After confirming that the Slit-Mouthed Woman would also attack according to a pattern, Wang Liang restarted without hesitation the moment he was seized by the throat.
Sadako’s supernatural influence was unaffected, and the derivative Sadakos moved as usual.
Before the “Wang Liang” in the Slit-Mouthed Woman’s hands completely rotted away and died, a derivative Sadako had, at some unknown point, drifted to the Slit-Mouthed Woman’s side. The single exposed eye was filled with venomous resentment, and in her hand she was actually gripping a rust-stained coffin nail.
Pfft.
The derivative Sadako raised the coffin nail and drove it straight into the neck of the Slit-Mouthed Woman, who was attacking Wang Liang in her corporeal state.
Throughout this process, the Slit-Mouthed Woman kept staring fixedly with those eyes full of irrational madness at the “Wang Liang” she was choking in both hands, waiting for “Wang Liang” to die completely.
It neither dodged nor stopped Sadako’s movements. The rigid mechanism governing the fierce ghosts of this world restricted it.
And after the coffin nail pierced into its neck, the Slit-Mouthed Woman’s eyes slowly closed without any surprise, and her hands loosened.
At that moment, “Wang Liang’s” body had just lost all signs of life. The rapidly decaying corpse collapsed powerlessly to the ground, likewise falling still. It looked as if they had perished together.
With its target dead, the Slit-Mouthed Woman should have left.
But she had been pinned by the coffin nail. Even a terror from another world could not resist this almost absolute suppressive force—at least not in the short term.
The Slit-Mouthed Woman’s tall figure merely stood there with both eyes closed. Her hideous, blood-soaked split mouth closed once more, and she remained in place, motionless.
Suppression successful.
A ghost was still a ghost, after all. Although the Slit-Mouthed Woman’s behavioral pattern was somewhat special, it was not the kind of intelligent fierce ghost that could fully simulate human consciousness. It, too, followed certain rules.
Its abilities were troublesome, but once they were figured out, it was not difficult to deal with.
If the Slit-Mouthed Woman had remained inside its ghost domain the entire time and only used the supernatural split-mouth attack against Wang Liang, then Wang Liang could only have chosen to give up on this operation, because he had no way to deal with a ghost domain at all.
The derivative Sadako standing aside with the coffin nail would also have hidden herself in the back instead of appearing like this, so as to avoid losing the coffin nail.
But the Slit-Mouthed Woman actually followed some kind of rule: after the possessed vessel died, its true body would inevitably materialize and attack up close with the powerful suppressive supernatural force in its hands.
After confirming this twice, Wang Liang had his chance to imprison it, and controlled the derivative Sadako holding the coffin nail to step forward.
His alternative restart gave Wang Liang an extremely high margin for error, as long as he could trade bodily death for the fierce ghost’s pattern of action.
After that, all he needed to consider was how to drive the coffin nail into the fierce ghost’s body during its movements.
A new Wang Liang crawled out from a photograph left in the nearby weeds for restarting.
Patting the black coat on his body, though there was barely any dust on it, he walked quickly to the pinned Slit-Mouthed Woman with burning eyes.
[Successfully suppressed cinematic fierce ghost “Slit-Mouthed Woman.” Beginning control.]
The Slit-Mouthed Woman’s towering figure of over two meters gradually faded into the air. With a clang, the coffin nail that had pinned her fell from midair to the ground.
However, the Slit-Mouthed Woman had not escaped, because Wang Liang could sense a new cold supernatural force appearing inside his body, forcibly controlled by him.
Crash-state control!
At this moment, Wang Liang once again felt the system’s power. He closed his eyes and sensed it for a moment, then suddenly opened them.
The next second, a tall female corpse with a split-mouth grin emerged from the air before him.
She wore a tattered, bloodstained long trench coat. Her terrifying figure, over two meters tall, exuded a dense chill, and hidden within the hideous smile torn all the way to the roots of her ears was a powerful murderous supernatural force.
And within those large hands, broader and colder than those of an ordinary adult man, there was also an extremely strong suppressive supernatural force, capable of easily suppressing fierce ghosts into silence.
Roughly sensing the instincts transmitted by the crashed fierce ghost, the Slit-Mouthed Woman’s abilities were more or less the same as what Wang Liang had tested earlier. They were indeed much more complete than Sadako’s initial supernatural powers, and her abilities leaned more toward killing and suppression.
Although Sadako’s abilities were strange enough, even capable of an alternative restart,
she currently lacked sufficiently powerful killing ability. The corrosive ghost blood only made up for that slightly.
With pieces of the puzzle missing, Sadako was still somewhat lacking, whether in the speed of stacking her numbers or in the strength of her supernatural attacks.
At present, not only did Sadako’s numbers stack slowly, far from being rapid and infinite,
she also lacked a supernatural ability that could collectively converge on a single point for long-range stacked attacks. All she could do was have them, one by one, stained with ghost blood, squeeze forward to make contact and suppress.
This created an awkward scene like earlier, where a dozen or so Sadakos surrounded and tore at the target while a whole pile of Sadakos behind them could not squeeze in.
But Wang Liang did not underestimate Sadako in the slightest, because her potential was extremely high.
Once he could complete the puzzle and perfect those shortcomings, Sadako would definitely have the chance in the future to achieve a form of “infinite supernatural power” similar to that of the Seven Elders of the Republic era.
If that time truly came, Wang Liang’s strength would at worst be on the level of the Seven Elders of the Republic era.
Thinking of this, Wang Liang sighed inwardly. Fortunately, Sadako had been given by the system at the start.
Otherwise, if the order had really been reversed—if he had first controlled the Slit-Mouthed Woman, then faced Sadako during the second descent—
then he would have no solution at all right now. He simply could not think of a way to imprison Sadako, even if it was only an incomplete Sadako supernatural.
This was not a question of whether she was strong or not. It was a question of being impossible to imprison. He could not even touch the source.
Facing Sadako would be even more troublesome than facing those fierce ghosts with ghost domains.
However, being the first to control Sadako, and now having controlled the Slit-Mouthed Woman as well, was a fortunate thing for him.
Sadako’s instantaneous attack strength was a little lacking, but after controlling the Slit-Mouthed Woman, Wang Liang had somewhat made up for the shortcoming in his own lethal supernatural abilities.
At present, his means of survival, strangeness, and killing power were all not weak, and he also possessed the Slit-Mouthed Woman’s ghost domain. Only now could he be considered to have steadily stepped over the threshold of a top-tier ghost controller.
Whether he could win or not was another matter; at the very least, he could absolutely exchange blows back and forth.
Not in a hurry to leave, Wang Liang stayed in the village and, according to the instincts of the fierce ghost within his body, began trying out the abilities the Slit-Mouthed Woman possessed, so as to accurately verify his previous sense of the fierce ghost’s instincts.
After experimenting for a while, Wang Liang discovered that the Slit-Mouthed Woman did indeed have the ability to possess.
It was not merely like Sadako, whose supernatural force filled his body, enhanced him, and formed a pseudo-ghost body.
Rather, he could merge the Slit-Mouthed Woman into another corpse, or even a living person’s body, forcibly control the target’s movements, and use the other party’s body to release a certain amount of the Slit-Mouthed Woman’s supernatural power.
At certain moments, this ability would be extremely useful. It could launch a surprise attack and control an enemy’s body, leaving their teammates unable to understand what was happening and afraid to act rashly.
Apart from that, there was the Slit-Mouthed Woman’s signature ability: killing through the split mouth.
This supernatural power could control the target’s mouth, making the corners rise and tear open all the way to the roots of the ears, forming a horrifying, bloody smile.
During this process, the target’s bodily vitality would rapidly weaken. The moment the corners of the mouth tore to the roots of the ears would be the moment the target’s bodily vitality completely died.