A pair of three-meter-long black thin membrane wings extended from Lingyun's back. With a flap of their wings against the wind, they instantly generated an incredibly strong gale, which blew the flames of the ghost master backward.
The ghost master revealed a satisfied smile, and the fiery hand slowly released Ling Yun.
Chapter 147 Lieutenant Dreiser
Lingyun hovered in mid-air, its wings flapping incessantly, keeping its body suspended in the air without touching the ground.
"Get down," the ghost master commanded calmly.
The flapping of his wings immediately stopped, and Lingyun obediently landed gently from the air, folding his wings and standing demurely in front of the ghost master. A powerful aura emanated from his body, instantly drawing the flames on the ghost master's body forward.
"From now on, you have no name, only a code name, called Zero," the ghost master said slowly.
"Yes, Master, I have no name. My code name is Zero," Ling Yun replied mechanically. Except for his eyes, his face was slowly deforming, but the process was inconsistent; sometimes it became sinister, terrifying, and ferocious, and sometimes it reverted to his ordinary, boyish face. However, the two dark, deer-antler-like antlers growing from his forehead represented his non-human characteristics.
"Zero, do you know what you are?" The Ghost Master asked slowly, gazing at Ling Yun's ever-changing appearance.
Ling Yun raised his head blankly, rolling the back of his eyes: "What am I? Master."
"You are my pet, and you must do whatever I ask you to do," the ghostly master said, enunciating each word clearly. "But there's one thing: you must never hurt me, understand?"
"Understood, Master. I will absolutely obey your orders, but only on the premise of not harming you. I will not carry out any action that would harm you," Ling Yun replied, mimicking a parrot.
“Very good, much smarter than I imagined. It seems that the possession of the ghost embryo has not made you lose your intelligence.” The ghost master smiled with satisfaction again. “Zero, follow me. You will become the most powerful servant. Your family and your clan will all be enslaved by me in the future.”
Ling Yun stood quietly, showing no reaction. He neither understood the meaning behind the ghost master's words nor found them meaningful.
With a wave of his hand, the ghost master reshaped the sharp flaming spear in his hand. A streak of blood-red light slowly flashed across the spear, and wherever it passed, the crimson flames were immediately covered by a deeper red light film. However, the light film stopped at the tip of the spear, so that the spear shaft was no longer a pure flame shape except for the tip.
"Zero, this is the weapon I bestow upon you. Now, I will test your loyalty to me." The Ghost Master spoke slowly, handing the flaming spear to Ling Yun. "I command you to use this weapon to stab me."
Ling Yun raised his spear, and the spearhead formed by flames flashed, instantly transforming into the shape of a trident: "Master, your order may harm you. I will not carry it out, nor can I. I am very sorry."
“Zero, well done. I believe in your loyalty. Put your weapon away.” The ghost master revealed a smile made of flames.
"I'm sorry, Master, your trust does not put my mind at ease." Ling Yun suddenly flashed a smile that was impossible to see. With a whoosh, the Flaming Trident suddenly changed. The deep red flames under the light membrane turned into icy mist in the blink of an eye, and then pierced deep into the Ghost Master's chest. The temperature of minus one hundred degrees Celsius instantly turned the flames in the Ghost Master's chest into nothingness, leaving an empty hole.
"You're not possessed? How did you do that?" The ghost master's fiery form remained motionless, letting the icy aura wreak havoc on its body, as if it didn't care at all.
"It's a secret," Ling Yun replied simply. The icy trident accelerated its churning against the ghost master's chest, extinguishing a portion of the flames on the fiery statue with each churning. In the blink of an eye, a small portion of the pure flame body of the fiery statue had vanished.
“It seems that dealing with you will not be an easy task.” The Ghost Master sighed. “However, as I said, I am the master here, and you have no chance of defeating me.”
As they spoke, the raging flames suddenly began to change again. The dynamic shape of the flames froze, and then the deep red flames quickly faded, turning snow-white in the blink of an eye. The snow-white flames then became transparent, like pieces of flame-shaped crystals. The temperature plummeted, and in the blink of an eye, it went from blazing heat to bone-chilling cold.
Ling Yun tightened his grip, and the icy trident solidified within the body of its ghostly master, who had also transformed into an icy form. A powerful suction force emanated from it, causing Ling Yun's hand holding the trident to tremble, and the hilt, which had turned into a white light membrane, almost slipped from his grasp.
A smile crept across the ghost's lips: "Here, I can transform into any form, and I won't be harmed no matter what. If you feel you have enough power to sustain this, we can play this game forever, hehehehe..."
Suddenly, the smile on the frozen statue's face froze. He looked down at his chest and realized that the icy trident had transformed back into a flame form. The raging flames surged and melted the frozen statue's body like dripping wax.
"Sorry, even if you're interested, I don't have the patience." Ling Yun sneered. "Didn't you claim you could transform into any form? Fine, as long as you can endure the pain, I don't mind piercing your body with it again and again." With a wave of his right hand, the surface of the trident turned into a blood-red light membrane that shattered inch by inch, and a deep red flame suddenly burst forth, instantly enveloping the ghost master.
The Ghost Master's icy face contorted in the flames as he roared, "You want to pierce me? Zero, you lowly servant! I am not a living being, I will never feel pain. I am the master here, and I can change shape permanently if I so desire." The Ghost Master's form shifted again, but this time it did not follow the trident's shape. Instead, it transformed into a sketch composed of pure black lines, resembling the simplest human figure from an anime, yet still vividly depicting the Ghost Master's unique facial features.
"Dominator?" Ling Yun sneered. "You think you're a god? You call a simple illusion your domain?" The fiery red trident flashed in his hand and transformed into a sharp dagger. With a single swing, it lightly severed the arm of the ghost master, which was made of black lines. Strangely, although it was just an arm made of lines, bright red blood gushed out from the cut.
The ghost master roared in pain, his body suddenly retreating rapidly, and fear finally appeared on his face. "How did you do that?" The line at the cut on his arm extended slightly, as if trying to grow another arm automatically, but a powerful invisible force immediately suppressed the ghost master's illusory form, rendering him unable to move.
A silvery spiritual energy field erupted from Ling Yun's body, forming a massive band of light around him. Everything around him became blurry and distorted in the face of this powerful spiritual energy field, and space itself became distorted and stretched.
“Lieutenant Dreiser, let’s return to the real world.” Ling Yun said softly, then grabbed the immobile ghost master in mid-air. With a forceful swing of his free hand, the nameless space shattered into countless tiny fragments like exploding glass.
Ling Yun stood in the center of the underground plaza, still holding the crystal memory carrier of the refined ghost in his right hand. Most of the flames in the plaza had been extinguished, with only the drugs in the center still burning, though they had shrunk to a bonfire less than two meters high.
Beneath his feet lay the pale-faced ghost master, who had completely transformed back into human form, but had lost an arm. The bleeding from the wound had been stopped by his supernatural power, but Ling Yun's telekinetic power was constantly suppressing his body, rendering him completely immobile.
With a crack, the memory carrier shattered in Ling Yun's hand, turning into a pile of dust. It slowly flowed from his palm to the ground.
"When did you break my illusion? And you even obtained my memories." The ghost master struggled to raise his head to look at Ling Yun, but was immediately pressed to the ground by telekinesis and unable to move.
“From the moment I entered the memory vessel left behind by the ghost, I broke your illusion. Everything you saw was actually your own illusion, including the fact that I severed your arm at the end. It was your own illusion that I severed it; I didn’t actually do anything,” Ling Yun said slowly.
"Impossible! I clearly trapped your spiritual body with an illusion barrier. That memory vessel doesn't belong to the ghost, but to me. Once you enter the memory vessel, it's like walking into a trap. How could you possibly escape? And you even set up a false spell?" The ghost master shouted in disbelief.
"You're not the only one in this world who knows illusions." Ling Yun sneered. "My illusions are far superior to yours. When you thought you had trapped my mental body with your illusions, you were actually in a delusional state created in your own mind. You thought you were the master, but you were just talking nonsense in your mind. I not only broke your illusions, but I also obtained all your memories. Respected Lieutenant Dreiser of the Heavenly Eye Society, your good days of controlling the drug trade in all of Asia are over. Rest in peace."
Dreiser glared at Ling Yun with hatred: "Don't be too smug. I'm just a lieutenant, the lowest rank in the Sky Eye Society. Moreover, controlling the drug trafficking business in Asia is an assignment from the Society. If you kill me, the Society will not let you go. The Sky Eye Society will take control of this world sooner or later. At that time, you will be hunted down by even more powerful superhumans, and you will truly be unable to live or die."
"Calm down, Lieutenant Dreiser." Ling Yun bent down and looked coldly at Dreiser. "You may not know, but I have already taken down four privates from your Sky Eye Society, one lieutenant of your rank, and one captain two ranks higher than you. So I don't mind offending your society again, and I don't mind killing you as well. I never intentionally hurt people, but I also don't like being threatened."
Chapter 148 Invisible Gene
"You can kill the captain?" Dreiser's face contorted, his emerald eyes flashing with disbelief. The captain was two ranks higher than him in the Sky Eye, and his strength was naturally comparable. This boy looked to be under twenty years old, and even if he was exceptionally talented, it was hard to believe that he could be stronger than the captain.
"Believe it or not." Ling Yun was too lazy to explain to him. "Your Tianyan Society is too ambitious. Not only do you want to monopolize all illegal businesses in the world, but you also want to get your hands on secular power. You used a ghost to possess Young Master Fan, the son of the deputy commander of the Third Military Region in Beijing, and forced his father to do arms business with one of your branches in Europe. Are you trying to turn him into a rebel?"
"Heh heh, what else do you know?" Dreiser sneered, knowing that Ling Yun had already obtained the memories, and that denying them wouldn't change anything, so he simply admitted it indirectly.
"I also know that you initially wanted to use a ghost to possess a girl, but then the ghost suddenly disappeared. I couldn't find the reason in your memories, so I wanted to ask you why?" Ling Yun asked with a frown. Although the matter of the ghost possessing Yang Yuqi was left unresolved, it had always been a question in Ling Yun's mind. There is no such thing as a reason in the world. The ghost must have had its own reason for leaving Yang Yuqi. However, in Dreiser's memories, the ghost did leave Yang Yuqi after the possession failed, but the memories did not provide any explanation.
Dreiser scoffed, "Are you feigning ignorance or genuinely unaware? That girl is a superhuman; her mental fields are fused into one. How could my ghost possibly possess her? Am I supposed to let her mental field devour my ghost if I don't allow it to leave?"
Ling Yun was shocked, never expecting the real reason to be like this. "Impossible! That girl is clearly just an ordinary person?" he said involuntarily. Although Yang Yuqi was beautiful, Ling Yun couldn't tell that she was a superhuman no matter what. Besides, he had probed her body countless times with his senses, and even the slightest fluctuation in her mental energy field would be something he could sense.
“At first, I also thought she was an ordinary person. The reason I chose her to possess was because her family is very powerful in China, making her a good target. You will know this when you see my memories. We usually start with influential corporations or political groups, then gradually infiltrate until we control the group, and then influence the regimes in the secular world through the group,” Dreiser said with a gloomy face. “But I didn’t expect her to be a superhuman with invisible genes. Not only did my ghost fail to possess her, but I almost suffered a backlash because of it.”
"A superhuman with a hidden gene?" Ling Yun was taken aback; he had never heard of this term before.