Chapter 222 - 221: Asher Is Not the Murderer

Chapter 222: Chapter 221: Asher Is Not the Murderer

"Are you okay?"

"Agh!" It was a pained cry from Felix Foster.

While my consciousness was still hazy, Felix Foster had come over to check on me, and I had pinned him against the wall. It must have been a hard slam.

Felix Foster stared at me, completely dazed. It took him a moment to speak. "Damn... Sebastian Lancaster wasn’t blind after all. You really are Cecilia Caldwell..."

I frowned. The headache felt like it was going to rip my soul from my body.

"Being reborn... it doesn’t feel good, does it?" I asked in a hoarse voice.

The moment I asked, I was stunned by my own words.

’Who am I asking?’

’Myself, or someone else?’

Felix Foster, still pinned against the wall, tensed up before crying out, "Ow, ow, ow, let go..."

Nearby, Madeline Quinn stared at me in shock. Lucas Grant and Zeke Shaw also snapped out of it and rushed to pull me off him.

"That move just now... was pretty professional," Zeke Shaw said blankly.

’Isn’t that the takedown technique from their training?’

’Pinning someone to a wall with a reverse grip... a technique that maximizes damage even with a significant strength disparity.’

Madeline Quinn also took a deep breath and spoke up to ease the tension. "Maybe Cece just wasn’t fully conscious yet. She was struggling the whole time she was out, probably... having a nightmare."

I abruptly let go of Felix Foster and took a step back, saying nothing.

Felix Foster shook his aching arm, looking at me with suspicion.

I looked down, then turned to survey my surroundings. For some reason... it all felt unfamiliar.

"Cece?" Madeline Quinn called my name softly, seeing that something was wrong.

Almost instinctively, I raised my hand and grabbed her by the neck, resisting anyone who tried to approach.

Madeline Quinn’s body tensed, and she looked at me in a panic.

Zeke Shaw quickly stepped forward, shielding Madeline Quinn behind him as he watched me warily. "Did you fall and knock yourself stupid?"

I froze for a moment, looking down at my own hands as panic and helplessness washed over me. "It wasn’t me... It wasn’t me..."

I didn’t know what I had just done.

Madeline Quinn pushed Zeke Shaw aside and nervously gripped my hand. "Cece... don’t be scared, don’t be scared. I know you didn’t mean it. Don’t be afraid. We’ll leave this place and go home."

"Hah... what an act." From behind me came Erin Whittaker’s mocking voice. "If you didn’t die from the fall, then stop wasting our time. If you want to live, hurry up and find a way off this floor!"

Erin Whittaker spoke coldly, deliberately glancing at Julian Fletcher before walking away.

Julian Fletcher frowned, his gaze complicated as he looked at me.

I glanced at Julian Fletcher, frowned, and said nothing.

"I just checked the entire floor. There are no passages or exits," Julian Fletcher reported in a low voice. "This place is different from the seventeenth floor. This level has a lot of partitioned rooms. They look like solid walls, but many of them are just plasterboard. There are strange noises coming from behind some of them, so we can’t just go breaking them down."

It seemed that for now, cooperation was indeed the only way to find an escape route quickly.

"That lunatic isn’t going to give us this much time to find a way out. He definitely has other tricks, like on the seventeenth floor where he cut the power and then started killing people," Felix Foster cursed, kicking a nearby wall.

The wall went THUD. It obviously wasn’t a solid wall either.

Felix Foster frowned, took a step back, grabbed a nearby axe, and swung it hard against the wall.

A crack split open in the plasterboard, and the overwhelming stench of blood immediately hit us.

Everyone tensed up.

Hearing the commotion, Howard Finch and his group ran over from outside, afraid we’d find an exit and leave them behind.

"Be careful, there’s probably something in there..." Lucas Grant said nervously, trailing behind Felix Foster. He was so scared that he was clutching the corner of Felix’s shirt.

Felix Foster shot Lucas Grant a look of disgust. "Get your hands off me."

Lucas Grant paused, then wiped his hand with a look of disgust and rolled his eyes. "As if I wanted to touch you."

"Stay back, or I might hit you," Felix Foster said, gesturing at Lucas Grant with the axe to get him to move further away.

Lucas Grant sullenly took two steps back and stared warily at what lay behind the wall.

A large hole was hacked into the wall. Inside, dim, flickering lights revealed a floor covered in blood and corpses.

Not human corpses... but animal ones.

"They’re vicious dogs..." Zeke Shaw said, pulling Felix Foster aside. As a police officer, he was the first to step inside.

After all, Felix Foster was still just a teenager.

I stood rooted to the spot, my feet numb, as if they wouldn’t obey my commands.

"Cece?" Madeline Quinn called out to me.

Snapping back to reality, I walked over.

Climbing through the hole, I could see that the floor was covered with the corpses of vicious dogs.

’These vicious dogs... the person behind all this must have planned to release them to tear us to pieces.’

’But why did they die in their ’cage’ ahead of time?’

"BLEGH!" Someone couldn’t handle the stench of blood in the room and scrambled back out of the hole to retch.

"There’s a timer mechanism here. At the designated time, this wall was supposed to open automatically," Lucas Grant said, frowning at the device by the opening. "Then these starving dogs would have rushed out, attacking and devouring anyone on sight like prey."

"So why did they die in here ahead of schedule?" Zeke Shaw asked, confused.

"Someone killed them ahead of time," Lucas Grant said, analyzing the corpses on the ground and looking at the wounds. "It’s hard to imagine... that one person did all this."

’More than twenty vicious dogs, in a single room, killed by one person.’

’That person was more terrifying than the dogs themselves.’

"It was Asher..." My voice trembled as I squatted down and pulled a strip of cloth from the mouth of a dead dog.

It was from a patient uniform, the same kind they were wearing.

’Who else could it be but Asher?’

’He’s not the killer...’

’He left ahead of us to deal with potential dangers and hidden threats.’

"That lunatic... is he trying to fight his way to the first floor all by himself?" Felix Foster cursed.

"Is he trying to find the mastermind before the rest of us are killed?" Lucas Grant frowned. "He must be injured. We can’t let him act alone. We have to find him, quickly!"

"There’s a mark over here!" Claire Lawson called out, pointing to an arrow drawn in blood in the corner.

"Cece... you won’t die. I won’t let you die. You will get out of here alive..."

I stood frozen, my body slowly stiffening as I stared at the carnage on the floor.

I suddenly remembered asking Asher when we first arrived in this place, "Are we going to die here?"

Asher had looked at me with conviction and said no.

He had said, "Cece... I won’t let you die."

’So, no matter how dangerous the path ahead, was he determined to brave it all alone?’

"Countdown: 10, 9, 8..." Suddenly, that eerie voice came from the speakers again, echoing throughout the entire sixteenth floor.

"3, 2, 1..."

When the countdown finished, the plasterboard wall slid open as expected.

Ordinarily, this would have been the moment the starving dogs rushed out to attack, but now, they were all dead.

"Hah..." Erin Whittaker walked over to Julian Fletcher and clung to his arm. "Seems the person behind this isn’t so clever after all."

"Follow Asher’s clue," Lucas Grant said, telling us all to keep up.

Julian Fletcher glanced at me, noticing I hadn’t moved. He looked like he wanted to say something, but Erin Whittaker pulled him away. "Don’t bother with her. She’s in league with Sebastian Lancaster. He won’t leave her behind."

I remained where I was, unmoving. Claire Lawson and Peach tried to pull me along, but they gave up when I didn’t respond.

"Cece?" Madeline Quinn called my name.

"Something’s wrong..." I shook my head.

’Asher is also feeling his way forward. He wouldn’t leave a clue on a wall so carelessly.’

’Besides, many of the walls on the sixteenth floor can be moved, like a shifting maze... ’

’Even if he did leave a clue, it wouldn’t be reliable. Asher wouldn’t make a mistake like that.’

I hurried over and squatted down by the arrow to inspect it. It was drawn in blood that was thick and sticky but hadn’t completely dried yet. Clearly, someone had drawn it in the corner just moments ago, while we were distracted.

’Asher had solved one problem for us, but someone else, hidden among us, wanted to create another.’

CLICK! Just as I’d suspected, after everyone followed Lucas Grant into the partitioned room, the wall shut behind them.

"Madeline Quinn!"

"Cecilia!" The moment the wall closed, Julian Fletcher and Zeke Shaw tried to rush back, but it was too late. The last thing I saw was the panic and worry in their eyes.

Madeline Quinn and I were left on one side, while the rest of them were trapped on the other.

"Hah..." I let out a cold laugh. "They’re the ones in danger. Worrying about us is a waste of time."

Madeline Quinn, who had been pounding on the wall, froze and turned to look at me nervously. "Cece... what’s wrong with you? Why are you being so cold all of a sudden?"

The way she looked at me was as if she were seeing a stranger.