Tap.
The sound was incredibly faint.
Yet in that instant, it was enough to make Sainsai's pupils abruptly dilate.
The Branding Iron Clown's back twitched twice as if struck by electricity, and he spun around with a shocked expression.
And there, entering Sainsai's sight, was still that bloodstained figure collapsed on the ground.
Not moving an inch.
Not making a sound.
Still the same dying man whose will had been utterly destroyed, whose life was about to reach its end.
At this sight, Sainsai frowned. His emotions swiftly settled as he wondered inwardly:
Was that my imagination?
He had thought Weimeng had made that noise.
Yet to Sainsai, that was something absolutely impossible.
The most common reaction of someone stabbed by the Tainted Crystal Dagger was for their body to first convulse violently, after which their consciousness would swiftly sink into another world, temporarily severing all connection with reality.
If that happened, the wounded usually had only two ways to survive.
The first was to temporarily inject a massive dose of mental sedatives, using the drugs' violent effects to forcibly preserve the victim's body and mind, dragging their consciousness back into the real world.
And that was the most common measure Delight Theater used on most newcomers during its initiation rituals.
This allowed Delight Theater to give newcomers mental stimulation intense enough to brainwash them while also preserving their lives and expanding its manpower. In a sense, it had long been the very foundation upon which Delight Theater built its organization.
The second was for the victim to already possess extraordinarily powerful mental strength and to be in sufficiently good condition when wounded. Then, even without outside intervention, they could recover consciousness on their own after a period of time and return to reality.
Long before Delight Theater had been