Chapter 204: Yūmi Island (Part 10)
Chapter 204: Yūmi Island (Part 10)
Fang Jing could feel the atmosphere in this area change, and the temperature was gradually dropping.
He knocked on the wall.
Knock! Knock!
It made two sounds, and from the sound, there seemed to be nothing wrong.
But it couldn’t be denied that the building itself had undergone a series of changes.
And these changes didn’t seem simple.
He moved to a door, grabbed the handle, and tried to open it.
With a loud bang, the door swung open, revealing a quiet, dark room in front of Fang Jing.
He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
“No light…”
He pressed the switch, but the room remained completely dark. Since Fang Jing had his Phone with him, he used its light to see the inside of the room.
“So messy… How long has it been since this room was opened?”
Fang Jing found the room extremely dirty and cluttered. There were spiderwebs in the corners of the ceiling, and the walls were covered in black spots, looking as if grime had built up over many years.
“The window, and the balcony, are gone.”
Fang Jing noticed another puzzling thing.
The room originally had a window and a built-in balcony, but now there was nothing—only a completely sealed wall.
Fang Jing walked out of the room and nearly bumped into a figure coming toward him.
“Ah—!”
The man opposite screamed, planting his feet on the floor and stumbling back a few steps before stopping.
“That… that nearly scared me to death.”
The newcomer was the short-statured Kōsaka, wearing frameless glasses, his face showing a frightened and uneasy expression.
“Sorry.”
Fang Jing gave a faint smile.
“Mr. Kōsaka, why are you here in the middle of the night?”
“I was sleeping in my room and heard strange noises at night, so I came to check. I didn’t expect something like this to happen.”
Kōsaka had also seen the strange scene in the hallway and said with unease, “When I first woke up, I thought there was something wrong with my head.”
He really thought he might be confused—why, when he stepped outside, the hallway had grown longer, and there were more rooms…
“Is… is this real? It’s become as strange and dreamlike as a scene from a horror movie.”
Kōsaka’s mood was very bad. He had calmed down from the initial panic, but the more clear-headed he became, the more he realized he was in a very chaotic situation.
“I also woke up, came out, and found that things had changed outside.”
The two stood in the hallway. Fang Jing pretended to be serious and briefly explained his own situation.
“Should we wake the others?”
Just as he asked this question, two more figures appeared, walking down the hallway.
Hearing the footsteps, Fang Jing and Kōsaka turned around and were surprised to see Kase Mi and Sakuma Bohei.
“What’s going on? It’s so noisy out here!”
Kase Mi was wearing a short skirt and a tight sports top that showed off her figure, revealing her slender waist.
She rubbed her eyes, still sleepy.
“So loud! It’s the middle of the night, and it sounds like someone’s moving furniture—annoying, isn’t it!”
Sakuma Bohei only wore loose shorts and no shirt, but his body was quite fit, as if he exercised regularly, with clear abdominal muscles visible.
He yawned and glared at Fang Jing and Kōsaka with an irritated expression.
“Now isn’t the time to discuss this.”
Kōsaka sighed and explained the current situation. At first, Kase Mi and Sakuma Bohei couldn’t accept it, but the issue was easily resolved.
The short-statured Kōsaka led them to the end of the second floor and showed them the completely sealed stairwell, forcing the two to admit the abnormality happening right now.
“Is… is this real or fake?”
Both of their faces showed a hint of fear.
Especially Kase Mi, who usually loved Ghost Stories and similar rumors—this time, actually encountering one, her lips turned pale with fright. On the other hand, Sakuma Bohei’s face was equally bad, looking completely pale.
“Let’s not talk about that for now. I think we should first look for any other people…”
Kōsaka took the initiative and pulled open a door, wanting to try and see if he could find anyone else.
So, he searched room by room but found no one.
It seemed that besides the four of them, everyone else on the second floor had disappeared.
What was even more surprising was that their original rooms were gone too.
Even more bizarre, the layout inside the bedrooms had changed—windows and balconies had mysteriously vanished.
Areas connecting to the outside were completely sealed off, and the spaces behind the walls were completely blocked up.
“There should still be Associate Professor Tomatsu and two others at least…”
After Yuki Ham and Ato Shiho left, there were still seven people on the second floor.
Excluding Shusu Yuki, who had left during the night, the other three, including Associate Professor Tomatsu, were now missing.
“Could it be that only the four of us are left—”
Kase Mi clasped her hands together, her expression very complicated.
“At the end of the hallway, there seems to be a ‘door’ I’ve never seen before.”
Fang Jing pointed in that direction. Indeed, where he pointed—at the end of the hallway—there was an extra door, one that hadn’t been there before.
Nonsense! This was the second floor; no matter what, there shouldn’t be an extra “door.”
“Let’s go take a look…”
Kōsaka mustered his courage and moved toward the door, with the other three following.
The door that had appeared on the wall at the end of the hallway wasn’t locked. With just a push, it creaked open a crack.
Behind the door was a pitch-black environment, and a feeling of loneliness and desolation slowly crept into Kōsaka’s heart.
Kase Mi nervously took out a small flashlight. The light shone into the distance, casting a small circle on the floor.
The dark hallway seemed like an Alternate Realm out of the ordinary, as quiet as the deep sea. The walls were covered in dust, the floor was littered with trash, and spiderwebs hung in the corners.
The silent light from the flashlight twisted, and the dust floating in the air danced like tiny angels.
“Should we go in?”
Kōsaka asked in a low voice. The response was a suffocating silence.
After a moment of thought, Sakuma was the first to step forward, and the others followed.
They moved along the dark hallway as if diving into an undersea Alternate Realm. Under the beam of the flashlight, the floating dust gave the whole space a hazy, dreamlike feel.
The three continued pushing door handles, checking room after room.
But most rooms were the same as before, and for some reason, the inside felt even more worn and old.
“Look, over there in the hallway, a staircase appeared,” Kase Mi said, her tone growing excited. The beam from her flashlight indeed caught a glimpse of an old staircase around the corner.
“Let’s go check it out together,” Sakuma, one of the three, uttered casually as he moved toward the staircase, pretending nothing was wrong.
Just then, the creaking sound of wooden steps echoed from the stairwell—someone was climbing up.
The mere sound stirred their imaginations, sending chills down their spines.
Without hesitation, Kase Mi raised her flashlight, and the light immediately illuminated the stairwell.
In front of them, a pair of vicious eyes stared intently, filled with profound resentment and hatred.
“What is that?” A wave of intense fear washed over them, chilling them to the bone.
They saw only a shadowy figure—an old woman’s outline.
She had a ghostly blue face, disheveled hair, and scraped the ground with her fingers, her nails ripped off, leaving trails of blood each time she clawed.
In that instant, Kase Mi, Kōsaka, and Sakuma froze, their bodies turning cold and rigid, their steps coming to a mechanical halt.
The old woman slowly crawled up from downstairs.
Crunch!
It was as if half her bones had been removed; she slithered along the ground, but her blood-red eyes remained fixed on the group.
Suddenly, she twisted her body like a serpent and darted forward swiftly.
This thing was clearly targeting them.
“Get back!” A figure rushed out from behind them—it was Fang Jing. He thrust out his hand and struck hard, the flames of Cadaveric Toxin stirring the air as a sharp gust howled.
Bang!
The old woman was thrown backward and, before their eyes, as if ignited by something scorching in the air, instantly turned to ashes.
But it didn’t end there—a phantom-like shadow abruptly shot out and lunged at Fang Jing.
“A Spirit!”
With supernaturally sharp dynamic vision, his pupils narrowed, allowing him to see the distorted, air-like human face.
Fang Jing didn’t dodge. His Life Magnetic Field activated, whirling currents swirling around him. At the same time, an inexplicable rage surged from within, and a flicker of unseen crimson light passed over him.
Fang Jing extended his fingers, and flames of Cadaveric Toxin erupted between them.
“Looking for death!” he roared.
He clawed forward and seized the twisted airflow firmly in his grasp.
In that instant, Fang Jing distinctly felt himself clutching the Spirit-like entity in his palm.
He squeezed violently, releasing three forces simultaneously: Cadaveric Toxin flames, Life Magnetic Field, and the secondary ability of the Beast of Rage.
Squelch!
A piercing shriek echoed through the air.
A chilling wind gradually dissipated in the hallway, quickly returning to calm.
Kōsaka, Sakuma, and Kase stepped back several paces, their faces displaying a mix of shock and confusion.
“What… what was that thing?” Kōsaka grimaced, his common sense shattered in an instant.
Sakuma and Kase wore similar expressions, unable to comprehend what had just happened.
“Kume, what did you just do?”
“Was that… a Ghost or something? How did you defeat it?”
Fang Jing had little patience for their questions. “Now is not the time to discuss this,” he said flatly.
Without wasting more words, he strode toward the staircase.
Kōsaka, Sakuma, and Kase exchanged uneasy glances but had no choice but to follow him downstairs.
When Fang Jing reached the lower floor, he found another long, eerie hallway. The wallpaper appeared even more aged, the dust thicker, as if centuries had passed here.
“The layout here seems identical to the one upstairs. It’s like we’ve returned to the beginning,” someone observed.
“The stairs are gone again!”
“Darn it, what kind of structure is this?” the other three exclaimed anxiously.
But Fang Jing remained calm.
Indeed, this hallway was abnormal.
Yet, he knew it was reality, not mere illusion.
The environment felt strikingly similar to his experience at Kagome Hall.
This must be the Mirror Image Space Toriumi Arisu had mentioned.
He had spoken with Toriumi Arisu and understood a bit about Mirror Image Space.
Mirror Image Space was a woven alternate reality, closely resembling the real world but not truly it.
“Moreover, Mirror Image Space can’t create large areas. Places as vast as Kagome Hall relied on the Vinaya Mirror. But this current space is tiny—just a narrow hallway.”
Fang Jing knew Mirror Image Space wasn’t the real world and couldn’t have endless time or space. Such scenes were usually closed-off areas, though breaking free wasn’t impossible.
At Kagome Hall, the core of the Mirror Image Space was the “Mirror” itself; shattering it eliminated the danger.
Here, it was likely the same.
“Whoever did this, the scene is clearly reused and folded. Endlessness isn’t possible. Let’s search for weaknesses.”
He continued forward, soon reaching the hallway’s end, where another door appeared.
Fang Jing opened it and stepped through.
Kōsaka, Sakuma, and Kase hurried after him.
Suddenly, everything darkened again.
Fang Jing reopened his eyes to find himself back in the original room.
“…Did the scene warp?” he muttered.
Glancing around, he noticed Kōsaka, Sakuma, and Kase had vanished.
The distortion must have separated them from him.
“Pathetic tricks!” Fang Jing sneered, having nearly figured out his opponent’s methods.
He wasn’t in a hurry to escape; he wanted to see what game was being played.
Hiss…
A strange noise came from a small cabinet in the adjacent room.
Fang Jing punched through the cabinet door, and a bloody corpse tumbled out.
“This… it’s Osawa Kyotaro’s body,” he confirmed, eyes wide.
He scanned the room and smirked faintly.
Suddenly, an earth-shattering scream pierced the air—a woman’s voice, likely Kase Mi’s, and not far away.
“Leaving through the hallway… might lead to more confusion,” he thought.
Why bother solving puzzles?
Since this Mirror Image Space had limited space, finding its core through brute force was feasible.
Resolved, Fang Jing no longer hesitated.
He bent his knees slightly and slammed his fist into Osawa’s room wall, shattering it and creating a large hole.
“Good, this way, I can move faster.”
He stepped into the next room, slid forward, and punched another hole in the wall. Adopting a violent breakthrough approach, he began smashing through room after room.