Chapter 49: The Ghoul’s Demise and a Reckoning

As the Painted Skin Ghoul let out a furious roar, the surrounding scenery began to shift dramatically.

The picturesque bamboo groves and serene lake, once beautiful as a painting, morphed into a hellscape teeming with corpses.

Everywhere, chilling skeletal remains lay scattered, accompanied by the wails of vengeful spirits.

The very sky above was stained a grotesque crimson.

Countless skeletons, both human and animal, began to stir.

They roared, surging towards Xia Zhiquiu and Bai Hao, while the Painted Skin Ghoul itself had vanished without a trace.

Though Xia Zhiquiu had faced many specters before, the sight of a veritable mountain of corpses stretching before her still made her scalp tingle.

Only by clutching Bai Hao’s sleeve could she find a flicker of security amidst the horror.

Noticing Xia Zhiquiu’s timid reaction, Bai Hao’s lips curved into a faint smile.

He spoke in a gentle tone.

“Don’t be afraid, Aunt Xia.

This Painted Skin Ghoul sacrificing its cultivation to conjure this illusion of a corpse sea will ultimately be futile against your husband.

Aunt Xia, I’ll send you away from here first.”

Xia Zhiquiu paused, surprised by his words.

She assumed he was deliberately speaking lightly, intending to send her away while he stayed behind to cover their retreat, and quickly shook her head.

“If we leave, we leave together.”

She knew Bai Hao was powerful, but facing this sea of corpses and blood, she couldn’t bring herself to simply slip away and survive alone.

Bai Hao chuckled softly, shaking his head at her resolve.

Then, in a sudden move, he leaned in and pressed a light kiss to Xia Zhiquiu’s lips, a soft laugh escaping him.

“Aunt Xia, please listen to me.

Do one thing as I say, and I’ll stay to hold off this Painted Skin Ghoul.

Otherwise, it will wear us both down until we perish…”

Bai Hao added a few more words, and Xia Zhiquiu, though startled, nodded hesitantly.

“Alright then, but you must be careful.”

At that moment, the skeletal corpses were closing in.

Seeing their approach, Bai Hao conjured a blood-red longsword and plunged it into the ground.

The next instant, a massive surge of energy erupted, sweeping all the skeletal corpses away.

They disintegrated into dust mid-air.

This display left Xia Zhiquiu’s lips slightly parted, her mind reeling in disbelief.

‘Could this truly be the power a human could wield?

What exactly is this scoundrel’s true strength?’ she wondered.

Bai Hao, however, was not so optimistic.

Countless more skeletal remains were already bursting forth from the ground, encircling them once again.

This demonstrated the Painted Skin Ghoul’s immense and formidable power, suggesting it had likely lived for countless years, having already established a significant presence.

Without further hesitation, Bai Hao raised his longsword and slashed through the void.

An exit shimmered into existence before them.

Xia Zhiquiu cast a glance at Bai Hao, then finally lifted her leg and stepped through.

Once Xia Zhiquiu had departed, Bai Hao offered a faint smile, cracking his neck.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had a proper fight,” he mused.

“Now that Aunt Xia is gone, I can finally stretch my limbs.”

As he spoke, a dense, sinister aura erupted from his body.

His once dark, luminous eyes now blazed entirely crimson.

Not to be outdone, the skeletal remains nearby sensed Bai Hao’s aura and responded with their own surge of power.

They began piling up, ceaselessly piecing themselves together, until they formed a monstrous skeletal creature with three heads and six arms, towering a full twenty meters tall.

***

Meanwhile, after stepping out of that distorted space, Xia Zhiquiu found herself still inside the elevator, which had just reached the first floor.

Without hesitation, she rushed towards the rental apartment she had seen earlier that day.

Xia Zhiquiu didn’t realize just how urgent her movements were.

Arriving at Wang Qian’s apartment, she faced a locked door for which she had no key.

Xia Zhiquiu hesitated for a moment, then murmured softly.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

With that, she gripped the doorknob and forcibly opened the lock.

As an ability user, forcing open an old anti-theft door was effortless for her.

Though trespassing was wrong, time was of the essence, and she resolved to compensate for any damage.

The moment Xia Zhiquiu stepped into the living room, she immediately sensed that something was amiss.

She looked up, and indeed, the stunning portrait that had hung so exquisitely in the center of the living room was now emitting an ominous black aura.

The first time she had seen the woman in the painting, Xia Zhiquiu had been utterly captivated by her beauty.

Now, however, upon closer inspection, her perfection seemed unnatural, devoid of any genuine vitality.

Her skin was so impossibly smooth it didn’t resemble human flesh at all; instead, it was like fine porcelain glazed too heavily, gleaming with an inhumanly cold, delicate luster under the dim light.

Her alluring eyes, at first glance, seemed to ripple with warmth and brilliance, captivating anyone who looked.

Yet, a prolonged gaze revealed that her stare wasn’t truly focused on the viewer, but rather pierced through them, bearing a predatory, hollow greed that sought to seize everything.

The curve of her smile was perfectly standard, a calculated allure by the artist, yet it was stiff and frozen, like a meticulously cut-out mask pasted onto her face.

Most chilling were the colors: the rouge-red of her skirt was so vibrant it seemed ready to drip from the silk, resembling fresh blood.

The crimson used for her cheeks and lips mirrored the skirt’s color precisely, not appearing to stem from natural vitality but rather as if smeared indiscriminately with the same suspicious vermillion pigment.

As Xia Zhiquiu drew closer, she detected an extremely faint, elusive scent emanating from the painting.

It was like the aged aroma of agarwood, yet subtly mingled with a faint, almost imperceptible, sickly sweet and dizzying scent of decay.

The entire painting exuded a contradictory and eerie aura of extreme refinement and profound putrefaction.

“Is this the Painted Skin Ghoul’s true form?”

Xia Zhiquiu murmured, recalling what Bai Hao had told her: destroy this painting, and it would all be over.

With that thought, Xia Zhiquiu no longer hesitated.

She drew a small knife and plunged it sharply into the painting.

The instant the blade pierced the canvas, Xia Zhiquiu was struck by the unsettling sensation of having stabbed into living flesh.

Immediately, a piercing shriek erupted from within the painting, a sound of unimaginable agony.

Had Xia Zhiquiu not been an ability user, she would likely have been left with ringing ears.

Nevertheless, Xia Zhiquiu showed no mercy.

Gritting her teeth, she continued to slash at the painting before her until it was utterly disfigured, only then ceasing her attack.

Gazing at the ruined painting, which seemed to drip blood, Xia Zhiquiu released her grip on the knife.

A pang of worry, however, still gnawed at her, wondering how Bai Hao was faring.

***

Meanwhile, within the Illusion Realm, Bai Hao was gleefully dueling the constantly regenerating skeletal giant with his longsword.

The more he fought, the more exhilarated he became, almost like a maniac.

But the next moment, the entire space began to rumble.

The mountains of corpses and seas of blood started to crumble into dust.

Seeing this, Bai Hao knew Aunt Xia had succeeded, and he felt a slight pang of regret that the fight was ending.

Soon, the Painted Skin Ghoul’s form began to materialize.

It was utterly disheveled, its writhing body continuously shedding black, sinister energy.

“No—! How did you guess my true form?”

The Painted Skin Ghoul was genuinely filled with regret now; had it known, it would never have provoked the demon before it.

Hearing this, Bai Hao simply tilted his head, speaking casually.

“Was it that difficult?”

The Ghoul’s regretful form stiffened, then it spat venomously.

“Don’t get cocky!

You, a ghoul, yet you fall in love with a human!

Your fate will be a thousand, ten thousand times worse than mine!

Hahahaha…”

Bai Hao froze at these words, his eyes instantly turning cold, like ten thousand years of glacial ice and frost.

He raised his hand and unleashed a sword strike.

The blade pierced through the ghoul’s shadowy form, causing the already dissipating Painted Skin Ghoul to vanish even more rapidly.

“My affairs are not for you to concern yourself with.”