Autophagy

"Now that we have dealt with this, bring me to that talisman you talked about," Old Wolf said. All four of them got up from their chairs. Following Damien, they all descended to the first-floor stairs.

The apartment was much calmer compared to the last two days. The centipedes were all summoned by Andres. After he died, they had become somewhat autonomous. However, they couldn't maintain their energy without Andres supplying them. This led them to eventually starve out of energy and disappear.

After reaching the first-floor stairs, Old Wolf walked ahead and picked off one of the talismans.

"This is incredibly intricate," he said while holding his chin. "I see..."

"Can you understand what exactly it is?" Song Lei asked. The writing on the talisman was so mumbled that he couldn't believe anyone understanding them.

"Somewhat," Old Wolf said. "Alliance Leader taught me a lot about talismans. Although I don't know what this exact talisman does, I can identify some symbols on it."

"Really? What is it?" Damien asked while raising one of his brows.

"Hmm... There are some symbols indicating that this, in fact, is a repellant talisman," Old Wolf explained.

"Like the ones we use to protect safe rooms with?" Song Lei asked.

"Exactly. However, this is much more complicated than that," Old Wolf said.

"That's understandable. After all, it's holding back these horrors," Song Lei said while glancing at the hallway. The war between the horrors was about to end. The place was relatively calmer than before. The horrors had already conquered and settled at their own sections of the hallway.

"Yes. They can't even properly sense us while using these talismans," Damien agreed.

"I will take this with me," Old Wolf said. "I have to study it more. Maybe I can figure something out."

He picked up a talisman out of the four and held it in his hand.

"Isn't that dangerous?" Song Lei asked. "What if the barrier breaks?"

"That won't happen. These two are fundamentally different," Old Wolf said while pointing at the glowing talisman that was stuck to the wall and the one in his hand. "You see this?" He said while showing a certain pattern on the talisman. "This indicates that this is for personal use. The one that acts as a stationary barrier has a different pattern here."

Song Lei quickly took a look at the talisman and realized that what Old Wolf was saying seemed to be true.

"Well then, let's go back up shall we?" Damien said. All of them nodded and they went back up to the 7th floor.

They entered the 7th floor and went to Fu Ah's side.

"Are you guys done?" She asked.

"Yes, we can now separate," Old Wolf said. Although it seemed like it was safe to stick to each other, that wasn't the case. Lingering with too many people in the same place would bring about unwanted things. At least that was what Old Wolf had said to Song Lei.

"So? Did you guys properly decide where everyone is going?" Fu Ah asked.

"Yes," Old Wolf said. He got closer to her and took out a piece of paper from his pocket. "I've written who is assigned to which floor on this paper," he said. He gave the paper to Fu Ah before saying, "You can stay on this floor with these two temporarily. We will leave now."

After they were done speaking, Old Wolf, Damien, and He Lingxin went to their own floors. Song Lei, too, decided to go to his room. He hadn't eaten anything for a long time so his stomach was growling.

He entered toom 1407 and went to the bathroom to wash his face. When he entered the bathroom and leaned in to wash his face, he felt something grab his leg.

"What the fuck?" Song Lei muttered. He tried to pull his leg away but couldn't manage to do so.

He wiped his eyes with his hand to properly see what was happening. When he did so, his face soured. There was a hand popping out of the mirror pieces on the ground. These glass pieces were left from the time Song Lei had come to the New World for the first time.

As soon as he had entered the New World, he was met with a monster named replicant. Fortunately, he was quick-witted enough to shatter the mirror in time and stop it from coming out.

On the other side, he hadn't had the chance to clear the leftover glass pieces.

'I'm so stupid...' Song Lei thought while facepalming. The hand that was coming out of the glass piece was a withered one. It was incredibly dry as if it belonged to a mummy.

Song Lei went down on his knees and tried to free his ankle from the hand's grip. He pulled with both of his hands as hard as he could but the hand wouldn't move an inch.

Just as Song Lei was trying to escape, he realized something horrifying.

'It's pulling me into the mirror!' Song Lei shouted in his mind. A drop of sweat trickled down from his head. 'Guyaa should be able to help me!' He thought with hope.

"Go!" Song Lei said loudly. As soon as he did so, a system notification appeared in front of his face.

[Cooldown until Guyaa can be summoned again: 00:07:14]

'Shit!' Song Lei panicked. His mind was running non-stop, thinking of a way to deal with the current situation. He picked up another mirror piece from the ground and stabbed it at the hand. The piece penetrated the monster's hand, however, it didn't bleed. Rather, it didn't even seem like it was hurt. Its grip was still as strong as before.

By now, more than half of Song Lei's leg had been pulled into the mirror piece. Although the piece wasn't big enough for Song Lei to fit in, it seemed to follow some kind of weird physics of its own.

Song Lei looked around to find another way. His eyes were darting from one place to another. He didn't have time to wait for Guyaa's cooldown.

'This is it!' Song Lei shouted in his head when he saw a long toothbrush lying next to his feet. He picked it up and stuck it between his leg and the hand. After doing so, he pulled the toothbrush to the side and used it as leverage.

"Nice!" Song Lei accidentally said out loud. With his inhuman strength and the leverage amplifying it, the hand wasn't able to hold onto him as it let him go.

Song Lei's happiness didn't last long as his vision was covered with a dark cover.

"Wha- mmf!" Song Lei tried to mutter before getting his mouth closed by another hand. Countless hands popped out of the glass pieces lying around. They all held Song Lei by a different part of his body and pulled him down into the mirror world...

...

Fu Ah was sitting on a chair with her eyes closed. She was thinking about a scientific article she had read two days ago. What spawned in the New World was totally random. So it was possible to find such things in it.

Gao Jing and Lu Peng were still lying on their bed without moving. Their situation didn't seem very good. Gao Jing's condition wasn't changing no matter what happened. On the other hand, Lu Peng was getting worse and worse each day. His ability was that of an elemental nature. He could create fires with his hands. However, if he kept using his ability too much, it would start hurting him instead.

He had forced himself to use his ability to protect Gao Jing and himself from the centipedes. It could be said that he was a bit fortunate for not killing himself right then and there.

The calm room suddenly became disturbed with rapid breathing.

Fu Ah opened her eyes and got up from her chair. Gao Jing had woken up and was breathing rapidly while looking at the ceiling. His eyes were bloodshot. He looked like he had seen a ghost.

"H- He is coming!" Gao Jing whistled. He sounded like he was being choked. Fu Ah did her best to calm him down but couldn't manage to do so. Suddenly, the lights of the room started flickering. Those flickerings constantly changed their rhythm and stabilized after a certain amount of time. Flickerings had become synced with Gao Jing's rapid breathings.

Fu Ah was becoming more and more disoriented because of the flickerings. Her sight couldn't get used to the constant changes. In those short bursts of time where the room was completely dark, Lu Peng disappeared.

Fu Ah's brows creased as she saw Lu Peng disappearing right in front of her eyes. She stumbled backward and fell to the ground. Her usual calm demeanor was gone. In another moment, Gao Jing and his screams disappeared too.

Fu Ah's consciousness became hazy.

"H- Help me...."

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