chsdbacks Chapter 6 The Stone Mask
Chapter 6 The Stone Mask
"Father!" his son said worriedly, "This man's origins are unknown. What if he harbors ill intentions...?"
Li Lin said calmly, "If you're not comfortable with that, go and try it yourself."
A dim light condensed and shaped in his hand, eventually transforming into a rough and ancient stone mask.
The mask was engraved with eerie and twisted patterns, and its empty eye sockets seemed to suck away the soul of the person watching it.
Holding the pale and eerie mask in his hand, he said softly, "Wearing it will grant you a healthy body, or even an immortal one, but the price is that you will become ethereal."
"Whether you wear it or not is up to you."
He gently placed the mask on the table beside him, making a soft "click" sound that was particularly clear in the deathly silent room.
Then, under the wide-eyed gaze of everyone—
His figure faded away without warning.
Like a drop of ink falling into the sea, it quickly spreads and dissipates.
There were no spiritual pressure fluctuations, no spatial distortions, and not even afterimages.
Just like that, he vanished from everyone's sight.
A longer, deathly silence fell over the room.
If they hadn't noticed him when they arrived, that would have been one thing, but now, they'd been watching this man's figure closely the whole time, yet they still couldn't figure out how he disappeared!
Appearing and disappearing without a trace, this is simply the ultimate assassin!
The room fell silent, the candlelight still flickered, the smell of medicine still lingered, and Ryudoji Takehiko's breathing remained weak.
He looked at the stone mask on the table, which lay there quietly, as if waiting silently.
"Bring it here."
He reached out his hand
"Father, how can you so easily trust something of unknown origin? Why not find a servant to test it first..."
"I told you to bring it here."
Ryudoji Takehiko's tone became more forceful, his long-held authority mixed with the stubbornness of a dying man, instantly silencing the room.
As the symbol of the Ryudoji family's military power, no one dared to disobey him.
Beside the table, Ryudoji Takehiko's grandson, Ryudoji Genryu, looked at the mask and felt a surge of longing.
Unlike others, he could tell at a glance that the mask contained a strange power.
If... if I could wear it...
The thought instantly gripped his heart like a poisonous ivy.
But he immediately lowered his head, suppressing his surging desire, and respectfully stepped forward, taking the cold, heavy mask in both hands and handing it to his grandfather's trembling hands.
As soon as Ryudoji Takehiko touched the mask, he immediately felt the power contained within it.
His hands began to tremble with excitement, as if the illness that had plagued him for years was finally about to be cured at this moment!
He put the mask on his face!
puff!
The moment the mask touched his face, Ryudoji Takehiko let out a scream!
"Ugh!"
He felt as if needles suddenly sprouted from the mask, piercing his facial skin, and the mask stuck tightly to his face, as if it were about to merge into his face!
Not just his hands, but his whole body trembled at that moment!
"grandfather!"
"Father!"
"My lord!"
The room erupted into chaos, filled with a mixture of shock, anger, and panic.
Some rushed forward to hold him down, some tried to tear off his mask, and others angrily cursed at Ryudoji Genryu:
"See? I told you not to use this mask, but you just wouldn't listen!"
Ryudoji Genryu's face turned deathly pale, his heart pounding like a drum. If his grandfather were to die suddenly because of this, the Ryudoji family would lose its pillar of support and become the target of everyone's wrath in this chaotic world, collapsing in an instant!
Unable to squeeze into the crowded bed, he could only anxiously tiptoe and peer around.
Fortunately, the voice he hoped for could still be heard from inside.
"Who said we shouldn't use this mask?"
After putting on the mask, Ryudoji Takehiko felt a powerful force flow into his body. His almost necrotic body was revitalized, as if a withered tree had been brought back to life.
The mask pierced deep into the acupoints on his head, and like some living thing, it continued to integrate into his face, until finally...
The mask had completely merged with his face! Then it vanished completely!
His face, which had been ashen and deathly pale, now had an eerie rosy glow. His sunken eye sockets were filled again, and his cloudy eyes became radiant.
He slowly clenched his fist, his knuckles cracking as he felt a long-lost, even stronger, surge of power coursing through his limbs and bones!
Feeling the surge of energy within him, Ryudoji Takehiko immediately jumped out of bed. He exclaimed excitedly, "This is the long-lost feeling of power! This is the true feeling of being alive! Where is that gentleman? Quickly, find him; I want to thank him profusely!"
Ryudoji Takehiko knew that the mask was sent by that mysterious person, and given that he came and went without a trace, he knew that the person was no ordinary individual.
At this time of great chaos, they need to gather these talented individuals around them so that they can stand out and even seize the world.
"this……"
The members of the Ryudoji family looked at each other, unsure of how to find them.
After all, Li Lin was too mysterious; they had never heard of such a person before.
Finally, Ryudoji Genryu said, "Grandpa, you've only just recovered, don't worry. Leave this to us. We'll go find it right now."
But of course they couldn't find Li Lin, because Li Lin had already gone to the remote Rukongai.
The mask given to the Ryudoji clan was made by him; it wasn't difficult.
Sequence 6 of the High Dimensional Overlooker pathway can bring fantasy into reality, while Sequence 3, the String Player, can influence reality by manipulating strings.
This string is not a musical instrument string, but a string in string theory. String theory is a future theoretical physics theory that states that all matter in the world is composed of the most basic energy strings, and the different frequencies of string vibration lead to the different substances.
To put it simply, if you can control the strings, you can control everything in the world.
The masks given to the Ryudoji family were merely creations he made on a whim.
With the perspective of a higher-dimensional observer and a preliminary understanding of "strings," distorting reality and imbuing objects with specific "rules" is not difficult.
That's right, the mask he taught Ryudoji Takehiko was the Stone Mask. After all, it's a "world within a painting," so naturally, it had to materialize the manga in his mind.
The Stone Mask was essentially a modification of Ryudoji Takehiko's soul, but it was mainly infused with "hollow power," just like hollowification.
However, even though it was just a casual thing he did, the process of Hollowfication was stronger than Aizen and Kisuke Urahara's Hogyoku. What happened to Takehiko Ryudoji was almost a perfect Hollowfication in one step!