a monster in the hallway...it didn't look like a ghoul. Is this some kind of hidden plot?]

The next moment, a sense of crisis rose up, Mu Xiang's body made a piercing sonic boom, and then he appeared outside the hotel.

Suddenly, the hotel, now only on the first floor, distorted in Mu Xiang's eyes, the remaining walls turning into pale flesh... A huge monster rose from the ground, slamming its hands on the ground and pulling its lower body outward.

With just one glance, Mu Xiang knew that this was the real deal—an extremely large ghoul... and its appearance was exactly as described in the Cthulhu Mythos.

The ghoul rose from the ruins, or rather, those ruins were originally part of its body... They twisted and merged into the ghoul's body.

Mu Xiang used his X-ray vision to immediately understand the situation. No wonder the rotting flesh had seeped into the basement walls and floor; the basement was the ghoul's stomach.

Pickman's Hotel... so the hotel is actually a ghoul's den?

"Hidden storyline in Hobbs Town: Ghoul Inn - Kill the giant ghoul Pickman. Killing Pickman within ten minutes will reward you with two C-level side quests and 4000 points; all other team members within the town will receive one D-level side quest and 1000 points. If you fail to kill him within ten minutes, each person will lose 4000 points; if you fail to kill Pickman at all, each person will lose two C-level side quests."

The cold voice of the Supreme God rang in Mu Xiang's ears, and Mu Xiang chuckled.

"So this is how you pay homage to the original work, huh...?"

Then, a torrent of energy surged from his body, shattering the surrounding light and shadow... Boundless sword energy descended from the sky, and Mu Xiang also punched the ghoul's enormous head.

Chapter Two is presented here.



(End of this chapter)