Even though it was daytime, this building was engulfed in darkness due to all the windows being boarded up, the light seeping through the cracks like white daggers stabbing into the body of the building.
Chen Ke pulled out a Glock 17 from his triangular bag and fitted it with a silencer he had confiscated from a blond man.
In the narrow hallway, a bloodletting dagger was impractical; a silenced pistol paired with Flame Bullet was the most sensible choice. Besides, this place was a den of monsters, and Chen Ke didn't want to alert all the monsters in the building by making a move.
He deftly moved to the side of the door, peeked out slightly through the crack, and listened. The building was quiet, occasionally punctuated by faint sighs and snores.
Chen Ke slipped into the hallway, pushed open a door across slightly out of curiosity, and through the light filtered by the boarded-up windows, he saw a bare room where several raggedy homeless people were sleeping wrapped in tattered blankets against the wall.
It seemed that the building not only housed monsters but was also home to many homeless people. They appeared to have formed a protective relationship with each other.
Chen Ke didn't further disturb them and gently closed the door. The silhouette of the female Diner had last stopped on the sixth floor; that must be her room.
He proceeded down the hallway, searching for the staircase leading up. Since the building had been partially demolished before, many rooms along the corridor were inaccessible, and the staircases were blocked by rubble. Sometimes, Chen Ke had to detour through breached rooms to continue forward.
Around a corner, a gaunt monster sauntered alone in the hallway. Chen Ke aimed at its head and fired twice.
The 9mm bullets couldn't compare to the Magnum in terms of kinetic energy, but the fiery effect was uncompromised; the monster's head caught fire, and in just a few seconds, it burnt off from the neck and fell to the ground with a dull thud.
The second floor had more intact rooms, where the deformation of the homeless people was similar to those in the noodle shop; some hadn't even started mutating yet. Wrapped in blankets, they curled up in corners of the rooms and ignored Chen Ke as he entered.
Chen Ke paid them no heed and briskly walked past.
So far, things had been progressing smoothly. However, the building was like a three-dimensional maze; a close distance required navigating numerous obstacles to reach.
Sometimes he had to descend from a collapsed room to a lower floor, then go up a staircase blocked by debris to reach the third floor. At other times, he had to weave through several rooms to avoid obstructions in the corridors.
As he delved deeper, the mutations among the homeless grew more severe. At the fifth floor, there were many who were no longer recognizably human, their heads completely toad-like, with huge, lifeless eyes, tumorous skin, and grotesquely wide mouths intermittently sticking out black tongues.
They sat with their bellies protruding in room corners, leftovers of noodles in front of them—no doubt from Good Wheat House. Some, too severely mutated to leave, had to rely on companions to bring food back.
"You don't belong here, young man," suddenly spoke a frog-headed man leaning against the wall.
Chen Ke jumped, turning and aiming his gun at the talking frog.
"Hey… put that thing away, frog heads aren't bulletproof," the frog-headed man seemed unafraid.
"You can talk?" Chen Ke exclaimed.
"Getting less nimble, might not be able to after tonight," the frog-headed man said self-deprecatingly.
"Looks like you're pretty accepting of turning into a frog," Chen Ke spread his hands.
"What choice do we have? You think we're enjoying this?" the frog-headed man replied.
"It seems like you know there's something wrong with those noodles?" Chen Ke squinted.
"By the time we knew, it was too late, my friend. Not all bad, though, changing from a wandering homeless to a wandering frog isn't much of a difference," the frog-headed man seemed to laugh, his eyes squinting into slits.
"What happened here?" Chen Ke asked.
"A little of this monster, a little of that monster, I call this the Freak Club. That woman said she found God, and that God would save us. Did you see the big hole in the courtyard center? God supposedly lives there, although I can't understand why God would choose to live in a sewer," the frog-headed man explained.
The building had a square-shaped structure with a courtyard in the center, neither too big nor too small.
Chen Ke peered through the cracks in the wooden boards out of the window. The courtyard in the middle of the building had collapsed downwards, revealing a segment of a huge, broken sewer pipe sticking out as if it were a passage to the underworld.
"Have you ever seen a god?" Chen Ke asked.
"Do you think it's convenient for me to meet a god?" Toad Head shifted his short, thin toad legs from beneath his large belly and placed them in front of Chen Ke, shaking them slightly.
"I won't disturb your noodle eating, I'm going down to take a look." Chen Ke waved his hand and turned to leave.
"Hey, wait a minute, lad, do me a favor," Toad Head suddenly said.
"What is it?" Chen Ke was curious.
"If you meet a god down there, take a photo for me, I'd like to see as well," Toad Head said with squinted eyes and a smile.
"My phone can't take photos." Chen Ke turned and walked away.
Chen Ke grew increasingly curious about what turned them into such creatures. What, exactly, was the god that Toad Head mentioned? He could only go deeper into this pit to find out.
On his way down, avoiding debris and rubble, Chen Ke pushed open the inner courtyard gate and arrived at the open-air courtyard. The eerie sound of the wind echoed, like the wails of evil spirits, and in front of Chen Ke was the huge pit connecting to the sewer.
At that moment, a murderous aura emerged from behind him. Chen Ke turned around and saw the female Diner standing about ten paces away.
"By destroying these people's chance to survive, is this what you wanted?" the female Diner asked.
"This is not an opportunity; nobody wants to turn into a toad. Why didn't you tell them in advance about the cost of receiving charity?" Chen Ke countered.
"Deformity is much better than death, you haven't experienced the pain of death!" the female Diner said.
"You can't convince me, look at you, you're at least still a normal person," Chen Ke replied.
No sooner had Chen Ke finished speaking than an unexpected event occurred. The female Diner forcefully pulled the zipper of her tracksuit open, revealing her shriveled, horrifying, skeletal body underneath her neck, which was merely bones wrapped in a layer of human skin.
"You are... you too..." Chen Ke was somewhat shocked, recalling the memory of the creature he had absorbed earlier in the alley.
"Death Church taught me one thing, no matter the form, being alive is better than being dead. I'm saving them! While you are killing them!" the female Diner bellowed.
"Using lifespan to replace lost sanity."
"-10 minutes"
"-10 minutes"
"-10 minutes"
...
Her voice was filled with sorrow, sadness, and anger, like energy waves drilling from his ears into Chen Ke's brain. His life continued to drain, helping him resist the damage to his sanity.
Meanwhile, a torrent of murderous aura surged from the pit in the sewer, and six emaciated monsters instantly surrounded Chen Ke. It turned out they had always been hiding in the sewer, which explained why Chen Ke had only encountered one in the building.
"I have to protect these poor people; no one can stop me!" the female Diner declared resolutely.