Chapter 202: Look Below

Chapter 202: Chapter 202: Look Below

Despite his words, he scrambled up even faster. In his panic, he even turned and ripped the rope apart.

As if he was afraid of something following him up.

Selene Lawson frowned and took a step forward, her tone grave. "What touched your leg?"

Seraphina Sinclair’s expression was just as grim. Pointing to the three grooves on the floor, she said, "The mist is about to cover these grooves. If we don’t try now, we might not get another chance."

Hearing this, the other two immediately flanked Seraphina Sinclair.

"On the count of three, we place them together?" Seraphina Sinclair’s gaze swept over them.

Victor Warner was still hesitant. "Are we really putting them in? You sure nothing bad will happen?"

Selene Lawson, however, was calm. "Haven’t you noticed the mist getting thicker? You know better than anyone that what you felt earlier wasn’t an illusion. Do we have any other choice but to try this?"

Victor Warner drew a sharp breath. He knew Selene Lawson was right, but for some reason, he still felt defiant and opened his mouth to argue.

Seeing the mist was about to swallow the grooves, Seraphina Sinclair lost her patience. "Three, two, one—"

Her voice faded.

CLICK.

An extremely faint yet distinct click echoed.

The base of the flowerpot fit perfectly into the hexagonal groove, settling firmly in place.

Everyone subconsciously held their breath, their hearts in their throats.

One second, two seconds...

The world fell silent, save for the faint whisper of mist swirling outside the window.

’Nothing happened?’

The three Sunflowers just sat quietly in their grooves. Their yellow petals were starkly out of place in the gloomy surroundings, but nothing strange occurred.

"Just... that’s it?" Victor Warner cursed under his breath. As he bent down to pick up a Sunflower, the entire watchtower suddenly began to tremble.

As if some kind of purification system had been activated, the mist in the watchtower began to recede at a visible rate. And as the mist pulled back, countless, bloodcurdling screams erupted!

The sounds drilled straight into their eardrums, triggering the most primal of reactions: bodies freezing, hair standing on end.

A shiver ran down Seraphina Sinclair’s spine. She was the first to react, instinctively taking a step back.

The staircase was just behind her. Being so close, Seraphina Sinclair spared it a glance.

The moment she saw what was there, she took another step back.

Directly below where Victor Warner had ripped the rope, a corpse was sprawled in a deeply unnatural position.

Its face was tilted halfway up, aimed directly at the second floor.

Its skin was a dead, bloated white, as if it had been steeped in moisture for a long time, and was covered in purplish-black lividity. The flesh of its cheeks seemed to be peeling away, revealing the dark red tissue beneath.

Its eyes were wide and vacant, holding a kind of terror that had solidified and sunk bone-deep, staring blankly upward.

But what made one’s skin crawl was its arm—it was stretched upward, twisted at an angle utterly impossible for a human. Its pale, swollen hand, with its bizarrely prominent knuckles, was clamped onto the edge of the bottom stair!

Such was the force of its grip that its fingernails had dug deep into the wood, as if in its final moments, it had been desperately trying to climb up, to grab onto something...

Around the grotesque corpse lay several strips of cloth, stained with dark red blood.

It was the rope Victor Warner had ripped apart in his panic!

The bloodstains were fresh. Which meant...

’A moment ago... that thing was alive?’

The conclusion was so horrifying that for a moment, Seraphina Sinclair couldn’t even bring herself to call the others over to look.

’By breaking the rope, had Victor Warner... unintentionally saved them?’

"Serafelle Sinclair? What’s wrong?" Selene Lawson asked with a frown, noticing her strange behavior.

’Their strongest member couldn’t afford to have a problem. Otherwise, forget about a good score; just getting out of this instance alive would be a long shot!’

Seraphina Sinclair snapped back to her senses. Once the initial shock wore off, this monster was no different to her than any other. Her expression returned to its usual cool indifference.

She pointed toward the stairwell. "Look down there."

Victor Warner and Selene Lawson followed her finger with their eyes.

"HOLY SHIT!!" Victor Warner let out a strangled cry. The overwhelming fear almost made him jump out of his skin, and a wave of nausea rose in his throat.

He finally understood completely. That cold, clammy touch on his leg, that feeling of being grabbed—it hadn’t been his imagination at all!

Selene Lawson gasped, her body swaying. She pressed a hand against the wall to keep from collapsing.

After a long moment, she said, "The blood... it’s fresh... A moment ago, it was..."

She couldn’t finish the sentence, but all three of them understood.

Victor Warner stood frozen for a long moment. Then, as if grasping at straws, he turned to Seraphina Sinclair and pleaded, "Serafelle, what do we do?"

Hearing this, Selene Lawson, who was standing nearby, also looked instinctively toward Seraphina Sinclair.

It was clear they had both lost their composure.

Seraphina Sinclair, however, crouched down. Propping her chin on her hand, she studied the monster for a long moment before speaking. "If this thing was alive before, what killed it?"

The answer was self-evident.

The Sunflowers!

Victor Warner glanced back instinctively at the three quiet Sunflowers. After staring for a few seconds, he muttered, "Was that the first trial of this instance? Did we pass?"

Selene Lawson said nothing, but her expression was one of utter disgust for the man.

’Seraphina Sinclair felt the same. The guy had been spouting nonsense ever since his introduction, and he still had the nerve to do it now.’

’The most critical thing now is to check for any changes in the watchtower, or...’

’...light a fire first!’

’Yes!’

Seraphina Sinclair shot to her feet, her abrupt movement startling the other two.

"What’s wrong, Serafelle?"

"Did you find something?"

Seraphina Sinclair ignored Victor Warner’s childish question about "passing." She only stated what they needed to do. "We have two tasks: first, check the watchtower for any changes, and second, get a fire started immediately!"

Selene Lawson immediately understood Seraphina Sinclair’s intent and nodded. "Right. Fire is critical. The fireplace is intact, they gave us oil, and the logbook said that thing is afraid of fire. The oil will probably only be enough to get it lit. We need to find something to use as fuel."

The reminder jolted Victor Warner back to his senses. "Right, right! Fire! That stuff! That!!"

He racked his brain for a moment, then slapped his forehead. "The first floor! Isn’t all that junk by the entrance firewood? It has to be flammable!"

He started to rush downstairs but froze mid-step. He cast a terrified glance at the corpse at the bottom of the stairs and the gloomy first floor, swallowed hard, and didn’t dare go down alone.