Chapter 96

Chapter 96

The castle's second floor had likely once served as a place for the original owners to rest and entertain guests.

The various flowers planted in the balcony garden had long since withered, leaving only blood-red thorns to coil and climb.

All things considered, the second floor was remarkably safe—provided one could overcome their fear and had sufficient food and water. An ordinary person could survive here for years.

Safe, aside from the three bosses. The estate offered no lesser minions to grind for experience. They'd all been eaten.

Visitors were rare because of the black fog. Everyone got hungry. They made do by eating pollutants.

The last pollutant had been a mutated rat, roughly thirty-seven years ago. The three bosses had come to blows over who got the plumpest, tenderest haunch. The doctor, being an outsider, had been double-teamed by the merchant couple. His brain had ended up on the wall. He'd spent half a day picking it out.

It had to be said, the preservation of Wurilei's corpse was nothing short of a miracle.

Then again, it might have been the Deep Sea Society's surgical modifications that made the doctor's body smell particularly unappetizing.

A locked iron gate stood between the second and third-floor stairwell. The lock had long rusted shut. Michael grabbed the frame, gave it a hard shake, and wrenched the entire gate free.

The third floor was the castle's top level. Moonlight filtered in from outside, providing just enough faint illumination to make out the interior.

It resembled a delivery ward. The main hall was filled with rows of cribs.

The moment Lu Yan stepped inside, a chorus of muffled, whimpering cries rose from every crib.

Each crib was draped with a white sheet. Something writhed beneath the fabric, and dark, wet stains of blood slowly spread across the cloth.

The air here was bitingly cold, carrying a cloying mix of formaldehyde and the stench of decay.

The doctor really is a cut above the average pollutant for keeping his brains, the system remarked with approval. He knows how to set a mood.

Yan Bei trembled, the hair coiled around Lu Yan's arm tightening its grip. Lu Yan glanced down, unsurprised to see a ring of red marks forming on his wrist.

Michael activated his gift. Holy Light.

A warm, golden glow emanated from him, illuminating a three-meter radius. The skin-crawling sense of dread immediately lessened.

The range of Michael's Holy Light field was inversely proportional to the local pollution value. If a pollutant drew near, the light would contract. It served as an early warning system.

Michael tightened his grip on his crimson holy sword, his voice low and cautious. "Stay close. Be careful."

Lesion severity could be reduced after combat through rest and medication, but a sudden, sharp spike was hard on the body and could leave lasting damage.

He used the tip of his sword to flip back the sheet on the nearest crib. Beneath it lay a plastic doll.

The blood-red doll had no eyes, just two dark, empty sockets. As the sheet was lifted, it let out a series of soft, giggling laughs.

The laughter echoed through the vacant hall, bouncing off the walls, creating a chilling, overlapping resonance.

These were toys the mistress bought for her unborn child. She never had the baby's gender tested, so they prepared two nurseries.

Behind this hall is the delivery room the merchant prepared for his wife.

The only entrance to the delivery room was a single corridor, like a tunnel.

Dried red streaks stained the hall's white walls.

Yan Bei reached out, swiped a finger through one, and brought it to his nose. "Mineral pigment," he whispered.

The doctor was like a dedicated horror movie prop master, or a haunted house owner, committed to immersing every visitor.

If not for the system's constant chatter in his ear, Lu Yan thought he might actually have been affected by these tricks.

"Something's inside," Lu Yan murmured. "Estimated pollution value around seven thousand."

Almost as soon as he spoke, a pitch-black shadow flickered within the delivery room. An intense wave of pollution erupted. The Holy Light wavered like a candle flame in a strong wind.

Michael's expression sharpened with alertness. "Wait here. I'll investigate. Burn a feather if there's trouble."

Without waiting for a reply, he spread the white wings on his back and shot forward down the corridor.

The moment Michael crossed the threshold, a heavy iron gate slammed down behind him, sealing the entrance.

He spun around, a look of stunned realization and anger on his face. He'd been tricked. The pollutant had trapped him inside this tunnel-like corridor.

Michael swung his greatsword in a reverse grip, slashing at the gate. A deep gash appeared in the metal, spraying bright red blood.

But almost instantly, the wound sealed itself, the metal healing as if alive.

Despite being a delivery room, the air inside felt unnaturally damp and heavy.

Michael struck several more times. The gate remained unyielding. From overusing his gift, a layer of soft white down began to sprout across his abdomen.

"Lu Yan?! Can you hear me?"

No reply came from outside.

After a moment's thought, Michael tightened his grip on his sword. He reignited the Holy Light and began to advance slowly, deeper into the delivery room.

……

……

Outside the gate, Yan Bei stared, dumbfounded by the sudden turn of events, his gaze seeking help from Lu Yan.

They were delivering something… unnatural. The Deep Sea Society's preparations were thorough. Couldn't have the baby escaping. That door is made from the blubber layer of an aberrant humpback whale. Killing that thing cost a lot of lives.

Michael's spiritual power threshold was 8400, making him clearly the most troublesome opponent among the three of them.

Yan Bei was at 6700. Lu Yan hadn't even reached 5100.

Even pollutants understood the principle of picking the softest target.

"What do we do now, Lu Yan?" Yan Bei asked, his voice uneasy. Several small black flowers bloomed atop his head.

Your fellow guest is preparing for the hunt, the system stated. He's been hungry a long time. The slaughterhouse couriers don't deliver to this zone. Fresh meat has finally wandered in. The doctor will arrive in approximately one minute.

Lu Yan raised a finger to his lips in a gesture for silence.

He pulled open the door to a nearby study and ushered Yan Bei inside.

At the very least, they couldn't stay in the open hall as targets. The windows were sealed shut. Inside the study, they only had to watch the entrance.

The air here was stale and thick with dust, catching in the throat. The study had been abandoned for years; the connected elevator had long since ceased operation.

It was clear the merchant had possessed some peculiar tastes while alive. The room was lined with specimens preserved in formaldehyde.

The specimens were grotesque, unlike anything that should grow on a human body. The preserving fluid in the jars, beneath a yellow layer of wax, had turned a faint green from never being changed. Some glass panels were shattered. One case held nothing but a spiny, bony spinal column.

Specimens fished from the deep sea. That thing in front of you is the head of an aberrant oarfish.

Only the head remained, mouth gaping wide, lined with rows upon rows of needle-like teeth.

There were others: an aberrant seahorse that resembled an underdeveloped fetus, a lamprey, a fleshy ball covered in meaty tendrils that the system identified as a sea urchin shell…

Lu Yan quickly chose a hiding spot.

It offered a view of the doorway while providing enough cover to avoid immediate detection.

Outside, heavy footsteps thudded. The pollutant seemed to relish the hunt, pacing deliberately. The axe it dragged behind it scraped across the floor with a grating metallic shriek.

Lu Yan plucked one of the small black flowers from Yan Bei's head. "Don't be afraid," he whispered. "It's just trying to scare us."

He retrieved one of Michael's feathers and pressed it into Yan Bei's palm.

Though Yan Bei's spiritual power threshold was over a thousand points higher, Lu Yan had grown accustomed to the protector's role.

Besides, Yan Bei wasn't a combat-type Awakened. The Pope's threshold was over eight thousand, and he still couldn't beat a six-thousand-point box jellyfish.

The hair wrapped around Lu Yan's wrist loosened. Yan Bei sat quietly, covering his mouth with his hands. His legs began to turn woody, sprouting root-like tendrils.

The roots spread slowly, soon covering half the wall like ivy.

Yan Bei is initiating plantification. His lesion severity has risen to 73. In this state, the half of his body that remains human will be exceptionally vulnerable.

Lu Yan used the network of roots to climb to the top of a bookshelf. He lay flat, drawing the bow from his back.

Outside, the doctor's axe finally slammed into the study door with devastating force.

The door groaned, then collapsed inward with a heavy, dull crash.

The doctor stepped through the doorway. For the first time, Lu Yan saw it clearly.

Its upper body was bare, the surface like severe burns—no normal skin, only raw, crimson muscle fiber.

Eyes covered its back. Where its head should have been, tiny red tentacles sprouted from every orifice. A jagged seam, crudely stitched with crooked thread, ran across the top of its skull.

Its arms were completely aberrant, the fingers elongated into vascular ropes that dragged along the floor.

[Watch its hands,] the system warned. [If they pierce you, it will trigger its Severing talent. You can regenerate, but I'd hate to see you in that much pain.]

[The doctor's apparent weakness is its brain, but the eyes on its back are what control its actions.]

Lu Yan wasn't familiar with the Severing talent, but as the pollutant entered, Yan Bei's root tendrils shot out, wrapping around it like a fisherman's net.

Lu Yan had always been good at seizing an opening. He took the chance to loose an arrow. The arrowhead struck dense, corded muscle and stuck there, unable to penetrate further.

With just a flex of its muscle, the doctor shook the arrow loose. It clattered to the floor.

Clearly, after Wang Yu's long-term "reinforcements," its physical resilience was nothing to scoff at.

The arrow was a mere nuisance. What truly enraged it were the wooden roots coiling around its body.

Tentacle against tentacle. Trapped by the roots, the doctor let out a furious, guttural roar. Its slender, elongated fingers curled upward and stabbed forward, punching a clean hole through the thick root.

The severed section of Yan Bei's root fell to the ground as if sliced by a blade. Clear sap sprayed from the perfectly flat cross-section.

Yan Bei's eyes welled up with moisture. He couldn't stop himself from digging his nails into his own palm. "Feels goo— No, it… it hurts… oww."

The system's tone was grave. [If you want to live, let Yan Bei draw its aggro. I'll tell you when to move.]

In that moment, Lu Yan felt a sharp pang of envy for Subject 01's teleportation talent.

He was a coiled spring, a predator holding its breath. He tightened his grip on the dagger.

The doctor had noticed Lu Yan on the bookshelf, but it clearly didn't consider him a threat capable of causing real harm.

After a brief moment of consideration, the doctor bared its teeth in a cruel grin and began lumbering toward Yan Bei.