Chapter Twenty-Nine: The False Body

What on earth was going on?

Even the Mountain of Corpses, which appeared to be entirely devoid of emotion, stood frozen in place. The scene unfolding before it clearly violated some sort of "program," causing it to glitch and crash.

Qin Changsheng’s body, which had been stretched by the force of the collision, began to slowly retract. A large, writhing mass of corpses remained wrapped within him, seemingly at a loss.

As his body slowly returned to normal, a small black spot suddenly appeared on Qin Changsheng’s face. Like ink seeping into rice paper, the spot grew larger and larger until his entire face, and even his neck, had turned pitch black.

Then, Qin Changsheng’s form began to change. His limbs pulled inward, and his facial features melted like ice cream into his body. Finally, he transformed into a thin sheet of paper, encasing the mass of corpses within.

Watching this from the start, the "Mifa Hero" realized in an instant: the person standing there was not Qin Changsheng at all, but a blob of ink. Qin Changsheng’s Shanhai Beast was playing a trick!

But where had the real Qin Changsheng gone?

As a cloud drifted across the sky, a shadow appeared in the sunlight that had been blanketing the ground, and a section of the air suddenly twisted and refracted.

This minor anomaly caught the Mifa Hero’s attention. Then, right before his eyes, that distorted space began to fill with color—from clothing to skin—until a living, breathing human appeared out of thin air.

Qin Changsheng had been standing there the whole time; the light around him had simply been reflected away!

As the transparent portions of his body gradually faded, Qin Changsheng finally appeared in the square in front of the shopping mall. He was drenched in sweat, gasping for air as if he had been holding his breath for a long time, clutching his chest.

It worked!

Until this very moment of success, Qin Changsheng could hardly believe that his whimsical scheme had actually come to fruition.

He owed it all to the late Chen Yuanyuan. It was her Shanhai Beast, "Sugar Thousand-Forms," that had given him the inspiration.

Like Sugar Thousand-Forms, Qin Changsheng’s Shanhai Beast, "Ink," possessed the ability to change shape at will. But unlike Sugar Thousand-Forms, Ink could also alter its own material composition.

In previous battles, Qin Changsheng had discovered that Ink could turn its body into metal. One of the properties of metal is its ability to reflect surrounding light, mirroring the colors around it.

Based on these two points, Qin Changsheng had devised the plan to use a metallic, shape-shifting Ink to mimic his own appearance and distract the Mountain of Corpses.

He had set his plan in motion after batting back the road sign thrown by the mountain. In the split second that the Mountain of Corpses was dazed by its own deflected attack, the Ink-mimic had taken his place.

Creating distance between them was not only meant to bait the mountain into throwing a corpse-ball, but also to prevent the creature from noticing the flaws in the mimic.

The real Qin Changsheng had been standing just a short distance from Ink. Beyond creating the decoy, Ink had also stretched a thin layer over Qin Changsheng’s own body.

This layer of Ink turned into countless metallic particles, reflecting light to create an effect similar to an invisibility cloak.

This maneuver required complex mental control, which was why Qin Changsheng’s movements had been so sluggish, eventually coming to a complete halt.

If his opponent had been capable of thinking a few steps ahead—like noticing the unnatural stillness of the "decoy"—it might have suspected something. But he wasn’t facing a crafty strategist; he was facing a butcher-monster whose mind was filled only with the desire to kill.

Or rather, it was questionable whether the thing had a brain at all.

The scheme succeeded perfectly. Using the decoy, the real Qin Changsheng had successfully trapped the corpse-ball thrown by the mountain!

Qin Changsheng grabbed the Ink-wrapped bundle like a sack. Now that he could drop all pretenses, he didn't need to stand there playing mind games any longer. He turned and took off at a run.

After a few steps, the Ink clinging to his head sprouted long limbs, lifting his body into the air and accelerating his speed. Within moments, he had put significant distance between himself and the Mountain of Corpses.

Qin Changsheng wasn’t running aimlessly; he had already mapped out his route and was sprinting toward his chosen destination.

Meanwhile, Qin Changsheng didn't worry about the mountain he had left behind, knowing its movement was limited to a slow crawl.

Its true method of tracking prey, however, was...

Just as he thought this, the bundle he was carrying began to struggle violently. The corpse-ball inside was trying to break free, and as the bundle heaved, the contents seemed to be growing larger.

Qin Changsheng had seen this before. A corpse-ball thrown by the mountain would, after a short time, proliferate and grow into another fragment of the Mountain of Corpses.

The mountain would never let a target escape. Once a target moved beyond its reach, it would hurl a piece of its own body to intercept them.

And it was precisely this characteristic that Qin Changsheng was counting on.

His thoughts crystallized into clear concepts in his mind, lining up one by one.

For instance: Why could the mountain release these fragments, yet its total mass never seemed to increase?

Looking across the silent Qiantang New District, there was only this one Mountain of Corpses.

If it wanted to hunt efficiently, it could just keep splitting itself; the survivors hiding in the shadows would have been rooted out long ago, and there wouldn't be so many people still alive.

But in reality, its killing was not that efficient. It was almost always a point-to-point pursuit, laboriously chasing survivors one by one. The occasional release of a fragment was merely to intercept a fleeing target.

What was the reason for this? For a creature like this, it certainly wasn't mercy or laziness, but some hard restriction that prevented it from doing otherwise.

The answer, which Qin Changsheng had long since guessed, was "equivalent exchange."

Even in this absurd world, the most basic laws of physics seemed to apply: the total amount of matter could neither be created nor destroyed.

No matter how the mountain split, the total mass remained constant. If the fragment grew larger, the main body of the mountain would shrink accordingly. It was as if a portal existed between the two, continuously transferring the mass of the main body into the fragment.

To kill Qin Changsheng, the mountain was forced to dump its mass into the growing fragment. The further Qin Changsheng ran, the larger the Ink-wrapped bundle would grow, and the smaller the main body would become.

Soon, Qin Changsheng’s arm could no longer hold the heavy mass, and he had to have Ink sprout another limb to secure the bundle.

Even so, the bloated mountain had expanded the small package to the size of a car. Ink was incredibly elastic, and Qin Changsheng could see countless arms pressing against the surface, palms tearing at Ink’s body.

At this rate, it wouldn't last long; the mountain would tear Ink open eventually. But fortunately, his destination wasn't far. He would arrive momentarily.

Faster! He had to be faster! Qin Changsheng thought.

If he could just reach that place... If he could only make it there!