GASP!
Ha- Ha- Ha-
In the silent corridor, the sound of heavy breathing asaualted the once still air.
Gathered together in the narrow space were most of the surviving players.
Frantic, exhausted and frightened.
None of them looked composed, therefore Chu Yi who appeared the calmest, stood out in the mess of players.
Shi XiaoDong stared throughtfully at the man but refrained from speaking, hiding his true thoughts in his heat.
Of the 17 people that came in, only 8 players were left yet ironically he true horror hadn't even started yet.
This instance was of unprecedented difficulty for a C Grade instance.
But right now, there was something else that needed urgent attention.
Both sides of the corridor was devoid of rooms.
Instead at the very end of the corridor was a singular door.
Heavy and frigid, the gas field around the door was raw, pressing heavily onto the players chest. Even the air that they breathed in was tinged with a deathly, stale taste.
And this door had creaked open right under their paralyzed eyes, the pressurized air inside hitting them in the face, assaulting all of their senses.
Chu Yi sniffed the air, detecting a faint fragrance. This scent was so vague and weak, but it was strikingly inharmonious with this environment.
Using the dim light from the lamps.
Chu Yi studied the decorations in room.
The room wasn't large, and its structure was quite simple. And yet it seemed more like a temple than a bedroom. Set directly in the center of the room was an incense altar as well a statue of a deity; a huge merit box lay beside those objects. There seemed to be something inscribed on the merit box, but because he was too far away, Chu Yi couldn't distinguish those engravings.
"Should..should we go in?"
The person who asked this was Lui Quishi but even though he had asked, they all knew that they didnt have a choice.
The minute they had stepped into the corridor, it was like a invisible force field had cordoned off the hall, this was to say they couldn't leave and even if they somehow managed to force their way out, the monsters on the other side were just waiting to feast on their flesh.
Neither had they forgotten the countdown
"Come on." Shi XiaoDong uttered.
Unconsciously he had become the defacto leader of the group.
The players continued to move forward, stepping passed the threshold and headed towards the unbecoming deity.
Underneath the stale, yet almost wickedly sweet scent of the room, they observed the statue. It was the figure of woman Though Lin Qiushi didn't recognize this Bodhisattva, its appearance was benevolent; it emanated an air of altruism and carried the impression of one who'd deliver all living creatures from suffering, one who'd offer salvation to sentient being
And yet they was something terribly off about it, the benelovent smile seemed almost conniving and bewitching under the light and the entire statue seemed disconcerting and faux.
Shi XiaoDong boldly took two steps towards the statue. At a closer distance, he was now able to see the figure of the woman clearly. But the situation didn't look too good. Goosebumps immediately appeared all over Shi XiaoDong's body at the sight. The inside of the open mouth of the statue was layered with something black. At first, Shi XiaoDong thought it was nothing but shadows but no sooner, he discovered those things were languidly squirming around. At that very moment, he was so certain of it, he knew he couldn't have mistaken it- the inside of the staue was filled with black hair.
And at the foot of the statue, something seemed to have gotten entangled in these strands of hair.
"Don't come any nearer," Shi XiaoDong ordered. "Something isn't right."
"It doesn't matter." Chu Yi's voice was extremely soft; indifferently seductive, "It doesn't matter. Ignoring it just means dying faster."
It was the ugly truth but neither of them could deny it.
Finally someone couldnt hold back his wrath. Having had enough of Chu Yi's icy, contemptuous speech. Xiao Ke slammed his hands on the table and furiously snarled, "Saying that like you'd never harmed us on purpose! You clearly told the others to go dig up the coffins one by one to search! But if we had just completed the tasks, as they said to do,maybe this stupid hunt wouldn't have been triggered, now look, all of us are going to die!-"
Chu Yi coldly hissed, "What is a coffin used for?"
Everyone was struck dumb.
"None other than to hold the dead. What's the use of a coffin without dead people?" A treacherous grin crept onto his face, and Chu Yi chuckled. With those deep eyes, turning on his face, the beautifull man looked frightfully eerie. "Furthermore, who's to blame why you didn't heed my advice?"
Xiao Ke, "You fucking-"
Xiao Ke shakily lifted a finger and pointed at each and every one of them. "There are so many people left. She has yet to eat her fill."
"Eat her fill ... ?" When Chu Yi heard word 'eat', he suddenly recalled the bloody remains of the corpses that had been chewed on the third floor.
Xiao Ke immediately swallowed the words in his throat, face paling slightly. Almost at the same time, they all reached a similar consensus.
He knew something.
Chu Yi genuinely appreciate such a beautiful view. The renewed almost tangible vigilance and distrust ready to explode under the surface.
If the time hadn't been so short, he'd love to stay and appreciate the sight some more.
In hindsight, maybe Chu Yi hadn't been under control in the first instance, maybe a hidden stimulant had just forced his true nature to explode out exponentially.
Cutting off the scene that was on the verge of collapsing, Chu Yi pointed out something .
"There's something on top of the diety."
Instantly the attention was pulled away from Xiao Ke's outburst, everyone refocusing on the stature in the center of the room.
After careful observation, sure enough, as Chu Yi said, on top of the diety was a small box, situated on a wide platform a width away from the statue; the size of a jewelry box. It was inconspicuous amongst the heaps of incense and the grand diety.
"But right now the question is," Shi XiaoDong spoke, "Who's going to get it."
This was a challenging question. No one wanted to risk their lives for someone else but at the same time, they needed someone to sacrifice themselves and find probably a fatal clue.
Humans humans selfish like this, even at critical times, they were reluctant to work as a united front
"Since you're such a hero", Xiao Ke spat, "Why dont you go for it."
This wasn't out of his expectations but before Chu Yi could reply, someone else beat him to it.
"No need. I'll do it."
The person who spoke was the innocuous newcomer Lui Quishi. Although his hand by side trembled terribly, he still firmly volunteered to take the risk.
Beside him, Shi XiaoDong seemed hesitant, opening his mouth to object subconsciously, but after seeing the determined look, closed his mouth.
In such a place, excessive protection wasn't necessarily the best move.
With bated breath, they could only watch as Lui Quishi carefully stepped past the hair covered object at the foot of the statue and carefully hoisted himself up along the grooves of the diety.
It was fairly large and could support his weight without the worry of falling.
Seeing that Lui Quishi was close to reaching the top as well, Shi XiaoDong glanced down at the kid and couldn't help reminding, "Once you're there, be careful."
Lui Quishi bobbed his head and hummed, "Okay."
Taking a deep breath, Lin Qiushi braced himself and with a pull, hoisted his body directly onto the platform. He had originally thought there would be half devoured, decaying corpses; however, he discovered that the platform was empty of what he'd expected-there was nothing.
Well, that wasn't necessarily correct; there wasn't exactly nothing. To be precise, the corpses had been utterly devoured, from their hair down to their bones. Only the gory puddles of concealed blood, messily caking the platform and drying along the cracks revealed the grisly horrors that had transpired.
The roof of the room should've been visible from where Lin Qiushi was standing on the platform; however, a thick layer of smog blanketed the ceiling, cloaking everything in his sight; before long, the scenery before his eyes turned hazy, distorting like a mirage.
In the middle of the platform sat the small box.
Unfortunately the platform was in fact connected to the statue and the box seemed to have formed a junction between the two.
From where he was, he could tell that the floor, around the box wasn't completely cement and seemed more like a layer of dry dirt had been filled in.
This was inconsistent with the jaded walls of the diety and after a brief second of contemplation, gritted his teeth and decided to dig.
When Shen Xiaodong who had been watching Lui Quisi from the start as he took apart the dirt floor saw this, he was first nervous, then startled when Quishi suddenly let out a shocked gasp, then started cursing madly, after witnessing what lay beneath it.
"What's the matter?" Upon hearing the boy's cry of alarm, Shi XiaDong walked over to the diety, and strained to see hear what disturbed the boy so much, only to be rendered speechless by Lui Quishi discovery.
The statue beneath the dirt floor was, hollowed out, then compactly inlaid and filled with contorted human skeletons. The skeletons were piled one after another, crushed into the cement and forced into unnatural positions. For every square feet of the statue, there were about three to four bodies.
Children's skeleton.
"Hmm." Chu Yi wasn't the least bit surprised at this scene. "I did say the bodies must be here somewhere."
"We just found out where exactly."
A benevolent diety paved with the body of dead children.
Ironic.