White Bone Door

To be honest, Xia Shou felt a little at a loss.

He had assumed this would be like reaching the final boss room in a game, where the last and most grueling challenge awaited him. He had expected a sinister, supernatural doctor and a tormented patient who had all but lost her sanity.

But although this ward was certainly eerie, its atmosphere was surprisingly warm.

The half-human, half-bird creature kept working on the girl's abdomen, yet she showed no sign of pain throughout the process. The healer's movements were gentle, fluid, and even somewhat elegant.

Its treatment of the girl on the hospital bed had the religious air of a tribal witch doctor's ritual.

Though one hand held surgical instruments used in Western medicine, another held something resembling incense. The pleasant scent of burning aromatic leaves drifted through the air, while yet another hand rhythmically shook a rotating bell carved from white bone.

What should they do at a time like this?

Drag the monster away from the bed by force?

Or slash it from behind without a word?

Xia Shou saw the girl on the bed staring straight at him, a smile spreading across her face.

"I saw you in the garden. Could I ask you to make Idrisu stop treating me? I think it's been enough now."

So he had been right. Xia Shou had felt it the moment he first saw her: the ghost girl they had encountered was this child's will made manifest.

After a moment of silence, Xia Shou told Su Weiyu, "If you get hurt, you won't be able to recover. Let me stop it instead."

There was no way to treat Su Weiyu if she was injured. At least he had Heal Wounds with Blood to recover and regenerate. It was safer for him to handle something this risky.

Xia Shou took the Limb Key from Su Weiyu and regained his ability to move.

He stepped forward, grabbed Idrisu's arm, and tried to pull it away from the bed.

Just as the diary had described, Idrisu had no ability to resist. It was barely even strong, and Xia Shou dragged it away from the bed with ease.

But the instant it left its patient, a flood of information surged into Xia Shou's brain.

It was a series of consequences, telling him how sinful and immoral it was to obstruct its treatment of a patient.

An overwhelming, irresistible sense of guilt assaulted Xia Shou, forcing him to stop pulling.

"Damn it!"

Xia Shou gave up on dragging it away. While the last of his resolve still held, he snatched up the Boy Cutter beside Su Weiyu and slashed straight down at Idrisu's back!

The blade sank into its body, feeling as though it had cut into an enormous lump of modeling clay.

Idrisu's entire back split open, but there were no organs inside, only a black, mudlike substance.

The slash had no effect on this substance. After splitting apart, it slowly gathered together again.

The guilt grew even stronger. Like a madman, Xia Shou hacked at it again and again, cutting it down to the floor, severing all its limbs, and chopping it into black pulp.

As though driven by some desire, the shadow beneath his feet extended chains made of multicolored flames on its own. They bound Idrisu's limbs and torso tightly and dragged it toward the depths of the shadow swamp.

But unlike the keys he had sealed earlier, Idrisu did not sink into the swamp. Its struggles suddenly grew violent, and its body, which had possessed no fighting ability at all, became terrifyingly powerful.

A roar, neither quite avian nor anything else, erupted from its bird skull. Even the air seemed to tremble!

Meanwhile, the shadow beneath Xia Shou's feet churned as though it had a will of its own, clinging to and enveloping the bizarre creature as it struggled frantically.

The organs floating in the surrounding air began bursting one after another, splattering blood everywhere.

"What's happening?" Su Weiyu shouted in terror. This was clearly not part of the plan.

"I don't know either!" Xia Shou stepped back, moving away from his own shadow.

Idrisu's body abruptly swelled before them. Sharp, pitch-black feathers sprouted from its slender human limbs, and the rounded contours of its bird skull grew sharp and savage, like some enormous bird of prey from ancient mythology.

"Eeeaaaargh!!"

It screeched in fury, using its raptorlike talons to tear wildly at the black mud formed from shadows that clung to its body. Its brutal movements brimmed with savage power.

Xia Shou began to worry whether the shadow could devour it. Clearly, this was the true form concealed beneath Doctor Idrisu's exterior.

His body slowly became immobile, as though it had been filled with cement.

Just like when it had devoured the charred corpse in the Blood Demon House, trying to seal Idrisu was too heavy a burden for the shadow!

Fortunately, after a fierce struggle, Idrisu was finally subdued by the swamp.

Then a pure white door made of bone, decorated with an inset bird skull, slowly rose from the ink-black shadow swamp beneath Idrisu's feet.

The bone door swung open. Idrisu let out a defiant roar and fell inside.

A moment later, the door shut, and the ward fell deathly silent.

Text also appeared before Xia Shou:

[Congratulations. You have sealed something that cannot be devoured.]

[Door: Idrisu]

[Description: None available] (You know very little about it.)

[Uses: Though you cannot devour it, you have successfully imprisoned it. As long as you pay the appropriate price, it will respond to your requests.

Idrisu can remove any "illness" from a patient, curing them.

In exchange, however, another living being of the same species must serve as the recipient and endure the torment of that illness over the long term.

Idrisu has five keys containing extraordinary powers. They are said to be able to deprive others of the use of their bodies.

You have sealed Idrisu, so the keys no longer resist your possession.]

"Huh? I can move!" Su Weiyu, whose limbs had been numb, suddenly rose from the floor.

"Yes, the keys' effects have been lifted," Xia Shou said calmly.

"Did you also... lock up the other two with those chains?"

"No, but these five keys count as mine for now. I can control them."

Xia Shou took the other two sealed keys out of his shadow. He could now keep them from activating without sealing them.

Though he had not returned to that original room full of doors,

Xia Shou knew that the room filled with tightly closed doors now contained another one called "Idrisu."

The ward before them began to tremble. The furniture and everything around it distorted, like Salvador Dalí's painting The Persistence of Memory. All the furniture softened like asphalt left in the sun, turning into limp, slimelike objects.

"What's happening?!" Xia Shou's nerves, which had only just relaxed, tightened again.

"The domain is collapsing, but don't worry. Usually, when a domain collapses, everything inside it gets sent back to where it belongs. We just need to stay here and wait. We'll most likely end up back at the original hospital," Su Weiyu explained.

Xia Shou stood quietly where he was, waiting as the furnishings around him grew increasingly unreal.