Aberrant

"Grrrgl... grrrrgl..."

A strange, muffled sound echoed through the stairwell. Xu Ye was certain it wasn't the growling of the Aberrant below. It sounded more like a hungry person's stomach rumbling.

Then the stairs began to shake and writhe, the steps shrinking and swelling like a length of intestine.

The stairwell was "hungry."

Xu Ye drew a deep breath. Holding his dagger across his chest, he kept one side of his body against the wall and bolted upstairs.

Three steps... six steps... nine steps... the fourteenth floor.

His expression changed.

He turned and sprinted downstairs.

Three steps... six steps... nine steps...

Cool sunlight filtered through the already distorted stairwell window and fell across the red lettering.

The fourteenth floor!

Still the fourteenth floor!

A ghost loop?

Xu Ye's mouth slowly fell open, his teeth chattering. He was a little stunned.

"Hail the Gatling Bodhisattva, with depleted uranium rounds to cleanse the six senses. Three thousand six hundred revolutions per breath, delivering all beings with boundless mercy."

"This humble Taoist draws a cross on his chest and chants Amitabha. You-come at me!" Xu Ye stamped his foot, planted one hand on his hip, and crooked his right index finger toward the Aberrant downstairs, shouting firmly.

Come at me... at me... me...

His voice echoed through the stairwell, growing fainter and fainter.

Unfortunately, it didn't work.

He hadn't scared it off.

[I stood there, at a loss.]

[The stairwell kept contracting. This was the Aberrant's ability. It wanted to swallow me.]

[By this time next year, the grass on my grave would be tall.]

Xu Ye's pupils contracted.

Countless pores sprouted across the walls, enough to kill someone with trypophobia on the spot, and bright red liquid seeped out of them.

The light overhead became a bloody stomach sac.

Fortunately, his heart began to writhe again.

[Maybe I should do the splits for it. It might let me go. Too bad I don't know how.]

[Just then, I noticed that the door on my left was ajar.]

[I entered the room and shut the door, escaping danger for the moment.]

[But what about the mission?]

As the stairwell kept contracting and the space he could stand in dwindled, Xu Ye didn't hesitate. He yanked open the door, sticky with some unknown liquid, and ducked inside.

But before he could catch his breath, his lowered gaze caught a shadow on the floor, looming over him.

[The danger wasn't over.]

[It turned out this was all the stray dog Aberrant's scheme. Everything in the stairwell was a distorted illusion. Its real body was waiting here for me to take the bait.]

[This was horrifying, like filling in the wrong rows on a college entrance exam answer sheet.]

[I tightened my grip on the dagger. I remembered that a man wearing a tall hat had given it to me before the mission. It was an F-rank taboo item called "Beginners Must Not Die."]

[Maybe this was my last means of staying alive.]

What a goddamn joke.

"Fuck!"

Xu Ye cursed under his breath.

He could already feel the Aberrant's scorching breath behind him, reeking of blood, washing over his back in wave after wave.

Goosebumps raced from his waist all the way to the crown of his head.

Rumble!

Outside, a curtain of rain like pine needles suddenly came down amid thunder and lightning.

An afternoon thunderstorm had arrived without warning.

A bolt of lightning illuminated the cramped room.

Xu Ye turned stiffly. By the lightning's glow, he finally saw the stray dog Aberrant's true appearance.

"Hiss-"

It was a yellowish-brown stray dog with a gaping hole in one side of its body. There was nothing inside its broken ribs.

Its limbs weren't dog legs. Human feet had been sewn onto them instead. The front two feet were pale and soft, while the rear two were covered in sores, like an old person's feet.

And it had two dog heads.

But that wasn't what made Xu Ye gasp.

What horrified him most was that one of those dog heads bore an old man's face.

Its skin was wrinkled and covered in corpse spots, with bags under its eyes sagging all the way to its cheeks. Its eyes were scarlet, and it bared a mouthful of yellow-black teeth at Xu Ye.

If his memory served, that face belonged to the husband of the woman who kept a dog on the eighteenth floor.

"Hrk-ptoo!"

The human-faced dog head cleared its throat, stretched its neck, and spat a thick, bloody wad of phlegm beside Xu Ye's feet.

Xu Ye: "..."

Xu Ye stayed silent, his back against the door and his right hand behind him. The knuckles gripping his dagger had turned white.

The Aberrant stared blankly at Xu Ye. Suddenly, its black tail, made from a bundle of human hair, began wagging from side to side.

The human-faced dog head lowered itself, picked up a bowl beside its feet, and set it in front of Xu Ye. Its tongue, covered in a white coating, poked halfway out and lapped at the white liquid in the bowl. Then it looked at Xu Ye expectantly.

Is this for me to drink?

Xu Ye forced a perfect eight-toothed smile.

It was a bowl of milk, steaming hot and giving off a rich, milky scent.

If I drink it, will the Aberrant like me?

"Woof~"

The Aberrant barked excitedly.

Xu Ye picked up the milk with his left hand and discovered that there were fingers soaking in it.

His smile froze.

An Aberrant, all right. Not just its body-even its mind was twisted, full of chaos.

"Woof."

The Aberrant seemed to be urging him on.

"I'm a little full. I'll pass for now." He made as if to put it down.

"Hrrr, hrrr, hrrr..."

At this, the Aberrant's voice grew low. Both dog heads ground their teeth, looking ready to pounce at the slightest provocation.

Its four feet pattered across the floor as it approached Xu Ye.

"I'll drink it! I'll drink it!"

Xu Ye spoke hurriedly, lifting the bowl to his lips while calmly observing it.

The human-faced dog head tilted over to the left, as though it wanted to watch Xu Ye drink with its own eyes.

[I knew I only had one chance.]

[The ordinary dog head could control illusions. I had to kill it first if I wanted any chance of reaching the eighteenth floor.]

[I had to attack at the next thunderclap, or become its dinner.]

[I counted down three seconds in my head.]

"Three... two... one!"

Xu Ye swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing as his eyes narrowed.

He had no other choice.

Boom!

Just then, a thunderclap erupted. A blinding white bolt split the sky, momentarily dazzling all four of the monster's supposedly titanium-tough eyes.

"Take this!"

His taut muscles suddenly unleashed their strength.

Before the Aberrant could react, Xu Ye flipped his hand and slammed the bowl straight over the human-faced dog head.

"Woof... whimper?"

At the same time, the dagger in his right hand traced a sharp arc through the air. In that instant, the F-rank taboo item revealed its special property.

A dazzling spark flashed along the dagger's edge as it drove into the ordinary dog head's neck at an upward forty-five-degree angle.

The sudden attack made the Aberrant scream. The dagger had severed most of the ordinary dog head's neck, leaving it dangling to one side as it howled, attached by only a scrap of flesh.

But by then, the creature had reacted. It shook off the bowl covering its face, its fur bristling all over, and planted a front foot squarely in Xu Ye's face with terrifying force.

Bam!

Xu Ye's body slammed into the door, and he tumbled back into the stairwell.

Fuck!

Am I going to get athlete's foot on my face?

No.

My life is on the line. Now isn't the time to think about that.