Chapter 158: The Electric Chair and the Werewolf |
"Yujian...!"
Ming Po's eyes snapped open, a nauseating burnt taste welling up in his throat.
The world spun wildly before him. For a fleeting moment, his vision went completely white before slowly beginning to clear.
The sheer agony forced Ming Po to his knees. He gagged, trying to vomit, but nothing came up.
A searing heat radiated through his muscles, veins, and bones. His heart spasmed with a crushing, fiery pain!
It felt as if a massive boulder was crushing his chest. The overwhelming suffocation left him drenched in cold sweat, the veins across his entire body bulging and throbbing violently.
Ming Po instantly realized that the method used to kill him had not been poison...
It was the [Electric Chair].
Even though he had been completely unaware of it when he "died"... he had somehow brought a fraction of that agony back to reality.
Just stifling his screams required every ounce of his willpower.
A dim yellow glow suddenly ignited in the depths of his pupils.
He instantly activated the active effect of the [Madman's Silver Crown]!
As that cold, greasy "oil" seeped into his brain and spread down his spine through his entire body, the excruciating cramps were instantly suppressed to a tolerable level.
Ming Po stumbled to his feet and lunged toward the wine cabinet just three steps away.
With trembling hands, he snatched the bottle of "Werewolf" whiskey!
The bottle was adorned with twisted, intertwining strokes of black, teal, and bright yellow, reminiscent of Van Gogh's The Starry Night. To Ming Po's eyes right now, it seemed to be constantly swirling and distorting.
He no longer possessed the elegant leisure to slowly pour the liquor into a glass.
Tilting his head back, he clamped his teeth around the neck of the bottle.
His neck flushed a deep crimson, as if he were suffering a severe allergic reaction or was completely intoxicated.
The veins on his neck bulged prominently. His Adam's apple bobbed rapidly as he audibly gulped the liquor down, and a fierce, manic killing intent slowly crept into his heart.
"Hah..."
Ming Po chugged more than half the bottle of whiskey in one breath before abruptly tearing it away from his mouth.
The moment the bottle left his lips, liquor splashed out, trailing down his neck and soaking into his clothes.
The mixed scent of sandalwood and smoked bacon coiled around his collarbone like a serpent.
Yet, Ming Po paid no mind to his disheveled state.
He simply collapsed onto the nearby sofa, exhaling deeply as he slowly regained his composure. Even the bulging veins on his forehead and neck gradually subsided.
The aroma of whiskey enveloped him as the Werewolf title rapidly repaired his damaged body.
Although the Werewolf title disrupted his rationality, and switching titles terminated the active effect of the Madman—allowing the side effects of mental confusion to set in—
Ming Po's ability to think was not too severely compromised.
"Are the effects of death... really this severe?"
Ming Po muttered under his breath.
He had previously considered the possibility that experiencing his own murder firsthand while Manifesting in the past would likely have some sort of impact.
However, no one, not even any Host, had ever explicitly emphasized this. Therefore, it probably wasn't a taboo... at least, not on the level of "altering the cause of one's own death."
But he had never expected the backlash of personally experiencing death to be this intense!
At least there was no risk of actually dying.
But if he were to attempt something like this during combat or in a public setting, he would pay a horrific price.
The moment his consciousness returned from the past, Ming Po felt as if he had instantly taken a sustained burst of damage roughly equal to his maximum health pool. This damage seemed to target his "will" or "spirit." Because resistance to it was bolstered by the Madman's "all-attribute amplification," it also counted as a type of "attribute."
Even without activating the Madman to enhance himself, this damage would likely still be mitigated by his will or spirit, leaving him at death's door at worst, rather than actually killing him... but the agony would be unbearable.
It was like the unwritten rule: "Do not lick Nintendo Switch cartridges."
Some things simply did not require a special warning.
Because the very first time it happens, the lesson is instantly learned.
Feeling his battered body, which seemed as though it had been ravaged by some kind of toxin, Ming Po let out a heavy sigh.
The Werewolf was still mending his injuries, but Ming Po had little desire to go find Gao Fan and the others with the title active... Once he left his house, he would most likely be staying at Gao Fan's place to participate in the Promotion.
However, Ming Po also didn't want to just sit around his house until his body fully recovered.
If he did, Ai Shiping and the others might start worrying... Moreover, the cryptic countdown on the wall made him wary of genuinely falling asleep. "I can only waste a few chips..."
No, perhaps it couldn't be considered a waste.
To be precise, this was more of an experiment, a test.
Ming Po took out eight chips of Hour's Red Copper and attempted to issue a clear command:
"[Give my body eight hours of sleep, but do not let me form any memories or cognition of it.]"
With that, Ming Po crushed the chips.
Bright red flames swept out in all directions.
The next instant, Ming Po opened his eyes.
His body felt incredibly light.
It was as if he had truly slept for eight hours, and the quality of that sleep had been exceptionally high. With a blink of an eye, "the night" had passed. He genuinely had no cognitive awareness of the time in between.
And Ming Po's body had instantly returned to its peak condition.
Eight hours was more than enough time for the Werewolf to completely repair his physical form.
Strictly speaking, injuries of this caliber probably only required two hours at most.
This meant that no matter how severely Ming Po was injured... as long as he could reach the Bacchus Shrine, he could instantly heal himself by switching to [Werewolf] and spending Time Chips to fast-forward his own time.
Ming Po had never imagined that the most useful function of the Werewolf title right now would actually be healing...
As for the remaining six hours, Ming Po had used them to test whether he could reset the negative drawbacks of the Madman through this method. The answer was yes, he could.
Once the active effect of the Madman was triggered, it incurred the penalty of "deepening Mental Anomaly." Furthermore, with each activation, the Mental Anomaly grew more severe. Only by completing a full sleep cycle could all the Mental Anomaly effects be dispelled.
By consuming eight chips of Hour's Red Copper, Ming Po could directly skip this sleep cycle.
After all, to a Deceiver of the World, sleep itself held no meaning. Sleeping was merely an entertainment and a pastime to kill time... That being the case, the only practical use of sleep for Ming Po was to "reset the Madman stacks."
By directly consuming eight hours of time, he could actually reset his stacks "away from home"!
The applications for Time Chips were far more flexible than he had previously imagined.
Although this time travel had cost him over a dozen chips of Hour's Red Copper in total... it was undoubtedly worth it.
Not only had he gained enlightenment, realizing the myriad possibilities of using Time Chips, but he had also uncovered many secrets of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, discovered the true reason behind his death, and learned that his father was actually a high-ranking member of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce...
Most importantly, he now knew how to "pull a designated target into the Game of Deception"!
As long as the "executioner" did not know they were committing murder, they would not be tainted by causality.
The judgment of this "causality" was subjective, not objective!
This could hardly even be called a "technology"; it was a "technique," a classic "knowledge lock"!
Those who did not know would never even consider it, but once known, it could be mastered instantly.
It wasn't difficult to execute at all. Any Deceiver of the World who understood this judgment criterion could immediately replicate it! It wasn't that Ming Po had anyone he wanted to drag into the Game of Deception... rather, this "technique" implied something else entirely.
Any organization of Deceivers of the World that had existed for a decent amount of time and held some influence in the Material Realm would never face a "shortage of talent."
Whether it was the Divine Comedy or the Chinese Chamber of Commerce... attempting to weaken their influence simply by "killing their members" was absolutely impossible.
Because the rate at which they replenished their ranks would never be slower than the rate at which they were killed!
And the Divine Comedy and the Chinese Chamber of Commerce were definitely not the only Deceiver of the World organizations aware of this fact.
From this, another rather grim reality dawned on Ming Po...
That was...
Under no circumstances could the Game of Deception ever be ended by "killing all the Deceivers of the World."
Because the ranks of the Deceivers of the World were not growing by "accident" at all!