"Creak—"
The iron gate was pushed open again.
An Bo walked slowly in and saw a group of monsters gnawing on Fang Ming's corpse. A few monsters were even fighting over unequal distribution.
"I'm sorry, everyone."
An Bo looked at the group of monsters and sighed deeply, raising his arm. His skin began to change at a speed visible to the naked eye, turning into dark brown fine scales, and his fingernails also quickly became slender and sharp.
"Crackling..." A sound of bones cracking echoed from An Bo's body. A slit tore open on the skin of his neck, and a small head grew out, then rapidly enlarged. Two necks also began to lengthen, their surfaces covered with dense fine scales.
If Fang Ming were still alive, he would have been greatly shocked to see the monster An Bo had transformed into. This was exactly the two-headed long-necked monster he had encountered before! The one hiding in the canopy of the tree beside the plaza.
An Bo, who had transformed into a monster, began to gradually lose his sanity, his eyes becoming bloodthirsty and indifferent.
But at this moment, the black wooden block hanging on his chest emitted a faint glow, and his consciousness slowly recovered.
"As expected..." His son hadn't lied to him.
An Bo touched the wooden block. According to his son's words, this block could help him regain his sanity for three hours, after which he would transform back into a bloodthirsty monster.
"Whoosh!" Having confirmed that the wooden block was indeed effective, An Bo dared not delay. His two heads quickly launched an attack, the sound of breaking wind accompanying two afterimages that smashed towards the group of monsters gnawing on Fang Ming.
The monsters never imagined that a fellow creature would suddenly attack them with deadly force. Coupled with An Bo's already top-tier strength, several monsters were caught off guard and were directly sent flying by An Bo's two slender necks, crashing into the darkness and falling silent.
"Caw caw caw..."
"Sizzle sizzle..."
...
The monsters scattered and fled. Faced with the powerful An Bo, they instinctively retreated. These monsters, transformed from villagers, had a surprisingly strict hierarchy in terms of strength.
After driving away the monsters, An Bo strode to Fang Ming, lowering his head to look at Fang Ming's current tragic state. His clothes were torn to shreds, one arm had been torn off and eaten by some monster, his body was a bloody mess, with monster bite marks almost everywhere. His internal organs were scattered, and half of his face had been gnawed away. There was no sign of life at all.
"Alas!"
An Bo sighed, "I don't know if this is good or bad for you."
After speaking, he took out a plastic bottle from his pocket, containing half a bottle of clear water.
An Bo opened the bottle and slowly poured the clear water onto Fang Ming's body.
Fang Ming's body was like a sponge, rapidly absorbing the clear water into his body.
As the last drop of water was poured onto Fang Ming's body, his body began to change. The bloody wounds healed at a speed visible to the naked eye. Scales covered every inch of his skin. From where his right arm had been torn off, a tentacle grew out from his shoulder, quickly thickening to the size of an arm. At the tip of the tentacle, scales condensed, and in the blink of an eye, a scaled claw appeared at the tentacle's tip.
An Bo stood aside and quietly watched Fang Ming's transformation, lost in thought.
"Is it back?" An Bo's eyes suddenly sharpened. A feeling of being spied upon suddenly enveloped him. He knew that guy was back!
As expected, in the next moment, the monsters hiding in the darkness all emerged, no longer fearing An Bo's deterrence. They were being controlled by a more powerful being!
"Roar!" A monster roared and was the first to attack.
An Bo felt a pang of sympathy, but had no choice but to act. Each of these monsters was a villager from his Bai Mu Village, and now they had become tools for that guy.
"Scram!" An Bo roared mournfully, whipping one of his necks to send the attacking monster flying into the darkness where it fell silent. He controlled the force of each attack, and the monsters he hit would only be severely injured and unable to get up. He ultimately couldn't bring himself to kill his own kin.
One by one, the monsters were severely injured by An Bo's continuous attacks, but they seemed fearless of death, charging forward one after another, sacrificing their lives to deplete An Bo's stamina.
"Whoosh!" A wooden vine suddenly attacked from the darkness. An Bo twisted one of his necks to dodge the attack, and then his other neck shifted its target, quickly wrapping around the wooden vine. A crushing force instantly erupted. The wooden vine could not withstand such power and was instantly severed. The broken vine thrashed on the ground, like a lizard's severed tail.
"Still coming?"
An Bo leaped into the air, dodging the sneak attacks of two wooden vines below him.
"Bang!" An Bo landed and stomped firmly on the two wooden vines. The intense pain caused the two wooden vines to struggle wildly, but they could not break free from An Bo's immense strength. The tree vine monster's maneuver against Fang Ming was easily thwarted by An Bo.
Seeing this, the other monsters immediately went mad and charged out in a suicidal frenzy.
An Bo sighed. His two necks worked left and right, like two terrifyingly powerful whips. Any monster they touched was either sent flying or severely injured. The unknown entity lurking in the darkness, observing this scene, began to emanate anger. An Bo acutely sensed this change in emotion and sneered. He knew who this guy was and that he was far from its match. However, it was currently unable to attack him directly!
"I've had enough of a world controlled by you monsters! It's either you die or I die today!" An Bo roared, exerting force with his feet. The two tree vines under him instantly shattered into pieces that flew everywhere.
The figure in the darkness grew increasingly enraged. In its domain, a traitor had appeared without its knowledge, even if this traitor was as insignificant as an ant! An Bo's entire body exuded a terrifying aura. His two necks repelled the attacking monsters, and he picked up Fang Ming's recovering body, leaping into some dark area.
Meanwhile, the village chief, hiding in his room, suddenly received an order in his mind. At first, he was astonished, then it seemed to become a matter of course. He had long been prepared for An Bo's betrayal, and assigning that outsider to him was merely to keep an eye on both of them. An Bo had been acting strangely ever since his son died in the old well. Now, he had actually attacked his own villagers to help an outsider.
"Bai An, you're truly something!" The village chief's cold gaze was fixed on the window, which faced the direction of the ancestral hall.
"Someone!"
Several men ran in from outside the door.
"You all, swallow this and go to the ancestral hall immediately to capture the traitor Bai An!" The village chief took out a bottle of water from his embrace and said coldly, "Dead or alive, I don't care!"
"Yes!" The men replied in unison, took the water from the village chief's hand, and shared it. Immediately, scales appeared on their skin during the day, though they were quickly suppressed, waiting to erupt in the darkness.
...
An Bo, with Fang Ming, kept moving through the darkness, dodging and weaving. Monsters attacked relentlessly from behind, but An Bo easily repelled them. This was not An Bo's first time in this place. It was another dimension deliberately created by that guy. Opening the iron gate did not lead directly to the backyard, but first to this place. An Bo was unsure of its exact location, but he knew the way out. However, in his current situation, he dared not leave. Once he left, he would lose his monster form and become an ordinary old man. How could he possibly contend with dozens of villagers? Therefore, he could only lead Fang Ming in circles within the dark space, waiting for Fang Ming to recover.
"They haven't caught up for now." An Bo breathed a sigh of relief, placing Fang Ming on the ground and checking his condition. Most of his body had healed, but his internal organs were more troublesome to recover and would likely take a few more minutes. Fang Ming now looked nothing like a human, completely covered in scales, with his right arm transformed into a constantly writhing tentacle.
"Creak..." A monster's cry was heard again. An Bo glanced behind him. A monster was rapidly approaching, its bloodthirsty eyes fixed on An Bo's location. An Bo had no intention of engaging it. Defeating it would be easy, but more monsters would soon follow, making it not worth the effort. Picking up Fang Ming, An Bo fled in another direction.
A few minutes later, An Bo had once again shaken off the pursuing monsters. Even with his deep reserves of stamina, he was panting from the exertion.
"Mmm..." A soft hum attracted An Bo's attention. He looked down to see Fang Ming's eyelids struggling, then slowly opening.
Monster!
Fang Ming was startled and struggled immediately.
An Bo smoothly put Fang Ming down and said, "You're finally awake. If you hadn't woken up, we'd both be finished here."
Fang Ming flipped over and put some distance between himself and An Bo, cautiously observing the two-headed long-necked monster before him. How could this terrifying creature be here?
"Hmm?" Suddenly, the "arm" that was raised before him startled Fang Ming. He thought there were other monsters around and quickly looked around.
"Stop looking, it's you," An Bo said.
"What's going on? How did I turn into a monster?" Fang Ming panicked. Although his body had shown signs of change, his arm had only grown a few scales. Now, he had completely transformed into something neither human nor ghost!
"I did it," An Bo admitted.
"What? Why would you do this?" Fang Ming's eyes widened, but then he seemed to deflate like a balloon and slumped to the ground. A monster turning him into a monster—did he need any other reason? Fang Ming gave a bitter laugh, forced to accept the fact that he was now a monster.
An Bo walked over to Fang Ming, patted his shoulder, "Do you remember what happened after you went to the ancestral hall?"
Ancestral hall? Fang Ming's memories rapidly surfaced. He suddenly remembered that he had been killed by a monster! How was he alive again? Could it be... Fang Ming looked at his body and seemed to understand.
"You were actually dead. But because I had already put well water in your food earlier, your body already possessed monstrous characteristics. This allowed you to be resurrected by pouring a large amount of well water. However, the price is that you will uncontrollably transform into a monster in darkness from now on." An Bo explained calmly. "But one thing puzzles me, you managed to retain your sanity after becoming a monster." An Bo muttered to himself.
"You are..." Fang Ming suddenly looked up at the monster before him, his eyes full of disbelief. He knew this monster was definitely a member of Bai Mu Village, he just never knew who it was, and he hadn't been interested in knowing before. But now, combined with what it said, Fang Ming instantly deduced its identity—it was An Bo!
An Bo nodded, glanced at the darkness behind him, "Let's go, they're catching up."