"I knocked," Wang Hao moved forward, swallowing hard.
In the dim night, the pervasive darkness seed eager to swallow him whole.
Facing the quaint wooden door, there was no prompt from the Ga, indicating that the character status was perfectly normal.
But in the real world, he felt his entire body about to go numb. Knocking on a door deep in the night gave him goosebumps and sent his heart rate and blood pressure soaring.
He had to admit, the scene was well-done.
Even the "Fourth Calamity of Infinite Resurrection" had monts of fear...
The ivy on the wall seed to sense the presence of humans, its leaves slightly trembling, as if welcoming the arrival of terror.
"Thump, thump thump!" Wang Hao knocked on the door seriously.
He waited a mont.
There was no reaction from the yard.
Could grandma have passed away? Surely not?
He didn’t lose heart and continued to knock: "Thump~thump thump!"
He also called out loudly, "Grandma!"
"Creak—"
A light noise, the sound of a door hinge turning, ca from the inner yard.
It seed like grandma was coming out.
At this mont, Wang Hao’s heart raced so fast he could barely breathe!
It was hard to describe the sensation: a mix of horror, thrill, and a mad rush towards one’s doom, all while a bone-chilling cold enveloped his whole body and his blood chilled.
"Click."
The yard’s gate opened.
Grandma stood there with a white candle, looking out at the group of people outside the yard gate.
The flickering candle fla reflected her face, showing a hint of deadly pallor.
It was clear she was stunned for a mont.
She had Wisdom.
She couldn’t quite believe... the child had actually co back on his own!
But she also looked like a zombie, her expression rigid and movents sluggish.
"Grandma."
Wang Hao called out dryly, his heart pounding as if it would leap out of his throat.
"Ah," Grandma’s face ward up in response, her voice inviting.
Under the faint light of the candle, she displayed a very eerie smile.
"Are there also guests from outside?"
"They... they are people from outside the village."
"Co on in."
But at the mont the door swung open, every mber of the expedition felt as though they had fallen into an ice pit, fear rapidly climbing within them!
Is this... is this really a human?!
Behind grandma, a row of Papern radiated an icy aura.
Darkness enveloped every direction.
Even Gregory, with his night vision ability, could barely make out the things in the yard.
The rose on his chest wilted and decayed at an alarming rate, its petals rotting instantaneously.
A strong sense of near death washed over him!
Seeing the Papern quietly flying in from the darkness, Gregory couldn’t help himself and struck first.
He aid the Black Ball in his hand at grandma and reached out to grab Wang Hao, trying to take a hostage!
But his grasp only found a Paperman.
A white, lifelike Paperman.
The expressionless Paperman.
It stuck to his glove.
The Paperman had no facial features except for two eyes, yet for so reason, it seed to be smiling at him.
Wang Hao’s vision blurred, and he found himself moved by a trendous force.
"Ah!" Gregory scread as a Paperman also stuck to the Black Ball in his hand.
The eyeball emitted a faint red glow, and like sothing corroded, blood began to ooze from the Paperman.
This chilly power began to invade his body.
In just an instance, Gregory shook violently, standing motionless.
He didn’t die imdiately, but he lost the power to resist.
"Are you so weak? I warned you before..." Wang Hao watched the skirmish, not sure what to comnt.
The greatest horror in the world is the unknown; once the fight began, his fear suddenly wasn’t that great anymore.
Seeing their leader attacked, the rest of the team also fought back furiously, igniting green flas in the yard and the sound of gunfire erupted.
"Hit!" Pan Hao threw his heirloom dagger again, aiming true.
Grandma was struck in the chest.
But it seed...
Useless?
Grandma seed to be nothing more than an empty shell; even when her heart had been pierced by a dagger, not a single drop of blood seeped out.
Within monts, the group stood dumbfolded, as if petrified. They didn’t appear dead, just incapable of controlling their own bodies with papern attached to their backs.
"Ah, I knew those losers couldn’t match up to Grandma," Wang Hao lanted inwardly, "But I didn’t expect her to be this terrifying. She suppressed these weaklings with just one move."
He had also lost the ability to act, because a lifelike paperman had latched onto his back, taking over control of his body.
Whenever he tried to move, a ssage popped up: "You are controlled by an unknown force and cannot move."
"You are controlled by an unknown force and cannot move."
"Grandma," having taken control of everyone, looked around with a hint of doubt and whispered, "Although we missed the auspicious ti, it’s not too late to nd the fold after so sheep have been lost."
"You call Grandma, and there are things I feel sorry for doing to you, but I had no choice," she continued.
"As for these people... ha, they are just outsiders."
"Grandma," manipulating the exploration team with papern, made them walk stiffly and jerkily into the courtyard like zombies.
After completing all this, "Grandma" walked shakily out of the courtyard gate, closed it with a "bang," and disappeared into the dark night.
anwhile, everyone in the courtyard was under the control of paperman, unable to speak or even turn their heads; they could only blink.
A cold, sinister force emanating from the papern had taken away their ability to move completely.
Even the child remained frozen in place, controlled by a paperman.
What’s going on? Isn’t the kid a local?
Is he not a native villager?
What will happen next?
What is really going on with the villagers?
The greatest fear in the world is the unknown—and in the thick mist lay too many unsolved mysteries.
But now they were utterly helpless to discover anything more, like naive youths who had rushed into the fog out of greed.
Panic broke out fully; so cried and others wet themselves out of fear.
And Gregory, the leader, with his veins bulging and sharp fangs bared, attempted to break free from the control of the paperman.
But human strength was far too limited against supernatural phenona, and no matter how hard he tried, he could not move his own body.
His mind was clear, but his body was like that of a living corpse, utterly immobile.
"If soone had been left at the neighbor’s house beforehand, maybe they could have rescued everyone now? Just by figuring out a way to remove the papern from our bodies. But, convincing the exploration team to comply is another big problem."
He gently removed his helt, wiped the sweat from his body, and recorded the information gained from this cycle of Reincarnation.
The plot was becoming bizarre and terrifying, filling his heart with eerie curiosity about what would happen next.
"Grandma hasn’t killed us. Maybe there’s another purpose?"
After recording this information, he put the ga helt back on.
Nothing new seed to happen to the group standing in the courtyard—they couldn’t speak or move.
Out of sheer boredom, Wang Hao hit the "Ti Acceleration" button.
Finally, as dawn broke, the courtyard gate opened once again.
This ti, it wasn’t just Grandma who ca in, but also about twenty other pale-faced old n and won.
Aside from their stiff movents and lean bodies, they looked almost human. But, to Wang Hao’s surprise, there wasn’t a single young person among them, not even a middle-aged individual. How could a village survive without young people? Wouldn’t that an the end of their line?
"Is this the child that ran away, Little Jade? And the other one? Has he not been found?" inquired a paperman that floated in the air.
Its hollow eyes surveyed Wang Hao; it indeed was a paperman.
Its voice was like the tearing of tattered paper, bearing a strange, hoarse sound.
Wang Hao frowned upon realizing this.
Who was this person? A human transford into another being?
Or perhaps an original inhabitant of Paradise?
The few mbers of the exploration team, upon hearing the paperman speak like a human, were nearly paralyzed with shock.
This was an abomination, a human turned into a freak!
Gregory, a mber of the Rose Cross Society, knew many secrets: Throughout human history, given humanity’s fragility and the strength of the bizarre, many brillaint minds had attempted to transform humans into freaks to gain greater power.
But, without exception, all such experints had failed.
Rationality often stood inversely proportionated to strong Idealist forces.
Once surpassing a certain limit and becoming a freak, one either lost their rationality, their character beca extrely aberrated with anti-human tendencies, or they slowly went mad.
And this paperman was, clearly, the result of a human transforming into sothing else.
What in the world did these natives want to do to them?!
"Yes... elder," Grandma, who seed to be nad Little Jade, replied in a low voice, apparently fearful of the paperman, "The other one is gone, might have escaped while we were preparing."
"This one ca back by himself."
The paperman responded coldly, "One is enough, together with these many sacrificial burials. We must not delay any longer, if we miss the ti again, it will beco angry and punish all of us."
The large group began to move slowly.
Wang Hao found his body, under the control of a paperman, shuffling onto a sedan chair.
Then, everyone headed off in the direction of the north.
Perhaps due to the strength of the group, there were surprisingly no attacks by the bizarre along the way.
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