Professor Shen ran out of the room like a bat out of hell.
Jia Hyson cackles maniacally as the door hurriedly slammed shut and the sound of a frantic man fumbling over his keys was heard. In Professor Shen's ears what he could hear was profoundly different. Like the sound of winter wind brushing past his ears he heard the soft airy yet seductively malicious laughter of the young man he had coveted for so long, it made his heart beat even faster.
[Nightmare Mode] was a ghost skill he originally had only 3 points in, but after the past few months it's skill value had increased to 19. With Professor Shen's horrified reaction to his dollroom's destruction it had jumped from 19 to 41. To say it jumped was an under reaction, it was more like it flew. Both Bebe and Jia Hyson truly could not comprehend how these allocation of skills were generated.
As the name implies, it gives Jia Hyson the ability to insert nightmares and even enter a victim's dream space. Before he felt the small effects produced was not very good given the amount of energy it takes to use but now that it had been leveled up like this suddenly Jia Hyson was itching to try it out.
Before he could only prod a sense of unease or create a vague blurry image of himself in Professor Shen and Shen Wan's dreams which only made them a little irritated or uneasy, now though...
Professor Shen did not sleep well that night.
He's sitting, no, he's being bound onto a chair. The sickly metallic smell of blood pervades his nostrils until he is gagging on it. No, it's not the smell he's gagging on, he has an actual gag in the form of a bloody intestine in his mouth. Now that he's more aware he realizes he's bound with more of the disgusting organs, a setting which felt oddly familiar...
Professor Shen could feel the exact moment where his mind, slow and lazy in the dream, finally connected the dots and his heart stuttered for a moment in sheer fear. Wasn't this, wasn't this Bai Li Wei's confinement room?
The bloody sigils... the hopelessly depressing grey walls....
The ritual oven.
Dreams were interesting things. In them reality is disjointed and everything makes sense. A duck can be your best friend. Your best friend can be a robot. Impossible things like flying is a feat that one wouldn't question in a dream and somehow instinctively know what to do. An empty room in one moment can be filled with chanting shadows the next and the brain would still find nothing amiss.
It was like the cultists had become truly demonic, monstrous and shadowy they surround him both familiar and unrecognizable. He screams for help. For anyone. The intestines seem to shrink, making him feel even more suffocated yet despite shrinking they seem to filled with blood, oozing the warm red liquid until he's soaked from the chin down in the fluid. He feels sick and afraid, all he wants is to leave, leave, leave!
Professor Shen finally sees something beyond the red, grey and black of his surroundings. A flash of white that makes him subconsciously lean toward with a chest full of hope. Even though he couldn't see what it was Professor Shen knew it was his salvation, his hope, his love.
"Please!" He shouts, but through his gag it is far from the loudness he wants, barely a whisper. No matter how hard he screams it was like he was born with half a lung, the responding sound was soft as if he was whispering sweet nothings into a loved ones ear instead. Professor Shen felt stuffy and nervous, what if he misses his chance and the white pure creature passes him by? He can't! He, he can't let it go!
He shouts all manner of words in his fright, 'please', 'help', 'over here', 'save me', but all to no avail. In his desperation and despair he wonders if maybe, this is what Bai Li Wei must've felt. At this moment, feeling just a sliver of Bai Li Wei's situation, the long dormant and buried seed of guilt Professor Shen had finally sprouted. "I'm sorry," he whispers but this time the words are so loud and clear they seem to echo across the whole room.
The writhing, chanting shadows still. Out of the darkness, like a single strand of moonlight passing through the deepest heart of the forest, a barefooted and beautiful young man with slanted Phoenix eyes and a simple pure white shirt and pants stepped out.
Professor Shen felt like his soul was a dying man in the desert that had finally found an oasis. "Bai Li Wei?" He calls, because how could he not recognize that face? His face still a little soft from youth, skin like milky, polished jade, lips a faint pink as if kissed by a rose...
Bai Li Wei smiles, entrancing, enticing and yet so pure and untarnished. "You're sorry?" He asks softly.
"I'm sorry," Professor Shen grabs onto those words like a lifeline while he greedily drinks in the teenager's beauty once more. "Li Wei, I'm so sorry."
Innocently, Bai Li Wei tilts his head. Professor Shen felt a sense of nostalgia well up in him, the child used to do the exact same thing when facing a confusing theory that he had trouble understanding. He had always helped patiently explain it until the confusion cleared up from those lovely eyes and Bai Li Wei would thank him with such genuine gratefulness and adoration. "What are you sorry about Professor?"
"I-" Professor Shen felt uncomfortable at voicing his apologies, "You know what," he finally says, feeling a little wronged. He already felt bad, wasn't it a bit much to try rub it in?
"Professor," Bai Li Wei says patiently, eyes gazing serenely at the bound up old man like this sort of thing was absolutely normal, "what are you sorry about?"
"Li Wei," Professor Shen says, a little agitated. He wants to get free from the chair, he wants to leave, why was Li Wei being so unreasonable? He already apologized and felt remorse, and what's done has been done, to act so obtusely like this... how petty! How annoying! "I already said I'm sorry okay! I'm sorry you felt so bad and suffered so greatly but it wasn't like it was all my fault! Who told you to be so provoking?! None of this wouldn't have happened if it weren't for you!"
Under the hypocritical words being spat at him, Bai Li Wei merely stood there, watching the panting old man like a particularly ugly painting. "You aren't sorry," he finally says flatly.
"I already said I am!" Professor Shen yells angrily, "You-"
"No." The word was so icy and final that Professor Shen's bluster was easily cut away, the old man shrinking in his seat as he finally realizes through his self-righteous indignation that maybe pissing off the dead person wasn't the best idea in the world, "You aren't sorry for what you've done. You may be sorry that I got hurt, but you aren't sorry at it happening at all. Or at least," Bai Li Wei's smile turns bitter as tears of blood roll down his pale cheeks, "Not for the right reasons anyway."
"No," Professor Shen looks on horrified as those pretty eyes, once bright and naive, darken until not even the whites of his eyes could be seen. Completely, horrifyingly pure black. "No, NO! I'm sorry! I'm sorry for what I did, what I've done! Please! I'm sorry!!"
"TOO LATE!" Bai Li Wei screams, his voice mangled with agony and hatred, the blood pouring down his face falls faster, and as he looms over Professor Shen those tears cannot help but hit the old man's face burning him like a rain of lava. Professor Shen screams at the unexpected pain but desperately he continues to try apologize between his cries. "TOO LATE, IT'S TOO LATE PROFESSOR SHEN, IT'S TOO LATE!!!"
[Ding, ding! Malevolent Intent has increased to Level 8!]
[Ding, ding! Malevolent Intent has increased to Level 9!]
[Ding, ding! Cruel Caress (active) has increased to Level 4!]
Jia Hyson pulls out of the dream and fist pumps at the air. Fuck yeah.
Now Professor Shen wasn't a very strong minded person. This was pretty clear given that he's a black magic cultist despite his living as an intellectual professor who works in the grounded realm of science. However in a way it was a bit of a blessing, allowing him to break out of the accursed path of being one of those rigid-minded straight-laced fools who insist on a scientific explanation right until the bitter end. This amazing flexibility and willingness to throw away his three world views as well as his incredible lack of courage were really worth applauding.
Jia Hyson: *clap clap clap*
Bebe: '...The tone is one of praise but the words are barbed with poison and chili.'
Anyway, after experiencing that nightmare, Professor Shen no longer held onto any doubts about Bai Li Wei haunting the doll. The very next day he came in swinging with a bat. In some ways Jia Hyson really wonders how this man got a PhD. Like a cute male student? Burn him alive in a magic doll ritual. Find out said student haunts the doll? Break it with a baseball bat. It was always violence first with this guy.
'You know,' Jia Hyson tells Bebe as Professor Shen begins screaming something unslightly at him. 'Is it possible to direct the main story to this? I feel like it would be a rather interesting read.' After all, for all Professor Shen's numerous faults, he was quite a character. You don't see a lot of people like him in the horror genre, there was a lot of potential there.
'Unfortunately no,' Bebe denies, 'at best we can include the information to provide to the author but there's a low guarantee they'll change the whole story unless they become particularly inspired by it. After all, the effort and love in finishing a story makes one reluctant to trash it completely for something similar yet not.'
Jia Hyson nods in reluctant agreement. That was true. If they proposed an entirely new story like a high school comedy, the author may be more willing to try it out but a new story that was in the same world as one of their old works could only work as a spin-off, a prequel or a sequel to the old work. To destroy an old work and replace it with something related to the old work but not really was a little harder to stomach. It was like asking a sculptor either to destroy their self portrait and make another of their twin of to try adjust the original sculpture to resemble their twin. Obviously the easier option was better.
Ahhh, it was such a shame. Jia Hyson really wasn't feeling the whole living for decades in a doll thing. Still, like oil through his fingers, the desire passes quickly, leaving behind the slick hard to wash off disappointment for his evil ghost body to greedily feed off of.
Well, no need for any long term planning right now. First things first. Revenge.
As the professor finally finishes his long tirade of what was sure to have been very hurtful if Bai Li Wei was actually here and brings down the bat, Jia Hyson uses his strongest offensive skill Hair Control. Like a gushing river after a torrential storm, hair from the doll rushed down from it's head, slithering and rearing up like a vicious snake as it attacks the bat, encircling it swiftly until it resembled a really goth cocoon. Professor Shen screams, his hands unfortunately caught inside the hair cocoon and the intense pressure of the hair made him unable to slip free from its terrifying hold.
Jia Hyson smiles as he watches the terrified man struggle to escape. He feels like a spider watching a particularly dimwitted worm. Ah, of course the Professor can't be a worm. He has far too many limbs.
Professor Shen's scream went up three octaves as the hair began to ruthlessly tighten around the bat and his hands. Soon the pain coming from his hands was too much and he could barely even open his mouth in his suffering, wordlessly he sobbed as he sunk to his knees. Jia Hyson however felt no guilt, remorse or any such inkling of mercy watching the old man act so pitiful, he didn't even lower the bat when the man's knees caved so Professor Shen's arms still hung up in the air, making his old wrists strain at the awkward angle.
Loudly Jia Hyson laughs, currently he had enough power from Professor Shen's agony alone that the old man could hear the mocking laughter even through the haze of pain. "Li... Wei...?" He cries out again as the hair around his hands sharply tightens, the sound of a bat splintering echoes in the room. "No! P-please! Li Wei.. Li Wei... St-ah-p..!"
Silently the doll's head tilts down to face the Professor, it's beautiful face gazing blankly at the man. However in Professor Shen's eyes he can see a shadow of pure malice and glee in it's delicately painted features. For a moment his eyes blur and he could see tears of blood dripping from those curved delicate eyes.
Then a blinding pain hits him and he falls unconscious. Black hair, as smooth as silk and as dark as sin, gently unravels and reverts back to it's usual length leaving behind the splintered fragments of a baseball bat and two broken hands.
[Ding, ding! Cruel Caress (Active) has reached Level 5!]
[Ding, ding! Cruel Caress (Active) has reached Level 6!]
[Ding, ding! Cruel Caress (Active) has reached Level 5 and Malevolent Intent is above Level 8! Activating new special skill Voices of the Dead (active) level 1! Your voice is chilling, your words make me tremble, to hear you insult me would be the ultimate bliss!]
[Ding, ding! Cruel Caress (Active) has reached Level 5 and Psychotic Break is Level 10! Activating new special skill Psychic Terror (active) level 1! Once maxed you will be striking fear into the hearts of all psychics! If you call yourself the second best there is no psychic out there that can claim to be the first!]
Jia Hyson's eyebrows raise as he lets out an impressed whistle. The Skill Upgrade World may be incredibly harsh and mentally torturous but if done right the benefits cannot be looked down upon. Because he earned these special skills by his own merit he'll be able to bring these to future worlds. Even though a lot of these were incredibly malicious skills, no one could deny their power, he felt incredibly lucky just being able to keep [Psychic Terror] which sounded like an OP skill to have despite the rather harsh sounding conditions to level up. Cultivation worlds, magic worlds, apocalyptic worlds... no matter what shitty character he has, with [Psychic Terror] he would be guaranteed a good life. Not that he's very interested in becoming a Gary Stu, but it'll be nice to have a safety net after all.
Feeling very good, he decides not to do too much to Professor Shen, this amazing negative energy generating machine. After all, it would be a waste not to squeeze out a few more points from the man as repayment. Also, the information on the other cultists as well. That too.
Bebe: '...Professor Shen has been reduced from psycho pervert to a negative energy ATM... should Bebe... feel bad?'
Jia Hyson: 'Bebe, don't you also benefit from the energy conversion?' They found that a small percentage of the spiritual energy Jia Hyson earns from absorbing negativity and yin energies went to Bebe, improving it's processing powers, efficiency and even inadvertently leveled up it's [Spatial Storage]. While it's only a small amount, it wouldn't be surprising if Bebe leveled up just with the energy wasn't from this world by itself.
Bebe: '... (｡•̀ᴗ-)b✧ Let's Do This!!'
Jia Hyson: ☆*:. o(≧▽≦)o .:*☆