Chapter 708: Mother!
“Ding-ling!” “Ding-ling!”
The ringing of the bells was incessant, like a death warrant, as one bluish-white foot after another stepped onto the floor.
On their bodies, blood-red eyeballs of various sizes rolled wildly within the cracks, looking all the more terrifying under the cold, bright lights.
Wen Jianyan’s gaze quickly swept over their faces. Among the endless sea of ghastly pale corpses, he even spotted a few familiar faces—anchors who had once entered the Fukang Comprehensive Hospital instance with him. He had briefly met them on that bus.
Wu Zhu’s fingers, hanging by his side, twitched. Before he could do anything, Wen Jianyan grabbed his arm with a backhand grip. “Wait.”
“There are too many of them. Don’t fight them head-on.”
The ones appearing here weren’t just the corpses from the morgue. That meant anyone who died here had become a subservient walking corpse, driven by their command.
The numbers were terrifying.
Furthermore, Nightmare couldn’t possibly be unaware of Wu Zhu’s existence. Therefore, these “modified” corpses were definitely prepared for him. Even just to be safe, avoiding a direct clash was the best course of action.
“Follow me,” Wen Jianyan decided promptly. “I know another way.”
He turned, and everyone followed closely.
Behind them, the dense sound of bells pursued relentlessly.
“So, where are we heading?” Figaro sped up a few steps to catch up with him.
If he remembered correctly, the vision-enhancer’s talent had failed here. Without knowing where their destination was, he didn’t understand why Pinocchio was acting so decisively and swiftly.
“Upstairs first,” Wen Jianyan turned his head slightly. His eyes were bright, his voice calm. “There’s a way over there.”
This was the instance he had cleared with a perfect Platinum rating, after all.
There was no one in the whole world who understood this instance better than he did.
Soon, the stairwell door appeared not far ahead. Wen Jianyan pulled it open with one hand: “Get in!”
While holding the door, he shot a quick glance back—under the frantically flickering lights was an endless sea of corpses. Their bluish-white faces faded in and out of the shifting light, a sight that made the heart quail. They were following closely, the distance shrinking rapidly.
Wen Jianyan’s heart skipped a beat. He let go of the door, turned, and said:
“Hurry, there’s no room to detour in the stairwell. They’re catching up!”
Sure enough, just as they reached the second floor, a loud “bang” came from below. Immediately after, the amplified ringing of bells echoed, clinging to them like maggots on a bone.
“Hurry, hurry!” Wen Jianyan urged.
Everyone dashed upward wildly. Soon, the stairwell door marked ‘3F’ appeared right in front of them.
The space in the stairwell was narrow, and the air was stuffy and foul. As they reached this point, a sickeningly sweet and bloody scent wafted through the air.
The smell was somewhat familiar, making Wen Jianyan’s heart drop.
Suddenly, as if realizing something, he snapped his head toward Ji Guan, who was closest to the stairwell door. “Look out!!!”
Before the words even finished falling, the door was smashed open by some massive force. Caught off guard, Ji Guan stumbled.
In the corner of their eyes was a heart-stopping, terrifying scene.
The long, narrow corridor was filled with countless bizarre monsters wearing patient gowns. Their bellies bulged high, and their mouths were long and pointed, like giant mosquitoes. Some were on the floor, some clung to the walls, and others attached themselves to the ceiling, completely blocking the entire floor so that not a sliver of light could pass through. Countless blood-red eyeballs gleamed with hungry light in the darkness, staring straight at them.
It was an absolute nightmare of a scene.
And across their skin were stark, blood-red gashes, with countless eyeballs of all sizes rolling around inside, staring at them alongside the monsters’ own eyes.
“Hungry!” “Hungry!” “Hungry!”
They swarmed forward.
“—!” Startled, Ji Guan reflexively leaned backward, but he was still a beat too slow to dodge.
Crap!!
The next second, black shadows surged forward.
Wu Zhu erected a barrier for Ji Guan just in time.
However, an even more bizarre situation occurred. Staring at the solid, wall-like black barrier, the monsters flooding the emergency exit didn’t seem frustrated. On the contrary, their eyes shone with an even brighter, hungrier red. They thrust their long, crimson, pointed snouts straight out, sticking them onto the darkness.
“Delicious, delicious!”
“More, give us more!!”
Meanwhile, the bells below grew closer, ringing like a death knell. The overlapping footsteps approached with unstoppable speed; they were about to be caught!
“No good,” Figaro said, his scimitar appearing in his hand. “We can’t outrun them. We have to fight!”
“This time, it has to be you.”
Behind him, Ji Guan spoke in a very low, very calm voice.
What?
Figaro froze and looked back.
He met a pale face mixed with forbearance. A livid ghost tattoo spread from his neck deep into his collar and out past his cuffs. Its colors had never been so vivid and alive; at a glance, one almost suspected it might look back at them with a life of its own.
“Just now, it wasn’t that I didn’t dodge in time.”
Having braved life and death in Nightmare for so long, he had long honed excellent reflexes. At the very least, he wouldn’t fail to retreat after Wen Jianyan’s warning. It was just… the moment he shifted his foot, he felt his calf immobilize, as if a freezing cold hand had clamped him firmly in place. In that split second, he had looked down and glimpsed a livid, ghostly hand rising from his skin through the edge of his torn pant leg.
Blond: “What?! Does ‘it’ want to get you killed?”
“Quite the opposite,” Ji Guan looked over, his eyes suppressed. “‘It’ is forcing me to use ‘it’ in order to survive.”
He had coexisted with the vicious ghost on his body for so long that he could clearly feel its desires—evil, gloomy, maddened, desperate to break through the confinement and restraints of this body…
As the number of times he used its power increased, he could feel this desire growing stronger, and it was beginning to try to dominate him in return.
He had to fight it every waking moment to prevent the worst-case scenario.
And this time, he had used ‘its’ power far too many times. He could clearly feel…
He was infinitely close to the absolute limit.
“If that really happens, my death would be the least of our worries,” Ji Guan closed his eyes and said with difficulty. “What you’ll have to face won’t just be Nightmare’s persecution, but a vicious ghost that massacres indiscriminately.”
The consequences would be unimaginable.
However, in just a few seconds of delay, the situation took a sharp turn for the worse.
The instance’s creations swarmed from all directions.
This time, it was doctors and nurses in white coats holding cold surgical instruments. Their faces, which should have been blank and featureless, were now covered in blood-red eyeballs. Altered by Nightmare, they looked even more grotesque. The eyeballs on their bodies rolled frantically, each pair staring intently at them, each gleaming with chilling light.
Although the dark barrier still blocked them, the mosquito-like snouts attached to it pulsed, and the monsters’ bellies swelled at a visible rate. The barrier’s color began to flicker, dimming and brightening unpredictably.
Figaro couldn’t help but step back, showing his apprehension. “If that’s the case, I definitely can’t fight them all off alone!”
“I know.”
A calm, composed voice came from behind.
“That’s why you won’t be alone.”
Hearing this, Figaro froze. He felt a chill down his spine, as if the surrounding temperature was dropping endlessly, scraping against his skin like ice blades, bringing an eerie pain. He shuddered and looked back.
Wen Jianyan stood with his back to the light. Shadows shrouded him. However, the most eye-catching thing wasn’t him, but the entities surrounding him.
They were countless infants, entirely livid and purple, with pitch-black eyes. They had appeared in the corridor out of nowhere—a massive, overwhelming swarm, easily numbering in the hundreds at a glance. At this moment, these deadly and terrifying little monsters were obediently and quietly surrounding the human, guarding him in the center.
The young man leaned forward. The faint white light fell on his smooth profile, making him look both bizarre and holy.
He lowered his eyes and gently scooped up a ghost infant that had crawled up his leg.
“Holy shit!!” Figaro’s face paled in fright, letting out a rare curse. “What the hell are…”
Before he could finish, he saw the other look up and cast a light glance his way. Figaro shivered and swallowed the word “monsters” right back down.
Ji Guan stared at those livid infants. He clearly recognized them, showing an expression like he’d seen a ghost.
Yes.
On their way up, all the Nightmare creations from the first to the third floor had appeared, but the most threatening entities hadn’t shown up at all.
The Ghost Infants.
Not only were they the most dangerous and terrifying monsters in the [Fukang Comprehensive Hospital] instance, but they were also Nightmare’s first experiment in creating an artificial god.
They hadn’t appeared for only one reason—
They had been taken out of this instance a long time ago.
So, upon realizing this, Wen Jianyan opened his disabled inventory for the first time in a while. Just as he remembered, all the items inside were grayed out, indicating they couldn’t be used. However, one item was lit up.
It was an icon of a sleeping baby—the Holy Infant.
There were no additional activation conditions, no time limits, and no attached costs.
Because they belonged here in the first place.
This instance existed precisely for them to be born—the entire hospital was their playground, their occupied territory.
“Mommy!” “Mommy!”
The ghost infants’ pitch-black eyes rolled, staring outside the darkness, their mouths splitting open to reveal sharp teeth.
“Mommy is in danger!”
“Protect Mommy!” “Protect Mommy!”
Like a dark, livid ocean, they shrieked and roared, surging forward in a massive swarm. They furiously bit into the Nightmare-corrupted monsters, sinking their teeth directly into those squirming, blood-red eyeballs.
“Ahhhhh—”
Horrific screams erupted from the Nightmare-corrupted monsters’ mouths, as if they were enduring infinite agony.
Although they had been enhanced by Nightmare, they were still fundamentally within the framework of the hospital instance. And here, against the other form that had already evolved into the “Holy Infant,” this massive swarm of babies was virtually invincible!
“Just hold them off for a bit,” the young man lowered his eyes and instructed. “If you run into something you can’t beat, run, understand?”
“Okay, Mommy.”
The ghost infant affectionately rubbed its face against his palm, then hopped out of his arms to join its companions.
“………………”
Not far away, Figaro stared at Wen Jianyan with a complex expression mixing horror, fear, and a tiny bit of admiration.
What was up with this guy? Wasn’t having a ghost husband enough?
Wen Jianyan, however, didn’t notice his rich, complicated inner thoughts.
He simply gave a concise order: “Go!”
This time, they headed straight up and arrived at the abandoned operating rooms on the fourth floor without any obstacles.
The area looked dim and cluttered. Countless discarded medical instruments were piled up here, making it look like a massive dump.
Blond looked up, a hint of blood-like red flowing in his eyes: “Should I…”
“No need.” Wen Jianyan didn’t even turn his head, striding straight forward. “Follow me.”
Under his lead, the group navigated through the clutter without hindrance. Soon, a rusted, old-fashioned elevator appeared before them.
Dim yellow lights flickered. On the old panel was a button leading to B2, along with a small keyhole.
To operate the elevator, they needed a key.
“And that key is…” Ji Guan turned to Wen Jianyan.
“In the Director’s office on the fifth floor.” Wen Jianyan quickly stepped forward. “But we don’t have time.”
Besides, if he remembered correctly, there were other monsters in the operating rooms on this floor. He had deliberately navigated to avoid those spots this time so they wouldn’t run into them head-on. But if they stayed here too long, crossing paths was only a matter of time.
He turned to Wu Zhu:
“Can you break it?”
Wu Zhu raised his eyes, a glint flashing in them. The next second, darkness from all directions compressed instantly. Accompanied by a heart-stopping “creak,” the rusty old elevator was yanked out. Like a wad of scrap paper, it was easily crushed and deformed, quickly turning into a massive ball of bronze that slammed onto the ground with a loud “clang.”
Where the elevator had been, only a pitch-black, bottomless hole remained.
Wen Jianyan turned to Blond: “Look down. Is your vision still blocked?”
Blond stepped forward and carefully leaned over, peering down the elevator shaft.
Soon, he stepped back and shook his head: “No!”
Wen Jianyan: “Excellent!”
Nightmare’s power saturated the building’s interior, blocking Blond’s sight—just like it had inside the reopened Lucky Cruise Ship. By the same logic, they couldn’t use brute force to break through the floor restrictions.
This meant that, rather than the elevator itself, what he really needed was this elevator shaft that led straight down to B2.
Moreover, unlike the Lucky Cruise Ship—where the elevators had their own rules and the floors weren’t physically connected—the elevators in Fukang Comprehensive Hospital were just ordinary elevators. Thus, finding the elevator shaft and jumping down, provided they didn’t die, was enough.
“Let’s go,” Wen Jianyan blinked and smiled at them. “Let’s jump.”
“Wait…” Figaro’s eyebrow twitched. He took a step forward, seemingly wanting to say something, but before he could even utter a single syllable, he saw the young man lightly step back and completely vanish into the bottomless, pitch-black elevator shaft.
Wu Zhu followed closely behind.
Bai Xue thought for a moment, stepped forward, and became the third.
“…” Ji Guan and Blond exchanged a look, shrugged helplessly, and walked forward one after the other.
Figaro: “Hey, wait—”
Before he could finish, those two had jumped down as well.
Now, he was like a duck driven onto a perch—forced to jump whether he wanted to or not.
Figaro cast a miserable glance down the pitch-black elevator shaft, heaved a long sigh, and jumped down too.
The elevator shaft was dark and chilling, the rushing wind echoing in their ears.
But soon, the sensation of weightlessness vanished.
The few who had jumped into the shaft felt darkness press in from all directions, like some cold, dense physical entity firmly catching them in midair and cushioning their fall.
Wen Jianyan’s experience was much the same.
The only difference, however, was that in the pitch-black darkness where he couldn’t see his own fingers, a touch of coolness landed on his lips, as if something had kissed him very, very quickly.
*
Squelch—
Viscous blood sprayed from the wound, splashing over shoulders and cheeks like a freezing rain.
Hugo lowered his eyes, gazing deep into those familiar pupils as the light of the living slowly vanished from them. He slowly released his blood-soaked hands, and the other person lost all strength, eventually slumping to the ground.
The second one.
He counted in his heart.
Hugo looked up at the familiar old friends opposite him. His dark gray eyes were like two emotionless vortexes. The massive gray fog howled behind him.
Drip, drop.
Cold, pitch-black blood dripped from his fingertips.
—Only three people left.
One’s fatal wound was the head.
One’s fatal wound was the throat.
One’s fatal wound was the chest.
As his gaze swept over the people before him, the scenes of their deaths appeared vividly before his eyes once again.
Hugo clenched his jaw. The gray fog churned and gathered around him like a giant beast in its death throes.
“…” The remaining few exchanged glances. Just like they used to do in instances, a brief exchange of looks was all it took for them to understand each other’s intentions. The next second, the three of them kicked off the ground and charged at him in unison!
The blade flashes were fierce, their angles tricky.
Anyone else facing a lethal coordinated assault from three veteran anchors adept at killing would have retreated in defeat, powerless to counter.
But Hugo was different.
In the entire world, no one understood his opponents better than he did.
He knew the activation conditions of their talents, their dominant hands for weapons, their combat habits, their favored teamwork strategies—he knew their names, their faces, their experiences and pasts, their loves and pains.
Squelch—
Another dull sound. Flesh was sliced open, and blood sprayed from a chest.
The man whose chest had been pierced by the smoke staggered a few steps. He looked down in disbelief, reluctance in his eyes. He stood frozen for two seconds, then slowly collapsed to the ground.
“So impressive.”
A giggling laugh came from behind.
The voice sounded like a demon, echoing through the ruins.
“Truly worthy of being their captain—oh no, rather, I should say, truly worthy of being Nightmare’s Rank 3, Hugo? Look… without them dragging you down, look how powerful you’ve become.”
Only two remained.
They seemed to realize the situation was turning against them. Not daring to advance rashly like before, they instead chose to slowly retreat, tightening their formation bit by bit, fully prepared for his next move.
Hugo slowly raised his head. As if he hadn’t heard the enchanting words from behind, his face was like solid rock. He walked forward step by step, and the scattered fog regrouped around him, coiling around his arms into terrifying shapes.
The tension in the air was stretched to the limit, like a string pulled ever tighter, on the verge of snapping.
Then, near the critical point, it suddenly erupted!
The violent fog surged. The dynamics of offense and defense instantly reversed as it struck forward with unstoppable force!!
“Oh, right…”
Amidst the howling wind, Dan Zhu’s voice was intermittent and blurry, a little hard to make out clearly.
“Was there a detail I forgot to mention?”
“Did you think that what you’re killing are just Nightmare’s shoddy replicas?”
Suddenly, the woman’s voice magnified, so clear it sounded as though she were speaking right against Hugo’s ear. The voice was soft and carried an obvious hint of a smile, making one’s hair stand on end instantly.
“Wrong.”
“What you are killing is them—their actual selves.”
Not replicas. Not creations.
That was why they were so real, so vivid, perfectly matching his memories in every possible way.
“Although they were resurrected, mutated, and corrupted—they are indeed their original souls, their original selves.”
“—” Hugo’s pupils shrank drastically.
His movement paused for just a fraction of a second, and the woman’s crazed, delighted laughter erupted behind him. A cold glint struck, like a blade pressed against the back of his neck.
His eyes slowly swiveled backward.
Time seemed to halt in that instant, stretched into infinite slowness as the world stopped turning.
Death crept closer in that split second.
In his peripheral vision, vines had sneaked up behind him at some point. The blood-colored flowers on them bloomed—dangerous, beautiful, and lethal. Giving its prey almost no time to react, the vine viciously lashed toward his neck!!!
“Get back!!!!”
Without warning, an explosive shout rang from the air!
The next second, accompanied by a fierce gust of wind mixed with the smell of blood, a heavy, powerful blade cleaved down from above, seemingly cutting through light, air, time, and space all at once!
Thud!
The vine was sliced perfectly in two by the sharp edge. It fell to the ground, writhing like a decapitated snake, spraying red sap that splattered on the ground like fresh blood.
Hugo looked over in astonishment.
—It was Orange Candy.
“You can’t get distracted in a fight! No matter what the enemy says, it’s just to make you expose a flaw. If you can’t even realize that, you might as well die early!”
The little girl landed steadily, her whole body radiating a ruthless, gloomy aura, looking like a god of slaughter.
“And another thing!”
Holding the bloody machete—which was a head taller than her—with one hand, she turned around.
“So what if she’s right?”
“If I became like that—with no freedom, no thoughts, stripped of myself, being used, having all my human traits erased, even crossing swords with my friends, mutated into an absolute monster—then I’d rather end myself! If someone was willing to kill me with one strike, I’d applaud them!!”
“I’d think they killed me well, and did a beautiful job!”
Orange Candy raised her head, looking straight at Hugo not far away. Those eyes, usually mad and chaotic as if devoid of any sense of order, were now sharp and bright as a blazing fire.
“Don’t you get it?”
“To die with dignity at the hands of a friend—that is what they desire most!!”
