"The Strange Tales of Gui Mountain?"
When everyone heard Tommen's words, they all looked puzzled.
Tommen took a deep breath and said solemnly:
"The Strange Tales of Gui Mountain is a short story collection published in 1989. It contains descriptions of these Bodyless Buddhas. But that was purely fictional content. Moreover, the author of the book released a sequel just two years ago."
"Huh?"
Kanzai's eyes slowly widened, and he said in astonishment: "You're saying… someone wrote a novel, and the monsters from that novel are the things we're seeing right now?"
"Well, isn't this rare?"
Pyon shot a glance at Kanzai's back.
Though she didn't name anyone, Kanzai, who was often the target of her sarcasm, immediately picked up on her implication. However, the current situation didn't allow him to retort to Pyon.
And Pyon didn't push further either. Narrowing her eyes in thought, she murmured: "The Strange Tales of Gui Mountain… I have some impression of this book. There really was a type of humanoid monster with filthy Buddha heads in it."
"Be more specific. Weaknesses? Abilities?"
After hearing what Tommen and Pyon said, Ging's eyes narrowed slightly and he asked immediately.
Upon hearing this, Pyon frowned and said, "The two are likely completely different things. After all, this whole situation sounds utterly unbelievable."
She thought Ging wanted to use the descriptions from The Strange Tales of Gui Mountain as actionable intelligence to deal with the current threat.
But intelligence had to be accurate, otherwise, it would only backfire.
"Whether there's a connection or not, we'll find out soon enough."
Ging shook his head slightly.
The reason Ging asked for details about the Bodyless Buddhas from The Strange Tales of Gui Mountain was merely for extra precaution.
There are many things that might turn out to be useless, but when conditions allowed, doing a little more was always better than doing nothing at all.
Who knows? They might just hit that minuscule chance of relevance.
Seeing Ging's insistence, Pyon quickly glanced at Tommen.
When it came to the contents of The Strange Tales of Gui Mountain, Pyon only had a vague impression, which was naturally not as good as Tommen, who was an avid reader.
So, it fell to Tommen to fulfill Ging's request.
"Their weakness is the junction between the Buddha head and the human body. Their ability is..."
Tommen paused for a moment, and suddenly realized that the faces of the Bodyless Buddhas around them were undergoing subtle changes. He immediately quickened his speech and said, "Their ability is to sever the heads of those who meet their gaze when their eyes are open."
The moment his words fell, everyone saw that the eyes of the dirty stone Buddha heads, which was originally carved with expressions of compassion, were slowly opening.
In that instant-
there was no time for the group to ponder whether these grotesque beings were truly connected to the fictional Bodyless Buddhas from The Strange Tales of Gui Mountain. They all sprang into action.
Morel took the lead in mobilizing the smoke soldiers to rush straight towards the surrounding Buddha-headed creatures.
If approaching them was dangerous, then the smoke soldiers' role was to help the group eliminate the first wave of threats.
The next moment-
As the smoke soldiers closed in and attacked the Buddha-headed creatures, they remained unharmed.
However, their seemingly powerful attacks did not even budge these bizarre creatures.
It's as if-
The force of their punches was absorbed like a sponge.
The Buddha-headed creatures seemed capable of discerning the nature of the smoke soldiers, so while enduring the smoke soldiers' relentless assault, they paid them no mind. Instead, they accelerated the process of opening their eyes.
[Super Speed: Will, Ring Slash]
When Moses noticed the changes in these strange things and raised his sword to slash horizontally through the air.
In an instant, the blade extended into a dark crescent of energy, sweeping through the necks of six of the Buddha-headed creatures within a fan-shaped area ahead.
With a faint, almost imperceptible click, the black arc vanished into the forest, and six dirty Buddha heads tumbled through the air.
At the same time-
The naked male human bodies beneath the severed heads withered and shriveled in the blink of an eye, and then turned into piles of foul-smelling, pulverized remains.
Moses's lightning-fast strike had decapitated six of the creatures in one motion. But the rest of the team was not to be outdone.
Ging, who was standing beside Moses, raised both hands and hurled two disc-like Nen Blades.
The spinning discs traced elegant arcs through the air before cleanly slicing through the necks of two more Buddha-headed creatures, sending their heads rolling.
The remaining three were dealt with by Hisoka, Menchi and Karura respectively.
The means of attack adopted by Hisoka is his frequently used playing cards.
With just three playing cards, he cleanly severed one of the Buddha heads.
Menchi is an Emitter. So like Ging, she condenses a disc-like Nen Blades to launch an attack.
While she also succeeded in beheading one of the creatures, the precision of her technique was noticeably inferior to Ging's.
The last Buddha-headed creature was taken down by Kogumi, the Beast Hunter, who pierced it with five consecutive arrows.
The results achieved in the blink of an eye also indirectly confirmed Tommen's claims about The Strange Tales of Gui Mountain.
These Buddha-headed creatures that had appeared without warning truly seemed to be the strange creature called the Bodyless Buddha described in the book.
So-
At this moment, everyone was not happy about the outcome of the battle, but instead felt an inexplicable chill creeping down their spines.
When something from a book became reality, it's not exactly something to get excited about.
It was as if the veil shrouding the Dark Continent had just been lifted, if only by a fraction.
But at this moment, Moses's thoughts drifted to someone long gone-
Davidson Donald, the author of Swamp Man.
'The things in books were born from human imagination.'
'So how did these Bodyless Buddhas come into being?'
Moses kept his Black Sword raised, still on guard, but his mind was unsettled by the implications of what he had just witnessed.
In addition to thinking of the author of Swamp Man, he also thought of the imaginary creature, Night Watcher, which had once crossed the Ancient Pipeline to the Six Continents.
That young Night Watcherwas eventually hunted down by the people from the International Permit Agencies, and its body was stored in the International Permit Agencies' underground research facility.
And within a week after the hunting operation ended, all documents and even online information about Night Watcherin the Six Continents were erased by the International Permit Agencies.
Had humans ever seen the Night Watcher, a mythical beast that seems to exist only in fantasy?
Or-
Had humans conjured it from sheer imagination?
And then, under the influence of some force within the Dark Continent, these figments of human creativity was turned from nothingness into reality?