Sun Hang mischievously poked at the statue's nostrils with his finger, and immediately, that strange sensation appeared in his own nasal passage.

"Is it merely sensory synchronization, or..."

The blade of Ji2796's fingertip extended and lightly sliced the statue's face.

Sun Hang could feel the blade cutting into the skin, but the statue's face showed no marks.

Initially, Sun Hang felt nothing, but two seconds later, a mild burning sensation came from his cheek. He touched it with his fingers, only to find a smear of fresh blood.

"Is the attack being transferred to me?" Sun Hang muttered, "A rule-based supernatural entity?"

But if it was a supernatural entity, why was his devouring ability wholly ineffective against it?

Sun Hang considered this and then placed the head back into the hollow behind the statue—yet as soon as he did, a suffocating feeling surged, his vision turned fuzzy, and the entire world seemed to spin...

When he took the head out of the hollow again, these anomalies vanished instantly, as if they were just illusions.

"...Am I supposed to carry this head with me forever?"

Sun Hang's gaze suddenly shifted to the headless Buddha statue.

If he reattached the Buddha's head, what would happen?

Would it revert to the original appearance of the Buddha, or would he become the Buddha seated before the altar?

Sun Hang was not religious; to him, the gods and Buddhas worshipped by Easterners, the gods worshipped by Westerners, and the deities worshipped by oil tycoons were all human-made spiritual constructs.

Sun Hang glanced at the white mycelium spread throughout the grand hall...

In some sense, these fictional religions were even less reliable than those cults that believed in supernatural entities.

At least, the supernatural entities they "worshipped" did actually exist.

The mycelium gathered under Sun Hang's feet and lifted him to shoulder level with the statue. He inspected the junction beneath the Buddha's severed neck and found it perfectly matched—meaning this head with his face belonged to this statue.

Exhaling slowly, Sun Hang carefully straightened the twisted steel bars and reattached the head.

Looking at the statue sitting on the lotus pedestal with a face identical to his own, Sun Hang was filled with the urge to shatter the statue into bits.

Yet, before acting on this impulse, Sun Hang cautiously tested with the blade once more—this time, marks appeared on the statue's face while his own face remained unharmed.

Although the scratches on the statue's face "self-healed" within seconds, the curse similar to the Voodoo Doll was finally lifted!

So why should Sun Hang hold back?

Ji2796 immediately transformed into a giant hammer and smashed down on the statue!

Just as the massive hammer was about to strike the statue, the Buddha's eyes suddenly opened, raising a hand to abruptly halt the hammer.

"Alive?" Sun Hang examined the statue closely—it had opened its eyes, but its eyeballs were merely two cement spheres, lacking pupils or any semblance of spiritual presence.

The giant hammer liquidized, flowed through the statue's fingers, and enveloped its raised arm, swiftly crushing it into innumerable cement fragments, scattering across the ground.

Ji2796 seized the opportunity, reshaping into a spear and piercing through the heart of the Buddha statue—assuming it had a heart, and its position was akin to a human's.

But before Ji2796 could transform again, the shattered arm of the statue reassembled, gripping the exposed portion of the spear and slowly pulling it out.

"Injuries no longer transfer to me, but it now possesses self-healing abilities?" Sun Hang pondered, "Why are these abilities always so troublesome..."

Encountering supernatural entities with special abilities was beneficial for Sun Hang, provided those abilities could be utilized—in attempts to "devour" the statue with mycelium prior to reattaching its head, he accomplished nothing.

Taotie's devouring power essentially consumed the Deceit Virus carried by supernatural entities (a colloquial term; the official name by the Xiazhou Federation is 'meme'), but the problem was the statue lacked any meme—it was merely a large piece of stone, a chunk of cement mixed with rebar!

Ji2796 quickly liquified to escape the statue's grasp, expanded rapidly, rupturing the statue from within, and transformed into several swiftly spinning thick chains, smashing the cement fragments into finer powder.

Yet even when reduced to powder, the statue repeatedly reconstructed itself, gradually climbing down from the lotus seat, approaching Sun Hang's position.

Moreover, its regeneration speed was increasing—initially, scattering its whole body required four or five seconds to reassemble fragments, but now, before fragments touched the ground, they returned to the damaged areas, swiftly restoring it.

"Bang!!"

The statue slammed down with a palm as Sun Hang swiftly retreated, shattering the paved bluestone slabs, their fragments violently striking Sun Hang's face...

"Wait a minute? Am I seeing things?" As the thought occurred, time in Sun Hang's vision seemed to freeze; he could clearly observe the path of fragments flying through the air, and noticed additional small scratches on the statue's face.

The areas where the scratches appeared weren't struck by the fragments—they seemed to emerge out of thin air... The crucial point was, these scratches did not self-repair.

Time resumed its normal flow as Sun Hang rolled to his feet, immediately focusing on the statue's face.

The small scratches were still there!

A bold idea suddenly popped into Sun Hang's head.

He withdrew the military dagger issued to Hunters from his waist and, without hesitation, stabbed it into his own abdomen!

No pain, no bleeding; Sun Hang couldn't even perceive the dagger inside him—although it was buried up to the hilt.

Instead, not far away, the statue staggered, its movements clearly disrupted... with a deep cut emerging on its abdomen.

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