Ogun had no time to hesitate. His spirit grew weaker by the second. A violent typhoon had now hit Japanese waters. Residents of Izu Oshima fled to underground shelters, massive trees were toppled by the wind, and torrential rain blanketed the entire island. Facing nature's fury head-on, Ogun had no choice but to make the most helpless decision.
Five minutes later, he slowly awakened within old man Yashida's body. This body was truly terrible!
Years ago, he'd been ambushed by that unfilial son. The death energy within the old man was extremely dense, causing paralysis below the waist. Every organ was in a state of failure. Once separated from his life-support equipment, he'd be dead in less than thirty seconds!
Ogun felt his head throb. This body had zero aptitude for mana cultivation. With its lower half paralyzed, trying to rebuild his mana would be incredibly difficult.
The body was the foundation of everything. Without a physical vessel, a spirit formed from psychic energy was like water without a source.
He didn't know Orochimaru, but he now faced a situation similar to that character's—a head full of knowledge but no mana. How was he supposed to survive? He couldn't stay trapped in this body forever, could he? In another two years, this body would be dead.
Ogun forced himself to calm down. He quickly thought of a way to heal this body: Wolverine!
Wolverine had once been his student and also knew old man Yashida. Now, using the old man's skin, he could lure that man to Japan.
Whether to heal this body afterward or directly possess Wolverine—he hadn't decided yet. He needed to plan more carefully.
An hour later, Yashida family's rescue team braved the massive typhoon and found the old man at the island's center. They carried him onto a helicopter. A day later, despite Shingen Yashida's opposition, the old man used his authority as family head to issue a task through all the family's channels: Find Wolverine!
Sadako Yamamura's abilities were powerful: healing arts, psychokinesis, hypnosis, precognition, and creating cursed objects.
Among these, psychokinesis and creating cursed objects had vanished with Little Sadako's departure. Now only healing arts, hypnosis, and precognition remained.
The latter two were ordinary. Hypnosis was something most psychic ability users could do, and even some modern hypnotists could achieve it. Precognition could foresee major events—like volcanic eruptions or earthquakes—but couldn't predict things involving herself, making it somewhat useless.
Sadako's healing arts, however, were truly formidable.
In Ring: The Final Chapter, young Sadako demonstrated incredibly dominant healing abilities. Setting aside ordinary healing, when a mob beat her to death, she merely lay in a car for a while before reviving.
At first glance, it seemed similar to Wolverine or Deadpool's healing factor, but there were differences.
Healing factor was passive and uncontrollable, while Sadako's healing ability was active and controllable.
As long as she didn't want to die, it was very difficult to kill her. Her father had ultimately used the smallpox virus to suppress her self-healing ability before finally killing Sadako completely.
Her ability was powerful, but this healing came at a cost. Bella noticed that after each healing session, the aura representing Sadako's life force would dim slightly. In other words, she was using her own health to heal others.
Sadako Yamamura should be a mutant—a very powerful one.
Not quite Omega-level, but comfortably Alpha-level.
If she were to re-fuse with Little Sadako, she might reach Omega-level.
Her healing ability closely resembled the Omega-level mutant Elixir—life and death in balance. Once that balance broke, unpredictable consequences would occur.
Bella calculated that if Sadako healed once every ten days, the lost life force would slowly recover. In other words, she could heal at most three times per month. Exceeding this limit would weaken her body and cause pain. When suffering external erosion in this state, she'd be particularly prone to developing new negative personalities.
"No matter what goals you have or where you want to go in the future, never tell outsiders about your healing ability. Understand?" Bella said earnestly.
"Why?" Sadako didn't quite understand.
Perhaps due to her childhood environment, she had that particular personality trait of desperately needing others' recognition.
"There are too many bad people in this world. If your ability is exposed, those people will go crazy. I can't protect you."
Seeing Sadako's lingering fear, she added a few more sentences. "Of course, you can still help friends. See, I'm your friend, right? So my friends are naturally your friends too. None of them will betray you..."
Bella's core message was simple: just heal me and my close friends. Everyone else can drop dead for all you care!
Their conversation soon ended as they encountered the same super typhoon that Ogun had faced.
The typhoon was incredibly fierce. Bella looked up at the sky. The aura within the storm felt somewhat wrong—similar to when Storm cast spells, and also somewhat like Ying Long. Unfortunately, she'd left Ying Long at the villa to watch an anime and hadn't brought her along...
Their current position was too far from the storm's center. Bella couldn't determine whether this was a natural typhoon or one catalyzed by some supernatural force.
"When I was little, there were often typhoons here. We got used to it. The old folks said the wind came from the Dragon's Triangle," Sadako said with considerable experience as a local.
Frequent typhoons? Dragon's Triangle? Bella examined more carefully. The wind and rain intensified, severely interfering with her perception. She stopped looking. If this weather was common, there really was no need to make a fuss.
The two waited by the shore for a long time before a ferry heading to Tokyo finally arrived.
On board were three crew members and five passengers—ten people total including them.
"Huh? Dr. Graham? You're in Japan too?" After boarding, Bella discovered she'd actually run into a Stanford acquaintance. She had no idea when the other party had arrived at Izu Oshima.
Vivienne Graham froze. This middle-aged doctor wasn't particularly close with Bella—they'd only chatted a few times while working at Stanford.
Bella had previously been responsible for many projects under this doctor's supervision. She'd heard Dr. Graham was an assistant to Dr. Serizawa.
She was curious about the other party's purpose and deliberately studied her for a few moments. Behind the female doctor were two young men clutching briefcases. No weapons.
"Doctor, what brings you here?" Bella asked.
Vivienne Graham was somewhat thin. She'd never married. People had spread rumors about her and Dr. Serizawa, but neither party had ever refuted them.