An encounter

She stared at Xia Shou with wide eyes, her face filled with shock and barely contained excitement.

The girl blinked, trying to find the words. Her mouth hung open for a while before she finally wiped her hand on her trousers and held it out to Xia Shou.

"I-I'm Su Weiyu! It's nice to meet you!"

Su Weiyu wanted to shake hands, but the movement pulled at the wound on her arm, making her grimace. Even so, she forced out a nervous smile.

"Uh... I'm Xia Shou." Xia Shou awkwardly shook her hand. "A-are you okay?"

In a hellhole where people could die at every turn, a pretty girl had suddenly appeared and introduced herself as solemnly as someone on a blind date. Honestly, this was nothing like what Xia Shou had expected.

Her left arm was also bandaged. She had clearly just been in a fight and suffered a serious injury, yet she seemed completely unconcerned about it. She simply stared at him in excitement, her eyes sparkling like stars.

"I'm fine! Absolutely fine! Honestly, I was starting to regret coming here, but thank goodness I did!" Su Weiyu said excitedly. "How should I put this... it's a long story. Anyway, we need to get out of here fast! Give me a moment. Let me get my compass."

She hurriedly buttoned up her shirt, then took a palm-sized black box from the back of her waist. When she opened the lid, it revealed a compass with a golden needle spinning endlessly inside.

Su Weiyu watched the compass for a while, her brow furrowing deeper and deeper.

"What are you looking at?" Xia Shou asked curiously.

"[Captain Sparrow's Compass]. It points toward whatever you want. Most of the time, though, it doesn't work. It just keeps spinning like this... Before I met you, I thought the Containment Bureau had gotten this sealed anomaly's description wrong!"

Su Weiyu held the compass up in front of Xia Shou and smiled, her eyes narrowing, as though they had known each other for years.

"Ah! But if it weren't for this thing, I wouldn't have come here... Don't worry, though! I'll definitely get you out safely. Come with me!" Su Weiyu took Xia Shou's hand and pulled, only to find that he didn't budge.

Su Weiyu looked back at him in confusion. "Hmm? Aren't you coming?"

"I need to go this way." Xia Shou pointed in another direction.

"This way? Sure, that works. Neither of us knows the way anyway, so one direction's as good as another!" Su Weiyu nodded readily, apparently in excellent spirits.

"Let's go, then."

Xia Shou had no objection to bringing this unfamiliar girl along. If things really went south, he could always rewind through death.

Besides, the girl seemed to have some combat ability. He could tell that much from her equipment and injuries.

Although peeking was unethical, Xia Shou had still taken a careful look. Only her left arm was bandaged; the rest of her body seemed uninjured.

If only her left arm was hurt, yet her clothes were soaked red all over, that could only mean the blood wasn't hers.

"What level Cleaner are you?" Su Weiyu suddenly asked.

"I'm not a Cleaner. I only started the job today," Xia Shou answered honestly.

"I see... I had already guessed you weren't a Cleaner, though. Anyway, if we run into danger later, you should run first. I'll come find you once I get away. If we can find that Investigator, we should be safe for a while." Su Weiyu carefully planned their escape.

"How did you hurt your arm?" Xia Shou looked at her wound, which was still seeping blood.

"The Blood Demon cut me." Su Weiyu's delicate brows drew together, and a trace of fear surfaced deep in her eyes.

A chill ran down Xia Shou's spine, wiping out his last shred of wishful thinking.

"So there really is a Blood Demon..."

"That monster is terrifyingly strong. Even [Boy Cutter] couldn't handle it." Su Weiyu rested her hand on the hilt of the Odachi, muttering with a grave expression. "Everyone who came in before you is dead. They weren't even in the same league as the Blood Demon. It slaughtered them like chickens."

Then Su Weiyu sighed. "But since that legendary Investigator has survived for ten years, he must have some special method. If only we could find him."

Xia Shou's eyes lit up at her words.

He immediately asked, "Those people who came in-do you know where they died?"

"Yes. Why?"

Her answer excited Xia Shou. He had already planned to devour the victims' bodies, but the interior of the Blood Demon House was too vast, and he had no idea where the dead were.

Now, however, Su Weiyu knew where the bodies were. She could save him a tremendous amount of exploration time.

He might not have found even a second body within an hour on his own, but now he could learn the locations of every body at once!

He had to admit, running into her right after entering was incredibly lucky!

"Could you take me to where those people died?" Xia Shou asked.

Su Weiyu frowned slightly and asked in confusion, "I can, but what do you want to go there for?"

"To strengthen my ability." Xia Shou made no attempt to hide anything. After all, this run was only for gathering information. Once he rewound, all his relationships and conversations would be erased. Being honest now would only help them cooperate more efficiently.

Su Weiyu considered this for a moment, then nodded in understanding. "If you want to go, let's go. The layout here doesn't make any sense anyway. We could run into the Blood Demon anywhere."

With that settled, Xia Shou walked the remaining few dozen meters and paid the price for Death Road, then followed Su Weiyu through the chaotic spatial maze.

The space here was warped beyond imagination. After several twists and turns, they reached a classroom.

This classroom had also tipped onto its side, with the floor on the left and the ceiling on the right. Its door had become a horizontal rectangle, forcing Xia Shou and Su Weiyu to crawl through as though entering a dog hole.

Inside the classroom, desks and chairs clung to the left wall like decorations. Three mangled bodies were wedged among them like artworks in some grotesque exhibition. Standing on the blackboard, Xia Shou looked up at the bodies on the "wall."

"They all died together, and none of them have been moved. Lucky."

With that, the shadow beneath Xia Shou's feet spread out again...

This time, the devouring was swift. Before long, he had obtained three remnants.

They were [Battle Continuation], [Imperfect Vacuum], and [Organ Fixation]-all powers that could only be used once and lasted a short time.

Although these were all single-use skills, they could give Xia Shou a boost and improve his chances in combat, making them extremely valuable resources.

Most worthwhile

Counting the body he had devoured at the start, he had now collected four people. Two remained.

"Do you know where the other bodies are?" Xia Shou asked.

Su Weiyu pointed at the classroom's back door. "We need to go through there."

"How do we get up there?"

"Like this."

Su Weiyu pulled the desks off the wall one by one, where they had clung like magnets, then laid them on their sides and stacked them into a pyramid against the wall. This way, the desks and chairs obeyed the rules of the sideways gravity while also giving her and Xia Shou something to climb. As though scaling a rock face, the two climbed from the blackboard all the way up to the classroom's back door.

They then passed through several more oddly oriented rooms before finally reaching a scorched ruin.

At the top of the ruins lay two fresh bodies. Beside them, a charred human figure knelt on one knee. It almost blended into the ruins, as though it had been there for a very long time.

And the shadow beneath Xia Shou's feet had a particularly strong appetite for that charred corpse kneeling on one knee!