Horror Game Designer

Chapter 61: Can I be the heroine for a week?

The statue known as the Flesh Immortal had completed the crucial final step in a mysterious ritual. This ritual was divided into four distinct phases, three of which had already been seamlessly integrated into the crimson waters surrounding the area. This left only the final Life Phase, which required a living human sacrifice.

The Life Phase was governed by a strict set of rules. The chosen representative had to maintain their humanity and show resilience against the overpowering scent of flesh that filled the apartment building. Additionally, they were strictly prohibited from consuming any form of meat.

In the whole Sishui Apartment complex, the only person who fit these stringent criteria for the Life Phase was Gong Xi’s grandmother. Her survival up to this point was not just a matter of chance. It appeared that Situ An and the Flesh Immortal itself had been deliberately protecting her, intending to preserve her for a crucial role in the sacrificial ritual when the right moment arrived.

However, Gong Xi, the grandson, remained oblivious to these dark machinations. He still thought of his grandmother’s mere existence as a deep, personal secret that he had to protect at all costs.

Gong Xi himself had undergone a disturbing transformation, particularly noticeable in his mouth. He was now making his way towards the depths of the blood-soaked pool, driven by a resolute determination to save his grandmother from her ominous fate. Observing Gong Xi’s actions, Wu Bo showed a fleeting glimpse of pity in his eyes before he began ascending towards the Heart of Deity, a mysterious object positioned above the Flesh Immortal statue.

The exact moment when Wu Bo was replaced by another entity remained a mystery. It could have been just a few hours earlier, coinciding with the beginning of these strange events, or it might have even occurred a decade ago.

As Wu Bo ascended towards the Heart of Deity, the statue surprisingly offered no resistance. With each step he took, his body seemed to blend slightly more with the ethereal form of the statue. It was clear that once he reached the top and secured the heart, he would become fully integrated into the ghostly structure of the figure.

Meanwhile, Xuan Wen and Situ An, the latter now a vengeful spirit, were moving with urgent speed. However, time was running against them, and their efforts seemed increasingly desperate.

Wu Bo had been able to predict this scenario largely because the Flesh Immortal had a comprehensive awareness of all human and spectral beings within the building. But not all was going according to plan – Gao Ming had brought one ghost into the equation, which Wu Bo failed to account for.

“Zhao Xi! Catch him!” Gao Ming shouted.

In a terrifying display, twisted limbs reached out and grabbed Wu Bo’s ankle from the side. Zhao Xi’s head, which had been eerily dangling over his shoulder, began slowly rising, his body barely held together.

“Let go!” Wu Bo commanded, delivering a kick to Zhao Xi’s mangled form. Despite the impact, Zhao Xi’s crumbling body started to reassemble itself in a ghastly manner, seemingly trying to envelop the possessed Wu Bo in its grasp.

“It’s not tainted by the scent of flesh. What kind of ghost is this?” In a swift motion, Wu Bo pulled out a talisman from his pocket and hurled it at Zhao Xi. The talisman, imbued with the essence of those who had died unjustly, burst into spectral flames upon contact with the mangled body.

This unexpected skirmish bought precious time for Situ An’s vengeful spirit to close in rapidly. The faces of the two deceased spirits, almost fusing into a singular entity, opened their mouths wide, directed towards the translucent heart, hinting at an imminent, otherworldly contact.

“Get lost!” Xuan Wen’s voice thundered in anger. Her eyes, now a striking bloodshot red, seemed to flicker with the transient faces of countless female strangers, each face bringing with it a whirlwind of emotions that stirred the surrounding shadows. In a desperate move, she used her own blood as a potent catalyst, skillfully weaving it into a vast, intricate net of shadows.

Xuan Wen’s remarkable ability to manipulate shadows was a gift granted by the mysterious shadow world. However, this power came with a significant risk. The more she relied on it, the greater the danger of a severe backlash. She was caught in a perilous dance of altering her own fate while the shadow world persistently sought to rectify these deviations.

“What a hassle,” Wu Bo muttered under his breath, observing Xuan Wen and Situ An’s approach while he continued his ritual. In a swift motion, he drew a knife from within his chest.

Uttering a prayer to the Flesh Immortal, Wu Bo plunged the knife into his left hand. His blood, unnaturally thick and distinct from that of an ordinary person, began to drip onto the statue. As it did, Wu Bo’s pupils faded, leaving his eyes a stark, empty white. This marked the acceleration of his body’s fusion with the statue.

As the elder became less and less human, the statue seemed to gain vitality. His emotions, desires, and the entirety of his experiences and memories began flowing into the statue’s transparent heart through a network of blood vessels.

The heart, which existed in a liminal state between material and non-material, started to gain clarity as the primary consciousness of the Flesh Immortal began to reassert itself.

“This heart is mine!” Situ An, entrapped in the web of shadows, his soul tarnished with bloodstains, exclaimed with fervor. “Give me all your cruelty! All your hate and torment! I know the extent of your killings, the depth of resentment you have accumulated! I was the one who steered you towards murder, who fed your despair!”

Situ An was intimately familiar with the murderer behind the family massacre, having chosen him meticulously. He had masterminded all the psychological and mental stimuli, leading the murderer step by step into the depths of despair and violence.

If Gao Ming hadn’t intervened, Situ An’s grand plan would have been to have the investigators eliminate the murderer’s ghost he had so carefully cultivated. By merging two hearts in what he perceived as a righteous manner, he aimed to become what could only be described as a demi-god, thereby resolving a Level 4 anomaly using his newfound power.

“You…”

Through sheer will, Situ An suppressed the evil ghost from within and forced a merging with his own. As a consequence of this act, blood-red characters started to emerge upon his own ethereal form.

Tearing through the shadowy net binding him, Situ An launched himself at Wu Bo after realizing the old man had tainted the Heart of Deity.

“You are the god I have worshipped; why do you not heed my prayers!” he cried out in desperation. “I have offered flesh and blood, orchestrated the grand feng shui design. Your very existence is because of me!”

In his blasphemous defiance, Situ An harbored the sacrilegious desire to consume the deity himself.

“I exist because of worship, I am as I am, and what I obtain is solely mine, just like you are merely one of the countless pieces of flesh prostrating before me.” These words came from Wu Bo, whose transformation was now nearly complete. His arms had already fused into the statue, and his facial expression had undergone a radical change. His eyes had also transformed, reflecting a newfound otherworldliness, as the statue’s arms ominously began to enclose in front of him.

In response, the entire blood pool began to shake violently, causing structural havoc – the roof of the building caved in, the corridors fractured, and amidst this chaos, the statue of the Flesh Immortal gradually awakened.

The Four Phases, integral to the ritual, opened their eyes, exerting an indescribable pressure. This left all the survivors in the vicinity struggling for breath as all the bloody water in the building ominously converged towards this focal point.

“You exist because of my efforts! I have the power to make people worship you, or I can destroy your statue!” Situ An, now completely unhinged, revealed his last remaining slaying talisman, driven by his deranged logic. “Do you understand why the skins of the innocent can be used to create talismans? It’s because of their prayers and screams, their intense longing in the face of death, yearning for your existence. That’s the reason you exist, that’s the reason gods exist!”

With the talisman clutched in the ethereal grasp of his soul, Situ An, seizing the moment before Wu Bo could further integrate with the statue, thrust it directly into the old man’s chest!

“For twenty years, I’ve scoured this apartment, seeking the main consciousness of the Flesh Immortal, mistakenly believing the worship had failed. I searched through countless statues, never once considering that you might be hiding not within an inanimate object, but within a living body!”

Situ An, in a frenzied attempt, grabbed Wu Bo’s neck, trying to forcibly detach him from the statue. He was prepared to rip Wu Bo’s body apart if necessary, all in a desperate bid to prevent the final merger with the statue.

“You’re too obsessed. Some entities exist independently, not because of your manipulations and machinations.” Wu Bo, his transformation now evident, responded. Four of the statue’s arms, dripping with blood, reached out and seized Situ An while the other four grasped Xuan Wen’s body.

However, the damage was already done when the talisman came into contact with his body. Exuding foul-smelling black blood from the chest, Wu Bo realized that the so-called slaying talisman was in fact a manifestation of karma itself.

The ground beneath the Sishui Apartment trembled violently, and cracks began spreading across its walls. The climax of this urban legend was rapidly approaching, with the outcome uncertain of whether the Flesh Immortal would assert its main consciousness or Situ An would succeed in seizing the Heart of Deity.

In the midst of this chaos, Gao Ming, determined and resolute, grabbed Zhao Xi’s chain and picked up the fire axe. “Hand me that last slaying talisman,” he demanded.

The female firefighter had spent the majority of her vitality after the last use, so she gave no resistance in offering up the last talisman of slaying.

Attaching the blood talisman to the axe, Gao Ming inhaled deeply, contemplating the profound significance of his action. “The most innocent person has become the blade that can kill a god, perhaps fulfilling their final wish in doing so,” he mused solemnly.

Gao Ming dashed forward with a sense of determination, his feet pounding against the floor as he raced through the fractured room and skillfully flung the chain towards the statue once he neared the edge of the tumultuous blood pool.

Zhao Xi, his form almost dissipating under the strain, perceived the approaching help. Releasing his hold on Wu Bo’s leg, he summoned the last of his strength to grasp one end of the weapon.

This chain, woven from the potent memories and obsessions of the departed, dangled from the statue’s arm. With a determined grasp on the other end, Gao Ming daringly leaped over the blood pool and broke the fragile balance between Wu Bo, Situ An, and Xuan Wen.

“You would rather give it to him than to me?” Situ An’s rage was palpable, the blood characters on his body deepening, blurring the lines between his own identity and that of the ghost possessing him.

Wu Bo stretched out two arms in an attempt to halt Gao Ming’s progress towards the top. However, both Situ An and Xuan Wen were formidable adversaries, each biding their time for this exact moment to unleash their powers to break free from the restraint.

Under normal circumstances, Situ An should have been the quickest to reach the prize, a fact Gao Ming was acutely aware of. His true objective from the start wasn’t the heart itself.

As Situ An lunged towards the heart in a frenzied state, Gao Ming abruptly released his grip on the chain and changed his trajectory, swinging his fire axe with full force towards Situ An’s head.

“This time, I will definitely kill you!” he declared with unwavering determination.

The blood talisman activated at the moment of impact, absorbing Gao Ming’s black blood as his axe made contact with the target’s shoulder.

Simultaneously, a force from behind yanked Gao Ming back. It was Xuan Wen who had grabbed his shoulder, saving him from being crushed by eight arms that had violently struck the spot he was standing in just now.

“I’ll hold them off! You go and take the heart!” Xuan Wen commanded, not allowing Gao Ming any chance to protest. She charged into the fray without hesitation.

Shadows swirled around the woman, and her body showed alarming signs of distress, with eight particularly gruesome wounds that unleashed eight monstrous beings, their exquisite features belying their sinister nature. They clung to her, gnawing at her flesh and infusing her soul with resentment and hatred.

It appeared she had resigned herself to the fact that she couldn’t fight the shadow world, so she opted for a final, desperate ploy: dragging both Situ An and the statue into the shadowy abyss with her.

“I can’t change fate, but I’m already satisfied after being a protagonist for a week.” Xuan Wen casts a final, lingering glance at Gao Ming. “If you really can’t remember what you promised me in the tunnel, then stop trying to recall it,” she said, a mix of acceptance and melancholy in her tone, resigning herself to the chaotic fate that awaited them all.

This chapter upload first at NovelBin.Com