Chapter 70

Qi Xing slowly straightened up, scanning the still-twisting, churning, and roaring monster before him, his eyes slightly narrowed.

"Interesting."

There was a familiar aura on this monster, an aura Qi Xing had seen before.

The night before last, when he first saw Jingo Rin, dressed like a delinquent girl, beating up thugs at the abandoned pier. The monster that emerged from that gang leader… it seemed to have this same aura.

Only last time, that monster was a pure spiritual entity, but this time it was possessing physical matter.

Possessing a hotel building!

071: Don't be so eerie, right?

Elaine wasn't idle.

When Qi Xing used his Thunder Fist to blast the rising love hotel back, she had already quickly driven away all the terrified guests.

But since the ten-plus-story love hotel had turned into a monster, it was only natural that many people would be trapped inside.

They weren't just hostages.

Just as the Thunder Fist struck, knocking the rising love hotel building back a few steps and shattering the reinforced concrete and floor slabs, Qi Xing heard many indescribable, unspeakable █ █ sounds coming from inside the building.

Are you kidding me? The love hotel had risen up and was standing there fighting, and they were still █ █ inside?!

However, before Qi Xing could complain, he noticed the situation had changed again.

"I…"

After taking a punch from Master Leipu, the massive building monster's body tilted, the cracked walls collapsed, the steel bars twisted, and glass fell like rain—but it didn't fall. Instead, it emitted a low and eerie tremor, like a giant beast licking its wounds in the dark.

"I want…"

Between the walls, windows, and even the shattered floors, an eerie pink fog immediately began to emerge. Like rolling heat waves, it overflowed from the bodies of the guests who were having █ █ in the hotel, and was frantically devoured by the building itself, which had transformed into a monster!

In an instant, the cracked walls pieced themselves together, the broken beams automatically reconnected, the twisted steel bars reorganized like nerves, and the shards of glass flowed back into place like mercury… The building, which had been dead matter, was regenerating at super speed just like a flesh-and-blood body!

"I want to have █ █!"

Not only that, as the monster building repaired itself, its appearance changed rapidly. The originally cold exterior walls gradually became organic and twisted, with crimson light pulses flowing on its surface, bulging like veins on an erect █ █, exuding an evil aura.

So now it was obvious: those trapped guests were providing energy to this monster-fied love hotel with their massive libido!

"I've only seen supervillain combat robots powered by libido in the United States before. This is the first time I've seen a living building that climbs up just by relying on libido."

Qi Xing clenched his fists, thinking about where to strike.

"Is this even possible?"

Actually, without saying it, Qi Xing knew that normally, it definitely shouldn't be.

"It's possession."

Fortunately, Elaine was also helping Qi Xing identify the monster.

"There is a powerful evil intent attached to this building—if you destroy it directly, the people inside will likely suffer a grim fate."

Even if Qi Xing only blasted a part of the building, without hitting the people inside, this monster-fied love hotel would definitely drain the sexual energy of the guests inside to repair itself. Even if they were rescued alive, they would all end up in a miserable state, unable to function sexually for the rest of their lives.

If Qi Xing blasted it with full force and blew up the entire building so it couldn't regenerate—then the guests inside wouldn't even have their corpses left. That wouldn't be very good, would it?

"I—want!"

Meanwhile, this monster love hotel reached out, grabbed another sex shop building nearby, and actually started twisting its waist back and forth and rubbing up and down against it!

"I want to have █ █!"

How terrifying! The love hotel was actually trying to █ other buildings!

As mentioned before, this was a red-light district, and near the love hotel were either sex shops or high-end clubs. With its waist twisting, rubbing, and fierce █, Qi Xing saw that pink libido energy was floating out from the other [related buildings] nearby, all being absorbed by the monster building!

These █ energies, this Libido, made the body of the hotel monster change even more drastically. The shape, which still retained the outline of a building, became completely distorted, and true life grew out of the dead steel.

The walls cracked, revealing not concrete, but █ pulsing pink flesh, growing thick limbs. One could even see green, pulsating veins flowing with hot liquid on them.

The steel bars rearranged like bones, and the misaligned beams twisted into a jagged spine, winding and rising along the monster's back, resembling a craggy backbone.

The windows cracked, turning into hundreds of dense, swarming eyeballs that rotated crazily, reflecting greedy light. The red carpet inside the corridor turned into a tongue, dripping with slime. The hotel's revolving door twisted into a hideous, jealous face.

The room doors opened, spitting out hot air, accompanied by the unconscious █ █ of the guests, as if it were the heartbeat of this monster.

There were even fleshy tentacles with tumors, as well as countless █ █ growing from this monster, intending to absorb and fuse with other sex industry buildings nearby!

How terrifying!

It wasn't that it was truly so strong that Qi Xing couldn't defeat it—but even Qi Xing rarely saw something so eerie!

Although Qi Xing had guessed that he might encounter strange things before coming to observe the love hotel, he never expected it to be this strange!

"Elaine, can you perform an exorcism?"

He had to ask.

"Otherwise, I can only blow the whole thing up."

Either use physical means to blow it up, sacrificing the unfortunate guests inside, or use another method.

But, performing an exorcism on such a large building in one go? Wouldn't it be faster to just burn it down?

Even Elaine broke into a cold sweat.

"For such a large building, unless we find a few fire trucks and fill them with holy water…"

Holy water wasn't hard to find. Elaine was now an [Auxiliary Priest], and she could directly bless water. But where would they find so much water, and how would they splash it over the entire building after blessing it? That was why she said, unless there were fire trucks… But upon hearing her say this, Qi Xing actually came up with a solution.

"There's water, and as long as it's poured into the building, isn't that simple enough?"

After speaking, Qi Xing grinned and took out the [silver coin]—the Silver Coin of [Illusion].

"Come, Primordial Sea, shape my true form!"

This was a familiar incantation. As soon as the words fell, Qi Xing's figure began to change again. Clear water, dreamlike and illusory, spread from under his feet, winding upward, and swallowed him in an instant.

Now, it was time to explain the new power Qi Xing obtained after defeating Romanie and seizing the second [silver coin].

Qi Xing's second [silver coin], the fourth fragment of Sasa's authority, represented the concept of [Illusion], which was change and also chaos.

However, Qi Xing liked neither chaos nor illusion. So he thought from a different angle, trying to impose his own interpretation onto the [silver coin].

Sasa was surprisingly happy to see him messing around like this. Because as she had said before: "Don't be constrained by the myth itself; the silver coin is ultimately just extracting the power of gods from the [collective unconscious], having nothing to do with the gods themselves, only with human expectations of the gods."

Therefore, Qi Xing's own expectation and interpretation of [Illusion] was—water.

In an instant, he was no longer in human form.

With a shake of his body, Qi Xing had transformed back into a snow-white water dragon.

"This is the authority of my second [silver coin]."

"Unlike Romanie, my understanding of [Illusion] is [Water]."

He spoke, the sound of the dragon's roar like the tide.

"Of all things in the world, nothing is softer or weaker than water, yet nothing can surpass it in attacking the hard and strong; it benefits all things without contention."

Taoism holds that the physical world is a temporary manifestation of the Tao, just as water condenses into ice or evaporates into steam; though the forms differ, the essence is the same. Water is formless and follows the shape of objects; it can both permeate and surge. The fluidity of its form symbolizes the [impermanence] and [non-attachment] of the Tao.

This impermanence is in line with the [Illusion (Maya)] of Indian religions—all things in the world are fleeting like flowing water, with no fixed entity.

Therefore, "Zhuangzi · Autumn Floods" says: The birth of things is like galloping, like racing; there is no movement without change, no time without shifting.

So, although Qi Xing used the authority of [Illusion], he didn't need to use illusion magic.

Therefore, don't look at Qi Xing as if he were often an illiterate brute; in fact, he had his own set of understandings in the field of Eastern religion and mysticism. He was just lopsided in his studies.

Just like a professor studying Chinese religion in reality, if you ask him about the mythological evolution between Athena and the Minotaur, he probably wouldn't understand what you were talking about. It's the same principle.

As for which dragon the water dragon god that Qi Xing extracted from the second [silver coin] was, or which great god it was… that would be discussed in detail later.

Anyway, when Elaine saw Qi Xing turn into a water dragon, she was stunned at first, then immediately realized what Qi Xing wanted to do. She immediately ran over, reached out to touch his water body, and began to pray: "I bless this water in the name of the almighty Father, in the name of the Son, and by the Holy Spirit. May you become blessed water, a power to drive away evil spirits. When this water is sprinkled, it shall cause evil spirits to find no place to stay."

"May this water become the mark of our baptism, remembering Christ who redeemed us through suffering and resurrection."

As soon as the prayer ended, the water dragon that Qi Xing had transformed into began to glow silently, emitting a warm, pure white light.

Lifting his head and laughing, this holy water dragon leaped up and pounced toward the hotel monster!

Halfway there, his body suddenly dissipated. The originally surging water instantly evaporated, turning into boundless clouds and mist, churning and surging in the air. In an instant, the entire red-light district was swallowed in the hazy white fog!

Water has no fixed form; rising, it becomes clouds; condensing, it becomes ice; flowing, it becomes a river. Yet the essence remains one; this is the wonder of the Tao.

This rolling cloud and mist permeated everywhere. In an instant, it wrapped around the massive body of the hotel monster, stroking its writhing flesh like light gauze, seeping into the walls embedded with twisted veins, flowing into the crisscrossing rooms inside it, penetrating the layered corridors, and pouring into every corner where libido was bred.

"I—I still want to have █ █!"

The monster roared and struggled, desperately trying to break free from the immersion of the holy water, but the more it struggled, the more the clouds and mist formed by the holy water enveloped it. Its movements became sluggish, the frequency of its vein pulsations became chaotic, and its viscous flesh trembled constantly. It was as if an invisible force within its body was disintegrating the essence of its existence, seeping into its internal organs like spring rain moistening things, churning and washing its corrupted heart of darkness.

Inside the monster, those guests trapped within were lifted up by the clouds one by one, flowing out from the broken windows and collapsed walls in a daze, falling to the ground, soaked through, yet feeling an unprecedented clarity in their minds. Now, as if waking from a nightmare, they looked around blankly, not knowing where they were.

At the same time, the flesh hotel permeated by the holy water was disintegrating at a speed visible to the naked eye. Within the clouds, the black evil energy was stripped away, escaping from the monster's chest, abdomen, and back, like poison being forced out of the body, twisting and rolling frantically in the mist, emitting shrill wails.

"I—I still want it—"

It tried to break free, tried to re-parasitize somewhere. However, the clouds and mist mercilessly wrapped around it, silently suppressing it, wrapping it layer by layer, making it unable to move an inch.

"I—I…"

In the end, after struggling violently, these black desires quietly disintegrated and turned into nothingness, leaving not even a trace of an afterimage.

The monster, having lost its heart of darkness, let out its last scream before death.

Its flesh cracked like decaying dead wood, but at the moment of disintegration, the twisted flesh gradually turned back into cold concrete and steel. The writhing walls stiffened again, the exposed veins turned into broken wires, the embedded fangs collapsed and retracted, turning back into dilapidated balconies.

The floors collapsed with a bang after losing support, the glass shattered, the neon lights went out, and the entire building completely lost signs of life, revealing a ruin full of rubble and wreckage.

Qi Xing slowly gathered the clouds and mist, flew back to Elaine, and turned back into human form. He let go of the remaining cloud energy, which turned into a fine rain falling from the sky, washing away the evil energy of the entire red-light district and taking away the desires still lingering in the air.

It was a pity that although the evil energy could be purified and washed away, and people could be rescued from the hotel, the material loss could not be restored out of thin air. Since the building had collapsed, it was truly collapsed.

"If only it were like a children's cartoon on Sunday morning, where the scene would automatically repair itself after defeating the monster."

Qi Xing sighed, but what was gone was gone. At least for now, he didn't have such extraordinary power to turn back time and rebuild.

So, on the other hand, he also had to pay attention to a situation that had clearly overturned common sense.

"Elaine, I know that evil spirits possessing historical buildings is not a particularly rare thing."

He said.

"It's not like I haven't burned down haunted old houses before. But normally, that would require a very fierce evil spirit that has occupied a place for at least decades or centuries to become like that, right?"

Although this █-colored mud world was quite crazy, and it was not uncommon for human negative emotions to attach to certain things and turn into monsters. But normally, it wouldn't suddenly create a monster as big as a hotel in front of people.

Generally, the things that suddenly turn into demons are—for example, dolls or furniture, right?

At least, Qi Xing didn't think this situation was [naturally occurring].

"If there really is a very great grudge or desire, perhaps it is not impossible. But…"

Elaine said this and looked at the unconscious passerby across the street. She wouldn't just stand there blankly during Qi Xing's battle. She had already noticed that this person should be the source of this strange desire… but no matter how she looked at it, he didn't look like someone with such deep grievances.

So, how exactly was this strange event created?

072: Ambush

Although he didn't think he was the culprit, for the sake of safety, Qi Xing still picked up the unconscious young passerby who had just gotten off work and blew a breath of celestial energy at him.

The unlucky passerby immediately opened his eyes, but his gaze was still dull, and his cheeks were slack.

"Vitality is normal."

Qi Xing reached out and touched the energy in his body, frowning.

"But his spirit is lost."

Elaine opened the passerby's eyelids like a doctor to check, showing a little sorrow.

Spirit lost. To put it in more Eastern, more folk terms, it was losing his soul.

Recalling a lost soul was supposed to be a standard skill for Taoist priests and mages. Qi Xing could do it, but he had already directly washed away the passerby's demonized spirit; what soul was there left to recall?

In every Sunday morning children's anime, the Pretty Cure could purify and restore victims who had been corrupted and turned into monsters; as long as the battle was won, everything could return to normal. However, Qi Xing did not have such convenient power. Having fought in this world for ten years, he had never heard of anyone having such great power.

Once lost, many things could not be easily restored.

Qi Xing squatted in front of him, patted his face, and asked while injecting true energy: "Can you hear me?"

The passerby's eyelids twitched a few times.