The moment Lin Hei'er saw the Paper Person, countless thoughts flashed through her mind.
First, she felt that she had just been poisoned.
Lin Hei'er had heard that those who consumed the Fushou Paste often experienced hallucinations, believing they had seen paradise, or had dominion over the world, or had achieved immortality.
Occasionally, she had also heard of terrifying visions, but those were merely tales told by others.
However, the likelihood of that was too small.
As a Master of Dark Energy, her control over her physical body far surpassed that of ordinary people.
Although she couldn't claim to be immune to all poisons, she was well aware of the changes in her body after being poisoned.
Since her arrival here, she had indeed found no signs of poisoning.
Secondly... there was something strange, something terrifying, something legendary here!
Lin Hei'er’s thoughts raced as she stood sideways, on guard against the eerie and terrifying Paper People, and sternly questioned Wu Piwu, “What have you done!? Where are my sisters!?”
Wu Piwu helplessly pointed upwards, and Lin Hei'er immediately looked up.
Her entire body trembled, and she could no longer speak.
Because upon contacting Wu Piwu, she saw everything.
Xu Rongyu had been like this before, and now Lin Hei'er was the same.
Clearly, there was some mechanism that allowed his insights to be shared with others.
This was also why he had tentatively touched Lin Hei'er; after all, Xu Rongyu had not turned into a Paper Person after being touched by him.
What if Lin Hei'er also did not turn into a Paper Person due to his touch?
The Paper Person was extremely dangerous; Wu Piwu could instinctively sense this.
It appeared to be a light and airy piece of paper, yet it transmitted a certain eerie and terrifying wave.
Moreover, this was merely a Paper Person formed from an ordinary human.
If a master of national martial arts like Lin Hei'er were to become a Paper Person, would it not turn into something even more horrifying?
Regardless, upon seeing the thread above Lin Hei'er’s head fall, Wu Piwu had some thoughts in his heart.
Lin Hei'er looked up at the sky and saw the enormous twisted humanoid figure from which the thread hung down.
Others might not be able to discern what that figure was, but she trembled all over, a sense of familiarity making her hands and feet cold.
This was... the Mother of No Life!!
Although it was merely a very hazy shadow and a distorted humanoid form, Lin Hei'er had visualized the image of the Mother of No Life for over ten years; she was too familiar with it to mistake it!
The cultivation method Lin Hei'er practiced was the Huanglian Shengmu Jing.
It was said that the Mother of No Life had five lotus incarnations: the Supreme Green Lotus, the Golden Lotus of Merits, the Black Lotus of Annihilation, the Red Lotus of Purgatory, and the Thick Earth Yellow Lotus that she practiced.
This was actually a set of Buddhist cultivation methods, and during the practice, one needed to visualize the yellow lotus form of the Mother of No Life, which was precisely the twisted and hazy humanoid form before her!
The five lotus incarnations also represented the location of the Mother of No Life's true vacuum homeland: the Supreme Green Lotus represented the Heavenly Path, the Golden Lotus of Merits represented the Buddhist Realm, the Black Lotus of Annihilation represented the Void, the Red Lotus of Purgatory represented Sin, and the Thick Earth Yellow Lotus represented the human world... so were they Paper People?
Lin Hei'er was shocked in her heart, yet she seemed to have an epiphany.
She looked at the threads above the Paper People’s heads and urgently asked Wu Piwu, “If all of this is true, then cutting the threads, can it save my sisters?”
Wu Piwu hesitated for a moment but shook his head, saying, “I’m not sure if it can. When I touched you before, your body had already partially turned into paper, but now it has returned. Feel if there is anything different about yourself.”
Lin Hei'er was taken aback and immediately began to sense herself carefully.
Her expression then turned extremely grim.
Her qi and blood had at least depleted by thirty percent, almost reaching the root, and she hadn’t even noticed it without someone else reminding her.
If she were to forcibly mobilize her qi and blood to unleash her Dark Energy at this level of depletion, she could die on the spot!
This was only partial paperization; her sisters had completely turned into Paper People.
They might have already...
Lin Hei'er gritted her teeth and shook her red soft spear, striking at the head of the nearest Paper Person.
In the eyes of the three, the red soft spear directly sliced through the thread above the Paper Person's head, but it was as if it had merely cut through the air; the thread remained completely still, and the Paper Person continued to “float” closer step by step.
Seeing this, Lin Hei'er took a slight step back.
Although there was still a certain distance between her and Wu Piwu and Ya Ma Dai, this action already indicated many things.
Even if these Paper People had once been her sisters, at this point, they were already on different paths... no, these Paper People were not even ghosts, but something even more bizarre.
“Master, is there any way?” Lin Hei'er asked, her heart filled with anxiety, but her voice remained steady.
Wu Piwu frowned slightly and was about to step forward to stand with Lin Hei'er.
Ya Ma Dai beside him immediately reached out to grab Wu Piwu.
Seeing this, Lin Hei'er coldly laughed, “Don’t worry, if the Master goes up, I will certainly follow.”
Wu Piwu turned to Ya Ma Dai and said, “We need to test whether the attack method of these Paper People can revert them back to humans or if they can be destroyed. If we don’t even know this, what should we do next?”
Only then did Ya Ma Dai release Wu Piwu, and Wu Piwu stood together with Lin Hei'er.
At this moment, the nearest Paper Person was only a little over two meters away from the two.
Lin Hei'er suddenly threw the red soft spear towards the ancestral hall and then stood empty-handed, striking a posture.
This was also to tell Wu Piwu that she had no intention of clashing with him at this moment; the Paper People before them were their common enemy.
Lin Hei'er whispered, “How did you make me escape from paperization just now?”
Wu Piwu did not hesitate and directly replied, “Those who touch me can see these things, and reverting from a Paper Person back to human relies on yourself.”
Lin Hei'er pondered, “You have Yin Yang Eyes or perhaps Insightful Eyes? And to reverse the paperization, it requires one’s own qi and blood?”
Wu Piwu was unsure.
To be honest, although he had awakened for over a hundred days and had some living seniors guiding him, both he and those seniors only dared to spin within the dream world at a baseline reality of 0.9, and generally did not dare to casually establish shelters.
Once five days passed, they would return to Gaia unless it was confirmed that there were no anomalies in that world, or the Nightmares were truly weak, then they would establish a shelter.
The definition of a weak Nightmare was that there were no grotesque phenomena, no supernatural occurrences, only pure physical strength, such as mutated beasts and various relatively weak legendary monsters.
Only in such cases would his seniors establish shelters in that world.
As for supernatural, grotesque, and various terrifying, rule-based, non-physical grotesques, the last time was with a second-level Nightmare, which directly caused the deaths of the two remaining seniors, and he had survived purely by luck.
To be serious, the Paper Person before him and the twisted humanoid that transformed into a Paper Person were the second non-physical Nightmare he had encountered.
Lin Hei'er did not wait for Wu Piwu’s answer, nor did she continue to ask.
Instead, she stepped forward and rushed up, with Wu Piwu only a moment behind her.
The two charged toward the first Paper Person almost in tandem.
Lin Hei'er raised her palm and struck at the thread above the Paper Person's head, while she whispered, “Wait for me a moment.”
Wu Piwu had originally intended to claw at the Paper Person's throat, but upon hearing her, he paused slightly, transforming his claw into a palm and striking at the arm holding the paper mallet of the Paper Person.
The two struck their targets almost simultaneously, and their expressions changed drastically as they each retreated several meters.
They looked at each other, palms open, revealing dark blue-black marks on their hands.
Wu Piwu’s dark blue-black mark vanished in the blink of an eye, while Lin Hei'er’s took two to three seconds to disappear, and her face turned somewhat pale.
“It’s effective, but this...” Lin Hei'er’s face was exceptionally grim; she knew her sisters might not be saved.
At the moment they touched the thread and the Paper Person, they both felt a chilling pain at the point of contact.
Even a momentary touch felt as if their qi and blood had diminished slightly.
Although they could immediately mobilize their qi and blood to recover, the total amount of qi and blood had been absorbed away.
Looking at the Paper Person, the paper surface of its arm had developed slight wrinkles, and the thread above its head had shown some fluctuations, but that was all.
The Paper Person continued to slowly float toward the two, with over ten other Paper People behind it maintaining the same pace.
“It’s effective,” Lin Hei'er whispered, “but we can’t contend with so many... Paper People!”
Wu Piwu nodded and then turned to Ya Ma Dai behind him, asking, “How are the preparations going!?”
Ya Ma Dai grinned and shouted loudly.
After two seconds, a woman’s voice echoed from the ancestral hall.
Wu Piwu said to Lin Hei'er, “Let’s go into the ancestral hall; we’ve prepared things to deal with the Paper People!”
After saying that, Wu Piwu and Ya Ma Dai quickly ran toward the ancestral hall.
Lin Hei'er did not retreat immediately; she looked sorrowfully at the Paper People, among whom were several of her trusted subordinates, and the others were all her sisters.
She hadn’t expected that a casual outing would result in all of them turning into such grotesques.
As the Paper People drew closer, she gritted her teeth and followed behind Wu Piwu and Ya Ma Dai, rushing into the ancestral hall.
In front of several buildings on the ancestral hall’s embankment, Xu Shilan and Xu Rongyu were standing there with unlit torches.
Upon seeing Wu Piwu and the two running over, along with a striking woman whose shoulder revealed a bit of spring light, they immediately lit their torches.
Xu Rongyu simultaneously shouted, “Is that the Senior Sister of the Red Lantern Society?”
Lin Hei'er lagged a few steps behind, and upon seeing Xu Rongyu, who was dressed and had hair different from the other three, she also called out, “It is I; is that not Young Master Xu?”
Both understood each other's identities, but this was not the time for pleasantries.
Behind the three, over ten Paper People were slowly approaching.
Wu Piwu took the lead and grabbed a torch, loudly addressing everyone, “These are Paper People; their bodies are made of paper. Do not touch them with your bodies; qi and blood... life force will be absorbed, and they are chilling all over, leaving you powerless!”
“It was worth it for us to spend heavily to buy all the oil from that post station; use fire!”
“Let’s see if these Paper People fear fire!”
(End of Chapter)