Chapter 15 The Shadow of the Dead

To ensure a hit.

Gu Shen waited... Finally, the silver arrow successfully pierced the other party's face, but he miscalculated Qu Shui's ability.

This wasn't the real target.

But her ability... a shadow.

From Qu Shui's reaction at this moment, it could be seen that the shadow's injury caused her great pain as well. However, the injury that would have been fatal was greatly reduced. Blood constantly flowed from her eyes, matching the silver arrow's penetrating wound.

The shadow beneath Qu Shui's feet moved irregularly, sometimes condensing into a petite girl, sometimes transforming into a tall man, like a wild beast struggling and thrashing inside a cage.

"Her ability is to control shadows and solidify them?" Gu Shen's expression was solemn as he stared at Qu Shui. The large, glittering silver scissors made him feel unusually dangerous.

Too cautious.

Unaware that he was an extraordinary, she actually used a shadow to enter the cave... If her true self had entered, that arrow just now would have ended the battle.

In the profiling world.

She cut off "Father's" throat with one slash!

And that was what Hu Danian had given him in the files... all the victims died from sharp objects cutting their throats, their bones were crushed, leaving only a shallow layer of skin, and extraordinary aura was detected at the wounds.

Or... was what she was preparing to do when she entered the cave something that only a shadow could accomplish?

No!

Gu Shen suddenly recalled a detail.

In the clinic, he had used the power of Fiery Flame to hypnotize Qu Shui... She already knew he was an extraordinary.

From that moment on, she had been acting?

With a "shirr," Gu Shen wiped a finger across his brow, igniting the Fiery Flame there.

Qu Shui was stunned.

She looked at the wisp of fire between Gu Shen's eyebrows, the anger in her eyes suddenly dissipating, replaced by fascination.

"That flame, it's so beautiful to look at." She giggled. "No wonder you're the person I like. Cutting off your shadow will definitely allow it to stay with me... for a very long time."

In the flickering firelight, the surrounding stone walls were illuminated.

Gu Shen's face was a little pale.

Shadows swirled around the barren walls of the cave, swaying with the wind, like murals hanging on the walls. These were the victims of the Jiangtan case, and their number was far greater than Hu Danian had reported, close to fifteen.

All of them were male.

These shadows had all been cut down by Qu Shui and nailed to the cave.

This was what she meant by "together forever."

Those scissors... should be the key to cutting off the shadows, but Gu Shen's intuition told him that this was not an Sealed Item, but rather an artifact carrying Qu Shui's extraordinary ability.

Even without those scissors... Qu Shui could use any sharp object to cut off a shadow.

After his thoughts settled, Gu Shen had a rough idea in his mind.

He gripped the ruler tightly and said coldly, "In Jiangtan... how many people did you kill in total?"

Upon hearing this, the girl actually lowered her head and seriously began counting on her fingers.

"One... two..."

After counting for a while, she gave up.

"Little Doctor Gu, what are you talking about..."

Qu Shui raised her head, a harmless, radiant smile blooming on her cute and docile face.

She pointed to the barren walls of the cave.

"How could I have killed anyone... aren't they all here?"

As soon as she finished speaking.

The figures on the barren walls trembled violently like parchment scrolls. As if driven by some kind of will, one after another they floated down, slowly taking shape on the ground.

"Hold him down."

Qu Shui coldly spat out a sentence.

After landing, the dozen or so tall shadows took about two or three seconds to condense their bodies and flex their wrists. The next moment, a tall shadow instantly charged forward, its speed terrifying, its fist the size of a sandbag whistling as it smashed towards Gu Shen.

The next moment—

Before the fist landed on Gu Shen's face, this tall shadow shattered into pieces, wailing in pain, falling to the ground piece by piece.

Qu Shui's pupils contracted. She wasn't a mental-type extraordinary, and in the dim environment, she couldn't capture a clear image.

She didn't know what had happened... The shadow she had controlled was cut apart in an instant.

She had already witnessed Gu Shen's ability at the clinic.

That Fiery Flame didn't have much killing power, and seemed ordinary, unremarkable.

But that ruler was not ordinary. The arrow that had just hit her true shadow must have been the ruler's power.

The danger she could feel now was all coming from the silver ruler in Gu Shen's hand.

The shadow had just been killed... Was that also the power of the ruler?

This ruler, could it unleash the power of cutting and nailing?

"As expected, as I thought, these shadows... to cause harm in the material world, they need to condense their bodies. Correspondingly, after condensing their bodies, they will also be harmed by the material world."

Gu Shen chuckled softly.

"Your true shadow was hit by an arrow, and you felt pain. These people's shadows are injured... but you don't react. This shows that they are only controlled by you, and there is no further connection. Interesting, are you a natural-type extraordinary, or a mental-type?"

His expression was becoming more and more pale, not because of fear of these shadows, but because maintaining the Ruler of Truth consumed mental power every second.

The stinging sensation was becoming more and more obvious, the ruler wouldn't last long.

And his thoughts were becoming clearer and clearer.

He saw Qu Shui frown subconsciously. Obviously, the natural and mental types he mentioned were not within her range of knowledge. This was likely a free awakening, and an extraordinary who had not attracted the attention of the upper echelons of the capital.

With the enhancement of Fiery Flame, slender silver threads intertwined and crisscrossed in the dark stone wall world, densely covering Gu Shen's surroundings within two meters. The tall shadow just now had been cut off by these threads.

This was Gu Shen's layout in times of crisis, and it could be considered a trick he had used before.

During the fire case, he had faced the power-type extraordinary on the rooftop with the same move.

It was a very useful method to deal with those who charged and attacked fiercely.

But now, Gu Shen's mental strength was more solid, longer, and he had more experience. He chose to create invisible threads that were almost invisible to the naked eye in the cramped and dark environment.

Once they charged, they would be courting death.

But the problem was... the Ruler of Truth was not suitable for attrition warfare, and this was the second activation today.

There wasn't much time left.

He had to end this quickly.

"You want to cut off my shadow?"

Gu Shen stared at Qu Shui and said, word by word, "Since you're not pretending anymore, then I'll be honest... From the moment I saw you, I felt disgusted, nauseated."

"Do you know what you remind me of?"

"Flies, bedbugs."

Qu Shui's expression changed as expected.

Veins bulged on her forehead, and her pretty face was covered with dark clouds.

"A self-pitying fly trying to gain the sympathy of others, a hypocritical and pretentious bedbug who only knows how to show off her misery..."

Gu Shen stared closely at Qu Shui, observing the changes in her expression.

He spoke faster and faster, trying to say words that would anger her. He wasn't good at cursing, and these "dirty words" were the result of Gu Shen racking his brains.

For others, it would be difficult to provoke anger.

But for a girl in love, these ear-piercing dirty words were enough to shatter her heart.

"Enough!"

The girl's angry shout interrupted Gu Shen's words.

The tall shadows that filled almost the entire cave rioted at this moment. In a roaring sound, more than a dozen shadows swarmed towards Gu Shen's "Domain of Truth"!