Chapter 123: Soul Transfer? The Mysterious Grotesque Face!

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It was no matter of mindset; in the literal, physical sense, he had begun to rise off the ground.

And as he drifted near midair, he tightened his grip on the pointed beak in his hand, trying to hang on and anchor himself, but the pulling force in him was shockingly immense. The beak slipped away, and he kept floating upward.

“What kind of slime is in that great toad’s belly that even you, ghoul, don’t slide out?” Wang Chen muttered inwardly, helplessly watching himself move farther from the earth.

At the same time he was thinking this had to be the fourth ability of the Deep-Pool Toad, something like telekinetic power.

By then, all four of its skills had revealed themselves.
The first was to lash enemies with its long tongue.
The second was teleportation.
The third was swallowing prey far larger than itself.
The fourth was telekinesis.

Now the Deep-Pool Toad was no longer unknown to Wang Chen. He could break each skill in turn and kill it.

As for this current skill, if it only made him float, it was not enough to make him truly wary.

With a flick of his fingers, he took hold of Forest Gale, ready to target a seam and fire a point of light, then use the immobilization art to pull himself back to the ground.

While he searched for that seam, Wang Chen had drifted to the front of the Deep-Pool Toad.
Its violet-blue eyes locked onto him, two horizontal black pupils shining with a deathly gleam.

“Stare all you want. Eat me if you can!” Wang Chen taunted. He almost hoped the beast would swallow him whole so he could open it up from within with the beak.

But the Deep-Pool Toad had no intention of eating him. It simply kept watching him, silent.

Looking into that cold-blooded stare, Wang Chen felt a sudden shiver deep inside. Those bar-like black pupils, like whirlpools, gave him a dim, damp dread.

“What is this? Is there some ritual you perform before eating humans?” he said, gooseflesh rising as the monster kept him under its gaze, hurling out a few rough words to chase away his unease.

Suddenly, the dark, wet gloom in the toad’s eyes surged toward him.
Wang Chen instinctively reached out to block, but the darkness passed through his arm, drove straight into his eyes, and plunged into his mind.

His consciousness sank into dizziness.

…

When he came to, a rotting face stood before him. Shocked, Wang Chen stumbled back.

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He couldn’t blame himself for being afraid; that face was too unnerving to look at. Faintly, maggots crawled across it, and there was no body attached to it—just one solitary face hanging in the air, which made it even worse.

“Hello, unfortunate fool.” Without waiting for him to react, the putrid face spoke on its own. “One good piece of news, one bad. Which do you want first?”

Wang Chen ignored it and, with a blink, checked his palm.
He gasped. The Ring of Life and the Storage Ring were gone.

“Bad,” he thought. “It took my gear while my senses were gone. This is bad for me. I should leave while I can.”

Only when he shifted his gaze from the face did he realize he had nowhere to go. Around him was only blackness.

The strangest part was that although the surroundings were dark, Wang Chen could still see the rotten face clearly.

The face waited for a while; when no answer came, it spoke again.
“Since you didn’t choose, I’ll tell you the good news first. People always prefer good news, after all.”

Its upper and lower jaw moved.
“The good news is: you won’t be eaten by the beast.”
Maggots darted through its mouth.
“The bad news is: your body will be taken over by me.”

“What?” Wang Chen said. He did not understand.

At first he had assumed he had been transported by the Deep-Pool Toad to some odd place—after all, the toad could teleport, and even send others elsewhere. It was not difficult to accept that.

And this rotting face was the beast of that place.

But from the way it spoke, it seemed to know Wang Chen had just confronted the Deep-Pool Toad. It was not that simple.

Wang Chen couldn’t help but consider this. Did this face mean to possess him—take over his life, usurp him?

The thought was absurd. He had only just fought the Deep-Pool Toad tooth and nail. How could that suddenly become a decayed face trying to steal his body?

After thinking it through, he asked, “If you intend to take my body, why not do it at once? Why all this talking first?”

He saw that the face did not intend to strike yet, and decided to keep it talking, draw out answers—why he was here, what it was, what it wanted.

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The rotting face replied, “I’ve been waiting for you to ask. Your current state lets you die with closed eyes. That is vital if I am to erase your soul without leaving a trace.”

“Come now. You think answering a few questions will make me pass quietly? Who would willingly let someone take his body?” Wang Chen snapped.

“It works. I have done it before,” said the face. “And because I am very bored. I haven’t spoken in a long while—at least, not with an intelligent creature like a human.”

“How can you even talk to beasts, then?” Wang Chen asked.

The face bared a row of rotting teeth and gave a dry laugh.
“Don’t you understand yet? I am the Deep-Pool Toad.”

Wang Chen froze. “You are the toad? Are you not human? Did you become spiritized?”

“I am human, or rather, I was,” the face explained. “I took over the Deep-Pool Toad’s body, so I am it. Before that, I lived within a fan-tailed fish, but the toad swallowed that fish, and I had no choice but to occupy this body.”

The face said blankly, “Now that you are about to kill the Deep-Pool Toad, I can only take over your body.”

A thousand doubts churned inside Wang Chen. “If I die… I mean, if my body dies, do you continue to take another?”

The face nodded, though it had no neck; it could only bob up and down.

“How long have you been doing this? How many bodies have you taken?”

A flicker of uncertainty passed over the face.
“Perhaps ten years… maybe a hundred… or a thousand.”

“I cannot remember. I no longer remember how many bodies I have taken.”

Wang Chen’s heart turned turbulent as he searched for a way to save himself.
Before he found a way, he decided that if the face wished to speak, he should keep the conversation going—if he could delay things for even a little while, it might help.

“Why didn’t you possess a human body earlier? Wouldn’t it be easier to move among crowds and speak to many people? Or have you always been trapped in this hidden realm with no chance?”

“I did possess human bodies before,” the face said. “But it is troublesome. Humans become suspicious when their temperament changes after being taken over. A beast, on the other hand, does not care.”