Nine Four Two Three One

"Am I lying on my stomach?"

Xu Kai came to his senses and suddenly realized he was lying face down on the floor.

He tried to push with both hands and pull himself free of the floor, but found it was no use.

Something seemed to have grown on his spine, and he couldn't push himself to his feet.

Xu Kai's heart sank like a stone. His corruption had progressed too far.

Before, he had only needed to realize it to stand up and break through the false perception. Now that no longer worked. No matter how he moved, he couldn't get up. Even the words "stand up" were growing increasingly unfamiliar to him.

A sense of danger flashed through his mind, but Xu Kai's head grew clearer. He rushed in the direction Kana had pointed.

He had to get the medicine and take it immediately, or he would become a monster through and through.

Xu Kai rushed to the doorway. Instead of the pharmacy Kana had described, he saw a room surrounded by iron bars, much like the butchering section of a market. A row of knives filled the room, blood still staining them. Chopping blocks stood below, with a corpse lying beneath each one. There was no one alive in the entire room.

Xu Kai remained calm at the sight. His perception was distorted, while Kana saw things normally.

"How do I get the medicine?"

"First, open the lock in front of you. The code is nine four two three one."

Kana glanced over from the corner of her eye but kept walking forward in short, shuffling steps. She was still carrying out her Nurse duties and had to keep moving.

Xu Kai looked up at Kana and suddenly felt hungry. His heart went cold. His corruption was growing worse.

Forcing down the urge to feed, he looked at the iron bars. He couldn't see the keypad door Kana had mentioned at all, so he could only reach out with his claws and fumble around.

"Why did you press five? You'll get electrocuted if you enter the wrong code!"

Kana saw it from the corner of her eye and grew anxious.

"This is five?"

Xu Kai hadn't felt anything. He'd thought he had only touched the iron bars. Just as he was about to try again, he saw the bars change. The red bars suddenly twisted into an iron mouth that snapped shut on his hand.

"Hiss..."

Xu Kai's arm went numb, and darkness engulfed his vision. Just before he died, he saw a flash of electricity.

On his ninety-fifth Save-Load, Xu Kai remembered where the five was. His hand was still in the air, before he had pressed it.

If this is five, then going by the positions on a nine-key pad, this should be nine...

Xu Kai pressed in that direction, then heard Kana say anxiously:

"Why did you press one?"

Xu Kai was startled by Kana's correction. Then a flash of electricity passed, and he lost consciousness again.

On his ninety-ninth Save-Load, Xu Kai had finally memorized the keys. Under Kana's nervous gaze, he finally entered the code.

He burned the sequence into his memory. It had actually taken him four deaths.

He pushed open the slaughterhouse's iron door and went inside.

He looked around but saw no sign of medicine. All he could see were corpses hanging above the stoves on both sides, with blood still dripping from the knives.

Xu Kai watched them warily, afraid that something among them might move.

On the other side of the window, Kana turned sideways and pointed ahead, then to the right, signaling for Xu Kai to go straight and then turn right.

Following Kana's directions, Xu Kai soon found a box. That was what it looked like to him; he had no idea what Kana saw.

Xu Kai was about to rummage through it when Kana struck the window and made a hugging gesture.

Xu Kai understood. He tried to pick up the box in his arms, but suddenly realized he couldn't seem to make that movement anymore.

His body seemed to resist the motion. His corruption was growing worse.

Xu Kai could distinctly feel hair growing on his body. Color was gradually returning to the world he saw, and with his keen sense of smell, he could clearly catch the sweet aroma of meat in the corridor...

Gulp.

Xu Kai swallowed the saliva his body had produced involuntarily. He endured it through sheer determination and finally regained his composure.

Since he couldn't use his hands, he had to carry the box out in his mouth. On his way out, he ignored the iron bars altogether, his massive body crushing them to pieces.

By the time Xu Kai reached Kana from behind, she was trembling, too frightened to move, as though she had sensed the oppressive presence of an apex predator.

"Xu... Xu Kai, are you still conscious?"

Kana turned her head in terror and fell helplessly backward to the floor, curling up as her muscles trembled.

Xu Kai walked up to Kana, swallowed with difficulty, and held out the box to her, but she didn't move.

His presence had frightened her so badly that she couldn't move.

"Don't just sit there. Hurry and find which medicine is mine!"

Xu Kai spoke anxiously, but as he did, he felt a surge of energy burst from his mouth.

He noticed that all the surrounding glass had shattered. Even Kana had been killed outright by the force of his words.

It's over!

Seeing Kana dead, Xu Kai's heart, which had been hanging in suspense, finally died.

Then he heard a familiar voice beside him. He seemed to have heard it somewhere before.

"My god, it's simply perfect! Waiving the rules wasn't for nothing. I looked at your medical records. You only took one blue pill, yet you've grown so strong. You can definitely win the Great Being's favor!"

A doctor was hanging impossibly from the ceiling, his eyes fixed on Xu Kai.

Xu Kai was still conscious. He looked at the doctor and realized that the man wasn't hanging from the ceiling at all. He was being gently held up by a monster—the same monster that had blocked the medical staff's break room.

The doctor clicked his tongue in wonder, his eyes full of fervor as he looked at Xu Kai.

This truly was a miracle of the Great Being: a monster full of reason, capable of finding pills on its own to evolve!

The doctor had long known that a trace of the Great Being was present in Red Shirt Hospital, but no matter how he searched, he had never been able to see its true form.

But as its loyal believer, he had received its supreme blessing. He could avoid the monsters' hostility and mimic the Great Being's presence to control them.

He obeyed the Great Being's will, speeding up the development of the pills and cultivating more perfect monsters.

As Xu Kai looked at the doctor, an inexplicable sense of familiarity flashed through him. At the mere sight of the man, he even felt an urge to gag. His body told him that the creature before him was inedible, and he was unwilling even to attack.

"Number Nine, don't you remember me? You even stripped off my clothes..."

The doctor spoke, and as soon as he said that, Xu Kai remembered.

This was the doctor he had met in the cafeteria.

Xu Kai stared intently at the doctor, the color slowly returning to his eyes. His sight was gradually recovering, and he could once again see colors other than black and white.

The doctor wasn't afraid of Xu Kai at all. He jumped down from the ceiling of his own accord and even walked up to him.

Once the doctor was down, Xu Kai felt as though he had grown much taller. He was looking down at the man. He heard the doctor say:

"Number Nine? Can you understand me?"

Xu Kai lowered his body slightly, a gesture that seemed to please the doctor.

"I'm a believer in the Great Being, the guide on your journey of evolution. Can you feel that formidable power in your body? That is the Great Being's blessing!"

The doctor was less a doctor than a Fanatic. His eyes were full of fervor for the Great Being he spoke of.

"Very good! It's just a shame that gifted material always undergoes corruption so quickly. If you'd taken a few more pills and the corruption had taken longer, you surely would have been cultivated into something even more perfect."

At those words, Xu Kai's red eyes shifted.

So the pills didn't suppress corruption. They stored up its energy and guided it to change in a particular direction.

The doctor paid no attention to Xu Kai's condition. After his burst of fervor, he seemed to come to his senses and looked at Xu Kai with contempt, as though he were looking at a lapdog on the ground.

"Even though you're rational now, this isn't the ideal state I'm after. What a shame. You definitely wouldn't be able to beat that champion in the arena."

The doctor shook his head, thinking as he walked up to Xu Kai. He actually tried to pat Xu Kai's head.

Red light flared in Xu Kai's eyes. As the doctor approached, he raised his right arm and drove his elbow straight at him.

Whoosh!

The wind rushed past. Xu Kai was about to strike the doctor's face with his elbow when his body stopped. A strange force was pressing against his mind, fighting him for control of his body.

The force conveyed pain and fear, seemingly trying to frighten Xu Kai into retreating.

It also carried a distorted memory, trying to tell Xu Kai that he had always been a monster and that his previous memories were all false.

It burrowed deep into Xu Kai's mind, murmuring and whispering incessantly in its depths.

Xu Kai sensed the force and smiled.

This little bit of pain? It's not even one ten-thousandth of what I felt when the Instance erased me. And this assault on my memories doesn't even amount to a fraction of the deaths in that previous save.

His overpowering consciousness crushed the force outright and reclaimed control of his body.

Xu Kai's eyes came back into focus. He saw the doctor's ugly face and his lips silently reciting a prayer, praising the bullshit Great Being he kept talking about.

Xu Kai opened his little cherry mouth and smiled, his lips stretching back to his ears. The doctor remained oblivious.

Rip!

"Hiss... Ah! How could you? How dare you defy the Great Being's will!"

With that sound, Xu Kai tore off the doctor's arm. The contempt on the doctor's face vanished instantly.

His pupils contracted, his breathing grew rapid, and his face twisted in pain, his brows and eyes scrunching together. Like a coward unable to bear the pain of losing an arm, he actually knelt before Xu Kai.

"No, you can't kill me! I can restore you, make you even more perfect! Please, don't!"

Xu Kai didn't believe the doctor. Instead, he bit down on him. Then, sickened, he ate only two bites before spitting him out.

When Xu Kai looked at what he had spat out, the doctor was already dead, disbelief still lingering in his eyes.

He seemed astonished that a beast would dare defy him.

After killing the doctor, Xu Kai felt no relief. He could sense that the source of that force was still inside him, and his consciousness couldn't uproot it.

It was firmly embedded deep in his mind, like a loudspeaker that periodically produced sound waves, subtly continuing to corrupt Xu Kai.

Because of his corruption, Xu Kai could now see colors perfectly, his vision like that of an ordinary person.

He could clearly see that what he had brought out earlier was a box of medicine packages. Each package inside had a number. Xu Kai managed to take one out with his hand, chose a red pill, and swallowed it.

After taking the pill, Xu Kai felt nothing. Unlike Kana before him, he didn't return to human form after being completely corrupted.

Xu Kai grew furious. He opened his bloody maw and swallowed the entire box.

Then he felt himself become a vacuum cleaner, sucking those sounds of corruption into his ears with a rush.

Because the force was so concentrated, he finally heard the voice of corruption clearly:

"Fight for victory! Become a 'beast'..."

Its syllables and tone were very deep, producing an effect much like the word "die" spoken by Fat Auntie in the cafeteria.

Once Xu Kai had heard the syllables clearly, his body, burdened with too much power, suddenly fell apart, and his consciousness plunged into darkness.