Chapter 9 Her Dependence, His Guidance

An Zhizhen originally worried that Cen Dongsheng might get hurt, only hoping he could escape quickly, but ended up witnessing him brutally beating "Miss Zhou."

Moreover, it wasn't even a back-and-forth intense battle, but a one-sided display of violence. Cen Dongsheng, with just one strike, smashed "Miss Zhou" into the wall. The scene looked like something out of a comedic cartoon of Tom and Jerry.

But this was not a cartoon; it was the real world. If a normal person's flesh and blood were treated so brutally...

"Is she... dead?"

An Zhizhen cautiously approached two steps closer, staring at the woman whose head was stuck in the wall. Her limbs twitched slightly, and her neck was bent at a bizarre angle.

"Soon enough."

Cen Dongsheng glanced at her casually. He could still hear the faint breathing emanating from the wall.

"Miss Zhou" struggled, her hands and feet flailing wildly, crawling on the floor. Despite being so severely injured, she seemed to possess the tenacity of a cockroach and was still alive.

"Be careful, Dongsheng...!"

"Yeah, I know."

Cen Dongsheng slowly lifted his foot.

"Boom!"

He mercilessly stomped on "Miss Zhou's" head.

This time, he directly crushed through the wall, and the woman's body was entirely embedded in the hole.

Amid the swirling dust, Cen Dongsheng saw that her head's outline had completely deformed, her skull shattered, and the internal brain matter must have turned into a mush. This time, she truly couldn't survive.

Cen Dongsheng walked towards An Zhizhen, feeling there was no need for her to witness this scene.

"Let's go; it's temporarily safe now, Sister Zhi Zhen."

"Dongsheng..."

"Let's talk in the room."

Sister Zhi Zhen stared at his face with an incredulous look, then shifted her gaze to a small pile of debris composed of tile fragments and wall wreckage not far away, where "Miss Zhou's" corpse lay buried beneath.

"You, you killed her... is it alright?"

"Sister Zhi Zhen, did you notice her hands and feet?"

"...Yes."

An Zhizhen nodded. Possibly because her profession was a doctor, she had a better understanding of the human physiological structure, and she loved observing others in her spare time. So when "Miss Zhou" attacked the neighbors, she noticed the abnormalities in her at first glance:

"Miss Zhou's" hands and feet were bent backward, with strange heavy protrusions growing from the toes to the heels, moving similarly to a bear or gorilla. Her internal bones seemed to have metamorphosed beyond human, including a fleeting glance at her mouth, revealing sharp canine teeth perfect for tearing into flesh, clearly unusual.

That, in theory, allowed her to perform bizarre actions like "crawling on the wall" or "jumping onto the railing."

Typically, there would be a noticeable power gap between untrained ordinary women and adult men, but "Miss Zhou" could effortlessly hunt humans because her body structure had become very abnormal.

"It's unfortunate; her physical form underwent an irreversible mutation." Cen Dongsheng calmly conveyed his conclusion, "There's no saving her."

Just like the Curse Forbidden Masters, the ghosts also had incredible supernatural powers, with some belonging to the "Common Ability."

When he was in the Exorcism Department of the Governance Bureau, the ghost ability he loathed the most was probably "Space Manipulation," a high-level Common Ability of House Owner Level (Class A) ghosts, capable of turning the Ghost House's interior into a death-trap labyrinth.

Meanwhile, "Possession" was a Common Ability possessed by Class C and above ghosts, but different levels of ghosts exhibited varying strengths.

For instance, the difference between Possession by a Lonely Soul (Class C) and a Fierce Ghost (Class B) was that the former could not escape the flesh once possessing a human, quickly degenerating the victim into a beast acting solely on instinct, a state known as a "cannibal ghost," whereas the latter retained the ability to think and even communicated with others like normal humans, making them more insidiously latent.

The transformation into a "cannibal ghost" symptom was irreversible. So, in a sense, being possessed by higher-level ghosts was actually advantageous. If a Forbidden Master were willing to intervene, or if the ghost chose to leave for some reason, the victim might have a slight chance of survival.

"Is... that so."

An Zhizhen sighed, seemingly accepting this explanation, at least for now. But she obviously had numerous other confusions and incomprehensible issues—

"But you, just now, she... what on earth happened?"

Cen Dongsheng quietly observed Sister Zhi Zhen's expression.

Her expression and gaze appeared relatively calm, but inwardly, she was likely in turmoil.

Currently, Sister Zhi Zhen knew nothing about the information regarding ghosts and Forbidden Masters. Was she indeed in the unawakened state? After all, his arrival at Xiaokang Building was several months before rumors circulated that An Zhizhen acquired her abilities.

"Special Grade Life Prohibition, Heavenly Leader"—An Zhizhen's most renowned ability, simply put, was to make the "crowd" revere her leader position. At the same time, as a leader, she could harness the "crowd's" power through curse prohibition.

It might sound somewhat abstract, and he was not very clear about this ability's specific effects, only knowing she could easily utilize other Curse Forbidden Masters. "In his memories," he was just an ordinary, or rather a small fry-level, Class B Curse Forbidden Master, not even qualified to serve anyone, naturally ignorant of what it was like...

But he knew, in any case, if An Zhizhen awakened her ability, neither ghosts nor humans of this era could be her match, let alone mere cannibal ghosts.