2: Chapter 2 The Chewing Sound Above My Head

The intense feeling of weightlessness vanished, followed immediately by an old, musty smell—like being trapped in a moldy coffin for three years—rushing straight into her nostrils.

Her vision gradually cleared, revealing the lobby of an old British-style mansion. Beneath her feet was a dark red Persian carpet, so dirty it had turned black. Stepping on it felt like treading on a layer of rotting fat, greasy and nauseating.

Most of the bulbs in the massive crystal chandelier overhead were shattered. The few remaining flickered with a dying, dim yellow light, stretching everyone's shadows into twisted, elongated shapes.

"Waaah... I want to go home!"

"Where is this? I don't want to die!"

After a brief, deathly silence, the fifteen people in the lobby completely erupted into chaos.

Most were newcomers like Pei Duo; some had faces as white as paper, while others collapsed directly onto the floor.

Pei Duo's heart thudded wildly, her nails nearly drawing blood from her palms.

She wanted to cry too; fear gnawed at her nerves like countless ants.

But her brother's words were tightly wound in her mind—in horror instances, the more tears you shed, the faster your blood runs cold.

She gritted her teeth and thrust her left hand into her pocket.

There lay a dirty, broken black jade pendant, which was constantly emitting a chill that forcibly suppressed her urge to scream.

At this moment, in the livestream room that had just regained its signal, the bullet comments were already flooding the screen.

[(IP: Japan) Yoshi, the quality of these newcomers is too poor. They're all useless trash who only know how to cry. It seems the Dragon Country's national fortune has truly reached its end. I bet this group will be wiped out in less than five minutes.]

[(IP: Kimchi Country) This is an s-rank instance? It looks like Dragon Country is going to contribute another 15 deaths. In a death trap like this, even the gods can't save them!]

[(IP: Dragon Country) Stop the insults... It's desperate, but what if there's a miracle?]

[(IP: USA) A miracle? Talking about miracles in an instance that even the Hand of God doesn't dare to touch? You Dragon Country people are really humorous.]

Pei Duo forced herself to pull together and looked up to observe her surroundings.

In the crowd, two people stood out, completely out of place with the "mourning squad" around them.

One was a man in a suit wearing gold-rimmed glasses, covering his nose with a handkerchief, his eyes cold as knives as he scanned the windows;

The other was a short-haired woman in a black windbreaker, playing with a coin in her hand, leaning against the wall, her whole body tense like a fully drawn bow.

These two were definitely old-timers.

Glasses Man and the short-haired woman glanced at Pei Duo. Seeing that although the girl’s face was pale, she hadn't cried or screamed, a flash of surprise crossed their eyes, and they nodded slightly.

Just as Pei Duo wanted to move closer, a thunderous roar exploded in the hall.

"Shut the hell up! Are you at a funeral? You want to die, is that it?!"

A burly, bald man with a face full of scars squeezed out from the crowd. His tight tank top was nearly bursting from his muscles, and his arms were covered in centipede-like scars—clearly someone from the underworld.

The bald man walked a few steps toward a girl who was crying the hardest and kicked her.

"Thud!"

The girl rolled away like a ball. After scrambling up, she didn't even dare to cry anymore.

The kick was exceptionally effective.

The chaotic hall instantly fell silent, leaving only the sound of suppressed sobbing.

"Listen up! My name is Tiger King!"

The bald man seemed very satisfied with being the center of attention. "I've cleared three instances. The last one was the B-rank 'Flesh Mill'! Here, I am the law!"

Hearing the words "B-rank," the eyes of the originally desperate newcomers instantly lit up.

"Brother Hu! Brother Hu, save us!"

"Big shot, please take us with you! I don't want to die!"

The livestream bullet comments also started flashing.

[(IP: Dragon Country) Holy crap! There's actually a B-rank big shot leading the team? They might survive this!]

[(IP: USA) B-rank? Don't make me laugh. In the face of the s-rank Midnight Mansion, a B-rank player is just a slightly larger snack. Just watch, the more arrogant they are, the faster they die.]

[(IP: Sun Never Sets) Typical self-delusion. The flag has already been raised.]

Tiger King sneered, hands on his hips, enjoying everyone's fawning: "So what if it's s-rank? I've seen plenty of these old mansion instances; they're all puzzle-based! As long as you don't move recklessly, ghosts are too lazy to come out and kill. Listen up, anyone who dares to run around and trigger a trap—I'll snap their neck before the ghost even gets a chance!"

His voice was so loud it made the crystal chandelier overhead shake.

Pei Duo instinctively looked at Glasses Man and the short-haired woman in the corner.

With one look, her scalp tingled with shock.

She saw the expressions of those two change drastically, as if they had seen something filthy. They didn't even dare to breathe, desperately shrinking themselves into the shadows.

Glasses Man pushed up his frames, his eyes filled with the mockery one has for a dead man. His lips moved, spitting out two words.

Pei Duo understood the lip movement—"Idiot."

Her brother had said: If the veterans are retreating, you'd better run faster than them!

Without a word, while the other newcomers were still surrounding Tiger King and shouting "Brother Hu is mighty," Pei Duo quietly backed away until her back was pressed tightly against the cold wall.

"And you few!"

Tiger King didn't notice anything wrong at all. He pointed his finger at the distant Pei Duo and the two veterans, his eyes wide with anger. "Why are you hiding so far away? Afraid I'll eat you? Get over here! My word is—"

"Zzzt—"

A strange sound of an electrical short circuit abruptly cut off his roar.

The crystal chandelier overhead flickered twice.

The next second.

It went out.

The world instantly fell into a pitch-black darkness where one couldn't even see their own hand.

Tiger King's voice stopped abruptly, as if someone had pressed the mute button.

In the darkness, Pei Duo tightly covered her mouth, cold sweat instantly soaking her back.

The livestream went black, with only the bullet comments still rolling frantically.

[(IP: Japan) Here it comes, here it comes! This familiar plot!]

[(IP: USA) Oh yes! Dinner time!]

[(IP: Dragon Country) Don't... please don't let anything happen!]

[Everyone, turn up the volume! There's a sound of water!]

"Drip."

"Drip."

The sound of a viscous liquid dripping onto the carpet was exceptionally clear in the deathly silent hall.

About ten seconds passed.

"Zzzz—"

The sound of electricity crackled again, and the crystal chandelier flickered back to life.

The moment the light returned, everyone's eyes instinctively turned toward the center of the hall.

Tiger King was still standing there.

He still maintained his arrogant posture with hands on his hips, legs standing straight.

Only...

Above his shoulders, it was empty.

The cut at his neck was as smooth as a mirror. Bright red blood sprayed out like a high-pressure hose, shooting three meters high and hitting the ceiling!

"Splash—"

A rain of blood poured down like a shower, instantly drenching the nearby newcomers until they looked like blood-soaked gourds.

The scalding, metallic heat caused them to completely break down.

"Aaaaahhh!!"

Piercing screams nearly burst their eardrums. A few cowards fainted on the spot, their eyes rolling back, while the rest scrambled on all fours toward the corners, wishing they could crawl into the cracks in the floor.

Pei Duo's stomach churned; the smell of raw meat almost made her vomit.

Dead?

The big shot who was just setting rules and boasting about clearing a B-rank instance was gone, his head missing without even a whimper?

That was it?

This is an s-rank instance?

No puzzles, no warnings, not even a glimpse of a ghost.

Just an unreasonable, instant kill!

The bullet comments exploded instantly, filled with sarcasm and despair.

[(IP: USA) Hahaha! Didn't I tell you? Instant kill! This is a B-rank big shot? That's it?]

[(IP: Dragon Country) It's over... it's all over... If even a B-rank big shot gets insta-killed, how can the rest survive?]

[(IP: Japan) It's really going to be a total wipeout. I suggest the remaining newcomers just commit suicide; it'll save them some suffering.]

"Crunch... crunch..."

In the midst of this maddening chaos, a tooth-gritting sound suddenly came from directly above.

It was the sound of teeth crushing bone and a tongue churning through brain matter—the sound of chewing.

Everyone's movements froze instantly.

The sound... was coming from the crystal chandelier.

Pei Duo's body went stiff. As if possessed, she slowly raised her head.

She followed the still-spurting pillar of blood upward.

On the iron frame of the dim crystal chandelier, a figure as bright red as blood hung upside down.

It was a woman wearing an old-fashioned red wedding dress.

She hung from the light fixture like a giant bat, her long black hair dangling and swaying in mid-air.

And in her arms, she was cradling a human head.

It was Tiger King's head.

Tiger King's eyes were still wide open, filled with arrogance and bewilderment; it seemed he didn't even know what had happened until the moment he died.

The woman in red reached out a hand as pale as dead dough, cupping the head as if savoring some peerless delicacy.

Sensing a gaze from below, the female ghost in red stopped eating.

Her neck, which remained perfectly composed even while hanging upside down, slowly rotated a hundred and eighty degrees.

She faced Pei Duo directly.

Pei Duo's breathing stopped.

That face...

It was as white as paper, with no eyes and no nose—as smooth and featureless as a peeled egg.

Only on the lower half, a large, crimson mouth split open, even revealing bits of Tiger King's flesh between her teeth.

Facing Pei Duo, the mouth stretched all the way to her ears, forming an incredibly eerie smile.

"Hee."