The Creatures That We Are-Chapter 1185: Deception

Apple Island, midnight.

Nine Frost, Chen Ying, Adept Horse, and Harvest Song emerged from a pickup truck at an empty clearing. The ground was all brown mud and short weeds. The white moon above looked upon the world in its lonesome. No colors remained. Everything became monochrome.

Yet a blurry red light nestled in the depth of the Apple Island—an eerie old chair surrounded by hovering red vertical eyes of different sizes. The eyeballs darted around incessantly, as if worried about missing anything.

They recognized it at first glance. That was the throne of Greed they were looking for.

As they approached, Chen Ying and Nine Frost scanned the area with their Talents, looking for ambush and traps. And Adept Horse observed the battlefield with Feng Shui.

“Something’s wrong,” he concluded soon.

“How so?” Nine Frost asked in a low voice.

Adept Horse frowned. “It’s too empty.”

“Obviously,” Harvest Song commented.

“I don’t mean the space,” Adept Horse explained. “But the fact that this clearing does not gather energy nor luck, it does not have any special features. It’s like punching a cotton ball.”

“Maybe...explain it to the plebeians?” Chen Ying said.

“That’s all I feel.” Adept Horse considered his wording. “My interpretation is that our fight may end up futile.”

Chen Ying’s concern compounded. “Is there a solution?”

After a pause, Adept Horse said honestly, “Changing it will be unlikely. Normally, the solution will be staying away and avoiding it.”

The tension in the air thickened. They all knew that running away wasn’t an option. They must find and kill Greed, and they had to do it before the Three Double-Hours of Heavenly Tribulation ended.

“My calculation may be wrong, though,” Adept Horse added in an attempt to bring morale back up, but the effect was lackluster.

“Follow the plan,” Nine Frost said gravely.

They continued forward.

Suddenly, Nine Frost stopped and raised his hand. The other three stood alert.

Ten meters ahead of them, a coin-sized red vertical eye emerged, looking at them quietly. They all felt slight discomfort, as if an insidious power was peeling away the veils protecting the depths of their hearts.

Adept Horse concentrated light energy at his fingertip to shoot the eye. It burst into blood mist immediately before dispersing.

Their discomfort eased gradually.

Chen Ying frowned. “Greed’s eyes are a big problem. Captain’s right. Being under an eye’s gaze for too long will lead to the prying of our fate, followed by occupation.”

Nine Frost nodded. “We can’t give Greed the chance.”

“No matter how many eyes there are, I can take them all out if they get any closer.” Adept Horse was confident in that. Unbridled Light was a perfect counter for a large number of scattered targets.

Nine Frost did trust Adept Horse, but Greed was too cunning. They couldn’t be too careful.

He decided to stick to the plan. “Merge.”

Chen Ying, Harvest Song, and Adept Horse walked up to Nine Frost, placing their hands on his shoulders. Nine Frost activated level 7 Three Heads Six Arms. Golden light shot out and widened into a light beam, washing over the three awakeners.

Three seconds later, the light faded. The four had become one. Their amalgamation was over two meters tall with a strong broad build. Six of the eight arms stretched from the back, and there was only one head and one face, the facial features natural. Looking closely, the traits of all four of them could be discerned.

While the four had merged into one, they each assumed their roles to not give the enemy any opening to exploit.

A few minutes later, the fused being approached Greed’s throne.

Surnamed Li sat in the seat—a corpse manipulated by Greed. She seemed to have guessed that Adept Horse would destroy all eyes as soon as he saw any, so the eyes surrounding the throne were all gone. Even the vertical eye on her forehead was shut. The dead body’s lifeless eyes opened instead.

She rose to her feet with a stillness betraying her mortality, radiating decay. Black mist weaved into complex patterns like a quaint dress on the pale body. Countless slits of eyes popped up on her face and neck to control the facial expression, throat, and vocal cords.

“You are my opponents?” Greed’s slimy, chilling voice slithered like a viper from hell.

“Yes,” said the fused being.

“The Divine Scion wouldn’t have been foolish enough to send you to your death,” Greed said.

The fused being said nothing. Two seconds later, a golden light flashed out from his back. Adept Horse detached himself from them and became separate once more.

He scoffed. “Since you’ve noticed, there’s no need to hide it.”

“Be careful, Captain,” the fused being said seriously.

“Yeah.” Adept Horse nodded. “You too.”

Was Adept Horse actually Gao Yang? The moment the thought flashed through Greed’s mind, though, she dismissed it. Her eyes had detected the four awakeners as soon as they stepped into her territory. Although it was only for a fleeting moment, Greed was certain that she could pry into all four of their fates, which meant that neither Dragon nor Gao Yang was among them. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom

She noticed a weak damage done to her true form.

The body smiled stiffly. “Ah, Deception.”

“Worked, didn’t it?” Adept Horse said with a sneer.

“Unfortunately for you, only for a moment. The damage is negligible.” Surnamed Li stepped forward. “Enough parlor tricks. You stand no chance against me.”

“You overestimate yourself, Greed. The four of us are enough to kill you.” Adept Horse couldn’t fuse with the others again in the short term after becoming separate, but he didn’t plan to do that anyway.

Eggs shouldn’t be put in the same basket. That was what Gao Yang had told him.

Surnamed Li turned a deaf ear to Adept Horse’s words to prevent Deception from working on her. Spreading her arms, she was about to use her ability when she sensed something approaching.

She turned to her left and saw a small pickup truck. Strangely, no one was driving the vehicle, and no awakener hid inside. That was why she hadn’t noticed it sneaking onto the island until it was this close.

The moment she noticed it, the pickup truck sped up toward them.

“Go!”

“Nine Frost” ordered. Harvest Song’s hands cast countless Black Gold weapons at Surnaemd Li, while Chen Ying’s hands used her Talent and pressed a remote control at the same time.

Meanwhile, Adept Horse had launched himself into the night sky with a powerful leap, vanishing like a missile.

The series of actions confused Greed. She didn’t know what they were planning, but she still instinctively manipulated her black mist to block the scattered weapons.

Suddenly, she realized that the fused being was gone. The moment the hidden weapons were hurled at her, “Nine Frost” dove into the reflective surface of one of the weapons in a flash.

Greed started. The projectiles were feints. The real attack was...

Boom!