375 The Curse

 

Building 4 had 24 floors and the senior monster lived on the 23rd floor. He was the ghost closest to the top floor and was the oldest tenant here. The tenants here had never seen him murder or lose his patience. The senior monster stayed in his room and was surprisingly nice for someone of his strength. If someone accidentally entered Room 4234, they would be pushed out by an unknown force.

If the 24th floor was the most dangerous floor then the 23rd floor could be considered the safest. Every tenant knew of the senior monster, but like the male student, none of them was frightened of him. But their impression was going to change that night when the senior monster met with Han Fei’s Evil Soul.

The senior monster’s only blood relative was summoned to Ziggurat and his only living legacy was corrupted by an evil spirit. If he didn’t want his legacy to end, he had no choice but to cooperate with the evil spirit.

Initially, the senior monster was only playing along until he could find the chance to yank the spirit out. But as they spent more time together, the senior monster realized the spirit seemed to be more familiar with the rules of Ziggurat than he was. In fact, compared to his own grandson, the senior monster started to hope that the evil spirit was his own blood kin instead.

His seemingly crazy and lawless actions were carefully calculated. His madness was controlled by an absolutely rational mind. This kind of person was born for the cryptic world. If the evil spirit stayed on his own grandson, perhaps the blood curse which had been troubling the senior monster’s lineage could be stopped.

In the endless darkness, the senior monster saw the hope given by the spirit. Therefore, he decided to fully cooperate with the spirit, to grasp this chance to escape. His thin skin surfaced with black and red tattoos. Death Curses were forced out from his body. The ‘heart’ that had been hibernating within the senior monster’s chest had been awakened!

Scabs covered with curses fell. The black heart pumped with unimaginable yin energy. The blood of his entire lineage flowed through his body! The human faces on the spine howled. The senior monster’s falling hair was dyed red. His thin body rapidly expanded and his wrinkles smoothed out.

The Deaths inside the monster were forced out. His black heart awakened with blood. When the first bead of blood dripped, the black heart cracked. Hatred that had been suppressed for generations exploded!

His people would never have eternal rest, they had all been turned into monsters, how could he forget such deep-seated resentment?

The arms which had plumped up several times peeled off the wooden boards. The senior monster stopped hiding his hatred. He became the first tenant at the Ziggurat to challenge the manager. His eyes were crimson. The monster crushed the windows sealed up by the manager. As the grey mist rushed at him, the senior monster walked out from the Ziggurat without any hesitation!

The moment he did, the faces on the monster’s spine wailed in pain. The word Death repeated itself endless on his children and grandchildren’s faces. The Death Curse left behind on the senior monster had been triggered. He would die if he left Ziggurat!

The blood from the black heart coursed through the body. The grey mist was unable to stop the senior monster. At that moment, a wisp of song came from the black mist.

“Why are you still hesitating? Give all your hatred to me!” All the faces on the senior monster’s spine were twisted from pain… except one. The face glared with vindication and shouted madly!

The surface of the black heart completely shattered. The hatred buried inside the senior monster burned through the old man’s veins like fire. The senior monster’s blood exploded in the grey mist, like a red firework falling into the black sea!

The senior monster used his arms to tear away the mist. While most of the mist was distracted by the Singer, he punched his way through the weakest point of the Ziggurat. An opening appeared in the mist. After the senior monster walked through the opening, he and his family would gain freedom. The senior monster had imagined this for generations. He resisted the pain from his body, fought them with his hatred and dragged his body towards the opening.

As the mist regathered, the senior monster definitely was quick enough to escape but when he was one step away from leaving, the senior monster suddenly stopped. Inside the monster’s heart, buried deep inside the monster’s source of hatred, a cocoon covered in Death started to break open.

Perhaps because the butterfly was forced to surface ahead of time, it was extremely ugly. Its tattered wings were imprinted with the faces of the senior monster’s later generation. It was born from the hatred of the senior monster’s lineage. It was connected to the entire bloodline of the senior monster. Once it flapped its wings, the senior monster’s children and grandchildren would all die. The Death Curses on the body were merely the smokescreen, the cocoon inside the heart was the reason Butterfly allowed the senior monster such freedom at Ziggurat.

“Old man, have you no idea that your heart has been tampered with? Someone wanted to use you and your whole lineage to cultivate a bug!” The Butterfly had lied to the senior monster all along. The thing would never leave a threat by his side. Since it chose to keep the senior monster, then it could only be that he served some kind of purpose. Blood tears flowed out from his eyes, reddening his face.

The Evil Soul controlled the senior monster’s arm to pluck away the heart of hatred. The senior monster was surprised by this as well. When his fingers approached the heart, the butterfly’s broken wings flapped. Instantly the senior monster’s spine broke. The skulls crushed. They looked fragile like they could disintegrate at any moment. Without the heart, the senior monster would die immediately. The family that the senior monster carried literally on his back would perish as well, but Han Fei’s Evil Soul might survive.

With the exit just a step away, the Evil Soul could have easily escaped out from the Ziggurat alone. The hands covered in curse reached for the heart but stopped above it. The Evil Soul hesitated and put the hands away. “I can’t do it, I am a good person after all!”

The opening narrowed. The Evil Spirit glared viciously at the mutated butterfly inside the monster’s heart. “The real curse has always been inside you. Your deepest secret has long since been exposed to the manager. You’re so pitiable that I can’t even bring myself to kill you. But worry not, as long as it is a curse, there is a solution, for example, killing the person who planted the curse.” The Evil Spirit rambled on fearlessly. “You’ve been thinking about making an escape but the thing never intended for you and your family to live from the beginning. You should know what to do now, right?”

He was one step away from the exit but he couldn’t reach it. Facing such a despairing situation, the Evil Soul didn’t look disappointed, it was as if he had predicted this outcome. If anything, his eyes burned with even greater rancor.

“I’ve already told you, power is only meaningful when you use it. Since the manager never intended for you to live, then why live by its rules anymore?” The Evil Soul’s voice echoed in the mist, penetrating every soul.

“Kill! Murder! Destroy!” He shouted without care. “Use everything the manager has left behind to strengthen yourself! Once you kill enough, we’ll become the Death Curse no one dares to go against anymore!”