Chapter 705: Wait and Hope
“Fuck, why are these guys so hard to deal with?!”
Chen Cheng wiped away the blood flowing into his eyes and said through gritted teeth.
These few “people” seemed immune to his attacks. It wasn’t that he couldn’t injure them, but rather, every time his blade cleaved them open, they could always recover their original state at a bizarre speed and in a bizarre manner. An arm chopped off one second would be completely restored the next.
And his attacks were not without a price. Every time he swung his blade, a new wound would be added to his body, silently bursting open beneath the bandages, gurgling with blood.
“…Whatever!”
Realizing his condition didn’t allow him to drag this out any longer, Chen Cheng gritted his teeth, hardened his heart, and finally decided not to prolong the fight.
With one hand, he dragged up the equally heavily injured Hugo, and sprinted toward the end of the corridor at top speed.
Not far ahead was the elevator door, which had reappeared at some unknown point.
Behind him, the lights flickered madly, illuminating several figures in hot pursuit.
Ten meters—five meters—three meters—
As Chen Cheng got closer and closer to the elevator, the pursuers behind him also got closer and closer.
The moment Chen Cheng’s finger pressed the elevator button, the cold, sharp blade was only a hair’s breadth away from the back of his neck.
As the fierce wind struck, Chen Cheng felt his hair stand on end, cold sweat involuntarily soaking his back, but it was too late—however, the expected pain didn’t arrive. He froze, subconsciously wanting to turn his head, but a man’s exhausted, hoarse voice rang in his ear:
“Go.”
At the same time, accompanied by a ding, the elevator arrived.
The elevator doors stuttered for a moment, then slowly opened to the sides.
The body on his shoulder was already not light, and at this moment, it felt as heavy as a bag of cement, persistently pressing Chen Cheng downward, like a drowning person dragging another drowning person down with them.
Two veins popped out on Chen Cheng’s forehead. He gritted his teeth, but still dragged and hauled, forcefully yanking the other man into the elevator.
After finally getting into the elevator, his hand subsequently loosened. With a thud, Hugo’s body smashed heavily onto the floor, letting out a muffled grunt.
Chen Cheng couldn’t care about anything else. He staggered to his feet and rushed straight to the elevator doors.
“Give it to me—” He smashed the buttons wildly, leaving mottled bloody handprints on the control panel. “Quick—close!”
Through the gradually closing elevator doors, he saw that just a step away from him, a massive net woven from grayish-white smoke lay across the path.
Due to its master’s severe injuries, it was no longer stable, gathering and dispersing intermittently.
Yet it remained solid, silent, and unbreakable.
The pursuers were forcefully blocked behind it, unable to cross the barrier despite their best efforts. Cold, murderous gazes pierced straight through the gaps in the smoke wall.
Clunk—
The elevator doors slowly closed together, blocking everything in the corridor outside, and also severing those gazes that seemed to want to skin them alive, pull out their tendons, crack their bones, and suck out their marrow.
The elevator began to operate sluggishly.
The narrow, enclosed space was filled with a thick smell of blood.
Chen Cheng took a few steps back, panting heavily, staring at the tightly closed elevator doors with lingering fear.
“Honestly, since entering Nightmare, I really have seen quite a few weird things,” he paused, emphasizing his tone, “You could say, quite a lot.”
“But things like just now, that was my first time seeing them. They—” Chen Cheng paused, seemingly hesitating over what adjective to use, “They’re just too—”
“Too much like humans!” Chen Cheng looked deeply repulsed.
Inside the instances, the number of ghosts and monsters that could imitate humans was not small; in fact, there were many.
But to be exactly like humans in terms of movements, appearance, combat style, and even speech and behavior—almost to a hair-raising degree like just now—that was a first for Chen Cheng. They could use talents, had distinct personalities and combat styles, bantered with each other, communicated, coordinated, and occasionally even bickered over disagreements in combat strategies…
If it weren’t for the fact that what flowed from their wounds wasn’t blood but some pitch-black viscous substance, and that they healed themselves in a way completely unrelated to humans, they looked almost no different from living “people,” or rather, living “anchors.”
“…Ugh.”
Recalling everything he had just seen, Chen Cheng shrugged his shoulders forcefully, as if wanting to shake some dirty thing off his body. “So gross.”
“What the hell were those things—”
“…Mm.”
Chen Cheng froze, subconsciously looking toward the direction of the voice.
The tall man sat silently on the ground. He leaned against the wall, not having moved from his spot since earlier.
On his shoulder and side were deep wounds where bone was visible. The moment the blood touched the air, it turned into red mist, slowly drifting upward, spiraling up under the lights as if melting into the air bit by bit.
At this moment, he raised his head. Half of his blood-soaked face was exposed to the light, and his eyes stared fixedly over.
“Indeed, ‘weird things’.” His voice was still very calm, without any fluctuation.
Chen Cheng was stunned for a moment.
He opened his mouth as if wanting to say something, but after meeting those calm, almost completely emotionless gray eyes, he hesitated, and ultimately swallowed the rest of his words whole.
“…”
Hugo lowered his eyes, leaning his back against the wall, and struggled to fish out a half-flattened cigarette box from his pocket.
Blood-stained fingers pulled a crumpled cigarette from the box, brought it to his lips, and clamped it between his teeth.
With a soft snick, a flame flared up, and a wisp of grayish-white smoke spiraled upward.
He didn’t use his talent.
It seemed he just purely, simply wanted to smoke a cigarette.
His voice was very light, without fluctuation: “For a human to become a ghost is very simple.”
It only requires one death.
One contract.
Hugo lowered his eyes, his face blurred deep within the smoke, impossible to see clearly.
“But to become a human is nothing but a delusion.”
Those who lose their lives sleep eternally beneath the Yellow Springs; those who discard everything walk alone upon the River of Forgetfulness. The dead and the living run in opposite directions, and neither has a path of return.
The inside of the elevator was dead silent; only the monotonous sound of the hinges operating echoed.
Grayish-white smoke drifted up, easily scattering without taking shape, mixing into the curling red blood mist.
“…………”
Chen Cheng leaned against the wall, arms crossed, his expression hard to read.
Finally, after a long, suffocating silence, he spoke without warning:
“Even though the injuries on your body are your own doing, you definitely played a big part in the ones on mine.”
These words weren’t pleasant to hear, but they were a fact.
The vast majority of the injuries currently on Chen Cheng’s body were thanks to Hugo.
“To be precise, the reason I made a special trip to drag you into the elevator is just because I don’t like owing favors,” his tone was as flippant and unserious as always. “Once the elevator moves away, I’ll just find a random floor to dump you on. Anyway, as long as ‘going in when the ship sails can save your life,’ that’s enough.”
The last sentence still carried a bit of unwarranted sarcasm.
“…”
Hugo paused and couldn’t help but look up at Chen Cheng.
Chen Cheng, however, didn’t look at him. He remained leaning against the wall in the same posture with his arms crossed, and changed the subject without any preamble, “Can you still fight?”
Hugo bit his cigarette, squinting at him: “I can.”
“Then that’s great,” Chen Cheng stood up straight.
The small patch of wall he had just been leaning against had inexplicably been soaked with blood, looking shocking.
“I’m almost at my limit anyway.”
In places no one could see, beneath his clothes, there were countless knife cuts, deep and shallow, large and small, crisscrossing haphazardly. They extended from beneath the blood-soaked bandages to uncovered areas. They couldn’t heal; they could only continuously gurgle out blood, and they wouldn’t stop until the very last drop of blood in Chen Cheng’s body was drained—unless the instance ended right now, otherwise, even if the Heavenly Emperor himself came, it would be useless.
The existence of his talent itself was a double-edged sword.
If it were anyone else, with injuries this severe, they would likely have lost consciousness and needed to be rushed to the emergency room for resuscitation.
However, because Chen Cheng had long grown accustomed to its side effects, even with unhealed severe wounds and excessive blood loss, he was still able to stubbornly hold on until now relying on massive amounts of painkillers and his sheer willpower and physique, at least looking no different from an ordinary person on the surface.
Chen Cheng lowered his eyes, weighing the heavy Tang Dao in his hand:
“I can probably swing the blade for the last time…”
“Three more times.”
After that would be the absolute limit.
At that time, the price would become unbearable.
“So, even though I really don’t want to move together with a guy like you, but…” Chen Cheng closed his eyes, his expression looking one hundred percent reluctant. Finally, he spoke with great difficulty, biting out the words one by one, his voice sounding as if it was squeezed through his teeth,
“It’s not entirely impossible to bring you along.”
In the dead-silent elevator car, grayish-white smoke curled upward.
Hugo stared at Chen Cheng:
“For example?”
Chen Cheng narrowed his eyes, carefully scrutinizing Hugo sitting not far away. Suddenly, he changed the subject: “Everywhere here smells like dead people.”
He raised an eyebrow flippantly, his expression perverse:
“Don’t you think it’s time to do everyone a favor and purify the air a bit?”
Hugo: “You want to kill Dan Zhu.”
A question in structure.
An affirmation in tone.
“Of course!”
Chen Cheng pulled the corners of his mouth wide, revealing a bloody smile.
He rested the pitch-black Tang Dao on his shoulder, drops of blood falling from the tip of the blade one by one, hitting the floor.
“Let me tell you some good news.”
“I know how to kill her.”
A strong, putrid floral scent floated in the air.
The massive auction hall had, at some unknown point, become completely unrecognizable.
Under the dim lighting, small red flowers, looking as if they had gorged themselves on blood, were deeply rooted in the walls, floors, and ceiling, growing madly as if there was no end.
Crack—crack crack—
On the tall Roman pillars and the ornate walls covered with paintings, fissures expanded, spreading like spiderwebs, emitting the sound of shattering under immense pressure.
The auction stage had already cracked, caving in on one side. Deep within those cracks were pervasive blood-colored vines and roots, carrying a primal destructive force, destroying and disintegrating everything from the inside out.
“My goodness,”
The woman in the red dress leaned boredly against the identically colored vines growing out of the auction stage. Blood-red flowers grew from her empty eye sockets, her entire person looking as if she had merged into one with the vines below.
“Aren’t you guys tired of playing this game of hide-and-seek yet?”
“Avoiding a lady like this isn’t very polite, you know.”
Accompanied by her half-smiling voice, flower branches as thick as arms destroyed everything around them with redoubled brutality. The solid walls were like soaked paper before them, easily torn apart and lifted, as she patiently rummaged inch by inch.
“Also, I’m very curious…”
“How did you guys convince Orange Candy to go along with you? As far as I know, she absolutely detests this kind of cowardly behavior…”
She wasn’t surprised that the Tarot Reader liked to play these tricks, but it was fresh to see Orange Candy following along.
“Is she severely injured? Or overdrawn her talent?”
“Or both?”
Dan Zhu didn’t mind that no one answered. She just kept talking to herself, her face full of smiles. That beautiful, bizarre head slowly turned, her gaze slowly sweeping across the damaged walls, searching for traces of her prey in the maze-like passages below.
“…”
Suddenly, her gaze violently locked onto a certain direction. Flowers bloomed in her hollow eye sockets, and a chilling, weird smile brushed past her lips.
“Found you.”
Almost the instant her voice fell, a massive vine twisted and spun, smashing into a corner of the wall without warning. Like a giant python, it bit down hard on its prey, dragged him out from deep within the wall, and then smashed him heavily into the floor.
Instantly, the floor cracked like a spiderweb.
“Urgh—!!”
No. 8 forcefully took the blow.
He raised his head, suffocating, his face deathly pale, his expression twisted. He raised his hands, frantically tearing at the thick vines constricting his neck.
“It’s you,” the woman giggled not far away, “Little traitor.”
“You’re the one who led them running around inside the walls, making it so troublesome for me to find them, right?”
Dan Zhu’s voice was soft, playfully angry,
“Really, wasting so much of my time. Let me think, how should I punish you…”
Accompanied by her careless voice, several red flower branches as thin as hair separated from the thick main body, swimming through the air like little snakes, reflecting deep in his pupils dilated with terror.
However, a second before they could drill into No. 8’s eye sockets, a cold light swept through the air. Accompanied by a sharp sound of breaking wind, the vines violently choking No. 8’s body were neatly severed. The thick branches hit the ground, still twisting and squirming like living creatures.
Dan Zhu’s eyes shifted, looking not far away.
The little girl, carrying a massive machete a head taller than her own body, appeared among the thorns with a gloomy look in her eyes.
She didn’t dodge or evade, meeting Dan Zhu’s gaze from afar.
The corners of her mouth slowly pulled back, revealing a ferocious smile, “You looking for me?”
Looking at that slender, short, yet completely unyielding figure, Dan Zhu’s expression not only didn’t change, but she actually smiled even more cheerfully and vividly, as if she had expected this result all along. She slowly stood up, her blood-stained bare feet stepping onto the floor of the negative seventh level for the first time.
Her voice was as light as a sigh, as soft as a laugh.
“…Look, this is more like it.”
On the screen, the two faced off from afar across more than half of the auction hall. Surrounded by ruins that looked as if a hurricane had swept through, the oppressive, dead-silent air felt as if countless daggers were suspended, ready to launch, exuding a shuddering chill.
“Hahahahaha, finally dragged them out!! Awesome!”
“Great, finally getting interesting!”
Some viewers were extremely excited and jubilant, but others were heartbroken and sighing.
“Ahhhh no, don’t!”
“It’s over, it’s really over this time.”
As bystanders, all the viewers saw things very clearly.
There existed a cruel, bloody reality here that could not be ignored, much less changed.
In front of Dan Zhu, who was already close to seizing complete control of the cruise ship, no one possessed the power to fight.
In the back.
Wen Ya and Su Cheng moved together at top speed, dragging the fallen No. 8 out of the danger zone to avoid being caught in the crossfire of the battle between the two.
“Are you okay?” Wen Ya scanned him up and down, speaking rapidly.
“N… no,” No. 8 stood up shakily leaning on her strength, “I’m fine.”
Wen Ya turned her head, her gaze locking onto the riddled walls, her brows furrowing tightly:
“I think the ‘staff passage’ is a dead end now.”
Since entering the negative seventh floor, Dan Zhu had begun indiscriminately destroying everything here. By now, the walls were too severely damaged. Even if they could think of a way to escape this encirclement and pursuit, going back inside would be meaningless—she was able to drag them out the first time, and naturally she could drag them out a second time.
Wen Ya raised her eyes.
Not far away, the battle between Orange Candy and Dan Zhu had begun.
The slender little girl moved forward nimbly and lightly. With just a light tap of her toes on the ground, her body violently lunged forward, leaping up like a leopard. The massive machete covered in blood-red rust dragged behind her, letting out an ear-piercing shriek. She was as light as a feather, yet as swift as a ferocious beast.
Yet opposite her… was an intimidating, terrifying existence.
Accompanied by the thick, suffocating, putrid fragrance, blood-colored flowers bloomed maniacally upon the massive, monster-like, recklessly expanding vines, mirroring the smiling, charming smile of the woman below.
The contrast was immense.
In front of that gargantuan behemoth that occupied almost the entire auction hall, seemingly ready to grind up the walls, pillars, and everyone inside it together, Orange Candy’s figure was so tiny, looking as if she would be swallowed in the next second.
“…………”
Wen Ya’s eyes flickered slightly, and she forcefully bit her back molars. Then, she turned her head to look at Su Cheng, asking urgently:
“You said before we needed to wait—but wait for what, and for how long?”
Dan Zhu’s guess just now was not wrong.
…They were all at the end of their ropes.
Precisely because of this, they had chosen avoidance and roundabout tactics, trying to delay time and avoid a head-on confrontation.
“I don’t know.”
Su Cheng turned his head to look at her, his eyes very deep, like two pitch-black vortexes.
He was different from their flawless, terrifyingly intelligent President.
Although Wen Jianyan occasionally devised some extraordinary, unexpected plans that made people rack their brains unable to understand the reasoning—seeming to be just a flash of insight or a whim—all his decisions, all his schemes, all his plans always had an undeniable reason. One could trace the path of reasoning behind them. Even if there was an element of gambling, it was definitely built on a solid foundation of reality.
He could always see what others couldn’t see, guess what others couldn’t guess.
That seemingly elusive judgment was actually logic driven by pure rationality.
But Su Cheng was exactly the opposite.
What he excelled in was occultism.
And in occultism, all rationality held no meaning.
After all, all Prophets were entities driven by spirituality and intuition. So sometimes… when making a certain decision or choosing a certain path, they didn’t truly know what awaited them at the end, nor did they possess true control over the overall situation or the underlying threads.
They merely listened to the silent whispers coming from the unseen, and followed the momentary guidance they provided.
“I only know,” Su Cheng said calmly, “If we truly want to win, we cannot leave here.”
“………………”
Wen Ya stared at him intently, dead-on, unblinkingly, as if wanting to pierce through him with her gaze—finally, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and looked away. “Alright.”
“Then like you said—”
She turned her head to look at the center of the auction hall, where an invincible enemy, so powerful she inspired near despair, stood. And so, she stood up, her expression steady and calm, and stepped forward as always, looking as if she wasn’t rushing toward a destined, tragic doom.
“We wait.”
Fate gives an oracle.
He says—
[Wait, and hold on to hope].
__
Author’s Note:
The last sentence comes from Alexandre Dumas’s “The Count of Monte Cristo”.
