Nightmare Despair

Chapter 70 Wolf Head and Human Face
Da da da.

The rain pattered down, and amidst the continuous white noise, a rhythmic, heart-stopping sound would occasionally emerge.

Zhou Kai thought the voice sounded exactly like...

In the dead of night, you wake with a start, surrounded by deathly silence, your senses amplified to their maximum. You can hear your own heartbeat, the faint sound of blood coursing through your veins…

Then, a huge centipede or centipede appears beside your pillow.

Its dense footsteps tapped rhythmically on the pillowcase, creating a chilling sound that you could hear clearly...

This is the kind of sound Zhou Kai is hearing now.

But what he was about to face was a thousand times more terrifying than the centipede beside his pillow.

! !
Zhou Kai suddenly turned around, his gaze falling on a low building not far away that had partially sunk into the ground.

Several cracking sounds came from the roof tiles, which could no longer bear the weight. A pale shadow flashed past along the crack in the wall between the buildings and disappeared without a trace.

In a fleeting glance, Zhou Kai seemed to spot some glossy insect arthropods.

"Is it that thing?"

Zhou Kai had a vivid memory of that monster. It was the first monster he encountered after escaping the dilapidated house. If he hadn't dared to break into number 777, he probably would have died at its hands long ago.

He hadn't seen it since then, and never expected to run into it here today...

Zhou Kai gripped the sword hilt tightly; his already anxious heart was now taut with tension.

Facing a monster in the dark is terrifying, but what's even more torturous is being in the light yet being relentlessly watched by a monster lurking in the shadows.

The enemy is in the dark, I am in the light.

This situation is like you're laning against a super top laner, struggling against the pressure, while the enemy jungler keeps haunting you. If you could type, Zhou Kai would already be asking everyone: "Am I your dad?"

After all, the monster could suddenly appear from any corner at any time, but Zhou Kai couldn't devote all his energy to defending against it.

"It seems we have no choice but to get to the mansion as soon as possible."

Zhou Kai stared intently at the area where the white figure had disappeared. A few seconds later, seeing no movement, he decisively turned around, his pace suddenly quickening, rain and mud flying backward with each step.

……

The parasitic corpses only appear inside the building, and Zhou Kai has never found an exception.

They are the weakest and most bizarre monsters here.

Time seems to have stood still on them.

The clothes worn by these parasitic corpses were mostly not rotten, and some even had exposed skin that was as smooth as that of a normal person, with the color of a living person, which was completely different from the armored soldiers and swordsmen outside.

There are two main types of monsters roaming the streets and alleys of the town.

The first type consists of armored warriors and swordsmen transformed from members of the Soraka Guard, who still wear their original equipment.

The other type is the Wanderer, whose appearance is identical with only slight differences. They seem to be former residents of the town who have been transformed... Their strength is only slightly stronger than that of the parasitic zombies.

As for the other monsters, most of them were rarely seen, and Zhou Kai had no chance to fight them, so he naturally couldn't record any useful information.

But this information alone is enough, given the considerable number of these monsters.

...Experienced hunters only target prey they are familiar with.

While keeping a close watch on the white figure, Zhou Kai's main targets along the way were wanderers and swordsmen.

The wanderers were extremely fast runners, so Zhou Kai didn't need to bother looking for them at all. As soon as he appeared, they would pounce on him on their own.

Swordsmen, on the other hand, mostly hide in secluded places like corners and doorways, and they like to launch surprise attacks, suddenly stabbing you from the shadows.

Therefore, Zhou Kai only needed to deliberately expose his presence in specific areas, and these monsters would walk right into the traps he had prepared.

And the bait for this trap... was Zhou Kai himself!
At the entrance to the backyard of room 703, Zhou Kai decapitated the swordsman with a single sword stroke, then kicked the headless corpse to the ground with a heavy kick.

He gripped the sword in a reverse grip, the broad blade piercing into the corpse's chest, pressing down sharply, and then emerging from its back.

Just then, the rain curtain was torn open by a dark shadow, and Zhou Kai felt as if he were completely enveloped by some enormous creature. He instinctively swung his arm out like a whip, and the long sword he gripped drew a cold light in the air, sweeping towards the shadowy figure.

Oh!

The broadsword severed the wanderer's forearm that it had grabbed, and then cut its slender waist in two.

The Wanderer's defense was already low, and its vitality was even more fragile. After being cut in half at the waist, it died instantly.

Seeing the barrage of comments appearing before him, Zhou Kai sheathed his sword.

[You have gained 19 Universal Experience Points by defeating 1 Decaying Swordsman and 1 Wanderer]

[Due to your Occultism LV2, you have additionally gained: 2 Memories of Some Value, 1 Strange Human Skin]

Still without a chance to inspect the harvest on the spot, Zhou Kai quickened his pace again.

As they moved further away from the Willow People, the light of the burning flames grew dimmer.

Darkness always harbors unknown fears and brings unease.

Zhou Kai felt that after hunting a few more monsters, he should be able to hide inside a building... Besides the darkness, the nowhere-where white figure was like a sword hanging over his head, constantly threatening him.

A few minutes later, Zhou Kai spotted the other party before the loitering one and successfully launched his first sneak attack, gaining 7 general experience points.

At this point, his remaining experience points totaled exactly forty.

"It's time to move into the Western-style mansion..."

In the darkness, the decorative towers rise high, and the outlines of pointed arches and buttresses are faintly visible... The upper part of the mansion is in typical Gothic style, but the lower part shows a distinct columnar structure.

The fusion of two styles makes the building appear awkward and gloomy, sending a chill down your spine.

Zhou Kai squinted and looked at the dark and tall four-story building a few dozen meters away. His gaze quickly fell on the half-hidden entrance.

"Is the gate open?"

Zhou Kai gripped his longsword and started running.

The door was open, which was perfect... It meant that when he barged into the mansion, he wouldn't make too much noise, so as not to disturb any residents who might be inside.

However, it seems that Zhou Kai was not the only one rushing towards the entrance of the mansion at this moment.

When Zhou Kai arrived at the courtyard in front of the mansion, less than eight meters from the gate, his steps froze for a moment.

Because when he looked up, he saw a monster covered in rainwater, with pale hair and limbs growing all over its sides, staring intently at him from the outer wall of the fourth floor of the mansion.

Her head resembled a plucked she-wolf, but her face looked more like a ferocious woman.

The place that should have been the mouth was tightly sewn shut by rough wire.

However, from her jaw to her entire neck and chest, there was a terrifying void filled with sharp teeth... At this moment, that void was writhing, brewing a roar.

One second...two seconds.

The moment Zhou Kai stepped through the door.

A piercing and terrifying roar exploded behind him, and the hairy monster plummeted heavily from the fourth floor, its body twisted as it let out a venomous howl at Zhou Kai.

Zhou Kai's heart suddenly raced, and his adrenaline surged... If it had been a few days ago, that roar alone would have been enough to freeze him in place, unable to move.

But now things are different; the threat of fear only makes him act faster and more decisively.

Ignoring the roar, Zhou Kai slammed the door shut with a bang.

He then quickly distanced himself and searched for a safe corner on the first floor of the mansion where he could rest for a while.

Just then, Zhou Kai suddenly felt a sense of unease, and a thought began to form in his mind...

"Wait a minute, could this mansion be the hideout of this monster?"

"Am I deliberately stirring up internal strife?"

(End of this chapter)