Exorcist's Self-Cultivation

This bus gave Merri a very bad feeling.

But Emily didn't think too much of it, as they had only one umbrella between them, given for free by the staff at the bar, and now both of them were soaked by the rain. If they didn't get home soon to take a hot bath, they would definitely get sick.

Besides, catching the last bus of the day was already an unexpected bonus.

Thus, she immediately pulled Merri up to the bus door.

She peered inside.

Inside the bus, many people were seated with only five vacant seats.

The first thing that caught her eye was the driver's seat. Due to the partition window and the angle, she could only see the side of the driver, who seemed to be quite elderly, an experienced old driver.

Looking further into the bus, there were eight people holding umbrellas, covering their upper bodies. Judging by the clothing on their lower bodies, there were both men and women.

At the back door, it appeared that a tall woman was sitting, draped in a scarf and hood similar to those worn by clergy, but her face was obscured by the passengers in front, so her features were unclear.

The last row was very strange.

Two people were sitting by the windows, one on the left and one on the right, each holding an umbrella, their faces unseen, and the middle seat was left empty, unoccupied.

Hmm... to be more precise, all the passengers on the bus were strange. It was clear they had already boarded the bus, so why were they still holding their umbrellas? Could this be some kind of peculiar habit?

Emily was puzzled, but she didn't want to miss the last bus. Otherwise, as Merri had said, taking a cab home would be really unsafe...

Esselgreen was a third-tier city at the end of the line, and security there wasn't very reliable in certain respects.

And behind her, after seeing the scene inside the bus, the discomfort in the pit of Merri's stomach intensified significantly.

She, who should have been most looking forward to the last bus, suddenly felt an urge not to board it at all.

However, before she had the chance to speak up, Emily had already walked up and started chatting with the driver about buying tickets.

Seeing this, Merri could only sigh helplessly and follow her on board.

Like most close sisters, Emily was the one who made decisions. In most cases, Merri only offered suggestions.

...

At that moment, Du Wei, seated in the back row, frowned when he heard the new passengers attempting to make conversation with the driver.

He carefully raised his umbrella high and took a deep look at the two young sisters.

"Did two... 'people' just get on this time?"

Just a few minutes ago, when the bus had stopped at the station, to his surprise, eight young people looking like students, all holding umbrellas, got on board all at once.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

Or rather... Evil Spirits.

These Evil Spirits, like the girl seated to the far right of Du Wei, all shared one thing in common.

After boarding and taking their seats, they held their umbrellas over their upper bodies, emanating an unnaturally cold and gloomy aura.

Suddenly, only five seats on the entire bus were left unoccupied, and one of those was reserved for the invisible Evil Spirit.

The seat in the middle to his right, the two single seats by the front door, and the two seats in front of him.

The bus had a total of sixteen passenger seats, and excluding the Evil Spirit that couldn't even be seen in Spirit Vision, only four were left.

And now, two girls had boarded, taking up two more seats, which was not a good sign.

Because that meant that if just two more Evil Spirits boarded, the bus would be full.

If more Evil Spirits got on, they would kill those who shouldn't be on this bus.

That is, the two girls...

...

Du Wei's gaze turned complex when he realized the two girls were inevitably going to die on this bus, and suddenly something felt wrong.

"Even though I never intended to play the hero, why is it that I feel absolutely nothing?"

Du Wei's gaze froze, something was off...

In a situation where his own safety couldn't be guaranteed, it was unlikely he would develop compassion for others, especially strangers.

Because there were simply too many "passengers" on the bus, and even an invisible one.

Under the state of Spirit Vision, he could see even more.

Oppression, terror, suffocation—such oddities beyond the understanding of ordinary people filled both buses.

Ordinary people without Spirit Vision couldn't directly face and feel this terror akin to sinking into the depths of the sea, but Du Wei, who was constantly in the state of Spirit Vision, was immersed in it.

In other words, everything he was silently enduring at this moment was incomprehensible to ordinary people.

Du Wei suddenly realized that he was losing his humanity...

It seemed that it wasn't obvious when he first entered the state of Spirit Vision, or at least the impact was minimal, but after entering the Third Phase of Spirit Vision, when his Right Hand underwent the Evil Spirit Transformation, the loss of humanity had already started to become severe.

He put up his umbrella again to cover his upper body and, leaning against the window, slowly closed his eyes.

"So, this is why hunters are feared by the church," he murmured.

"The loss of humanity, then at the final phase, when one is fully transformed by the Evil Spirit, will one."

All along, Du Wei had been calm, rational, devoid of excess emotion.

Indeed, he was in control, but the loss of humanity was reflected in his outward behavior.

For instance, at this very moment, Du Wei looked indifferently at the beautiful sisters, Emily and Merri, as they failed to strike up a conversation with the driver and turned to walk towards his seat.

He had no intention of warning them, thinking it would only complicate things further...

Yet even for him, at the beginning, he would have felt some emotion encountering such a situation, unlike now, where he had become increasingly indifferent, much like an Evil Spirit.

Inside his heart, Du Wei silently made a decision.

"After this is over, I must find an anchor for myself."

In a sense, if one disregards the physiological and psychological discomfort, being non-human isn't entirely unacceptable.

But being non-human doesn't mean being non-me...

...

Emily and Merri walked towards the back of the bus; being natural sisters, they naturally wouldn't separate.

Thus, the seats they wanted were the second to last row, the two window seats in front of Du Wei.

But the further back they went, the uglier their expressions became, especially when they reached the rear door and saw the nun, which gave them both a fright.

Dressed in the attire of a clergy member, with a sallow complexion as if coated with a layer of cement, the nun's facial features were out of proportion compared to those of a normal person.

Its eyes were much larger than those of ordinary people, and completely devoid of whites, pitch-black throughout.

The lips were jet-black, as if they had been scorched by fire, visibly turned outwards, from which thick blood dripped incessantly—how could it be associated with anything normal?

"What... what kind of ghost is this?"

By now, even Emily, who was generally less sensitive, realized something was amiss. She grabbed Merri's hand, her face turned pale, and her breath quickened.

Merri was even more distressed; she was naturally fearful, and upon seeing the nun, her whole body started to tremble, speaking in a terrified voice, "Emily, we might have gotten on the wrong bus..."

No sooner had she finished speaking than all the passengers on the bus, as if triggered, turned their heads and fixed their gazes on Emily and Merri.

The twin sisters were of an age where their worldview was not yet fixed; upon encountering this situation, they immediately associated it with some horrific entities.

The sisters received a shock and cried out in unison.

This also made the atmosphere inside the bus even tenser.

The bus's interior lights began to flicker crazily, and Du Wei, sitting in the back, could vividly feel a multitude of malicious gazes converging on the twin sisters.

It seemed that their actions had disturbed these passengers...