Flying Axe

Chapter 21: Flying Axe

"Clang... clang... clang..."

The intermittent banging came from within the fog, amplified as if by the deep mountain forest itself, drilling clearly into their ears.

"The cabin door is latched," Xu Huo said.

The cabin used an old-fashioned latch lock. After the players carried the corpse inside and came out, they had casually hung the lock back on—The Dead Are Great, this was to prevent wild animals from damaging the body. But now someone was banging on the door.

"G-g-ghost?" Yuan Yao couldn't even get his words out straight.

"Would a ghost need to bang on a door?" Xu Huo walked around to the entrance. As soon as he pulled the door open, he heard a "crash" from inside, along with Zhang Xiong's roar.

By then, several players had already come out at the noise. They rushed to the room outside Zhang Xiong's door, and the rich second generation in front kicked it open without a second thought.

The room's light was on. A mess of glass shards covered the floor at a glance. Huang Junjie, drenched in sweat, leaned against the wall, his left hand pressing hard on his right shoulder as a steady stream of blood seeped through his fingers, already pooling into a small puddle on the ground.

Zhang Xiong supported him, pouring a Self-Healing Agent into his mouth!

"What happened!" Wang Wei pushed past Xu Huo and hurried over to help. Huang Junjie freed up a hand, his face pale as he said, "It's the Head Chopper Demon!"

Everyone's expression changed.

"You were attacked by the Head Chopper Demon?" Xu Huo asked. "Did you see the person?"

Huang Junjie shook his head. "I had just finished checking the outer wall and was heading back to my room when an axe flew at me from outside the yard. I dodged just in time, or my head would have been lopped off. When I turned to look, I only saw a black shadow running past the outside of the courtyard wall."

Xu Huo looked into the yard. The Mountain Villa was all open-air hot springs, with the courtyard and rooms separated only by floor-to-ceiling windows. The surrounding walls were made of green plants stacked up, at least a head taller than a person. Even if Huang Junjie had only seen the head, the Head Chopper Demon had to be at least two meters tall.

"You've got to be kidding!" the rich second generation said. "The outer wall is two meters high. How could you have seen anyone?"

"At least two meters thirty or forty," Huang Junjie added. "I saw it clearly. He was wearing a black mask on his head."

"Could you have been seeing things?" Du Lanlan said. "It's so dark out there, after all."

"No mistake." Huang Junjie was perfectly lucid.

"What about the axe?" Xu Huo scanned the marks left by the blade on the stone floor. "If he attacked you with an axe, it should have landed in the yard."

"That's what baffles me. The axe flew back out on its own," Huang Junjie said, as if it had been sucked away.

Flew back out on its own?

"Really, I saw it with my own eyes," Zhang Xiong quickly added.

"How is that possible!" Yuan Yao exclaimed. "Are you saying there's a nearly two-and-a-half-meter-tall killer wielding a flying axe roaming around the villa?"

Xu Huo shifted his gaze from the courtyard wall back to the mess on the floor. This method was a bit crude and straightforward, somewhat inconsistent with the game's description.

"Not necessarily human..." Wang Wei looked up and said. "This is a game world, after all. Ghosts and monsters wouldn't be strange!"

"We didn't end up in a Ghost Monster Instance, did we?" Xia Guo rubbed her arms. "And that banging on the door just now—it definitely came from the cabin. But we already checked earlier, and there was no one around there. If it's not a ghost, is it a corpse rising?"

The foreign young man, Abel, gripped the Cross hanging around his neck. "This is my first instance. Are game instances always like this?"

"Who the hell knows!" the middle-aged bald man Wan Zhikang said irritably. "We're all first-timers here!"

The game prompt hadn't mentioned any haunting either. They had all assumed the "Head Chopper Demon" was a murderer hiding in the villa—an opponent who was human.

If it's human, you can deal with it. How do you deal with a ghost?

"What banging on the door?" Zhang Xiong asked.

Du Lanlan quickly explained the situation. The reason they had come so fast was actually because of that sound; they had been planning to come out and check anyway.

"It seems to have stopped now." She cast a hopeful look at Huang Junjie.

"Probably a wild boar or some other beast," Huang Junjie said weakly.

"I think you're all scaring yourselves," Liu Yuanyuan said, touching up her lipstick in a small mirror. "Ghosts and monsters—maybe the Head Chopper Demon is just trying to scare people. Height-wise, platform heels plus insoles, and I could almost hit two meters. It's pitch black out there, and you wouldn't see a string on the axe."

Explained that way, it actually sounded pretty reasonable.

"Should we go out and take a look?" Yuan Yao looked at Xu Huo.

"It's too dark, and the villa has no lighting. Let's wait until tomorrow during the day," Xu Huo said.

"Right." The rich second generation shot him an approving look. "What's the use of just standing around shouting nonsense? Tomorrow we'll turn the villa upside down. I don't believe we won't find the Head Chopper Demon."

With that, he put his arm around Liu Yuanyuan and left. The other players looked at each other, none daring to go out either, and returned to their own rooms.

"You two come to our room tonight," Xu Huo said. "What if the Head Chopper Demon comes back for a second strike?"

"Good point!" Zhang Xiong quickly helped Huang Junjie up, and Yuan Yao went over to assist as well.

The four of them moved to the same room. Xu Huo gave up the bed to Huang Junjie and curled up on the small sofa.

"Thanks, all of you," Huang Junjie said sincerely.

Xu Huo smiled and nodded, then leaned back against the sofa to sleep.

The night passed without incident. Toward dawn the next day, he was woken by a "clicking" sound. Turning over and sitting up, he walked into the yard and looked in the direction of the noise.

What a coincidence—it was the cabin again.

"What's that sound?" Huang Junjie was awake too. "Is this what you heard yesterday?"

"No." Xu Huo wiped his face and headed toward the main hall.

Wan Zhikang and Abel were already in the lobby. Abel clutched a cross, muttering under his breath, "Amitabha, Hallelujah, Amen..."

"Your foreign gods can't handle our ghosts." The rich second generation also came out, tilting his ear to listen. "This doesn't sound like someone banging on the door."

"It's the sound of chopping wood," Xu Huo said. "There's an axe among the logging tools by the Wooden Cabin."

"Could the Head Chopper Demon be out splitting firewood in broad daylight instead of hiding?" Liu Yuanyuan said.

"Let's go see and find out," Wang Wei said.

Once Du Lanlan and Xia Guo came out, the group left the lodging and headed toward the small cabin.

The sky hadn't fully brightened yet—or rather, under such thick fog, this was as bright as it got. The crowd skirted the path by the entrance and walked through the woods. From a distance, they saw a figure standing before a stump, raising an axe high to split a round log in two.

"That person's clothes look familiar..." Du Lanlan stammered.

As if hearing the sound, the figure turned around. It was the same person who had hanged himself before their eyes yesterday!