Sacrificial Lamb (14)
“Aaaahhh!!”
Chen Li turned back in shock, still holding the fake severed limb in his left hand, blood dripping from it: “Did you hear someone scream?”
Fu Moyang casually held his right hand and led him forward: “Hm? Probably someone got caught by a vengeful ghost. This town is crawling with them now.”
Chen Li dropped the prop in his hand, eyes drifting to their interlocked fingers. His face flushed red: “Why did you come here?”
Fu Moyang tilted his head to look at Chen Li’s rosy cheeks, amusement dancing in his eyes and smile: “I missed you.”
Though his tone was teasing, the look in his eyes was so focused and sincere, it left no room for doubt.
Chen Li’s face, which had only just started to cool, turned red again. His big, dark eyes shimmered: “But what if they reveal your true identity after leaving the instance?”
They had been terrified moments ago, but once they reached safety, it wouldn’t take long to figure out Fu Moyang’s role in the game.
If the top-ranked player turned out to be non-human, it would send shockwaves through the entire player community.
Seeing that he was genuinely worried about him, Fu Moyang’s cold heart softened: “Don’t worry. This will be my last game.”
That reminded Chen Li—Fu Moyang had entered Horror Game differently than the others. He’d come willingly. That meant Horror Game couldn’t threaten him the same way.
Fu Moyang continued: “I’ll take you out too. But this Horror Game is acting strange lately. It might collapse on its own before I even have to do anything.”
“Collapse?” Chen Li’s eyes widened in surprise. “You mean the game itself will shut down?”
Fu Moyang didn’t explain further. He gently rubbed the corner of Chen Li’s eye: “Mm. But for now, we need to get out of this instance first.”
If Horror Game were to collapse, then what would happen to the players? And what about the guide NPCs with physical bodies? What was the real purpose behind collecting fear points?
Chen Li had so many questions, but before he could ask them, the mansion caught fire. Orange flames and choking smoke filled the air. He had no choice but to push all his thoughts aside.
From within the roaring blaze came the cries of babies and the desperate screams of men and women…
The peaceful facade of the town was finally torn away, revealing hellish chaos beneath. Screams rang from every direction.
They soon found the High Priest trying to flee through the back door of the mansion. His body was covered in blood, a far cry from the proud, untouchable figure he had been.
When he saw Chen Li and Fu Moyang, terror flooded his eyes, and he began to mutter incoherently.
“N-no… I already sacrificed the Holy Son like you asked! Why won’t you leave me alone?!”
He was still wearing that grotesque mask, with every carved eyeball weeping bloody tears.
Fu Moyang raised a hand and pointed in the air: “I’m not the one who wants you dead.”
Behind the High Priest, three ghostly figures emerged.
Chen Li immediately recognized them—Zhou family members, the ones who had died so tragically in their own home.
His expression turned complex, but not surprised: “So it really was you who killed them.”
He had long suspected it. The High Priest always went to the back mountain to perform rituals, and he’d return with mud on the hems of his pants. The night the Zhou family died, however, there was no such mud—meaning he’d changed his clothes to hide the blood.
Chen Li had pieced it all together already. What he couldn’t understand was why the High Priest had lied to the townspeople about needing to sacrifice the Holy Son and Holy Maiden, and why they kept disappearing.
Figuring out the truth behind those disappearances was the players’ main objective in this instance. If they couldn’t complete that mission, the only other way to escape was for all players to die.
Chen Li sighed: “I didn’t expect I’d end up being an NPC and help the players complete their mission.”
The Zhou family’s ghosts slowly crept closer to the High Priest. Their long, hooked claws tore at his body, blood and flesh splattering like shredded rags.
Fu Moyang blocked Chen Li’s view with a hand, but the screams were enough to make one’s scalp tingle.
Most of the other vengeful ghosts held grudges against the town itself. But the Zhou family had died at the hands of the High Priest—they hated him most of all. Even though they had only recently become ghosts, they were still determined to kill him.
Amid the shrieks, there came the soft crack of breaking wood. Chen Li quickly pushed Fu Moyang’s hand aside just enough to peek through the gap—and saw what had become of the High Priest.
His wooden mask had split in two and fallen to the ground, revealing his real face. But it seemed his face had fused with the mask—when it came off, layers of skin peeled away with it, exposing gaping sockets, raw red muscle, and yellow sinews writhing like maggots.
The High Priest touched his face in horror. Pain seared through his nerves as his fingers met bare flesh: “Ahhh! My face!!”
Chen Li’s complexion went pale: “His eyes…?”
The most horrifying thing wasn’t the torn skin—it was the multiple eyeballs spinning rapidly in each hollow hole, reacting to the pain.
The grotesque mask with many eyes… his real face had matching eyeballs underneath!
Chen Li had seen many terrifying things, but even he couldn’t help shrinking back.
The Zhou family’s ghosts kept tearing at him. His legs were stripped down to bone, and his waist had turned to a mangled mess of blood and meat. Still, the High Priest glared toward Chen Li’s direction, his remaining eyes filled with a complex, unreadable emotion.
This time, Chen Li finally recognized the emotion in the High Priest’s eyes—jealousy.
He was jealous of him.
Fu Moyang noticed his fear and pulled him into his embrace, shielding him completely from the horrifying sight and the dying screams.
Surrounded by Fu Moyang’s familiar scent, Chen Li’s tense body finally relaxed a little. The words the young maiden had said to him earlier resurfaced in his mind.
It was like a pair of invisible hands had connected all the scattered clues into a clear line that flashed through his thoughts.
“I know why the Holy Sons and Holy Maidens always go missing in this town!” Chen Li suddenly looked up, urgency in his voice.
“They were all chosen by the High Priest—and all of them were good-looking. But their real purpose wasn’t for sacrifice—it was because of his twisted jealousy!”
The flames blazed higher, the entire town engulfed with nowhere to hide. Chen Li spoke faster: “The High Priest was born with multiple eyes, and he envied those who looked beautiful. So after elevating them to the position of Holy Son or Holy Maiden, he’d torture them to death with his own hands!”
No wonder the other day, the High Priest had stormed into his room in a rage, and the young maiden had instinctively thought he was going to die.
It wasn’t the first time this had happened in that mansion. The others had gotten used to it and had become accomplices, helping him keep the truth from the townspeople.
Fu Moyang patted his head: “Now do you understand why I said everyone in this town deserves to die?”
Chen Li shook his head.
Fu Moyang said evenly: “The High Priest was born deformed. From the moment he came into the world, he was bullied for his grotesque, many-eyed face. He barely survived to adulthood, and when he did, he came up with the idea to pose as a priest and deceive the ignorant townspeople into making offerings. In truth, it was all just a way to take revenge. Every older townspeople had once bullied him, and the younger ones became accomplices in his sacrifices. So not a single person here is innocent.”
As he spoke calmly, the High Priest’s screams grew fainter until they vanished altogether. The Zhou family ghosts had devoured his brain and the last bits of flesh from his body.
With the real boss of the instance dead, the entire instance began to collapse. The flames lost their heat, and the cries around them faded into the distance.
Chen Li looked up at the sky. A giant hole had torn through it, clouds being sucked inward, lightning snaking through the air, and fierce winds howling.
This had never happened before. No previous instance had ever ended like this—not even the exit had looked anything close to this apocalyptic.
It was as if the sky itself had been punctured.
System 001: [Congratulations, Host. You’ve collected 1000 fear points.]
[A thousand?!] Chen Li squinted against the wind. [Wasn’t it only six hundred a moment ago?]
System 001 sounded confused: [I don’t know what happened either. Suddenly, all the fear points from the NPCs in this instance were collected.]
Technically, fear generated by NPCs shouldn’t be collectible—it belonged to the game system itself.
For this to happen… it was like the game had bugged.
Or maybe… it was doing its final tally.
A chilling thought crept into Chen Li’s heart.
Could the game really be collapsing on its own?
It should’ve been a good thing. But instinct told him otherwise—this wasn’t a cause for celebration.
The hole above them started sucking everything upward. Debris and rubble from the town floated into the air, reversing gravity. It was impossible to tell where the ground ended and the sky began. Gravity itself seemed to be breaking down.
Fu Moyang placed a hand on the back of Chen Li’s neck, gently massaging it with a soothing tone: “Don’t be afraid. Just sleep. When you wake up, everything will be okay.”
As consciousness started to fade, Chen Li grabbed his hand tightly: “I’ll find you in the real world!”
Fu Moyang’s hand paused. His silver-grey eyes softened deeply: “Then come find me.”
“I’ll be waiting for you at the FuTech Tower.”
That was the last thing Chen Li heard before his world went black.
. . . . .
Chen Li shot upright, a sharp pain searing through his head.
The screams, the fire, the hellish chaos—gone.
All around him was calm, serene, pure white.
Something brushed against his hand. He looked down and saw Ghost Bus gently nudging him with worry.
He scooped it up: “I’m okay.”
He was back in the system space.
It looked the same as always—stark white—but something felt different. The corner that had once been filled with little trinkets System 001 liked was now completely empty. Even the poker set it used to play with Joker was gone.
Chen Li: “001, did something happen out there?”
The glowing ball floated over, stammering: “Um… You’d better see for yourself.”
Chen Li pulled it into his arms and walked to the only door in the space.
When he opened it, he was met not with the familiar floating cubes of the player space—but an endless void of black nothingness.
The entire player space had vanished.
Author’s note:
The story is about to end~