Horror Castle (3)

Horror Castle (3)

Like lightning piercing a starless, moonless night, the sudden illumination made Pei Renli's widened pupils contract slightly. Since he had straightened his upper body, the direction he could see was different from when he had been lying on his side.

Things nearly as tall as a person, almost translucent and deathly pale, appeared throughout his field of vision.

They barely resembled human figures. Their hunched backs rose high, their bodies covered in equally translucent robes. Where their faces should have been, there was only a swirling, chaotic darkness.

Their exposed arms were long and twisted like those of lepers, covered in blisters of varying sizes. Their hands were nowhere to be seen, replaced by enormous scissors forty or fifty centimeters long.

These translucent monsters had no visible feet and needed no support, floating in midair...

As for why Pei Renli could see them so clearly, there was one less than four or five meters away from him!

As mentioned before, Pei Renli could see quite a few people nearby. Naturally, he was not the only one who noticed these monsters. As the flash of light that had appeared and vanished in an instant disappeared again, cries of alarm and screams rose one after another, accompanied by a string of hurried footsteps. It seemed someone was trying to flee.

Even more terrifyingly, many of the sounds Pei Renli heard stopped halfway through...

They were already in pitch-black darkness, with no sense of security to begin with. Now, whatever little security he had left had gone straight to hell.

Pei Renli's first reaction was naturally to run, as far away as possible. At a time like this, he could not care less about the darkness or whether he might crash into a wall. But every muscle in his body seemed frozen solid. He even had the illusion that his blood had stopped flowing. His mind was screaming, but his body could not move.

—Drip!

The sound of a water droplet hitting the floor entered his ears. Such a faint sound should have been difficult to notice amid the terrified screams around him, yet for some reason it stood out sharply and made his scalp crawl.

At that moment, the flickering illumination lit up again.

Pei Renli, who had remained motionless, noticed that some people seemed to have been frightened stiff just like him, while others had collapsed to their knees. Scarlet blood soaked their clothes and formed small pools beneath them. Their expressions, twisted with terror, had frozen at the moment their lives ended. Only then did the pungent smell of blood flood into his nostrils.

Beside one such corpse, one of those translucent creatures was floating after people trying to flee farther away. The dripping sound he had heard came from the abnormally huge scissors on its arms...

Darkness swallowed his vision again. An intensely unpleasant chill approached like the Grim Reaper wielding a scythe, as though it might blow his consciousness away entirely.

The only remaining warmth came from the person he had accidentally bumped into beside him. Perhaps that person was too terrified to move as well. At least having someone nearby offered a little comfort, enough to keep the last string of his sanity from snapping.

A powerful wave of nausea rose from his stomach, and he wanted to vomit. But his rigid body seemed unable to carry out even that instinctive reaction, turning Pei Renli's face livid.

Time became incredibly strange. He could not tell whether several seconds had passed or only an instant. With his mind almost completely blank, Pei Renli had no way of knowing.

Then, as that extreme cold drew closer and closer, the flash that drove away the darkness lit up once more.

His eyes shifted slightly as he glanced around.

That ghostlike translucent creature appeared with the flash less than a meter in front of Pei Renli. Its tall body almost completely enveloped him, filling his vision with deathly white.

At that moment, he felt the warmth at his left hand vanish rapidly. The person who had fallen to the ground with him scrambled up, trying to run.

Perhaps fear had sent their adrenaline surging, or perhaps the instinct to survive had restored his blank mind. In that moment, it was as if inspiration flashed through his head.

His rigid body suddenly burst with strength. Pei Renli felt that he had never moved so fast in his life. He rolled over and grabbed the person trying to escape, pinning them firmly to the floor.

"Shh. Don't move!"

He forced the words out of his throat, so quiet they were almost inaudible amid the terrified screams around them.

The person had originally tried to struggle, but they must have heard him, because they immediately went still.

—Or maybe they simply could not break free.

The icy chill was almost at its peak. Pei Renli did not know whether he was right, but since escaping was unlikely anyway, he might as well take a gamble.

In the lightless, shadowless darkness, the only things he could feel were body heat and faint breathing that was almost nonexistent. His heart pounded wildly, pumping blood rapidly through his body, yet it could not stop his limbs from growing colder and colder.

The flashes lighting the surroundings seemed to follow some kind of pattern. Perhaps they came once every few seconds, or perhaps there was some other rule he did not understand. In his terrified state, Pei Renli had no mood to count the time.

But it did not matter if he did not know the pattern. The flash dispelled the darkness once again.

The instant it lit up, the first thing Pei Renli saw was that pale, translucent thing. Whatever that ghostly creature was, it was pressed almost against his face, as close as lovers.

He unconsciously held his breath. Even as his face turned red from suffocation, he did not dare take even a single breath.

When the light came on, the creature slowly moved from side to side in front of Pei Renli. The motion made it seem as though it were sniffing for a scent. The intense sense of danger and cold made Pei Renli feel as if his body had frozen solid.

The light lasted only an instant. When darkness enveloped everything again, Pei Renli felt the chill gradually receding. Though he still could not see, his instincts told him he had escaped disaster. Warmth returned to his limbs and body, and only then did he realize he was drenched in cold sweat, his clothes clinging stickily to him.

Even though he felt the danger slowly moving away, he did not dare breathe too heavily. He could only gradually relax. He could not tell whether it was the joy of surviving or the lack of oxygen from holding his breath too long, but a faint dizziness clouded his mind.

After a while, when he finally recovered, the flash lit up the surroundings again. Only then did he notice that the monster he had seen earlier had already moved to the far end of his vision, perhaps chasing the person who had fled, getting farther and farther away.

After the cycle of light and darkness repeated for about another minute, the overhead lighting returned to normal. The darkness vanished as if it had never existed, and the translucent monsters were nowhere to be seen.

Pei Renli finally let out a long breath.

I won that bet!

Pei Renli considered himself highly adaptable. Someone else might have panicked for a while after being transported to another world, but he had accepted it calmly soon enough. It was just that his situation was so goddamn awful, and events had unfolded too quickly for him to keep up.

But being adaptable meant he regained his composure quickly, and that was an excellent quality.

Although the lighting had lasted only an instant, flashing past like lightning, Pei Renli had still noticed one detail even in his fear.

Those monsters did not attack people who stayed where they were, and they seemed able to move only when darkness descended. When the lights came on, they merely floated in place, striking poses.

Of course, since the lighting lasted such a short time, he could only make a judgment in an instant. Pei Renli was not actually very confident, which was why he had called it a gamble.

The short staff in his hand that could serve as a weapon had been completely useless. In fact, Pei Renli felt it was more like a trap.

Although he had found the hint that "silver is deadly poison to all ghosts," and had a telescopic spear that seemed silver-plated, if he had chosen to fight back just now, the outcome probably would not have been good.

Aside from the fact that his fighting skills were truly terrible, if he could not kill the other side in one strike, then once darkness fell, it could move and retaliate. Fighting something practically like a ghost while unable to see a thing...

Was most likely just asking for death.

Before entering the Horror Castle, the Elegant Demon King had said that, based on his experience, surviving would require courage, but even more than that, wit and luck.

Only after experiencing it for himself did Pei Renli understand how important those words were.

If Pei Renli had not been bold and sharp-eyed, he would never have noticed so many details. At best, he would have been chased around by those terrifying ghosts, with no idea how long they would keep pursuing him.

That said, even though he had escaped disaster, Pei Renli was still shaken. His limbs felt especially stiff.

Perhaps because the ghosts were no longer nearby and the lighting had returned to normal, he finally noticed that the place he was in resembled an enormous room spanning at least a thousand square meters.

Stone pillars supporting the ceiling stood in neat rows, extending into the darkness farther away. The floor beneath his feet was covered in square tiles one meter on each side.

Though he had survived by luck, wit, and courage, he could not truly relax until he left this place called the Horror Castle.

Staying where he was was not a good choice, but no matter where he went, he definitely could not head toward the darkness where the ghosts had vanished. He needed to look carefully for another way out nearby.

As Pei Renli surveyed the area, the person he had pinned down earlier got to their feet as well. Their legs seemed weak too, and they swayed unsteadily.

The person wore a heavy brown cloak that completely concealed their figure. There was no way to tell whether they were male or female, and even their face was hidden beneath the shadow of the hood.

"Th-thank you."

The voice was rather androgynous as well, making it difficult to discern their gender. They bowed to Pei Renli in thanks, and a lock of platinum-blond hair slipped out from beneath the hood.

Long hair... probably a woman?

But it was hard to say. Plenty of men wore their hair long too.

From the very beginning, Pei Renli had decided to avoid contact with others as much as possible for safety's sake. He had pinned the person down not only because he feared too much movement would attract the ghosts, but also because he did not want to stand by and watch someone die. It had been almost instinctive.

So in response to their thanks, Pei Renli merely gave a quiet grunt. He had no intention of traveling together or introducing himself.

More than that, he wanted to find an exit—and figure out how to stay alive in this godforsaken Horror Castle.

But almost the moment he nodded, the solid floor beneath his feet made the sound of something sliding, followed immediately by a powerful sensation of weightlessness that engulfed Pei Renli...