Chapter 341: Skinner
Ferrando took a frightened step back, cold sweat beeking from his forehead. It was the first time he had made eye contact with an anomaly from such a close distance.
"Don't be afraid, Doctor Ferrando."
Lin Ye steadied the doctor who had almost fallen. The moment he noticed the Skinner, he had activated the Divine Prayer Spiritual Purification Technique.
As it was his first time using it, Lin Ye took several seconds to complete the preparation.
The Skinner did not move. It seemed to be contemplating how to deal with them.
After successfully employing the Divine Prayer Spiritual Purification Technique, the incessant whispers that had been haunting Lin Ye's ears finally vanished. Gone too were all those distracting thoughts. Now, only one thought remained in Lin Ye's mind: to kill the Skinner before him. All other hindrances had been packaged up through prayer and offered to the deity.
This was the most focused form of prayer.
"What are you doing? Selecting your prey?"
Lin Ye instantly teleported in front of the Skinner and pierced its heart with the Cross Scepter.
The Skinner clearly hadn't expected its chosen prey to fight back. Normally, any prey it selected could only flee until it was caught and had its epidermis stripped away. This was the first time it had encountered prey that could retaliate.
The Skinner reached out, intending to strip Lin Ye's epidermis, but only managed to peel away a layer of spiritual energy shield.
"Don't move."
Lin Ye first used a Compressed Spiritual Energy Blade to pierce the joints the creature used to control its body, then pinned it to the ground with the Cross Scepter. Like the skinned people, the Skinner was also quite 'normal'.
However, killing the Skinner wouldn't be so easy.
Lin Ye retrieved a sacrificial knife from his loot space and began dissecting the Skinner's body.
"I've handled many corpses. While I don't make a habit of skinning them, my skill in that area is actually no worse than yours."
Lin Ye cut along the midline of the Skinner's body. For him, peeling off a complete human hide wasn't particularly difficult.
The key was the sequence and angle of the cuts;
the hard part was that the Skinner was still alive.
The Skinner tried to resist, but after being immobilized by the Cross Scepter, it had lost its ability to fight back.
When Lin Ye acted upon what he deemed to be right, the Cross Scepter would activate its relic properties.
"Good, keep struggling. I like the rhythm of your tremors;
it makes my cuts go smoother."
Lin Ye's movements grew faster and faster. Before long, he had completely skinned the Skinner.
Having lost its epidermis, the Skinner let out agonized wails from its position on the Cross Scepter. After struggling for a while, it died completely.
Simultaneously, all the skinned people in the ruins died as well. These beings, long overdue for death, finally ceased their painful howls, finding complete release.
Lin Ye stored the Skinner's human hide, casually pulled out the Cross Scepter, and turned to look at Karan.
"Lead the way."
Dealing with the Skinner was merely a preliminary objective. Lin Ye's true goal was to restore this city.
Freed from distracting thoughts, Lin Ye would tackle this problem in a more efficient manner.
"Okay."
Karan was visibly terrified by Lin Ye. The skinned people wandering and wailing in the ruins were all citizens whose skin had been stripped by the Skinner, including some powerful spiritual energy users. He never imagined someone could skin the Skinner itself.
"You actually killed the Skinner! How did you know you had to strip its epidermis to kill it?"
Ferrando had been studying various anomalies. To kill an anomaly, one had to fulfill certain conditions;
otherwise, it was almost impossible.
"I didn't know. I just thought it should also taste the experience of having its skin peeled off. That's only fair, isn't it?"