Chapter 106
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Lou Yan remained expressionless and said, “Thank you.”
“No need to thank me! No need to thank me!”
Shadow Reaper exaggeratedly acted surprised, looking at the mask on Lou Yan’s face, unable to resist touching it a couple of times, being careful as if afraid of damaging Lou Yan’s mask, and murmuring repeatedly, “I never expected, truly never expected… Mr. Lou Yan, you are such a big surprise, a huge surprise! It’s an honor for me, Shadow Reaper, to witness your grace at the amusement park. Mr. Lou’s every move is like a bright moon, like a dazzling sun, making my eyes unable to look away from you! Even the cruelest and ugliest anomalies would admire your wisdom and courage!”
Lou Yan: “…”
A twitch appeared at the corner of Lou Yan’s mouth, “…Have you been reading foreign mythology and drama recently?”
Shadow Reaper appeared genuinely surprised, “Oh, my dear sir, how did you know?”
Li Sanxin touched the goosebumps on his arm, teasingly said with the same annoying tone, “Oh, my dear mr. anomaly! Can your esteemed hands let go of my friend’s mask? If you really like this mask, you can spend fifty bucks to customize a plastic replica online.”
Shadow Reaper chuckled awkwardly and reluctantly let go of Lou Yan’s mask.
Although this anomaly’s speech was funny, Lou Yan didn’t miss the look of fear in Shadow Reaper’s eyes when he spoke to him.
Lou Yan pondered.
Was he fearing him? Or was he fearing the mask on his face?
Shadow Reaper didn’t rush to let Lou Yan and the others enter the elevator, constantly pulling them around. In between were large sections of flattery, which made everyone very uncomfortable.
Finally, Shadow Reaper, with a smile on his face, asked the question he most wanted to ask, “My dear guests, I’m actually curious about what happened on the fifth floor.”
He glanced meaningfully at the prison uniforms and masks on them, “How did you exchange identities with the hunters? You know, those hunters were carefully selected by me. If it were just one or two of them replaced by you, I could understand, but you wiped them all out in one go, which I simply can’t believe!”
After speaking, he looked straight at Lou Yan, obviously wanting Lou Yan to answer this question.
Lou Yan felt that what he really wanted to ask was how Lou Yan was able to exchange identities with Fu Xuezhou.
This anomaly should also know how powerful Fu Xuezhou was.
No wonder, although both Lou Yan and Li Sanxin’s group successfully passed the test, Lou Yan felt that Shadow Reaper’s attitude towards him was much warmer and more respectful. It was probably because he had the ability to exchange Fu Xuezhou’s mask, so these anomalies had a new understanding of his strength, adding some fear and testing.
The corners of Lou Yan’s mouth under the mask twitched.
So, was he riding on Fu Xuezhou’s reputation to make a name for himself?
“It’s nothing, really,” Lou Yan didn’t elaborate, brushing it off lightly, as if the feat of burying four hunters on the fifth floor in one go was nothing worth mentioning to him, “It’s just our good luck.”
But this fool wouldn’t believe that. Shadow Reaper’s eyes looked even more fearful when he looked at Lou Yan.
This was the result Lou Yan wanted. Some things didn’t need to be explained too clearly. If they intentionally flaunted, they would fall into the lower ranks. Just like this, with a few words, these anomalies would imagine Lou Yan becoming scarier and scarier through self-imagination.
Next, Shadow Reaper didn’t ask much. He kindly pressed the button for Lou Yan and the others to open the elevator, smilingly said, “Dear guests, let me tell you about the rules of taking the elevator. The elevator is the only passage to meet the Anomaly Lord on the eighth floor. Please be careful to choose the real eighth floor before getting off the elevator.”
The four of them entered the elevator, and as the elevator door slowly closed, the spider on the left side of Shadow Reaper’s face quickly crawled to the right, and his face disappeared into the gap at the back of the elevator, courteously saying, “I wish you, my dear sirs, can maintain your previous luck.”
The elevator door closed tightly, and the next second it began to ascend.
Li Sanxin stroked his chin and said, “He means that when the elevator door opens, it may not necessarily be the eighth floor outside, and we need to discern it ourselves?”
Lin You nodded, “Yes, that’s what he meant.”
Without waiting for them to analyze further, the elevator made a “ding” sound, and the door opened.
Outside the door was a dark and dilapidated corridor, with two pig-headed prison guards acting as security. They sat on the ground, eating and drinking heartily, one hand gnawing on roasted human legs, the other holding beer, and empty beer cans and smoked cigarette butts littered the floor.
Seeing the elevator open, they turned their heads, their greasy pig faces shining, giggling and saying, “Welcome to the eighth floor!”
After the elevator door opened, it remained motionless. The four people looked at the scene outside, vigilantly and meticulously scanning the pig-headed guards.
Was this really the eighth floor?
The walls were damp and moldy, with peeling wall paint, and there were black, block-shaped stains on the floor. Lou Yan saw beer cans and cigarette butts from the wall to the ground, and finally looked at the pig-headed guards wearing clothes covered in cigarette ash and grease stains.
When the pig-headed guards saw that they didn’t speak, they got up from the ground and walked towards the elevator. But as soon as they moved, the four of them simultaneously reached out to press the door close button, and in the end, it was Ye Buyan who stood closest and pressed the door close button first.
In less than two seconds, the elevator door closed again and continued to ascend.
The four people in the elevator smiled at each other, and Li Sanxin asked, “I realized this wasn’t the eighth floor when I saw how dirty and rude they were behaving. How did you guys figure it out?”
“I also realized it wasn’t the eighth floor when I saw their disrespectful attitude and the trash all over the floor,” Lin You said, “If this were the real eighth floor with the Anomaly Lord, they wouldn’t behave like this.”
Ye Buyan calmly said, “They don’t have the electric batons that pig-headed guards usually carry.”
Lou Yan raised an eyebrow, “You’ve said what I wanted to say, so I won’t waste words.”
The others chuckled, and this time all four of them simultaneously noticing the abnormal behavior of pressing the close door button together made them much more confident in each other. Their companions’ agility and composure increased their trust in each other a lot.
“Ding—”
The elevator stopped again, and the four of them remained silent, staring intently at the scene outside the door.
Outside was a road extending from the elevator door into the distance, straight and disappearing into darkness at the end. Both sides were shrouded in impenetrable darkness, and only the road in front of them was visible.
It was very quiet and mysterious here, somewhat resembling a place where the Anomaly Lord might reside.
“Is this the floor?”
“I can’t tell…”
Everyone hesitated.
Li Sanxin touched his body and pulled out a sausage from his pocket. After tearing open the packaging, he threw the sausage away.
The sausage rolled on the ground for a few rounds, only stopping two meters away. They watched quietly, and after half a minute, the sausage remained safe and sound, without any abnormalities.
Li Sanxin breathed a sigh of relief, “So this is the eighth floor, right?”
But Lin You felt that it wouldn’t be so easy for them to find the eighth floor. He said, “Wait a minute,” and after asking the others to step back, he took off the prison guard coat still warm from his body, sliced his palm, smeared some blood on the coat, and then bunched the coat together and threw it out with force.
The moment the coat was thrown out of the elevator, even before it landed, several thick tentacles, as thick as a baby’s arm, suddenly emerged from the darkness, twisting and dancing wildly towards the coat, fighting each other for ownership of the coat. Under the horrifying struggle of the tentacles, the coat was torn into several pieces, and each piece of fabric was quickly snatched back into the darkness by the black tentacles.
In the blink of an eye, the coat that had just been thrown out disappeared without a trace, along with the untouched sausage on the floor. The darkness quickly returned to calm, as if the terrifying and horrifying tentacles were all just an illusion.
Li Sanxin, who had just breathed a sigh of relief, was suddenly covered in cold sweat. He turned his head to see Lin You and Ye Buyan also sweating profusely, all startled by the monsters hidden in the darkness.
Lou Yan, however, had already pressed the close door button several times as soon as he saw the tentacles, and the elevator door slowly closed in front of them. When it was completely closed, they dared to exhale.
“What was that thing just now?” Ye Buyan’s face turned pale, still shocked, “Was it octopus tentacles?”
“I don’t know,” Lin You’s face was ugly, filled with worry, “I hope that monster only exists in the amusement park.”
Lou Yan remained serious.
The tentacle monster just now was obviously a thorough anomaly, an irrational gigantic anomaly, similar to the black, bone-spiked anomaly it devoured, as well as the anomaly seen at the bottom of the river in the red coffin world.
Fortunately, they didn’t see the true face of that anomaly head-on, so their spirits weren’t too shaken. There was only a lingering horror from instinct, making it impossible for them to forget the scene of the tentacles flying wildly for a short time.
Lou Yan pondered for a moment. He felt that they were about to reach the real eighth floor.
Just as he had this thought, the upward trend of the elevator stopped, and the elevator door opened again.
Outside the elevator was a vast space towering like a temple. Gray mist vaguely filled the interior of the temple, obscuring the various ferocious patterns on the walls.
The labyrinth on the first floor was tall enough, but here it seemed to be twice as tall as the labyrinth. The protruding circular dome rose high above their heads, and huge red pillars, each requiring three people to embrace, were orderly arranged in the temple, supporting this towering structure.
Compared to this temple, Lou Yan and his companions were as tiny as ants on the ground.
It looked both sacred and strange here. The sacredness was in the overall structure of the temple, and the strangeness was in the sinister and anomaly patterns on the details.
Lou Yan looked down and saw a twisted, grinning anomaly face branded on the floor tile nearest to them.
This seemed like the place where the Anomaly Lord should stay.
But to avoid falling into a trap, the four of them did not immediately step out. They used the same method Lin You had just used to throw out a blood-stained coat, and then tried several testing methods they could think of.
After testing everything, they were almost certain that this was indeed the eighth floor.
Lou Yan and Lin You stepped out first, followed by Li Sanxin and Ye Buyan. The four of them walked out in pairs, looking around vigilantly at the surroundings shrouded in thick mist.
The mist did not dissipate, and as they walked towards the center, the oppression in their hearts grew deeper, giving them a suffocating feeling of being unable to breathe.
Not long after, their brains began to dizzy, and their mental strength kept diminishing. Their hearts throbbed painfully as if they were about to explode on the spot, and all sorts of sharp and piercing sounds, like the screams of ghosts in hell, rang incessantly in their ears, overwhelming their clear consciousness bit by bit.
Not long after walking, Lou Yan and Li Sanxin, who had the highest mental strength, had to support the semi-unconscious Lin You and Ye Buyan.
The powerful anomalous force contaminated their minds quickly. Lou Yan, who had not used his mental strength before, took a deep breath. He still had plenty of mental strength left, but he could persevere, while the others couldn’t.
Lou Yan decisively said, “Sanxin, give them injections.”
With that, Lou Yan took out a syringe from his pocket and injected it into Lin You’s body without hesitation.
Li Sanxin also pulled out a syringe from his body, removed the protective cover with his teeth, and injected two-thirds of it into Ye Buyan, keeping the remaining one-third for himself.
His mental strength wasn’t as strong as Lou Yan’s, so he needed a boost as well. But he was better off than Ye Buyan, so one-third was enough for him.
After the injection to restore their mental strength, Lin You and Ye Buyan became much more alert and thanked them in hoarse voices.
The four of them helped each other move forward until they saw a huge black figure shrouded in layers of thick fog in the middle. Then they knew where the indescribable terror and oppression rising from deep within their hearts came from.
—The Anomaly Lord was in the middle of the temple, right beside them.
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