Chapter 75:Welcome back to reality

Chapter 75: 75:Welcome back to reality

Mrs. Zion caught Rita right before she could hit the floor, her heart racing rapidly in panic. The oppressive tension in the room thickened, choking the air out of their lungs.

"Rita! Rita!" she called repeatedly, tears rushing out from her eyes.

Nova rolled her eyes. "Since she fainted, let me help and wake her up," she commented. The bloody whip she was holding vanished into thin air, and she walked up to them, every step echoing like a death knell in the silent, terrifying room.

"What... what are you trying to do?" Mrs. Zion stuttered, her heart almost jumping out of her chest under Nova’s suffocating gaze.

"To beat mother and daughter together," Nova replied, approaching them. Without holding back the deadly force of her palm, she delivered a brutal, bone-shattering slap across Mrs. Zion’s face.

PA!

The terrifying sound of the slap echoed. Blood mixed with teeth escaped Mrs. Zion’s mouth, her vision immediately turned blurry, and she started seeing double.

Nova grabbed the fainted Rita fiercely by the neck. "You are lucky your threat level is only 10 percent and has even reduced. Otherwise, I would never allow you to open your eyes ever again," she whispered, her voice dripping with lethal malice. With a ruthless motion, she slammed Rita against the hard marble floor as if she were just a weightless sheet of paper.

"Urgh!"

The fainted Rita awoke immediately, groaning in agony. Blood trickled down from the corner of her lips. She looked at Nova, her eyes widening in paralyzing terror.

"Welcome back to reality." Nova laughed devilishly, seeing Rita awake. Without allowing the terrified girl to even plead, she stood up and kicked her heavily in the stomach. The raw force of the blow sent Rita flying backward, crashing violently against a tall marble pillar.

Rita vomited another mouthful of blood. Her vision blurred completely as a hollow, agonizing ache consumed her stomach. Her neck felt like it was about to break. She raised her trembling hand, desperately wanting to speak, but she couldn’t find her voice, and then, she fainted once again.

"Go... go away! Go away," Mrs. Zion stuttered, her speech slurred since half of her teeth had already been knocked out. She shifted back on her hands and knees, desperately trying to distance herself from Nova’s monstrous presence.

"Nah... how can I just go away? That would be unhealthy," Nova replied. She approached the cowering woman, grabbed her neck tightly, and slapped her viciously several times until she completely fainted.

Nova stared at her hands, which were now fully painted with their blood, and laughed loudly in dark satisfaction. "Remember to call the police," she said, staring at Mr. Zion, who was looking at her in frozen horror, and then she turned and left.

Vivian, who was still on the floor, unable to move, had hot tears escaping her eyes. She felt as though every bone in her body was broken. There was no doubt in her mind that she would spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair.

"I... regret it! I regret it!" she thought bitterly. Unable to endure the extreme pain in her body and heart, she fainted immediately.

The crushing tension finally snapped, and Mr. Zion suddenly felt himself able to move again. He was still staring at the grand entrance with a blank, shattered expression. The brutal scene he had just witnessed replayed violently in his mind, the glowing whip, how it had appeared and disappeared, and the bell left on the table—she didn’t take it with her.

"Could it be her?" he murmured, temporarily forgetting his fainted family. He rushed to the CCTV room. His trembling hands reversed the footage to the time Nova arrived, and to his absolute shock, it was as if all that had happened was a horrifying illusion.

The CCTV didn’t capture Nova’s arrival, neither did it show that she had been in the house. What the screen displayed was deeply unsettling, it showed them coming out of their rooms, and then, like a possessed being, he was standing completely frozen while his wife and two children brutally fought and beat each other, as if controlled by a demonic force.

Mr. Zion’s face went deathly pale. "It couldn’t be her," he murmured in panic. He immediately rushed to his study, searching through his drawers until he found a very old, dusty book.

He opened it. Almost every page he flipped through was empty, until he reached the middle. There, drawn with chilling precision, was the exact same bell Nova had used to wake them all up. Underneath the drawing, faded text was written.

"If the bell is used on a target family, there will be no death, but there will be three people’s blood. Whether planned or not, three people’s blood must paint her hands within that family."

Reading the description, an unnatural coldness washed over Mr. Zion, and his whole body started shivering uncontrollably. He flipped to the next page, but it was empty. He flipped until the end to find more information, but it was all blank.

"It... it can’t be her," he thought, his whole body shivering ruthlessly as the scene of Nova’s bloodcurdling ruthlessness replayed in his head again. He searched around for his phone but, in his panic, temporarily forgot where he had left it.

Suddenly, all the lights in the study violently went off, plunging him into total darkness. Mr. Zion let out a terrified scream and collapsed backward into something behind him.

Almost immediately, the lights flickered back on, revealing him cowering on the floor with his office chair overturned. He forced his shivering body to stand up and looked at the table, only to find the ancient book completely missing.

"Where... where is it?" he murmured, searching the desk, but he couldn’t find it. "It’s just a coincidence, everything is a coincidence," he thought desperately, trying to deny the horrifying reality, and immediately rushed back down to the living room.

"Right, the hospital," he murmured, his hands shaking as he immediately grabbed a random phone he saw on the floor, calling the ambulance.

...

In the middle of the silent, deserted road, Nova suddenly paused. The eerie calm of the night was instantly replaced by a sharp, static tension that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She turned back, staring into the dark, empty distance.

"Why be sneaky?" she said into the darkness. In a flash of light, two sharp, glowing swords materialized in her hands. "Get your ass out here," she added, a deep, knitted expression forming on her face.

Anah materialized next to Nova immediately, the system sensing the looming threat. "Why hold so much hatred?" she said. Similar glowing swords to Nova’s own appeared instantly in her hands. "Get the fuck out here," she commented, her voice laced with growing irritation as the atmosphere pressure intensified.

The cold night wind grew fiercely tense, whipping around them like a storm warning. Suddenly, the old book that had just vanished from Mr. Zion’s study appeared out of thin air directly in front of them. It snapped open wide, hovering in the air and revealing a glowing, empty page.

Nova’s brows knitted tightly, her grip on the swords tightening. "What is this?" she questioned.

"I’m as confused as you," Anah replied, her glowing eyes scanning the anomaly.

Suddenly, the book slammed shut on its own, releasing an explosive, blinding light that shattered the darkness of the road. The force of the energy made Nova instinctively shield her eyes with her elbow. Amidst the glaring brilliance, an ominous figure slowly took shape, warping the very air around it.

As the light dimmed, it revealed a figure clad in heavy, pitch-black clothing, its face completely hidden in deep shadow. Hovering right behind the figure was the large ancient book, now opened wide, with glowing tendrils of energy that seemed to directly connect it to the mysterious entity.

"Code 01: system awakened: second level on mission, world ruining."

The figure spoke. Its voice sounded unnervingly feminine and resembled a small child’s voice, devoid of all emotion. Suddenly, two glowing swords materialized in its hands, looking exactly like Nova and Anah’s own weapons. The threat level in the air spiked to maximum, setting the night on edge.

"Give Nova to me!" the voice demanded in a cold, commanding tone. The figure positioned itself, dropping into a flawless battle stance, ready to fight as its head turned menacingly toward Anah.

"It seems like pepper has entered your head," Anah replied in heavy irritation. Defying the heavy tension, she suddenly vanished into thin air, materializing a split second later right in front of the dark figure, and launched a terrifying attack.