Death Roll Call, the Assassin's Despair

"Venomous Bee..."

In the vast, deathly silent spiral stairwell, the elusive voice called out again.

This time, it sounded closer, as if it were right against the back of Venomous Bee's neck, carrying a chilling touch that made his hair stand on end.

Venomous Bee bit his lips hard, biting his lower lip until it ran with blood.

He clamped his remaining hand over his mouth and buried his head deep between his knees, his whole body trembling like a sieve.

I can't answer... I mustn't make a sound... I can't look back!

He had already repeated the rule to himself a thousand times.

The excruciating pain of losing his left arm still stabbed at his nerves, and the flesh-and-blood tentacle growing from the wall kept writhing, as if mocking his stupidity.

As an elite assassin of the Shadow Guild, Venomous Bee had faced countless brushes with death. He had been held at gunpoint and hunted by high-level exotic beasts for three days and three nights.

But he had never known despair and fear that seeped into his very bones like this.

In his past battles, his enemies had been things he could see and touch. As long as he was strong enough and ruthless enough, he could always find a chance to turn the tables and kill them.

But here, his enemy was an invisible "rule."

No matter how strong his divine power was, no matter how accomplished his assassination skills were, they were as pale as paper before this rule.

"Venomous Bee..."

The voice called out a third time.

This time, it suddenly changed.

It was no longer that eerie, elusive woman's voice. It had become an achingly familiar, rough male voice!

"Old Poison... save me... it hurts so much..."

Venomous Bee's pupils contracted sharply, and his heart felt as if a giant hand had seized it in an iron grip.

That voice... it's Mad Crocodile!

Mad Crocodile had once been his partner. On an assassination mission five years ago, he had been hacked to death by the enemy while covering Venomous Bee's retreat, his body chopped into mincemeat.

That was the deepest scar in Venomous Bee's heart, and his only weakness.

"Old Poison... why did you leave me behind... why..."

Mad Crocodile's voice was filled with resentment and pain, as though his vengeful ghost stood before Venomous Bee, reaching out with bloody hands to claim his life.

Cracks began to appear in Venomous Bee's mental defenses.

He knew it was an illusion. He knew it was a trap the maze had created to force him to speak.

But he couldn't control his subconscious.

"I didn't leave you behind... I just..."

Venomous Bee murmured the words instinctively. The moment he opened his mouth, he realized what he was doing and slapped himself hard, forcibly swallowing the rest of his words.

But it was too late.

The moment he gave any kind of response, the rule would immediately take effect.

Hum-!

The invisible power of the rule descended once more.

Venomous Bee felt his right leg vanish, and immediately afterward, a sensation of separation beyond words swept through his body.

"Aaaaagh-!"

He watched in despair as his right leg disappeared into thin air, starting at the top of his thigh.

There was no blood, only that eerie "erasure."

Another flesh-and-blood tentacle had appeared on the cement wall beside him, a human foot at its end, rhythmically slapping against the wall.

"No... spare me... please, spare me..."

Venomous Bee completely broke down.

Like a maggot that had lost half its body, he writhed wildly on the icy steps.

An assassin's dignity and cold ruthlessness vanished without a trace before such extreme torment.

He tried to summon his divine kingdom core, intending to detonate his divine kingdom regardless of the consequences, even if it meant perishing along with this godforsaken place.

But within the Domain of the Thirteenth Step, he discovered to his horror that his connection to his divine kingdom core had been completely severed!

Now he was just an ordinary man at anyone's mercy.

Meanwhile, in another space within the maze.

Venomous Bee's fifty shadow assassin followers were experiencing the same despair.

Though their emotions and obsessions were not as complicated as those of humans, they could still hear the calls.

"Assassin number one..."

"Assassin number two..."

Whenever an assassin turned around out of instinct or confusion, a part of their body was immediately stripped away.

In just over ten minutes.

The bodies of the fifty elite tier-two shadow assassins had been stripped to pieces by the maze's rules.

Some had lost their heads, some had lost both arms, and some had nothing left but a section of torso.

The walls were densely covered with flesh-and-blood tentacles made from their body parts.

Though these assassins were much stronger than ordinary berserkers, their agility and stealth were useless against this unreasonable causality-based killing power.

Outside, on the rooftop.

Su Bai pulled a jianbing guozi that was still warm from his backpack and took a big bite.

As he chewed, he watched the notifications keep popping up on his divine kingdom panel.

[Ding! A lost one's fear has reached its peak. The Thirteenth Step has absorbed fear energy. Maze range expanded.]

[Ding! Successfully stripped a tier-two assassin of both arms and transformed them into flesh-and-blood wall tentacles.]

[Ding! High-quality false god limb absorbed. Maze durability increased.]

As Su Bai read the notifications, the smile on his face was even brighter than a chrysanthemum in full bloom.

"The Thirteen Steps are practically a divine artifact for leveling up while idle!"

There was no need for him to lift a finger, and no need for Hongdou to show herself.

All he had to do was throw his enemies in, and the maze would take care of them itself. It could even turn the parts it stripped from them into defensive forces for the maze.

"Still, an assassin's mental fortitude really is stronger than an ordinary person's."

Su Bai rubbed his chin as he watched Venomous Bee, who was still struggling to hold on in the maze, reduced to a "human stick."

"If he could stay absolutely silent, never speak, and never look back, this rule really couldn't do anything to him."

Su Bai remembered that the Thirteenth Step's panel listed a way out: if someone drew a cross in blood upon hearing their name called and remained silent for ten minutes, an opening would appear in the maze.

Clearly, Venomous Bee didn't know about that way out.

Even if he did, he had now lost an arm and a leg. Under the extreme mental pressure of constant auditory hallucinations, it would be difficult for him to maintain absolute silence for ten minutes.

"That's about enough. If I keep playing, this guy's mind is going to fall apart completely, and the resentment extracted from him won't be pure enough."

Su Bai swallowed the last bite of his jianbing guozi and dusted off his hands.

"Hongdou, go in and finish up."

"Make it quick for him, and while you're at it, pull that spatial ring off him. Don't damage it. That's all my money."

The female ghost in red, who had been standing silently behind Su Bai all this time, gradually faded upon hearing his order.

The next second.

She appeared inside the Thirteenth Step's hidden maze.

Inside the maze.

Venomous Bee, barely clinging to life, leaned against a corner, his eyes vacant.

Countless illusions appeared before his eyes: targets who had died by his hand, women who had betrayed him, and brothers who had fallen in battle. They circled him like a revolving lantern, calling his name over and over.

He could no longer tell what was real and what was an illusion.

Just as he was about to lose himself completely.

A streak of dazzling scarlet suddenly entered his vision.

It was a woman in tattered red clothes, her long hair covering her face.

She looked utterly out of place in the gray-white maze, but the terrifying aura of despair she gave off made the flesh-and-blood tentacles on the surrounding walls instinctively shrink back.

"You... who are you...?" Venomous Bee asked weakly.

Hongdou floated slowly over to him and crouched down.

She reached out with her deathly pale hands and gently cupped Venomous Bee's cheeks.

There was no answer.

Only an ethereal, piercing murmur exploded in the depths of Venomous Bee's mind.

"It hurts so much..."

[Rule one: Death Gaze, additional trigger!]

The instant Venomous Bee looked directly at Hongdou.

Crack!

The sharp sound of breaking bone was the last thing Venomous Bee heard in this world.

His neck had been twisted and broken at an extremely unnatural angle, his bloodshot eyes frozen in eternal fear and incomprehension.

Venomous Bee, a peak tier-two assassin, had fallen.

With Venomous Bee's death, the divine kingdom core remaining in his body also collapsed completely.

Without their host to sustain them, the shadow assassin followers still clinging to life in the maze dissolved one after another into pure energy and resentment, dispersing within the maze.

Hongdou deftly pulled a silver spatial ring off Venomous Bee's remaining hand.

Then she turned into a red blur, returned to the rooftop, and respectfully handed the ring to Su Bai.

"Nicely done."

Su Bai took the ring and weighed it in his hand, his eyes shining.

He planted one foot on the edge of the abandoned school building's rooftop, spread his arms, and threw back his head in laughter.

"System! Take it all!"

"Drain this assassin's corpse and severed limbs, along with the origin of his collapsed divine kingdom!"

Rumble-!

The entire fifteen-square-kilometer wasteland divine kingdom seemed to let out a satisfied roar.

The dark matter black fog churned, forming a massive vortex.

Venomous Bee's corpse, along with the resentment and energy left by the shadow assassins, was swallowed in one gulp by the vortex.

[Ding! Successfully devoured the corpse of a peak tier-two false god. High-purity resentment and divine kingdom origin obtained!]

[Ding! Successfully devoured the remains of fifty tier-two shadow assassins!]

[The Thirteenth Step has absorbed a large amount of fear and flesh. Level increased! Maze expanded to three floors!]

[Divine kingdom area expanding... current area: twenty square kilometers!]

[Dark matter contamination index stabilized at 99.5%. Divine kingdom core foundation greatly strengthened.]

Listening to the notifications ringing out in his mind, Su Bai felt every one of the 108,000 pores on his body open up.

That felt good! So damn good!

The feeling of not having to lift a finger, just setting a trap and waiting for enemies to deliver themselves like takeout, then lying back and counting money while leveling up, was downright addictive.

"Oh, Gu Family, Gu Family, you really are good people to me."

Su Bai stroked the spatial ring in his hand and spoke to himself with a smile.

"Once I've finished taking inventory of what's in this ring, I'll prepare a big gift for you."

With a thought, Su Bai withdrew his consciousness from the divine kingdom.

In the real world.

In that secluded, dim dead-end alley.

Nothing remained except an exceedingly faint trace of blood in the air.

There were no signs of a fight, no residual fluctuations of divine power, and certainly no trace of Venomous Bee's corpse.

Everything was as though nothing had ever happened.

Su Bai adjusted the straps of his schoolbag and headed home with a spring in his step, humming a little tune.