Hell's Handbook

Su Jin’s injuries were not severe. He spat out blood only because his consciousness had been violently shaken unexpectedly. But that also proved how powerful these two stone statues were. If someone who had nearly godlike levels of psychokinesis could get hurt, then these two statues were probably quasi gods, which was a stage slightly more powerful than demigods.

Su Jin had only run into demigods before, one of which was the Prince Charming in the Fairytale of Horrors Challenge. But Prince Charming had been trapped in a space within the Challenge, so even though he had reached the demigod stage, he was clearly a lot less formidable. The other one he met with was that pig-headed demigod in the Supernatural Train Challenge. That pighead had been a lot more formidable, since he had managed to kill the already formidable Chu Yi with just one move.

As quasi gods were more formidable than demigods, these stone statues were almost at god stage, but had been unable to reach that stage for sreason. Su Jin and the other four in the team could be considered quasi gods of sorts.

They were all able to kill demigods, but unable to becgods. They were supposedly at the sstage as these stone statues, yet the statues were a little more powerful than them.

“Do we launch an attack directly?” said Shen Wu.

Natasha shook her head. She had just been nourished by the dragon’s blood earlier and she could sense that her capabilities had gone up by another level. She felt that the most formidable one in the team was no longer Durand, but herself. But that was also precisely why she could sense how powerful these two statues were. They might be able to kill the statues if they joined forces, but something told her that doing that would result in casualties on their side.

“These statues are very powerful. If we choose to attack them just like that, I sense that we will definitely suffer casualties. That’s not worth it,” said Natasha without hesitation.

Su Jin nodded and chimed in, “I think so too. We’ve only just started the Challenge and we’re already running into such powerful enemies. If we have to keep killing enemies like that, we’re all going to die in no time. So… I think we should try and think of something else.”

They were all formidable characters, but they weren’t brainless, or they wouldn’t have made it thus far. They were happy to explore ways of getting around the statues rather than attack them.

“Lettry!” Oscar suddenly turned himself into a shadow, then leaped toward the space in between the statues. He moved very quickly and got to the statues within the blink of an eye.

But just when Oscar cclose, the two statues moved too. One of them raised a foot toward Oscar in shadow form. In most cases, Oscar was immune to physical attacks when he was in shadow form. Everyone in the team was well aware of that after dueling each other over the last three days.

But Oscar still chose to dodge the foot, as though he had sensed something. The shadow turned sharply, but the other statue started moving too, its hands thrusting a long sword toward the shadow on the floor.

Only Oscar knew best what was going on. He could sense the force coming from the statues and knew that he would definitely die if he was struck by either one.

But even though he knew that, there was very little he could do about it, because he discovered that his speed had decreased drastically. Once he cwithin a certain radius of the statues, he felt like he was moving in water, and his movements kept getting slower and slower.

As the glint of the sword ccloser, Oscar did his best to change the shape of his shadow. He managed to dodge the sword from the second statue, but the first one grabbed hold of him immediately after that. Everyone watched in horror as the statue picked Oscar up despite remaining in shadow form.

Oscar looked like a black snake that kept writhing in the statue’s hands. The statue exerted great force in both hands and Oscar broke in several places in an instant.

Everyone stared in shock. Oscar disappeared after he was broken into pieces, and the rest of the group was at a loss. What should they do now? Was Oscar dead? Had the #5 owner in the world died just like that?

Just then, a white flash rose in front of them and Oscar appeared before them completely unscathed.

“I’m so glad you’re fine,” Durand let out a sigh of relief as he patted Oscar on the shoulder. He was friends with Oscar before this, after all.

But Oscar looked glum and not relieved at all. He opened his palms to show the rest a crystal and a puppet that were wrecked beyond repair.

“Oh no!” Everyone gasped. One was a teleportation crystal, while the other was the Death Substitute puppet. Oscar had used both items in one go in order to survive that ordeal.

“You didn’t get a chance to escape at all?” asked Durand with a frown. He was more formidable than Oscar, but Oscar was no weakling. If even Oscar needed two such items to survive, the rest were not going to get past the statues alive.

“I don’t know if it’ll be the sfor the rest of you, but when I cwithin a certain radius of the statues, my speed was greatly affected. Those two statues seemed able to attackeven though my body was not solid, so becoming a shadow doesn’t make any difference to them.” Oscar’s face was pale. He was still recovering from the ordeal.

Everyone exchanged uneasy glances. What were they to do now? These two statues had turned the building into a dead end.

Su Jin quietly stared at the two statues while Shen Wu turned to him and said, “You were the strategist for Team Boning Knife, weren’t you? Don’t you think you need to contribute at a tlike this?”

But Su Jin did not respond to Shen Wu’s sarcasm and continued staring at the statues as he recounted what he saw earlier from the moment Oscar charged at the statues until he was killed, making sure to recall every detail about every second.

“Hey, did you hear what I just said?” said Shen Wu in an annoyed voice.

“They moved!” said Su Jin suddenly. His eyes lit up and a smile spread across his face as he turned to say to the rest, “They moved!”

“What… does that mean?” asked Durand with a confused look on his face.

Oscar looked thoughtful for a moment before his eyes lit up too. He looked at Su Jin and said, “You’re referring to the moment when they attacked me. The statues shifted when they attacked me.”

Su Jin smiled and nodded, “Yep. When you charged at them, they didn’t move much, but they did move. In other words… we could use a different way to enter this building.”

“You want to distract the lion away from the mountain?” As a fellow Chinese owner, Shen Wu immediately figured out that Su Jin was hoping to use one of the strategies in Sun Tzu’s Art of War. But he frowned and said, “But how are we going to distract these two statues? If even someone like Oscar can’t defeat them despite attacking as a shadow, the rest of us are going to die if we try, right?”

Su Jin turned to look at Durand and smiled as he said, “That doesn’t matter. We’ve got someone here who isn’t afraid to die. Mr. Durand… we’ll have to count on you now.”

Durand’s lips twitched as he glanced uneasily at the statues and asked, “Mr. Strategist, do you have any other options to offer the team?”

“I’m afraid that’s the best option right now. Besides, you still have a Death Substitute and a teleportation crystal, so if you can’t handle it, you can use those,” Su Jin grinned. It felt pretty good to be telling the top owner in the world to do the dirty work.

But Durand was the most formidable owner after all. He didn’t need to prepare himself and immediately ran toward the statues. Su Jin yelled from behind, “Mr. Durand, pick a further place to die, please! The further the better!”

The other three stared at him, but Su Jin merely laughed and said, “Simple and direct is best, isn’t it? If I put it in a roundabout way, he might not get what I’m trying to say.”

Durand clenched his teeth as he ran toward the statues. Just as he cwithin reach, one of the statues raised its foot to step on Durand. Durand did not bother dodging and allowed the statue’s foot to land on him, which turned him into a human patty.

“Wow, fierce. But I already said he should pick a further place to die,” grumbled Su Jin. He couldn’t believe the top Handbook owner would have such poor comprehension skills.

Just when Su Jin was beginning to fume, the human patty suddenly started wriggling and it turned back into Durand within the blink of an eye. Durand immediately ran toward the side.

The statues seemed surprised that Durand could revive himself, so they moved toward Durand and used their foot to turn him into a human patty again.