"Good child."
In the darkness, that voice murmured softly one last time.
The words were like a mother's quiet reassurance to her infant, so gentle that they seemed capable of enveloping someone entirely in a warm dream.
Yet the moment the murmur faded, a familiar, spine-chilling scraping quietly arose, like sharp fingernails dragging slowly across the floor. The sounds came from all around Su Bai and the others, as though their source was already close at hand, lurking in the darkness within arm's reach and watching them.
At the same time, the terrifying power belonging to "it" finally began to dissipate. Su Bai could feel his senses returning, allowing him to hear the breathing of the surrounding players and the faint fluctuations of their power, just as before.
Yet Su Bai heard no footsteps.
Apart from that spine-chilling scraping, the surrounding corridors were deathly silent. The nurses moved without any of the sounds of ordinary walking, as though these things had never relied on their feet to move in the first place.
Su Bai tightened his hold on Le Shiya. The girl still showed no sign of waking, her breathing steady, as though she had fallen into a deep dream, oblivious to everything.
No, something was wrong!
Su Bai suddenly realized that the other players around him were far too quiet.
Before, whenever darkness enveloped the players, their hearts would race and their breathing would grow erratic. No matter how composed they were, the meager Red Moon Power within them would fluctuate noticeably from fear or tension.
But now-
Everything was steady.
Far too steady.
Without "its" interference, Su Bai could sense the other players' regular heartbeats in the darkness. Everyone's breathing had become even and relaxed, and even the fluctuations of power around them were unbelievably quiet, completely unlike