Time to Run

Inside the manor's gym, Wu Heng finished getting everything in order, took a shower, then came here to get used to his body.

Thump—a punch.

1,686 pounds!

Wu Heng struck the punching machine with a little force and looked at the number displayed.

He had indeed surpassed the limits of the human body.

A punch with this kind of force against an ordinary person would send them flying and crush their skull.

Ordinary people could use only about 20% to 30% of their muscle strength.

Even after professional training, that only rose to a little over 40%. Any more would damage the body.

If an ordinary person could use 100% of their muscles to deliver a single blow, they could hit with the force of a ton.

Of course, after that one punch, their bones would be shattered and their internal organs destroyed.

But Wu Heng was different.

He had already tested his physical strength and found it was twice the human limit.

And because his heart was his core,

he could also break through the brain's safety limits on muscle use and deliver a self-damaging, all-out strike like the Seven Injury Fist, then recover afterward with his blood.

His phone chimed. Wu Heng picked it up to check.

There were a series of text messages, all from Detective 1, Detective 2, and so on, up to Detective 20.

Every two detectives worked as a team, making ten teams in all. They were responsible for reporting on the behavior of Kirsty's family of three, who lived in Brooklyn City, and Frank in India, around the clock.

The messages said that Kirsty's father was putting their current home up for sale,

and Frank had withdrawn Moroccan francs worth ten thousand pounds from a bank an hour ago.

Wu Heng then opened the documents the police had given him on the table. Of the four properties Kirsty's family owned, the wooden house in Hatton District was the one that best matched the house in the story.

It was about to begin. He had to go find Kirsty—and get out of here as soon as he could.

The Ice Cenobite could realize at any moment that his soul had escaped from Hell.

Being a Cursed Disciple was great, but like any mortal who broke out of prison, if he got caught, he really wouldn't be able to save even his soul.

With the means Wu Heng had at his disposal, if he was discovered, he would definitely be dragged back into Hell.

His soul would be tortured until it was twisted beyond recognition. There would be no chance of escaping a second time.

He activated the booby traps he had set up in the wooden house.

He handed over to the police the five Black bastards tied up in the neighboring house—the ones who had smashed the back of his car—then turned and left the manor.

Those thugs had been his backup plan, in case the old blood he'd collected proved unusable. It was a shame he hadn't needed them.

The Ice Cenobite's intermediary was just an ordinary person obsessed with Hell.

When the man came to the wooden house to retrieve the Ice Crystal Puzzle Box, Wu Heng was sure the fully automatic machine gun and high-explosive mines would give him a surprise.

Cenobites generally paid no attention to ordinary people whose souls held no value, so there was no need to worry too much about the safety of the manor's servants.

Far away in Africa, Frank was sitting in a teahouse in Morocco. The sweltering heat had left him drenched in sweat beneath his white tank top.

A playboy devoted to pleasure, he had long since grown tired of worldly delights and started seeking more stimulating experiences.

Frank tossed a stack of banknotes onto the round red wooden table.

An old man in a blue embroidered shirt sat opposite him. He asked slowly, "What do you want?"

"The box."

The old man took the money and placed a square box covered in gold patterns on the table. A golden circle sat at the center of each face.

"Take it. It's yours now."

Frank picked up the box and turned to leave.

The old man sat motionless, staring at Frank's retreating back. In an eerie voice, he said, "It will always belong to you."

"The contract's signed. Here's the payment."

"No problem, sir. The shop is yours from this moment on. I wish you a thriving business."

Inside Fat Cat, a pet shop in Hatton District, Wu Heng signed a contract and watched the old owner walk out the door.

This was the pet shop where Kirsty would come looking for work in a few days.

Wu Heng checked the information on his phone. Frank had already boarded his return flight and was expected to arrive here tomorrow morning.

Wu Heng fed all the cats, dogs, and birds in the shop, making sure they were full.

Then he took his camera, locked the shop, and followed the map west along First Avenue.

Hatton District wasn't very big. After about twenty minutes, he found the place he'd been looking for.

A wooden bungalow in a distinctly European style stood on a green lawn.

White-painted walls and green roof tiles—it was the home of Channard, a doctor at the local Hatton Psychiatric Hospital.

Even though it was daytime, there weren't many people on the road. Channard was at work in the hospital, making this a good opportunity to sneak in.

Once he was sure he had the right place,

Wu Heng jumped up and grabbed the edge of the sloping roof, 2.5 meters above the ground. Pulling himself up, he slipped through a second-floor attic window.

Various anatomical models were displayed in Channard's living room.

He crossed the living room into the bedroom and searched it, but found nothing. Wu Heng returned to the living room and noticed another room on the right.

He twisted the doorknob and pushed hard, but the door was locked.

Wu Heng remembered seeing a key in a bedroom drawer. He went back to get it, then returned.

After a few tries, click—the door opened.

The walls inside were covered in diagrams of skeletal anatomy and disassembly diagrams of the Box of Mourning.

Five glass domes sat on the redwood table in front of the bookcase, each covering a counterfeit Puzzle Box.

Wu Heng couldn't help marveling at Channard's reckless behavior.

Of all the types of Puzzle Boxes he could've copied, he had to choose the one made exclusively for the High Priest Pinhead.

There were plenty of easier ones, but he'd gone straight for the hardest.

Wu Heng had chosen the Ice Crystal Puzzle Box because the Ice Cenobite wasn't especially powerful compared to the others.

Ignoring the counterfeit Puzzle Boxes on the table, Wu Heng began searching for the main target of his infiltration.

A green folder lay on the table.

Wu Heng opened it to take a look.

The first page held a black-and-white photograph of a Hell Priest. He had a sack over his head, with two spikes driven through the sack and into his eye sockets.

A note was clipped to the lower-left corner of the page. Its densely packed small print contained information about Leviathan's Hell.

Wu Heng took out his camera and photographed the materials as he read through them. They would be important to his plans later.

Soon, he found what he was looking for.

It was a black-and-white half-length photograph of a young man in a military uniform.

The note below it read:

Elliot Spencer graduated from a public school. Due to family circumstances, he joined the British Expeditionary Force during the First World War and became an officer.

The brutality of the Battle of Passchendaele caused him to lose faith in humanity and God. He buried the trauma of his past in pleasure and indulgence. In 1921, he discovered the Box of Mourning in British India, after which he vanished without a trace.

Wu Heng studied the photograph closely. He hadn't expected High Priest Pinhead to have been so handsome when he was young.

He took out his camera, focused on the photograph, and only relaxed once he had a clear shot.

In the second movie, this photograph could awaken Pinhead's humanity. It was a kind of talisman against him.

Wu Heng photographed the rest of the materials, closed the folder, and returned everything in the room to its original place.

After checking that there were no passersby outside, he climbed back out through the window and returned to the pet shop.

Only then did Wu Heng begin looking through the photographs he had taken. He hadn't taken the green folder with him because he didn't want to disrupt the plot of the second movie.

At 30% exploration,

Wu Heng received a ticket to enter the story world.

He didn't know what it was for yet, but he guessed it might have something to do with entering this world again.

Still, exploration was hard to come by. Wu Heng might have seemed to reach 35% with ease,

but in fact, he had died once, gone to Hell to check in, and completed two story missions before he got there.

He'd gotten a reward at 30% exploration. He wondered how much exploration he could achieve by completing every story mission—and whether there would be a reward.

Now that he had Spencer's photograph as a trump card, all that remained was to wait for Frank to return.

Wu Heng went to the pet shop entrance and looked up at the sky.

The evening clouds stretched from west to east, glowing crimson as if the sky were on fire, like hope burning bright.

He could almost see Frank flying in from the west.

Cutting through the clouds without pause, rushing headlong toward Hell.

Would you trade your collection, monthly vote, and recommendation vote for two wooden spoons?