Chapter 73: My Own Handwriting

Wait! Something wasn't right!

Su Mu carefully examined the mark. Although it was somewhat crooked, as if scribbled in a hurry, why did the handwriting look so much like his own?

And it was written with a fountain pen... a fountain pen!?

He checked his pocket and quickly pulled out a fountain pen. It was a custom-made pen he always carried with him; its sharp, resilient nib made it a lethal weapon.

Using the pen, he wrote an identical mark on his handkerchief. Upon careful comparison, he was shocked to discover that the previous mark had been written with this exact pen!

'Did I write this myself? Or did someone take my pen and forge my handwriting?' he wondered. 'If it's the latter, what is their goal?'

Su Mu fell into deep thought.

"There are a lot more monstrous infant corpses over here!" Yang Dongqing called out from ahead.

Su Mu pulled his thoughts back and stopped dwelling on the mystery. A smile of genuine interest touched his pale, handsome face. "Fascinating."

Regardless of who had written the mark, he was already getting excited.

"It seems this trip to the Abandoned District won't be boring after all."

The group pressed on. As they ventured deeper, more and more monstrous infant corpses appeared along the path. Most had their heads blown off by firearms, while a few others had their bodies completely crushed by some tremendous force.

"Wuu... wuu..."

A woman's mournful weeping suddenly drifted over from the distance.

"Is someone crying? Could it be a scavenger?" Yang Dongqing stopped and looked toward the sound. Deep within the thick fog, a woman in a white dress was crouching on the ground, weeping. Her back was turned to the group, her long black hair trailing against the earth.

Everyone's hearts tightened. None of them were fools; naturally, they didn't believe an ordinary human woman would be crying in such an eerie and dangerous place.

Su Mu smiled and signaled with his eyes for Yang Dongqing to investigate.

Yang Dongqing nodded and approached the woman step by step.

"Are you okay?"

"Wuu... my baby is missing. Have you seen my baby?" Hearing a human voice, the woman hurriedly stood up and turned around.

The expected horrific sight didn't appear. The woman did indeed have a human face. Not only was it not terrifying, it was incredibly beautiful. Her tear-stained appearance made her look remarkably delicate and pitiful.

"You lost your baby?" Yang Dongqing wasn't bewitched by her beauty. Because he was currently nursing a broken heart, he was highly hostile toward women—especially pretty ones.

The woman stared at Yang Dongqing, a look of extreme hatred suddenly twisting her face. "It was you! You killed my baby!!"

Yang Dongqing's expression changed. "What nonsense are you spouting? Why would I kill your baby?"

"It was you! It was you! And the rest of you!" the woman shrieked. Her venomous gaze locked onto the group. At some point, her human pupils had begun to deform, as if squeezed from both sides by an invisible force, forcibly warping the round pupils into vertical slits!

In the next moment, a bizarre scene unfolded. The woman stood in place, her body unmoving, yet her pale, slender neck began to stretch. It abruptly lengthened by three meters, resembling a giant white-scaled python. Her beautiful head hung at the end of it, snapping viciously toward Yang Dongqing.

"Go fuck yourself!" Yang Dongqing, already in a foul mood, grew even more enraged at being slandered by the monster. His fists, glinting with a metallic sheen, smashed ruthlessly toward the beautiful head.

Bang!

The tremendous force sent the beautiful head flying backward for several meters. However, tethered by its multi-meter-long neck, the head quickly halted its backward momentum and let out an inhuman roar.

Clack, clack, clack...

A rapid cacophony of metal striking the ground rang out. A swarming mass of monstrous infants emerged from the depths of the thick fog on spider-like legs. Their cute little faces were twisted in sheer ferocity as all eight legs pushed off at once, charging rapidly toward the group.

Yang Dongqing's expression changed drastically. He hadn't expected there to be so many monsters. While he could manage to escape by relying on his body of steel, Su Mu and the others behind him would undoubtedly die.

[Myriad Phenomena]!

At some point, Su Mu had taken off his Tinted Glasses. His eyes had turned azure blue, as if reflecting the open sky.

Suddenly, clusters of thick fog appeared out of thin air all around them, enveloping the group. A second later, several illusory figures dashed out from the fog, sprinting rapidly into the distance.

The woman in white and the monstrous infants were immediately lured away by the illusions, chasing after them into the distance.

When the fog dispersed, it revealed the figures of Su Mu and the others.

Yang Dongqing looked at Su Mu, still shaken. "You can even hypnotize nightmare monsters?"

Su Mu smiled without a word. This wasn't hypnosis, but a visual Illusion Technique—illusions constructed using spiritual power.

The advantage of [Myriad Phenomena] lay in the fact that it didn't require invading the enemy's mind. Instead, it directly constructed illusions in the external world. This meant it wasn't hindered by the same limitations as hypnosis.

For people like Murong Mengli, who possessed defensive Artifacts, or other Transcendents with powerful minds, hypnosis had very little effect because their mental defenses were difficult to breach. But [Myriad Phenomena] was different; as long as the target had eyes, they would see it.

In truth, [Myriad Phenomena] was an incredibly difficult ability to operate, a hundred times harder than the likes of [Heart of Steel]. [Heart of Steel] merely strengthened the body; as long as the user wasn't in a vegetative state, they could use it.

But [Myriad Phenomena] required an extremely high capacity for illusion construction. The entire process was like painting with spiritual power. Just because one was handed a brush and ink didn't mean they could produce a masterpiece. It took a massive amount of practice to paint realistically and quickly enough to form an illusion in an instant.

It sounded difficult, but for Su Mu, who had spent over a hundred years dreaming, it was far too simple. He had created countless things in his dreams, even entire worlds. A mere illusion was nothing worth mentioning.

In other words, even if someone else possessed the [Myriad Phenomena] ability, unless they practiced for a hundred years, they couldn't possibly compare to Su Mu.

The group continued to move forward. After the encounter with the monsters, they were noticeably more tense.

Fortunately, their luck was decent. Aside from the monstrous infants and the snake woman from moments ago, they encountered no other nightmare monsters, safely arriving at the area marked on their route map without further incident.

It was a dilapidated three-story shopping mall. It wasn't overly large, and its walls were already crumbling, draped in moss and vines. Clearly, it had been abandoned for a long time.

"This should be the place where the golden leaf was discovered. Let's head in." Su Mu walked into the mall expectantly. He first scanned the area with his spiritual power and, not detecting any monsters, turned to the group. "Split up and look for clues. Yang Dongqing and I will search the third floor. The four of you split into pairs and take charge of the first and second floors. We'll regroup on the third floor afterward."

The four Nightmare Apostles nodded and immediately split into two teams to begin their exploration.

Meanwhile, Su Mu and Yang Dongqing headed to the third floor. It seemed to have been a clothing section. Among the numerous shops stood many pristine white mannequins, though their clothes were long gone, looking as if they had been stripped bare.