Exorcist's Self-Cultivation

When Du Wei counted to three, the wish was fulfilled.

His once-severed connection with Pennywise was linked once more.

In the depths of the unknown.

Du Wei felt a dark and terrifying will staring at him through the fog, carrying indescribable malice in its gaze.

It was like needles on his back.

It also resembled a venomous snake coiling around him, ready to strike lethally at any moment, causing an instinctive shudder of repulsion and terror.

Contact is mutual.

Pennywise could not escape from Du Wei, just as Du Wei couldn't escape from it.

The two would be forever entangled, until one of them died.

Perhaps for Pennywise, it considered this an opportunity.

Because the Joker Card that represented the wish was only on the level of an Evil Spirit, if Pennywise had not become a Demon Spirit, the fulfillment of the wish would not be a problem.

But there was exactly such a precondition.

The realization of the wish could never come so easily.

Clearly, this was what it too anticipated…

At this moment, Du Wei understood Pennywise's thoughts, and he walked towards the center of the town, the path behind him smeared with bloodstains.

The grey fog quickly closed off the road again.

In an instant.

The entire town seemed cut off from the world.

And that fog sinisterly churned, forming vortexes, beyond which one could vaguely discern many bizarre silhouettes.

Something had been conjured by Pennywise.

This would be a gamble.

An entity that fed on fear would also leverage that fear as a pivot to pry into its prey's terror, breach their psychological defenses, and then deliver the fatal blow.

...

Tap tap tap…

Footsteps sounded.

On the road leading to the town's center, Du Wei, masked, walked step by step.

At that moment, he was wearing a black priest's attire.

He really did seem like an exorcist.

Of course…

If one ignored the severed fuse he fiddled with in his hands, that impression would be even stronger.

Suddenly…

Before him came a creaking sound, like that of a mechanical component rusted over, grinding in friction.

Du Wei followed the sound and saw a dead tree ahead of him.

Around four meters tall, with branches that were dry and could only be seen as silhouettes in the darkness.

The longest branch grew horizontally, looking uncannily like a human arm.

A swing wrapped in chains hung from it.

Swaying back and forth with a creaking sound.

But there was no one…

Du Wei's gaze remained calm as he spoke softly, "Fear would make you more terrifying, but you know, I could never be afraid of you."

"So what do you want to do?"

"Swing on a swing now, and then what? A ghost appears? A lady ghoul?"

"I fail to see the point in your resistance."

As he spoke, he continued to walk forward, his steps steady and unhurried.

But as he passed the dead tree…

Tap…

Du Wei stopped in his tracks, turned his face, and looked at the swing.

At that moment, a little girl in a dress, very much in the Gothic style, was sitting on the swing.

The edge of the dress was stained with many clumps of dried, brown blood.

Furthermore, the girl held a pair of scissors in her hand.

This was very strange…

Because Du Wei was looking sideways at it, and logically, he should have seen the girl's profile, but in fact, it was her back.

"Interesting…"

Du Wei said softly, once more changing direction, but the little girl continued to face away from him.

The brown hair in the darkness appeared extremely somber.

Yet faintly, Du Wei saw that the hair seemed to move.

Whoosh... A sound echoed.

Hair parted as the face of an old woman, wrinkled and dripping with blood, burst forth.

In an instant,

this face lunged at Du Wei.

But just as it was about to succeed, two daggers quietly emerged from the darkness.

They cleaved it into pieces.

The shadow stood before Du Wei, with bloodshot eyes visible within its slightly transparent figure, menacing and dreadful.

It was very loyal.

Du Wei, however, shook his head and walked away.

"You have disappointed me,"

"Pennywise, from the beginning until now, I have seen no improvement in you."

"You transformed from an Evil Spirit to a Demon Spirit; have you not gained some intelligence?"

"It's ridiculous, as an Evil Spirit you had no power to resist me, you could only helplessly flee, but you still ended up unable to escape me."

"After becoming a Demon Spirit, it's the same."

Having said this,

Du Wei lifted his head and looked straight up.

A massive red balloon was floating above his head.

Red like blood.

Within it was the visage of the Pennywise Clown; its nails were longer than before, curled together like the claws of some beast.

And its hands were pressed against the inside of the balloon, looking down at Du Wei below from a high angle.

Its expression was also highly exaggerated.

A malevolent grin had split to the corners of its mouth.

They locked eyes.

Du Wei's gaze started to move downward, and he furrowed his brow upon seeing the balloon's tail, which extended into a long string reaching down into a dark corner below.

Then...

Familiar footsteps sounded, and from the dark corner emerged a man wearing a black overcoat, pale-faced, looking exactly like Du Wei.

This was an imposter.

And tied around the imposter's neck was that very string.

"What are you afraid of?"

The other spat out coldly, with a voice that did not sound human.

At that moment,

Du Wei realized, "So the doppelgänger you created wasn't me, but the Evil Spirit version of me..."

In his pocket,

the envelope trembled slightly.

[Creating a doppelgänger of the Master of the Evil Spirit, and tying a string around its neck?]

[Has Pennywise gone mad?]

[I can't bear to watch anymore, if I keep watching, I'll freak out!]

And with that, its presence completely faded away.

But Du Wei remained calm.

He watched as the imposter approached him, and in the mist, more eerie beings started to appear one after another.

The nun, Mary Shaw, countless ventriloquist dummy Evil Spirits.

Student Evil Spirits...

Masked Evil Spirits...

And so on, every Evil Spirit that had ever come into contact with Du Wei, as well as those that hadn't, were all created in that instant.

Moreover, the aura emanating from them was extremely terrifying.

They weren't merely imposters.

After Pennywise evolved into a Demon Spirit, its ability to create doppelgängers had also enhanced, something that the Veda Sect had always been trying to do, yet Pennywise accomplished it with ease.

It wasn't over yet.

"Hehehe..."

Malevolent laughter rang through the darkness, burrowing directly into one's ears.

A Pennywise Clown, garishly dressed and nearly two meters tall, appeared behind the Evil Spirit Du Wei doppelgänger.

Pennywise held a red balloon in one hand while its other clawed hand rested on the imposter's shoulder.

Then, those sharp, beast-like nails slowly moved from the shoulder toward the imposter's neck.

Crack...

In front of Du Wei, it snapped the neck and twisted the head right off.