The beast inside the heart was unleashed. As blood took over his eyes, everything turned red. His brain pounded like someone had stuck needles in it. His forgotten subconscious was waking up through another form. As the animal instinct took over humanity, fragmented memories surfaced in his mind. There was a night in his past which was as red as this. He couldn’t tell his eyes were bleeding or the world was painted red. The bodies of familiar faces were twisted into ugly postures, blood bloomed like flowers at their open wounds. The young Han Fei hid somewhere while the orphanage under the blood moon was as isolated as an island on the red sea.
“Notification for Player 0000! Your SAN Value is at extremely low level! Please adjust accordingly!” The robotic voice pulled Han Fei back to rationality. He took a deep breath and instantly pain surged through his body.
‘When the talent of Midnight Butcher was activated, my brain appeared to have brought up some suppressed memories with it.’ Han Fei knew that his San Value was determined by the system to be at 100 while a normal player only had 10 but even so, the system had to warn him that his San Value had dropped dangerously low. ‘The black box appeared to have meshed with my own memory, I don’t know whether that is a good thing or not.’ Certain memories were suppressed for a reason but now they could be triggered in the cryptic world.
In any case, Han Fei’s action became more feral as his physique improved. With one hand, he pierced Rest in Peace repeatedly into the walls of the ‘intestines’ while his other arm which was protruding with Big Sin’s spikes reached deeper into the wound. Han Fei had personally tested Big Sin’s brand of Soul Poison before, other than himself, no one would be able to resist Big Sin’s poison. The toxin was powerful and carried with it a heavy scent of misfortune. The poison also spread quickly.
The human faces on the wall darkened. They were not that strong, there were simply too many of them. The Soul Poison spread through the human faces. Initially the contamination was slow but as Han Fei swung his fist madly around, the Soul Poison spread like wildfire. The black faces started to crack. Their expression scrunched up in pain and they stopped pressing against Han Fei. The monster with the tongue intended to swallow Han Fei, to turn Han Fei into one of the faces, not knowing Han Fei was as poisonous as they come.
The lower Han Fei’s Life Points, the more joyful Big Sin became. Its owner was about to die soon, this was a day worth celebrating. It wanted to be by Han Fei’s side, to share this joy with him. The blood pattern on Han Fei’s arm brightened. The shape of Big Sin’s body became more pronounced. It was trying its best to crawl out from the blood pattern, but probably because it was still in its youngest stage, it didn’t know how to fully control its powers yet. Some of its Soul Poison injected into Han Fei’s body.
Han Fei could sense the joy within Big Sin and he didn’t know what to say. Not everyone would be able to appreciate the happiness from such a unique pet. As the Soul Poison made its way through the monster’s body, the monster didn’t want to consume Han Fei anymore, if anything, it wanted to spit this dangerous object out from its stomach. All the human faces retracted. Han Fei climbed upwards as fast as he could. He tied the red chain around himself and the middle-aged man. Before he lost his energy, he managed to crawl out from the mouth. Bursting through the dresser doors, Han Fei dragged the middle-aged man and jumped out. The two of them collapsed to the ground, covered in wounds.
The middle-aged man was fine. With the protection of the bloody clothes and the fact that he was not the monster’s primary target, he was only injured slightly. Han Fei was not so lucky. His security uniform became more tattered. The cursed consciousness lingering inside the uniform had become extremely weak.
Han Fei turned to his arm. The blood patterns on it looked as fresh as blood, Big Sin’s presence could be felt clearly. His Life Point had already reached rock bottom. Han Fei took out the pig’s hearts Xu Qin made from his inventory and munched on them hungrily. With the Gluttony Talent from Midnight Butcher, his Life Points finally rose back a little. ‘That was too close.’ Han Fei laid weakly on the ground as Big Sin absorbed the Soul Poison out from Han Fei’s body. Han Fei had a new understanding of Big Sin’s persona, the closer Han Fei was to death, the happier Big Sin would be. It loved death and preferred to stay close to those marked by death. However, it didn’t want Han Fei to die either because if he did, it wouldn’t find a new owner who would face death so often anymore.
‘I don’t even know what to say! What a pairing this is!’ After he recovered somewhat, Han Fei walked towards the monster. Only when Han Fei was out of its stomach did he realize the monster had the appearance of a dresser. All he saw was the insides of the monster earlier. A monster disguised as a dresser inside a dresser, this place was truly confounding.
“Stay away from it.” The woman warned. When she saw Han Fei tumble out from the dresser monster earlier, she gained a renewed belief in miracles.
“Our friend woke up around this place, that means that the exit is most likely around here. The existence of this monster shouldn’t be a coincidence either, there has to be a reason why it was lurking here. Now that I think about it, the human intestine is also a passageway of sorts, could the exit be hidden inside the monster’s stomach?” Han Fei enquired. “You’ve been here for so long, have you ever seen an actual exit?”
“No, only monsters.”
“All the more reason to believe that I might be right.” Han Fei didn’t want to give up so easily. He used the chain to tie around his body and then reached his arm where Big Sin was hiding towards the dresser door. Thick tongues rolled out from the mouth. But compared to last time, the tongues had blackened and rotted. The tongues wagged weakly at Han Fei. The latter avoided the half-hearted attacks with ease and used the opening to counter. After cutting off 7 tongues, the mouth stopped producing more of them.
“It looks like it has been poisoned!” The woman stared at the monster’s blackened teeth and gasped in shock.
“It’s still not enough.” Han Fei neared the dresser and extended the arm with Big Sin into the mouth. He grated his arm against the monster’s teeth and fed his poisoned blood to the monster. The dresser monster was unable to move, after being tortured for an hour, the blackened teeth loosened and the wails inside the ‘intestines’ faded away. Han Fei poked his head through the monster’s mouth to look. The walls of the ‘intestines’ were pustulating with black blood and the human faces were no longer recognizable.
“It should be safe now.” Han Fei took out Rest in Peace and climbed into the dresser monster’s stomach again. With the woman and the middle-aged watching on in shock, Han Fei leaped into the mouth. He used Rest in Peace to carve out steps on the wall of the intestines. The dresser monster didn’t resist at all, probably because it was already dead. Han Fei successfully reached the depth of the ‘intestine’. It was a fully enclosed space, and to Han Fei’s surprise, the end of the ‘intestine’ was another dresser door.
This dresser door faced outside, it made Han Fei feel like he was inside an actual dresser. He tried to push the door open but it was locked. It was sealed with tape as well. Adjusting his angle, Han Fei leaned on the door and looked out. There was a normal-looking bedroom beyond the door. There was a double bed and a table. The dresser was placed facing the bed.
“Is this the exit?”
