Shattered Perception

As the elevator rose, Xu Kai used Weird Energy to protect his heart, head, abdomen, and other vital areas. Even so, fragments of the shattered steel balls pierced his limbs, punching several holes clean through them. Now Xu Kai suspected that if he drank water, his arms could spray it out like a watering can.

Only because Xu Kai was Evil could he survive: his heart was the source of his Weird Energy, and as long as it remained intact, he could live.

Grievously injured, Xu Kai lay flat on the floor, waiting for the Weird Energy inside him to pull his skin closed and stop the blood from pouring out.

Then, little by little, he used Weird Energy to pull the fragments out of his arms and thighs from the outside. As he pulled them out, Xu Kai also stood up and saw a speaker mounted in the upper right corner of the elevator ceiling.

He waved his hand with all his strength and clenched it around empty air, sending Weird Energy surging toward the speaker.

Sizzle.

Struck by Xu Kai's Weird Energy, the speaker burst apart.

Seeing it destroyed, Xu Kai breathed a sigh of relief. This hospital was too treacherous; it had even installed speakers in places like this.

The speaker's destruction affected the elevator lights as well, and Xu Kai's vision dimmed.

Xu Kai paid no attention to the light. He sensed the Weird Energy inside him; after all he had used, only ten percent remained.

Xu Kai could not draw on that ten percent. All of it was acting as a tailor, stitching his wounds shut to keep the blood from flowing out. If Xu Kai continued to use Weird Energy, he would go into shock in ten minutes and be declared dead in half an hour.

Ding-dong.

The seventh floor.

Xu Kai stepped out of the elevator onto something soft, without the solid feel of a floor beneath his feet. He looked down and discovered that he was standing on a red carpet.

The instant he saw it, a chill ran through him. He knew there was definitely something wrong with his perception.

He did not dare look up. The texture of the red carpet was exactly the same as the one leading into the Arena. He had never forgotten the Arena's rule: once he saw it, he had to fight a duel before he could leave.

In Xu Kai's condition, going into the Arena meant death. It would be a pointless sacrifice. Even though Xu Kai had Death Rewind and could not die for good, there was no point in going; he had no chance of winning.

Xu Kai kept his head down and backed away, only to find a wall behind him. The elevator had vanished.

He worked up the courage to raise his head just a little and found that there were partition walls on both sides of the red carpet, not stands. He turned slowly, looking carefully around him, and found himself standing where three red carpets met. There were three paths before him.

It was as though he had deliberately been given a multiple-choice question, making him choose among the three red carpets.

His fingers curled slightly as he rubbed the cuff of his hospital gown. After looking around with his head lowered, he had found that he could not see the end of any of the three red carpets. Each direction had a corner that blocked his view beyond it. Xu Kai boldly raised his head and looked ahead.

With his head raised, he could see the scene more clearly. It was essentially the same seventh-floor corridor as before, except that it now split into three separate passages, with red carpets laid along them.

Xu Kai examined them closely. The three passages were laid out identically, and even the rooms at their ends were all Room Nine.

The numbers of the neighboring rooms were in order too, and Room Eight was there as well. Xu Kai went to look beside each of the three Rooms Eight, but found no one.

He believed there had to be a difference among them, and that this error in perception must have some purpose.

Xu Kai could not yet see what that purpose was. He only wanted to solve the mystery, because he had discovered with a heavy heart that the wall clocks had disappeared from all three paths.

Xu Kai could not tell the exact time at all. Estimating it by feel was out of the question; his perception was already in disarray, so he dared not trust his sense of time.

What Xu Kai saw now was black and white, like a black-and-white photograph from the nineties. Even the term "red carpet" was a concept Xu Kai had assigned to a carpet of this shape, drawing on years of memories from his previous life on Blue Star.

Time waited for no one, and Xu Kai finally decided to charge ahead. He took the left-hand path first, following the red carpet all the way to the door of Room Nine.

The door was intact. Xu Kai looked through it and saw that the room was empty. He took out his key and slipped it smoothly into the lock; the feel told him it was the original.

Creak. The door opened, and Xu Kai pushed his way inside, only to step into empty space. Thrown off balance, he lacked both the strength and the Weird Energy to correct himself. He staggered several steps before he managed to steady himself.

The instant he stepped inside, his vision began to warp violently, as though he had put on a pair of high-prescription glasses for severe nearsightedness. Although he staggered a little, he found the path extraordinarily familiar.

Beyond the door was a downward-sloping path, also covered with soft carpet.

The lines of the world finished twisting, and the swaying stopped. Xu Kai looked up again, his pupils contracting slightly. The Arena stood directly ahead!

And on either side of the red carpet were the familiar high walls and stands.

The doors to the stands were locked tight. The spectators inside were all patients and doctors, all down on all fours, their bodies covered in fine fur. Their eyes glowed red as they stared at Xu Kai.

One of the creatures on all fours lunged out, spraying saliva everywhere, only to crash into an invisible wall.

Xu Kai calmed himself and continued forward. Looking at the towering walls and massive doors, he thought the Arena had truly been designed on a grand scale. A strange feeling rose in his heart.

In fact, the moment he saw the Arena, Xu Kai knew he was certain to die. As he was now, he had no way to face the monster in the Arena.

But Xu Kai kept walking. He gazed up at the towering stands, then turned to look at the red carpet along the edge. He walked on until he finally reached the Arena entrance. At that moment, his vision blurred for an instant, and he saw two people down on all fours in the Arena.

One was Leng Chong, and the other was Nurse Lin. Both of them were on all fours, their faces covered in fine, dense fur, their eyes red.

After Xu Kai entered the Arena, it closed with a snap.

Roar!

They roared, making Xu Kai's eardrums tingle, and charged at him.

At some point, Nurse Lin had suddenly taken a long saber in her mouth. When Xu Kai saw it, he could not help feeling a little steadier.

Nurse Lin's saber techniques were extremely strange. When they had attacked the monster earlier, she had dealt it the most damage, so Xu Kai was naturally wary. But seeing her wield the saber in her mouth, he breathed a sigh of relief.

The winds of mutation had finally reached Nurse Lin. With a saber in her mouth, Xu Kai could not imagine what elaborate saber techniques she could still use. Even if she could, she would only be able to cut his ankles, which would not be fatal.

But when Nurse Lin came close to his face, Xu Kai finally realized something was wrong.

Nurse Lin was racing toward him on all fours, yet his own viewpoint was level with hers!

He was down on all fours himself!

Xu Kai could not understand when he had fallen victim to it, but Nurse Lin had already rushed up to him. She gave her head a slight twist, moving with tremendous speed.

The long saber immediately slashed diagonally from the right, ignoring Xu Kai's Weird Energy. While he was still stunned, it split him open in an instant, and he lost consciousness.

On his ninety-first Save-Load, Xu Kai returned to the three-way junction. A phantom pain still lingered in his neck, and he could even hear the creaking sound of the blade cutting through bone.

He shook his head and finally emerged from the pain. Xu Kai abandoned the idea of entering the left-hand red carpet again and turned his gaze to the middle one, walking down it as though he knew the way by heart.

When he reached the door to his room, Xu Kai inserted the key again. It slid in just as smoothly as before, no different from the last time he had opened the door.

He tried stepping inside. His view changed, and there was the familiar downward slope. Once again, Xu Kai saw the Arena.

"Tch, charge!"

As though speedrunning, Xu Kai sprinted straight into the Arena. Using nothing but his physical strength, he somehow dodged Nurse Lin's stunning first slash, only to die under her second.

On his ninety-second Save-Load, Xu Kai had already grown accustomed to the phantom pain in his neck. He set out again, this time choosing the red carpet on the far right.

"Surely all three paths can't lead to the Arena?"

Xu Kai murmured to himself, holding the key in his mouth as he tried to open the door to Room Nine.

When he could not reach it, Xu Kai suddenly broke out in a cold sweat. Without realizing it, he had been down on all fours for a long time.

Realizing this, Xu Kai struggled to stand up. His entire arms, joints and all, were numb.

It was as though they were telling Xu Kai that using his hands this way was wrong.

He laboriously raised his hands before his eyes and saw the webbing on them. He formed his Weird Energy into a blade and endured the pain as he cut it apart bit by bit. Once he could finally make out his fingers, he used his bloody hand to take the key from his mouth and open the door to Room Nine.

The instant he pushed the door open, Xu Kai's vision stopped swaying. There was the familiar hospital bed, and Kana was still sitting where she had been, staring blankly at him.

Her eyes were full of disbelief, as though she were witnessing a miracle.

Just now, she had been sitting on the hospital bed, having just finished her milk, when she saw a terrifying beast crouched at the door.

The beast had roared, sending a shock through her. She had even thought she would die the next second.

But the beast had not rushed in. Instead, it had laboriously torn open the layer of skin on its surface and even stood up. It first tore open its forelegs, revealing human hands, then tore open its head, revealing Xu Kai's face!

It was a miracle: a person had forcibly pulled his perception back into place without taking any medicine!