Thinking in a Purgatory of Agony

Xia Shou casually picked up a corpse beside him and hurled it at the Hand Doctor. The corpse passed straight through him, as though the person before them were nothing but an illusion.

"Throwing things doesn't work either?"

This ability is way too broken!

Just then, Su Weiyu landed on both feet. As she rapidly retreated, she opened her mouth and spat at him.

The doctor raised his arm, blocking the incoming saliva with his sleeve, a mocking expression on his face.

"Please mind your manners. This is a hospital, after all. Spitting is prohibited."

"It looks like attacks work as long as we don't use our hands or feet," Su Weiyu said gravely.

"Yes, that does seem to be the case," Xia Shou said helplessly. "But it looks like there's still nothing we can do to him."

Xia Shou finally understood why the battlefield on this floor was a long, narrow corridor. It was a hunting ground built specifically for the Hand Doctor.

No attack from the Hand Doctor could be blocked, so anyone who came to this floor could only keep retreating and dodging his assault.

And the excessively long, narrow corridor effectively set a limit on how far intruders could retreat. Once they reached the end, they would have nowhere left to go.

At that point, neither their hands and feet nor their weapons would be able to touch him.

Trapped at the end of the corridor with no escape, their only option would be to let the scalpel carve into their bodies, dying cut by cut... or spit a few more times before they died.

They had figured out how his ability worked, but they were still utterly powerless.

If they couldn't fight with their hands or feet, were they supposed to bite him or headbutt him?

Theoretically, they could, but that way of fighting was far too stupid. Besides, it would be outright suicide.

Now, looking at him felt like looking at a pile of shit to Xia Shou. He was disgusted, but had no way to deal with it.

Wait!

Suddenly, inspiration flashed through Xia Shou's mind.

"Su Weiyu, cut off my hands and feet, then throw me at him," Xia Shou told her.

Su Weiyu hesitated, staring into Xia Shou's eyes in disbelief. When she saw the resolve and confidence in them, she gritted her teeth and cleanly severed both his hands and feet. Then she grabbed his collar and swung him hard at the Hand Doctor like a sandbag.

"Throwing things around is also prohibited in the hospital!" The Hand Doctor kicked Xia Shou away.

The next second, his hands and feet seemed to slip out of his control-or rather, lose all strength to support him-and he collapsed to the floor. Beside him, Xia Shou let out an agonized scream from the excruciating pain.

"Right away, right away! I'll kill him right now!" Su Weiyu said frantically. Gripping Boy Cutter, she hurried toward the Hand Doctor, who lay on the floor with his hands and feet immobilized.

Since she couldn't attack the Hand Doctor directly with her hands or feet, Su Weiyu put Boy Cutter's hilt in her mouth and bit down on it, using her mouth to stab the doctor on the floor. The first thrust wasn't deep enough, but the second pierced his chest.

There wasn't the slightest trace of pain on the doctor's face. Instead, he asked, "Are you really not going to consider working at this sanatorium?"

"Dwie!" Su Weiyu cursed indistinctly around the hilt.

She drove the blade straight down into his cervical vertebrae. Once it was firmly lodged, she used the weight of her torso to press down, trying to force the blade through the hard bone.

Meanwhile, Xia Shou was in such agony that he even began pondering philosophical questions-could a person die from pain? Was there a limit to pain? What was pain, fundamentally?

Simple questions, yet they blurred the passage of time.

Beyond these musings, even more irrational thoughts surfaced. If he could choose again from the beginning, he would rather die here outright than endure such excruciating pain... he was in purgatory!

If he could do it over, he would have Su Weiyu sever the tendons at his joints instead of cutting off his hands and feet. That would achieve the same effect while sparing him at least a little pain.

His mind was filled mostly with regrets like these. His face pressed against the cold floor, and his view, tilted a full 180 degrees, held nothing but the half-rotted corpses piled along the corridor.

At the sight of those corpses, Xia Shou's thoughts began drifting again, turning chaotic and disordered.

He couldn't help imagining how they had died. Even their life stories grew rich and vivid as his runaway thoughts drove his subconscious to fabricate lives that had never existed.

He even felt that he and these corpses could count as brothers. At least they had all fought here.

Bro, did you guys struggle desperately before you died, just like me? Did it hurt this much?

Wait! You bastards didn't struggle!

Damn it, how could you not struggle?

You should have been like me, using every means possible to stay alive!

Xia Shou began talking to the corpses in his mind, utterly exasperated by their failure to fight back.

[We were all trying to survive. How could you say that about us?]

The corpses spoke!

He had actually heard the corpses answer him!

Only when Xia Shou recalled this bizarre, extraordinary hallucination afterward did he realize that these seemingly deranged thoughts had been the only way to sustain normal thought at the time.

Even this way of "talking to corpses" was the simplest form of expression his logical, rational mind had managed to choose after struggling.

His subconscious was using this unusual method to convey the correct conclusion.

But at that moment, Xia Shou felt nothing but overwhelming fury at the corpses' lies.

Bro, you're lying to me! If you really struggled to survive, why did you die in this hellhole?

You should all be piled at the end of this corridor. You could have escaped there!

The corpses fell silent again, but the dead Liu Guangyao suddenly roared in Xia Shou's ear, "There is no top floor!"

There is no top floor? Xia Shou repeated inwardly.

Right, he said there was no top floor...

Also, why were so many corpses piled in the corridor? Why weren't they piled at the ends?

If they hadn't been moved, most of them should have died at the ends of the corridor. Those were the final destinations for the prey. Anyone who wanted to live would flee to either end while the Hand Doctor pursued them.

They had all been moved!

Since they had all been moved, why arrange them so evenly along both sides of the corridor?

Corpses... dead people without heartbeats.

...Beating hearts.

There was no top floor...

In an instant, the chaotic puzzle pieces in his mind fitted together perfectly. He arrived at an answer through a leap of thought, yet it was utterly logical, like the enlightenment brought by a genius's fleeting flash of inspiration!

So that was the truth!

"Su Weiyu, the Heart Doctor is among the corpses!" Xia Shou roared hoarsely.

There were no more stages after this! This was the final floor! That was why Liu Guangyao had said there was no top floor!

And the Heart Doctor's ability allowed him to keep moving even when his heart had stopped beating!

The Heart Doctor had been here from the very beginning, guarding this floor alongside the doctor of hands and feet!

The corpses were evenly distributed so he could launch a surprise attack from any position!

Almost the instant he shouted, a corpse silently rose behind Su Weiyu. He raised a scalpel and thrust it toward her smooth neck with lightning speed.