Hell's Handbook

Chapter 249: Bo Ya

The skinny old man grew several times larger in an instant like he was an inflatable, turning into a muscular man in no time. But he didn’t feel any safer after that, because the two people who had just appeared felt even more dangerous than some of the creatures he had run into during Challenges.

“Situ, are you alright?” Su Jin immediately stuffed a leaf from the Tree of Life into Situ Jin’s mouth. He scanned Situ Jin’s body with his psychokinesis and discovered that his lung was badly injured. If he hadn’t strengthened his body as an owner, he would have died by now.

“Don’t bother about me! Save Bo Ya! Save Bo Ya!!” Situ Jin grabbed hold of Su Jin’s arms and yelled hysterically as his eyes bulged. He was gripping Su Jin so hard that some of his nails broke.

Su Jin shook his head with a sigh. He had scanned Bo Ya earlier as well, but unlike Situ Jin, her heart was damaged beyond repair and she had already passed on.

Situ Jin was at a loss for a moment before he let go of Su Jin and ran toward Xu Ran. He pleaded, “Xu Ran, I’m begging you… you’re very powerful, so I’m sure you have a way to save Bo Ya, right?”

But Xu Ran shook his head with a sigh as well. “I’m good at fighting but not good at healing. Besides, Miss Bo Ya… is already dead.”

Su Jin and Xu Ran both confirmed that there was nothing more they could do for Bo Ya. Situ Jin clutched his head in agony and blamed himself. If he hadn’t gotten his team to capture this guy before getting sufficient information about him, Bo Ya wouldn’t have died.

After becoming an owner, Situ Jin had realized that he wasn’t as calm as before. His newfound strength had made him believe that he was now able to deal with any trouble that came his way.

Su Jin and Xu Ran exchanged glances. They had tried to get here as quickly as possible already. In order to save time, Xu Ran had taught Su Jin how to use his psychokinesis to fly. So, once they arrived at W City, they flew into the sky and used their psychokinesis to search for Situ Jin, but they were still a little too late.

Situ Jin walked back to Bo Ya’s body and hugged her with a dazed look in his eyes. Su Jin and Xu Ran turned their attention to the old man, who looked like he was going crazy. He wasn’t some low level owner, otherwise he wouldn’t have had such an easy time torturing Situ Jin. He knew how powerful owners with psychokinesis could be.

Any owner who could use their psychokinesis to fly was enough to kill him, and now, two of such owners had appeared. He couldn’t believe it at all. Owners with this Spirit Power were very rare in the first place, yet two of them had appeared at the same time in his own world, and they were now about to attack him.

“Gentlemen, are you a friend to this man?” The old man’s gaze was shaky, but he didn’t dare to let his guard down at all, afraid that these two formidable owners might suddenly launch an attack.

“No, he’s my brother.” Xu Ran had a nasty look on his face. He was a close friend of Situ Jin’s and was on good terms with Bo Ya as well. Now that Situ Jin was injured and Bo Ya had lost her life because of this old man, there was no way Xu Ran was going to maintain a friendly look on his face.

“Yep. He’s my brother too,” said Su Jin with a frosty voice. Situ Jin was a member of Team Boning Knife and they had gone through all sorts of dangers together. It wasn’t an exaggeration to call him a brother.

The old man had a pained look on his face. “Looks like there’s no way I can make peace with the both of you, but… I hope you can give me a fair chance. Why don’t you let me fight just one of you? If I win, then you let me go. If I lose, then… I’m basically dead.”

Xu Ran nodded immediately and said to Su Jin, “I’ll leave him to you. It’ll give you a little more fighting experience.” He turned and walked back to where Situ Jin and Bo Ya were.

“Sure.” Su Jin didn’t turn the offer down and marched toward the old man.

“He’s approaching me just like that? Did this young man just attain this Spirit Power?” The old man was rather surprised. While psychokinesis owners were formidable, they were veterans who worked best from a distance and were usually still wary of fighting owners with strong physical bodies like himself at such close range. A physically strong owner was able to move very quickly and kill a psychokinesis owner faster than they could use their psychokinesis.

The old man’s heart leaped for joy. He thought he was definitely going to die and didn’t expect there would be a way out of this sticky situation. As long as he could kill this psychokinesis noob, he would get the chance to survive this.

He kept his gaze on Su Jin as Su Jin came toward him. Once Su Jin set foot within his reach, the old man suddenly leaped up. A layer of air around his body seemed to propel him as he came very close to Su Jin and brought his two fists down hard on Su Jin like they were a pair of hammers. He used all the strength he had, believing that as long as he struck Su Jin, Su Jin was definitely going to die.

But Su Jin merely looked up at the two fists coming down on him. He didn’t put up any defense and just allowed them to hit his head.

“What?!” The old man’s eyes bulged, and his huge muscles suddenly tensed up. But they weren’t tensing up because he was making them tense. A force from nowhere had entered his body and had control over all his muscles.

“He’s taken a Mid-level Body Strengthening Elixir and knows some technique to make his body a little stronger, so he’s just a little less powerful than someone who’s consumed the High-level elixir. But that’s a rare sight already.” Su Jin analyzed the old man as he felt the force come down on his head. If he hadn’t gotten back his reinforced heart, he would have put up some sort of defense. But now, this attack was ridiculously weak to him.

“How… how are you perfectly fine?!” The old man couldn’t believe his eyes. He had felt the force of his two fists hit Su Jin squarely in the head, yet this young man didn’t even flinch.

“That’s because I’m stronger than you are,” said Su Jin indifferently as he waved his arm casually and turned back to walk toward Situ Jin.

At the same time, the old man’s muscles started shaking. They were now like rope on a winch that was being pulled tighter and tighter. His muscles were pulled to a point where they twisted and slowly lost their strength.

“Ahh… AHHHHH!” The old man began wailing in pain.

Bam! Bam! Suddenly, the sound of something snapping echoed loudly. The old man’s muscles snapped at the same time and he collapsed onto the ground. He was like a marionette, except that this marionette’s strings had all been snipped off, so he looked more like a broken rag doll.

Even so, the old man was still alive. He couldn’t stop shrieking and wailing from the pain as he looked pleadingly at Su Jin. He wasn’t pleading with Su Jin to let him live, but to kill him quickly.

Su Jin frowned and waited until he was no longer angry before flicking his finger at the old man. The light in the old man’s eyes slowly went out and he finally breathed his last.

Situ Jin was silent as he just held onto Bo Ya, but Su Jin and Xu Ran could sense the deep, excruciating pain Situ Jin must be feeling.

“Is there really nothing we can do?” asked Su Jin.

Xu Ran shook his head. “Owners aren’t miracle workers, and we’ve always been especially helpless when it comes to death. If she were still breathing, I could do something about it. But the problem is… there are no more signs of life in her.”

“That’s not entirely true. For people like us who can split our souls from our bodies, life is not determined by whether our hearts are still beating or not,” said Su Jin quietly as he looked at Xu Ran.

Xu Ran understood what Su Jin was saying and nodded. “You’re right. If you look at it from that angle, Bo Ya isn’t completely dead. But even if her spirit were still alive, it’s useless. Her physical body is dead.”

“What a pity. If we had a Handbook right now, she could still be saved.” Kano Mai had finally arrived and made this remark after looking at what happened to Bo Ya.

Situ Jin’s eyes lit up at these words. He looked at Xu Ran and said, “Xu Ran, you were the one who gave me the Handbook back then. Could you get another one?”

“I’m sorry, but I happened to discover that Handbook and when I passed it to you, I wasn’t even sure myself if it was going to work, never mind find you another one.” Xu Ran shook his head apologetically.

The hopeful look in Situ Jin’s eyes dimmed again, but he didn’t give up thinking along these lines. He paused to think for a moment, then said, “If… if I kill myself right now, could I give my Handbook to Bo Ya?”

The other three were shocked by these words. They didn’t expect Situ Jin to be willing to do something like that for Bo Ya’s sake.

But Xu Ran shook his head again. “In theory, after an owner dies, their Handbook will disappear immediately. I have no idea why that Handbook I gave you did not disappear. So, even if you commit suicide, your Handbook will probably end up disappearing along with yourself.”

Su Jin frowned and said, “If only we had gotten our hands on that Handbook in the Alien Invasion Challenge. But that Challenge nearly got all of us killed and we really didn’t have the energy to think about looking for something like that.”

But Su Jin’s comment made Kano Mai’s eyes light up. She said to him, “Jin, that’s hard to say. Wu Chen was running around the Fearless as a worm for quite a long time, so… chances are slim, but given how Wu Chen loves collecting stuff, he might very well have found that Handbook and kept it for himself.”

Su Jin tapped his nose with a finger. Kano Mai had a point. Situ Jin immediately said, “Call Wu Chen now. Call him now!”

“Okay, okay, I’ll call him now.” Su Jin used his Handbook to contact Wu Chen and he responded fairly quickly.

“Why are you calling me so randomly? Are we going to Hell’s Bar for a party?” asked Wu Chen with a laugh.

“Wu Chen, I need to ask you something. Did you get your hands on the Handbook that appeared in the Alien Invasion Challenge?” asked Su Jin.

Wu Chen blinked in surprise and said, “I did. But that’s for my personal collection. What about it?”

“We need it to save someone’s life!” said Su Jin immediately after he confirmed that Wu Chen had really gotten his hands on that Handbook. Situ Jin looked up with a start and his eyes were filled with excitement and joy.

“Save someone’s life? Whose?” asked Wu Chen puzzledly.

“We need to save Situ’s woman!” said Su Jin.

Situ Jin dashed over and said to Wu Chen, “Wu Chen, give me that Handbook. You can ask for anything in return. Even if I can’t give it to you now, I’ll make sure I make it up to you somehow.”

Wu Chen got a shock when Situ Jin’s face suddenly appeared in front of him. He had no idea what in the world was going on, but after seeing Situ Jin’s expression, he said, “No problem. It was just a collectible to me anyway. Jin, let’s meet in Hell’s Bar then.”

Su Jin nodded and activated his team’s access to Hell’s Bar. He nodded at Situ Jin and left to meet Wu Chen.