Rules-related weird stories: 4016

"It's back... it's carrying something on its back!"

The oversized cylinder, wrapped in bandages, that the half-bandage pseudo-artist had been carrying on its back, with its uneven texture, looked exactly like a gourd or some kind of tool...

But even when the Little Genius was smashed to pieces, that thing wasn't used!

What if that wasn't a tool at all, but... another pseudo-human?!

Just like a puppeteer hiding in the shadows, the Little Genius was just a manipulated body used to pollute the enemy's vision; its true form had been hiding on its back all along!

Thinking of this, many details were connected!

That's why its body movements looked so stiff, and why, after the bandages peeled off, it fell and scrambled awkwardly to get up!

So... when the Little Genius shattered, this strange painting overwrite wasn't lifted!

The reason for all this is—

"Its true form is still alive!"

"Swish, swish... swish, swish..."

Just then, undisguised rustling sounds echoed around him!

He then realized that countless bandages had already merged into the entire painted domain around him. The trees in the surrounding green belt seemed to be wrapped in countless bandages, and the cobblestone road under his feet also seemed to be pieced together from bandages...

The whole world was like a painting drawn on bandages?!

Just like Mu Daxian used a drawing board to paint and overwrite reality, this bandage pseudo-artist used bandages as a canvas to complete his painting and overwrite reality!

"Correct answer... I'll reward you by replacing it and becoming my new toy." The cylindrical bandage object, which had rolled to the side during the fight, slowly opened like a cocoon, and the real pseudo-artist slowly crawled out.

It looked neither human nor ghost. The areas of its body exposed outside the bandages were covered in hideous and terrifying scars, as if severely burned. These scars seemed to cover its entire body.

It crawled on the ground like a cat, twisting its neck to face Lin Yi with its bandage-covered face, and sneered, "Artist... who would fight you head-on? This is our method!"

Before the words were finished, the entire scroll twisted, and countless bandages shot out from the void, engulfing Lin Yi!

It was noon, and the scorching sun hung high, but it could only cast a small circular shadow. Coupled with the plastic film-like texture of the clouds, the whole world was drowsy.

However, as the overwhelming bandages converged, a pitch-black shadow instantly enveloped Lin Yi...

At that moment, an inexplicable gust of cold wind suddenly brushed against the back of Lin Yi's neck. An ominous premonition, faint yet persistent, crawled up his scalp like a small spider, giving him a familiar, chilling feeling...

He instantly reacted—his shadow was in trouble again!

Previously, the connection between his shadow and the layer where the Grinning Angel was entrenched had been severed by Lao Mo, but Lao Mo himself had said that the severance was not complete and needed to be done at the gymnasium.

And just now, with the runaway of the "Lin Yi's" azure steam, the "invisible" mark within his body was faintly touched again. Coupled with the appearance of the shadowy side brought about by the bandages now, his shadow was magnified under the cover of the bandages, and that path hidden between the layers finally made a comeback and merged with his shadow!

Lin Yi looked down and saw that the shadow under his feet had indeed suddenly magnified several times. This was not actually his shadow, but the shadow of the bandages. However, the shadow of the bandages was superimposed on his shadow, which led to another layer, originally with the area of his shadow as the size of the gateway, suddenly expanding greatly...

That endless darkness appeared under Lin Yi's feet like a huge vent!

Gusts of wind and raindrops, mixed with a dark, humid, and bizarre aura, drifted out of his shadow...

Lin Yi's heart sank to the bottom in an instant. A tsunami of bandages was surging towards him like the sky was falling, but he had no mind to care about it. He turned his head, his attention falling into his shadow along with his gaze...

"This is really bad..."

Where was there any shadow under his feet?

There was clearly only a smooth and huge black mirror!

In that mirror, there was a teaching building rising from the ground!

Black sky, thick black clouds, fierce winds, endless rain... It was unknown which layer's teaching building it was, but it actually gave off the feeling of the doomsday chimes being rung in the art building's layer!

Under the boundless black clouds, the eight floors of the teaching building floated uncertainly like castles in the air, exuding ominousness and terror everywhere.

And at the exit of one of the stairwells, the Grinning Angel, soaked to the bone, slowly, slowly turned its head as if summoned.

When it saw Lin Yi, its mouth stretched beyond the limits of its hands, curving to the base of its ears.

At this moment, Lin Yi personally experienced what was called "an overwhelming sense of despair."

It was that Grinning Angel!

That Grinning Angel that appeared in Lin Yi's imagination, that Grinning Angel that had once targeted Mao Feiyang in the early morning of May 7th, seemed to cross the boundaries of time and space, reality and illusion, at this moment, and saw this space-time!

However, when its gaze fell on Lin Yi, it also saw the overwhelming tsunami of bandages, and hidden behind the tsunami... the bandage pseudo-artist!

At this moment, its eyebrows suddenly curved, and its two eyeballs lit up, as if it had discovered an even more delicious food!

In the darkness, its smile became even richer.

Then, it floated up like a ghost, floated over from that layer, and finally, pierced through this black mirror, and drilled out as if without substance...

With the appearance of the Grinning Angel, the surrounding twisted green belt and cobblestone road trembled violently, and the cartoon-style sky also fluctuated violently. The whole world was like a pot of boiling water, "bubbling" up one bubble after another!

At the same time, the tsunami of bandages that was about to engulf Lin Yi also twisted like noodles, and then broke one by one until it was completely shattered!

With the destruction of the bandages, the huge black shadow formed by them also disappeared. The black mirror under Lin Yi's feet contracted on the spot, but... the Grinning Angel was still here!

《The Angel Walks Towards the Light Without Entering the Lost Path》

Lin Yi's pupils trembled violently. He realized a very serious problem—unlike "traditional" sculptures, angel sculptures did not seem to be afraid of sunlight!

Bandage rain fell from the sky, scattering like countless petals. However, any part that approached the Grinning Angel withered rapidly as if drained of life force, shattering into fine white powder upon hitting the ground.

Staring at the suddenly appearing Grinning Angel, the bandage-clad pseudo-artist's eyes were filled with fear, his voice trembling as he spoke: “A… A Grinning Angel…?!”

“You… You actually summoned an angel?!”

He glared fiercely at Lin Yi, only to find that Lin Yi had already taken off running!

“?”

The bandage-clad pseudo-artist was first stunned, then his expression changed drastically, and the ferocious look on his face melted away like ice and snow.

“Damn it, where are you running to?!”

Lin Yi wasn't stupid. As soon as he realized that the Grinning Angel had shifted its attention away from him, he immediately started running for his life, just waiting for an opportunity to spring away…

As the saying goes, better to sacrifice a friend than to die yourself, especially since this bandage-clad pseudo-artist couldn't even be considered a friend.

Now, with the complete descent of the Grinning Angel, the scene overwritten by the bandage-clad pseudo-artist was directly shattered like duckweed thrown onto the water.

And this was precisely the kind of absolute, overwhelming power that Mu Daxian had mentioned to Mao Feiyang!

That night, the Grinning Angel didn't attack Mu Daxian and the others, not because it couldn't break through the layer overwritten by Mu Daxian, but because it couldn't find them.

But now it was different. The Grinning Angel didn't break through this overwritten layer from the outside, but rather the bandage-clad pseudo-artist's own shadows created an opening, allowing the Grinning Angel to find an opportunity to descend directly from the inside!

And such a descent, for this overwritten layer, was directly a dimensionality reduction attack!

If the original world was a photograph, then the photograph after being overwritten by the pseudo-artist was like crumpling the photograph into a ball, and then outlining some of the scenery with crude and abstract strokes…

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Gradually, the crumpled photograph slowly returned to its original state, and the overwriting attached to its surface began to peel off little by little. Before long, the cobblestone road layer of the real campus map reappeared beneath Lin Yi's feet.

Confirming that there were no problems, Lin Yi immediately floored the accelerator and shot out like Bugs Bunny.

「Summon an angel?」

「The hell I summoned an angel! If I had that ability, would I still be playing house with you here?!」

Lin Yi sneered inwardly, while also feeling a little amused—「It's really laughable, the Grinning Angel seems to want to eat him more…」

But just then, Lin Yi discovered a presence behind him that was like a maggot clinging to a bone—

“Don't run off alone! Wait for me!” The bandage-clad pseudo-artist used both his hands and feet, his inhuman running form resembling a wheel covered in mud, with bandage fragments flying everywhere.

His physical fitness wasn't very good. That's why he needed to bind himself to the "puppet's" back in order to obtain sufficient mobility.

But at this moment, under the threat of the Grinning Angel, he couldn't care about anything else. He quickly scrambled to run, having lost his sense of direction and recognition. He simply treated Lin Yi's back as his anchor and followed closely behind.

「Hiss—」

The Grinning Angel emitted a hoarse and deep sound, sticking to the bandage-clad pseudo-artist's side like a phantom, constantly extracting a dark green mist from his body…

The bandage-clad pseudo-artist let out a painful groan, gradually unable to keep up with Lin Yi's pace. Then, he stumbled over his other limbs and fell to the ground, rolling a distance like a leaky inner tube before collapsing weakly, tilting his head and staring fixedly at Lin Yi's back.

At this moment, his eyes became even dimmer.

“Huff… Huff…”

The bandage-clad pseudo-artist collapsed weakly on the ground, his skeleton, which may or may not have existed in the first place, seemed to have completely fallen apart. His entire body gradually turned into a puddle of soft mud, slowly spreading out on the ground…

And from his body, a dark green mist constantly seeped out, from thick to thin, until finally only wisps remained…

And as these dark green mists were drawn into the Grinning Angel's body, the hourglass it held in its hand seemed to develop a hint of metallic luster from its original stone texture.

Even the solidified quicksand inside the hourglass turned into a solid-liquid mixture similar to flowing gold mixed with golden sand.

Around the flowing quicksand, the space seemed to collapse, creating the texture of a liquid crystal sphere, giving off a soul-stirring power at first glance, as if it could completely extract a person's mind.

When the bandage-clad pseudo-artist was drained of his last breath, his entire form turned into a pile of stinky mud sculpture identical to a purebred Night Walker.

The Grinning Angel still floated there like a ghost, its almost transparent body shimmering with a hazy iridescent light under the sunlight, variegated as if formed by countless broken mirrors…

But from beginning to end, it kept its wings folded behind its back, as if they were just decorations. Even after being in the sunlight for a while, its wings were still wet, constantly dripping water, as if they would never dry.

It glanced at the direction Lin Yi had fled, then took a deep breath, a look of greed and intoxication appearing between its eyebrows, and then it floated over, following the scent.

…

May 9, 2023, 12:18, on the cobblestone road in the gymnasium area.

Lin Yi breathlessly caught up with Wei Liang, who was ahead.

Wei Liang glanced sideways, then looked Lin Yi up and down in surprise before asking: “Damn, Lao Lin, did you slip and roll down and then climb back up? Why are you in such a mess?”

Lin Yi had been wrestling with the bandage-clad pseudo-artist's puppet while carrying his bag, and had been scrambling in the overwritten layer, so naturally he was in a terrible state, looking exactly as Wei Liang described.

“I… Huff… I encountered a little trouble, huff, huff…” Lin Yi supported his knees and gasped for a few breaths, “It's alright now. Speaking of which… didn't you encounter anything?”

Thanks to book friends “usjdnshhs”, “琳 skylark”, “Book friend 20240519115653118” for their rewards!!