Autophagy

"Welcome to the evolution chamber," Chester said. It was obvious who the talking person was. As this was the exact same room Song Lei had met the faceless boy Chester before.

"Sup'," Song Lei said while heading to the middle of the empty room with one of his hands in his pocket. This room had a curtain separating it in two by the middle. On one side was Chester, a faceless and vicious ghost. On the other side was Song Lei who was almost a normal human.

"So? What is the evolution?" Song Lei asked. He inspected the cursed knife sitting in his hand. It had reverted back to its original form at some point. His clothes were reverted too. He was wearing the same white T-shirt and black sweatpants he would normally wear at the moment, rather than some gladiator armor.

Song Lei waited for some time but his question went unanswered. Although he seemed to be pretty relaxed and carefree, he was actually sweating bullets.

'He disappeared...' Song Lei thought. He was carefully staring at the silhouette of Chester since he had entered the room but at some point, it had disappeared.

Song Lei felt his hair standing on its end. He felt a burst of air nearing his neck from behind. He raised his cursed knife to the back of his neck and held it vertically.

*Ding!

Steel collided with steel. Song Lei rolled forward and looked behind to see what was going on. Weirdly, Chester wasn't there.

The same feeling of danger made Song Lei shiver. This time, it was coming from his right. Instead of blocking, Song Lei chose to dodge back to see who was attacking him. Although he knew that he was fighting Chester, he didn't know what Chester was using to fight him. He seemed to have some kind of super-speed ability.

Fortunately, Song Lei's senses and strength were all very high. This made him be able to sense where the attacks were coming from and block them. Because of Chester's high speed, his attacks had a very high momentum. A normal person wouldn't be able to block them even if they had super senses like Song Lei.

As Song Lei dodged back, he saw a head nearing him. This was Chester's faceless head, detached from his body. There was a huge crack filled with ginormous teeth right in the middle of it, chomping at the place Song Lei had been just a moment ago. Song Lei sweated bullets thinking about what would happen if he got hit by any of its attacks.

'Wait... If its head is detached, where is the rest of the body?' Song Lei thought. He turned his head towards the curtain. Seeing that Song Lei was staring at the curtain, Chester's head became agitated. It started attacking Song Lei from all sides, constantly bouncing off the walls.

'How does it even move!?' Song Lei shouted inside his mind while blocking another attack from the head. He had been able to take two steps since he started moving. Other than that, he constantly had to keep blocking a flurry of attacks. He was getting tired.

Understanding that he wasn't going anywhere with his current strategy, Song Lei decided to fight the head with all of his power. When Chester's head attacked him from behind, Song Lei tried to turn around and grab the head.

*Swish!

Unfortunately, Song Lei couldn't react in time. His shoulder got grazed by Chester's head. When the head tasted his blood, it seemed to go even more berserk. Attacking from every side. Song Lei kept trying to grab the head for some time. Although he was getting lots of cuts and bruises, he was slowly getting used to the head's movement patterns.

At some point, Song Lei closed his eyes and only listened to the whizzings the head made while moving around. 'My eyes don't do much for me at the moment,' he thought. Focusing on his ears to maximize his hearing was much better. Song Lei who finally managed to completely get used to the head's attacks suddenly turned around and grabbed the head that was trying to chomp down on him.

As soon as he grabbed the head, it tried to break out by using all of its power. Fortunately, Song Lei was already prepared for this kind of struggle as he strengthened his grip before stabilizing the head with his other hand.

When Chester realized that he couldn't escape Song Lei anymore, he stopped struggling. Instead, what seemed to be a mouth appeared on the blank face of the head.

"Why!? Why do you refuse to become a higher being!?" Chester started shouting. Song Lei was actually surprised. He had just realized this now but he seemed to be able to understand ghosts, unlike the first time he had arrived at the dream space. At first, any speech from a ghost while his eyes were open would make him lose his balance and make him disoriented. But now, he could listen to Chester shouting without any of those things happening.

"I will make you perfect! You'll become just like me! You and those maids! They never want to ascend. Why? Why do you assholes want to keep your imperfect forms!?" Chester kept yelling at Song Lei. Song Lei went through the curtain without saying anything and located Chester's body in the corner of the room.

"Do you want to know why?" Song Lei asked with a smile on his face. Seemingly surprised, Chester went silent. Song Lei stood against Chester's body and sized it up. It was a body that you would expect a 12-year-old to have.

"What?" Chester asked. He wasn't expecting Song Lei to actually explain it to him so he was a bit baffled.

"Because what makes a human who they are..." Song Lei started talking. His smile got wider as he raised his cursed knife and stabbed it at Chester's chest. As cold metal ripped through the ghost, it started dissipating. Song Lei finished his sentence. "Are their imperfections..."

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