Death Wizard Diary.

Chapter 727 Ash People

"A cat being hung up?" The white-bearded man remained unfazed; he even quickened his pace and continued walking forward.

But when he reached the next streetlight, he unconsciously slowed down.

At this distance, he finally got a clear look at the huge, strangely moving cat in front of him.

That wasn't actually a cat, but a complete cat's fur.

The fur was draped over a dark gray figure.

The fur-covered limbs hung down to the ground.

It was only because the shadows below were also black that the white-bearded man didn't notice his presence from a distance.

"Who is it?"

Whitebeard continued forward, but his steps became much more cautious.

He cautiously used his mental energy to probe the black figure draped in cat skin opposite him.

The latter was exceptionally sensitive; the moment the white-bearded man made contact with his mental energy, he abruptly turned his head away.

His face was hidden beneath a flat, cat-like face, with only his chin vaguely visible.

His chin was also black, as if he had lived in coal dust for a year.

"Is it a person? No, it's a vengeful spirit?" Although the white-bearded man did not retreat, he felt uneasy.

His mental scan revealed that the other party was a single person.

But his eyes told him that the creature in the cat skin opposite him couldn't possibly be human.

Should we trust the feedback from our mental state, or should we trust what we see?

Unfortunately, in the wizarding world, neither of these things is always reliable.

The streetlights overhead flickered again.

When the flickering stopped, the world before my eyes became even darker.

Whitebeard suddenly felt a chill, as if countless mouths were blowing on him.

As he was thinking this, he caught a glimpse of his beard swaying gently out of the corner of his eye.

His heart was pounding faster and faster, and he tried to calm himself down.

"My mental state has been clearly affected; I'm so tense now that I don't even look like myself."

Provoked by the white beard, the cat-skinned man continued to turn his head to look at him, at an angle far exceeding what an ordinary person's neck could withstand.

Whitebeard was supposed to attack the bizarre humanoid figure, but his magic was malfunctioning. It was as if his brain still had reason, but his body and spirit had both gone on strike.

He looked up at the crescent moon above the streetlights, seemingly trying to temporarily shift his attention away from the cat-skinned man in order to re-stabilize his mental state.

However, when he saw the moon in the sky, his fear intensified.

The crescent moon had become thinner at some point.

And... the curvature is a bit strange.

The crescent moon's arc is somewhat flat, unlike a full moon, but rather resembles a smiling, squinting eye.

"The moon is also problematic. Could this illusion have two sources?"

"It's not impossible." The white-bearded man spoke his mind directly, as if this could release some of his fear. "Hmph... As expected of Bai Dong Academy, even in its desolation, they can still create such a large illusion. Hmm, given the current situation, the source of the illusion might not be just two."

The moon was overhead, still out of reach, and Whitebeard forced himself to look back at the cat-skin man opposite him.

"This illusion releases an aura of fear, making people feel uncontrollably scared." He grabbed a handful of his beard; the stinging sensation brought him to his senses a little more, but the primal tremor quickly returned to his mind.

"We cannot run away," the white-bearded man lifted his foot and continued forward. "The more we run away, the more fear we will feel. Only by understanding the unknown can we conquer it."

Although he walked very slowly, this time he did not stop.

They walked right up to the cat-skinned man.

The dark figure opposite did not move, but gradually raised its head as the white-bearded man approached, and quietly watched him.

"The most terrifying dangers are those that haven't yet occurred." The white-bearded man seemed to be slowly regaining his courage.

He suddenly made a move, and the hair on the back of his hand suddenly grew longer, wrapping around his original arm and forming a spiral cone at his fingertips.

A human hand instantly transformed into a giant claw.

The white-bearded man's arm swept across like the wind, his sharp claws grabbing the cat-skin man's fur, attempting to tear off this "inferior" disguise.

However, when he grabbed the cat skin, the black figure on the ground was also grabbed along with it.

That cat skin seemed to be stuck to the human figure!

"Meow!!!!"

The white-bearded man's actions finally angered a quiet cat-skin man, who waved his arms and let out a sharp meow.

The movements and the sounds were like those of a truly enraged cat.

As the cat meowed, the streetlights overhead grew even dimmer.

It was almost as if it had vanished.

Whitebeard trembled inwardly, but his hands dared not stop. His other hand, wrapped into sharp claws, viciously reached for the black shadow figure beneath the cat's skin.

The black claws encountered slight resistance, but still managed to pierce into the opponent's body.

He clenched his fingers tightly again, and the white-bearded man heard a soft "bang".

The sensation in my hand was like tearing a sandbag.

The scene before him further confirmed Whitebeard's guess.

The cat-skin man, whose chest and abdomen had been almost emptied by his grab, shuddered violently and then slumped his head helplessly.

It was as if he had really been killed.

But soon, the black figure deflated like an empty sandbag.

In the end, even the human skin turned into black powder, leaving only a cat skin the size of a human, which was still held in the white-bearded man's hand.

"Hmph! Illusion, mind control." The white-bearded man, having successfully killed the cat-skinned man, felt much better, even experiencing a sense of exhaustion as if he had just escaped from fear.

The streetlights were dimmer.

"These streetlights are problematic too. Could this bewitching spell that terrifies me be the source of this?"

The white-bearded man raised his head, but the streetlights above him did not undergo any strange changes like the moon; it was as if the streetlights simply dimmed.

As he prepared to look away and continue walking, his movements suddenly froze.

Beside the streetlights, or rather, in any place other than the streetlights, there was a densely packed mass of dark gray figures.

These dark gray figures had no facial features and appeared to be taller than the streetlights.

They stood there, bent over, outside the extremely dim cone of light, silently watching the white-bearded man.

Just like that cat-skin man.

"Ugh!!!" The white-bearded man stared at these eyeless figures for only a second before his head started to throb with pain, feeling as heavy as if he had been stuffed with twenty lead weights. He immediately clutched his head and squatted down.

The cat skin that I was holding fell limply to the ground.

Along with the headache came a strong sense of fear.

Even though the white-bearded man had his head down and eyes closed, he could still feel countless eyes on him.

He was breathing heavily.

Fear, like ants, burrowed into his flesh through the pores of his skin.

"Hehehe..." At such a difficult moment, the white-bearded man actually laughed out loud. "As expected of... the upside-down tree. If you were to fully evolve, you would definitely become a being comparable to a third-tier being."

The white-bearded man's hands, which were covering his head, slowly moved down to the thick beard on his cheeks.

He slipped his fingers into his beard, slowly tightened his grip, and grasped a large handful of long, white whiskers.

Then...

Tear it forcefully to both sides.

"Sizzle—sizzle—"

A chilling sound of flesh being torn apart rang out.

Beneath the cracked skin of the white-bearded man's chin, a highly decomposed face was revealed.

"As expected, mental battles still require mental strength to resist."

Even though he was clearly in so much pain that he was gasping for breath, the corners of the white-bearded man's mouth still turned up.

"This is a scar left on me by the elves."

"I'd like to see whether the corruption left behind by the elves is stronger, or the mental corruption of you Ashbringers, controlled by the Upside-Down Tree, is more terrifying!"

"Rip—"

(End of this chapter)