Volume 5 - CH 79.1

Re-Create

Translated by boilpoil

Edited by boilpoil

“Ack!”

Yells Jiang Shuangmei, taking a few steps back while a chill freezes down her spine.

Both Fei and Shun Yünjü stops to look at her oddly.

Jiang Shuangmei swallows while telling them with a shaky voice, “blood… There’s blood, on the floor.”

So the other two Missiontakers also reflexively look downwards at their feet. Shun Yünjü is subconsciously furrowing his brows, while Fei is lifting her legs up out of reflex. Both of them are at a bit of a loss at what to do next.

The layer of blood is thin, almost fused together with the deep colour of the flooring. If it weren’t for the stickiness under their feet, they would probably have never come to realise the problem with this floor.

They might have just assumed this floor is quiet and nothing more, even if this quiet itself is what is disquieting about this floor.

With the layer of blood in the picture, though, all three Missiontakers are staring at each other, not knowing how to react. They then start observing the blood to figure out its range and source, but it turns out that blood has the entire floor covered.

Even though they could find no bodies.

The grim spectre of death is haunting the 21st floor like a thick fog, burying them in, layer after layer. Jiang Shuangmei has ominous feelings in her chest. There is a moment when she even realises she has lost her breathing.

She clears her throat immediately, to stop herself from panicking

Doing what she can to steady herself, she tells Fei and Shun Yünjü behind her, “other than the blood on the floor, there doesn’t seem to be clues on this floor.”

Although that is when Shun Yünjü suddenly turns his head towards the glass on the floor close to where the windows were.

Then, he murmurs, “the reflections…”

Almost immediately, all three Missiontakers seize up, with no one daring to look up at the ceiling. They suddenly realise, that the deep colours of the walls, are not natural either.

It is practically painted on with highly viscous blood. It might have just been flowing down, until it all solidified and stuck onto the walls.

On those shards of glass, they can see the reflections of fingers, of feet, of shreds of meat, of dead, bloodied eyes. They are hidden in the shadows, where the lights do not reach. They are right above their heads.

In the stream, when the camera reveals what the glass is reflecting, the viewers are screaming bloody murder, pleading Xü Beijin to please do not show them the ceiling on camera.

Above the Missiontakers’ heads, is a whole ceiling of dismembered body parts. They have been sliced into many, many fine pieces, and then stuck onto the ceiling. They’ve been practically blown dry at this point.

Perhaps the dismemberment was too fine, so when the Missiontakers first set foot on this floor, they did not realise at all that the dark ceiling is actually full of corpses.

… Even Xü Beijin is having a hard time stomaching this.

His stomach is churning while he fixes the camera in place, so that it does not show the scary scene in its full form.

As for the three Missiontakers currently occupying the same space as the scenery, they are currently in so much shock that they cannot move at all. They are straining their necks to stay in place, afraid that they might spot anything that sends their good sleep goodbye for a while.

Fei is muttering to herself, “what in the world, happened here?”

Why are there so many bodies stuck to the ceiling? Who did it? Why did they do it? Are they… still in this building?

Fei has so many questions, but there is no answer.

Then, the three Missiontakers leave the 21st floor behind. When they are back in the elevator, they almost simultaneously sigh in relief, even if it isn’t as obvious on that zombie-like poker face of Shun Yünjü’s.

Jiang Shuangmei isn’t in the mood to talk, so she simply looks at the panel with one and thirteen there, and asks, “which one?”

Fei says, sounding less enthusiastic by the minute, “well… thirteen?”

Jiang Shuangmei nods and Shun Yünjü raises no questions either. Their experience on the 21st floor has alerted them to the full dangers of this building, even if it feels decidedly surreal.

After pushing down on thirteen, the elevator slowly ascends upwards.

Fei takes a deep breath, and starts speaking while staring at the slit in the elevator doors, “of everything I have ever seen, this has been the most Nightmare-like Nightmare…”

While all of them are known as ‘Nightmares,’ but they are fundamentally different from dreams. It is almost like a projection of another real world, rather than the nonsense that people have in dreams.

Many Missiontakers say that Nightmares are Instances of a game, and leave it at that. So of course, physical laws of real life still apply there. Otherwise, how are they supposed to resolve the mysteries and look for clues within?

They believe that the scenes and stories in the Nightmares are actually a re-creation of what really happened to the particular Tower resident. Even if there are often stretches of unfathomable logic within, it is still possible if largely unbelievable.

But… This Nightmare?

Chopping up people’s corpses, and then sticking them onto the ceiling?

What in the world could that possibly do?

Fei can’t help but suspect that the owner of this Nightmare must be completely deranged, or, they must have met with such a deranged person, that the terrifying scene continues being repeated in the Nightmare owner’s mind.

In general, while Tower residents are all weirdos and strange individuals, but for a Nightmare to have these mess of elevators, to have scenes with an entire floor of corpses…

Fei can’t help but be spooked.

What has actually happened to the owner of this Nightmare?

Other than that… Is this scene, at all related to the burning cityscape outside the windows?

Fei suspects there is a connection, even if she wishes there is not.

As the rambling thoughts carry on, the elevator gradually slows, coming to a stop.

Fei is somewhat surprised, and looks over at Jiang Shuangmei, who has the same hesitant look on her face. It has been barely a few seconds since the elevator starting ascending. At best, they are two storeys up.

The elevator has come to a stop, but that is when Fei realises, looking back at the elevator doors, that a mysterious red liquid is already squeezing its way in through the gap in the elevator door.

… Huh?

Fei yells out, “don’t let it open!”

She is far too late.

The elevator door has opened automatically.

An ocean of blood, vast as the oceans, rushes in from the world outside, drenching the three Missiontakers within from head to toe. Their senses are bombarded by a sickeningly thick stench of rust. It almost feels like the world they can see is entirely composed of crimson, blood and flesh.

At that moment, Fei is thinking, she is probably going to have PTSD with elevator doors the rest of her life, isn’t she?

Eh, in a sense, elevator doors are also portals to a new world.

The viewers are also screaming.

Almost a third of the screen area of the stream has been overtaken by a flood of red.

“fuck me, if i were playing this game… id wanna die by now [bye emoji]”

“to be completely drenched in blood? I supposed these missiontakers will have quite a bit of sympathy for the ceiling they just saw”

“… please, just stop”