The ninth death.
Rain fell, carrying that familiar bloody stench. Each drop struck his skin and immediately raised a festering blister. Seconds later, his skin dissolved, exposing the muscle beneath, and blood dripped down with the rainwater.
The seventeenth death.
The raindrops fell like knives, striking his neck first, as though red-hot wires were piercing it. His nerves spasmed violently, and his head twitched uncontrollably. It felt as if molten iron had been poured into his chest, leaving him unable to breathe.
Qin Siyang was trapped deep in the mud, barely able to move. All he could do was wait for the rain to fall on him and inflict unending pain.
He tried holding his breath and biting his tongue, hoping to escape the illusion through his own actions, or at least bring this agonizing journey toward death to a swift end.
But every attempt failed.
He realized that the illusion would give him no chance to end his own life. Every death had to run its full course, from the onset of pain until the moment he lost consciousness completely.
Every death was as vivid as the first.
And in this endless, inescapable cycle, his mind was slowly being worn away.
The thirty-ninth death.
Or perhaps the fortieth.
Qin Siyang could no longer fully register the pain. He seemed caught in a state between life and death.
He only felt misery, an indescribable misery that seeped into his soul. Even his eyelids were too heavy to lift.
His sense of time had also begun to blur.
Qin Siyang had cycled between life and death dozens of times, each lasting several minutes. That meant he had already spent hours inside the illusion.
Yet after all those hours, no one had rescued him. It seemed he could only rely on himself.