Infernal Artist

Mist.

Deep in the mist, you can vaguely see the dilapidated building not far away.

Liu Ping moved his wrist.

The Baina knife jumped up from his waist and fell into his hand.

"Be careful - none of your companions can appear here, you must be extremely careful."

The knife made a buzzing sound.

"I know, but it's really strange here. There's no one there. Where are the monsters?" Liu Ping said, looking around, but found that he couldn't see anything.

He changed the long knife from his left hand to his right hand and walked towards the building step by step.

There was silence all around.

Liu Ping quickly passed through the fog and arrived in front of the building.

He looked up at the building——

The densely packed human bodies are twisted, entangled, and coiled together to form a towering giant tree.

But this giant tree seemed to have suffered some severe damage. It was cut cleanly from a height of more than ten meters, exposing countless squirming flesh and blood in the middle.

"...How should I put it? Now I have a clearer understanding of the 'nightmare'."

Liu Ping held the long knife and muttered to himself.

He turned around and walked deeper into the mist.

Soon.

The fog disperses——

Liu Ping found himself back in front of the giant tree of flesh and blood.

"Huh? Are you back?"

Liu Ping glanced at the tree, left it again, and walked deeper into the mist.

A few minutes passed.

He found that there seemed to be some dark shadow hidden in the fog ahead.

Walk up and take a look——

Still a giant tree of flesh and blood.

Liu Ping fell into deep thought.

Can't you leave the scope of this giant tree?

He slowly stood in front of the giant tree, holding a long knife and quickly drew a few lines on the ground:

"Three thousand six hundred and fifty-seven steps to get to the foot of this tree."

After writing, he immediately put away his knife and walked towards the mist again.

after awhile.

Liu Ping emerged from the mist and stood in front of the giant tree again.

He looked towards the ground and saw that the ground was flat without any scratches.

"In other words... this is another giant tree of flesh and blood?"

Liu Ping thought for a while, then turned back the way he came.

Soon.

He counted the steps, controlled the direction, and after walking 3657 steps, he finally arrived at the place he came from before.

Under that giant tree——

There are no words.

I clearly wrote a line here!

Liu Ping calmed down, drew out his knife, and wrote another line:

"what do you?"

After writing, he put away the knife, stepped back and stood still.

He stared at the line of words silently.

One breath.

Two breaths.

Three breaths.

…

Tenth breath.

Liu Ping's eyes narrowed.

I saw the ground squirming, like a wound healing——

The small characters he carved disappeared.

"Strange...am I standing on the body of something?"

Liu Ping immediately looked at the tree again.

I saw that the contact between the tree and the earth was completely seamless, without any trace. Looking at it now, it doesn't look like a tree anymore.

Instead, it looked like a thorn growing out of a huge body.

Liu Ping sighed, carefully put away the long knife, and murmured:

"I hate these unknown things the most. There is no way to deal with them. I even have to start collecting information from scratch."

In fact, to be serious, it was the black scale that put him here.

--Why?

It must have some purpose.

What on earth did it want to do by bringing itself here?

Liu Ping circled the tree of flesh and blood——

No, I don’t know what this is now.

In short, Liu Ping walked around it a few more times, but found nothing.

He stood in front of the "tree" and pondered: "Is it necessary to activate it with some power?"

A flash of holy light flew out from his hand and landed on the "tree".

The human bodies on the "tree" gradually moved.

But they squirmed a few times and stopped again.

it works!

It’s just not enough!

Liu Ping thought for a while, then his hands were filled with holy light, and he swayed it towards the "tree" as if he didn't want money.

After being nourished by so much holy light, the "tree" finally started to squirm.

It gradually developed a certain rhythm.

——It’s like coming to life.

The whole "tree" was squirming more and more crazily, looking quite thrilling, as if it would burst apart at any time.

Liu Ping took a few steps back with the knife in his hand and said, "Hey, brother, slow down, don't let it go - I won't be lenient when a monster jumps out."

The words just fell.

The giant "tree" opened a crack.

This seam continued to extend to both sides, revealing a bloody skeleton hidden inside.

The human bodies that made up the "tree" all opened their eyes, and millions of painful groans erupted from their mouths.

The "tree" squirmed even more crazily.

It kept squeezing forward, squeezing out the bloody skeleton.

The moment the bloody skeleton left the "tree", the entire "tree" suddenly became quiet.

Dead silence fell all around.

Liu Ping stared at the bloody skeleton——

It fell slowly from mid-air and landed not far in front of Liu Ping without making any sound.

-Then it stopped moving.

Liu Ping took a few more glances and saw that although the bloody skeleton looked a bit ferocious, it had no breath and no power fluctuations.

Like a dead thing.

"That's not right... I spent so much effort in hiding a place like this in the past just so that I can see a skeleton in the present?"

Liu Ping murmured.

He thought for a while, stepped forward, and tried to touch the bloody skeleton.

Almost instantly——

The skeleton jumped up suddenly, sat cross-legged, and said seriously:

"Please don't take action. No matter where you come from, when you touch this product, this product has already determined your identity."

"You are - well, who am I?" Liu Ping said.

"I don't know." The bloody skeleton said.

"Then how did you determine my identity?" Liu Ping said.

"This place is a rare deserted place in nightmares. It has no value, so it is relatively safe. It is the most suitable place for you returnees to land here." The bloody skeleton said.

"Returner?" Liu Ping asked.

"Yes, this was once a world that belonged to humans, but no one can come back now - everyone who is qualified to return to the nightmare is the most precious wealth of mankind." The bloody skeleton said.

"Then what are you?" Liu Ping asked.

"I am - wait! Something is coming." The bloody skeleton said.

It raised its head and looked toward the sky.

A whistling wind gradually came from deep in the misty sky.

It seemed like something was coming.

An irresistible feeling gradually arose in Liu Ping's heart.

All the emotions were stripped away, leaving only one emotion spreading crazily in my heart.

--despair.

Just the smell in the sky makes people feel like this. If you wait for it to appear, you don't know what will happen.

Liu Ping could swear that he had never encountered such a terrifying existence in his life.

The bloody skeleton said quickly: "There is no time to elaborate. If you are discovered, you will be eaten without any resistance."

"Maybe not necessarily." Liu Ping said.

He put away the Baina knife and took out the prison knife.

Save your life!

The long knife made a low buzz——

"Don't use this trick!" The bloody skeleton suddenly screamed.

Liu Ping stopped the sword forcefully.

"Why?" he asked.

"Time has no role here. It's just an endless 'circle'. What you cut out will eventually come back again. By then, you won't be able to escape even if you want to." The bloody skeleton said.

After saying that, it stood up quickly and asked: "Will you pretend to be dead?"

"That's true, but is it useful to use such a crude method against an enemy who can't even avoid parallel worlds?" Liu Ping couldn't help but ask.

"Of course you can't pretend to be dead, but it will be effective if we pretend to be dead together." The bloody skeleton said.

"I do believe that sometimes the simplest is the most effective, but isn't it too simple to pretend to be dead?" Liu Ping asked dubiously.

"That's too late!"

The bloody skeleton suddenly turned into a stream of blood and circled Liu Ping for several weeks.

In an instant, lines of small burning characters appeared quickly:

"You gain a kind of 'nightmare embrace':"

"Bloody Skull."

"This is a strange armor made of raw materials from nightmares. Its most basic function is to conceal your identity as a human being."

"Other forces need to be further explored."

Collect all the fine print.

Liu Ping looked down at himself.

I saw that all the flesh and hair on my body were gone——

He turned into a bloody skeleton!

At this moment, a strong sense of crisis emerged in his heart, and at the same time, the voice of the bloody skeleton came to his ears:

"Quick! That guy is coming, hurry up and pretend to be dead!"

Liu Ping fell to the ground without thinking.

He's like a skeleton -

wrong!

He was just a blood-stained skeleton, lying silently on the ground, as if he had been dead for a long time.

Dead silence.

In the sky.

A huge finger penetrated the mist and silently pressed on the ground, pressing a deep depression into the earth.

My fingers traveled back and forth and finally touched the "tree".

At this time, the fingers stopped, coiled around the "tree", and rubbed it for a while.

At the fingertips, an eye suddenly appeared.

It quietly observed the "tree", then looked around again, and finally found the bloody skeleton.

The finger moved and landed lightly on top of the bloody skull.

Time passes quietly.

One breath.

Two breaths.

Three breaths.

…

That eye stared intently at the bloody skull.

After a while, overlapping echoing sounds came from the sky, which sounded like some extremely huge existence talking to something.

Only then did his eyes roll and he retracted his fingers.

The finger silently lifted upward, slipped into the heavy fog, and disappeared.