Even though several hands had grabbed him tight, the Nether Fetus still wanted to get close to
Chen Ge's employees blocked the Nether Fetus's path. The monster didn't bother questioning why. Its shattered eyes locked onto Chen Ge as it prepared to kill every person and ghost standing in its way.
The cursed threads tried to burrow into the employees' bodies, but each time a thread drew near, it was deflected by an invisible force. The curse couldn't take effect. The Nether Fetus looked once more at the Red High Heels wrapped in bandages from head to toe—from her, it sensed a curse of the same origin as its own.
The reason the Nether Fetus felt this way wasn't simply because the Red High Heels had devoured the curse the Nether Fetus had left behind behind other doors. The Red High Heels' current state also seemed to be connected to that hospital.
The essence of a curse was harm, exacting a price, distorting cause and effect—something that would inflict severe consequences on both parties.
To curse someone to death, one had to first be prepared to become a ghost. Curses were extremely dangerous, so even among the Red-coat ghosts, very few were proficient in cursing.
The Nether Fetus had borne countless sins. Its twisted, despairing life might well have been the price of using curses, but it could no longer turn back. Even knowing it would descend into hell, it had to keep spreading curses.
As for the Red High Heels' past, Chen Ge didn't yet know the full story. But one thing he was certain of—"people" skilled in curses were often accompanied by misfortune. If possible, he didn't want the Red High Heels to keep using that ability.
Two curse-proficient ghosts clashing was a terrifying thing. The way they determined life and death was entirely different from ordinary Red-coats.
On the surface it looked calm and serene, but in places invisible to the eye, dark currents had already been churning. The black threads drifting off their bodies each concealed the most vicious of curses. If a thread drilled into one's body and wasn't cleansed in time, the consequences would be unimaginable.
Chen Ge understood the danger of curses. Compared to the Nether Fetus, he cared more about his employees' safety: "All at once! Hold nothing back! Try to finish him off right here!"
Decisive and direct—the world behind the door knew no mercy or compromise. Here it was kill or be killed, and any hesitation was handing the hope of survival over to the enemy.
Hearing Chen Ge's voice, the Red High Heels blocked all the curses. Several Red-coats restrained the Nether Fetus's body, and in the end it was Xiao Bu who delivered the killing blow.
The employees seemed to have already coordinated through the comic book. The Red-coats knew each other's strength perfectly well—they knew that Xiao Bu, who looked delicate and frail, was in fact the most terrifying of all the Red-coat employees.
A blood-colored tide swept away the black mist. Xiao Bu used her special ability in front of Chen Ge for the first time.
Her red dress and the blood tide beneath her feet merged into one. The gray-black ground was dyed crimson. Building after building rose from the earth, constructed entirely of blood threads—like towering giant arms reaching for the sky.
Liwan Town!
Beneath Xiao Bu's feet, it was as if the entirety of Liwan lay spread out, tearing through the black mist and carving out a swath of crimson in the pitch-black world.
Countless wailing souls burst from the blood tide, biting at the immobile Nether Fetus. Building after building began to crush and grind against its body.
Blood threads tightened around the Nether Fetus's skin. Xiao Bu wanted to use all of Liwan to crush it.
The other haunted house employees attacked with perfect coordination, striking the places the buildings couldn't reach. The Nether Fetus's body twisted and dimmed in an instant, wound after wound surfacing—the previous gash hadn't even healed before more crisscrossed over the scars.
The cracks in the Nether Fetus's pupils spread across its entire body. It knew many ghosts were hiding inside Chen Ge, but it hadn't expected them to be this terrifying.
With eyes on the verge of shattering, it stared through countless ghosts and Red-coats at Chen Ge. The Nether Fetus's expression still hadn't changed much. Its body was being crushed bit by bit until, in the end, it was completely buried beneath the Liwan at Xiao Bu's feet.
"Soul scattered?"
The boy standing on Chen Ge's shadow had vanished entirely, but Chen Ge couldn't bring himself to feel relieved. The Nether Fetus had acted far too strangely—it hadn't even really fought back, simply enduring everything passively.
"Something's not right."
The crimson Liwan beneath Xiao Bu's feet stood in stark contrast to the black mist filling the sky. The eerie shadows within the mist were quickly drawn to the blood-colored expanse and began drifting closer.
"Xiao Bu!"
Chen Ge told Xiao Bu to withdraw the blood tide. As the crimson receded, the monsters in the black mist lost interest in the area.
When the red had completely vanished, Chen Ge spotted a low, hunched shadow appearing inside one of the distant buildings. His brows slowly furrowed.
The shadow flickered in and out of visibility within the black mist, its distance from Chen Ge steadily closing. Even with his Yin Eyes, Chen Ge couldn't lock onto it.
After a few seconds, countless blood threads suddenly wrapped around Chen Ge. Every employee went on high alert, all of them staring at what was behind him.
Chen Ge had already sensed it. He turned to look—the boy who bore the same face he'd had as a child had appeared once more, standing on his shadow just as before.
"Another one? Can't they be killed?" It was as if Chen Ge was looking at his younger self through the Nether Fetus—seeing a child that simply could not be killed.
"No—that's not it. These boys shouldn't be the Nether Fetus's true body. It's not unkillable; I just haven't found the real one."
The boy behind him tried to grab Chen Ge. Its shattered pupils remained fixed on Chen Ge's face. Being killed just now seemed to have had no effect on it at all.
What had just happened replayed itself. The Nether Fetus was blocked by the employees, unable to reach Chen Ge. Chen Ge didn't dare stray too far from his employees either. The two sides fell into a stalemate.
"The Nether Fetus does want to seize my body, that's true. But I get the feeling it has something bigger planned. It seems to be stalling on purpose."
"The Black Phone said the Nether Fetus would be born tonight, but it didn't say in what form. All I know for certain is that its birth has something to do with me. If I can't stop it, I'm dead."
The threat of death forced Chen Ge to be even more cautious. Even though his employees had broken free of the chains behind the door, he still had to remain vigilant at all times.
This door was nothing like any he had entered before. His past experiences didn't apply here.
"I suppose I need to go find the Cursed Hospital and see how they're doing." Chen Ge chose to make contact with the Cursed Hospital, but he would absolutely keep a safe distance—they both knew full well that each side would be happy to see the other dead.
"If I kill this Nether Fetus, there might be other children emerging from the buildings before long. Might as well bring it along and go find the Cursed Hospital's people." Chen Ge had originally wanted to let the two sides weaken each other so he could reap the benefits, but the Nether Fetus was watching him like a hawk—he simply didn't have the chance.
"If you want to follow, then follow."
The boy tried to approach Chen Ge. The employees threw everything they had into blocking him. Black curses collided with crimson blood, the clash consuming both, and the commotion drew the attention of some of the monsters lurking in the black mist.
This might have been part of the Nether Fetus's plan all along—using Chen Ge to relieve some of the pressure from the world behind the door, letting Chen Ge clear out the monsters in the black mist for it.
To prevent this from happening, Chen Ge had his employees try to keep the fighting contained to as small an area as possible.
Chen Ge's side had already torn off the mask with the Nether Fetus. The Nether Fetus now understood the strength of Chen Ge's employees, and Chen Ge knew the Nether Fetus wasn't in a good position—it didn't have the power to control everything before its birth.
The world behind the door had descended into total chaos. Countless enormous shadows in the black mist were attacking the buildings. Every structure in the entire residential complex had been severely damaged, with Building B of Jinhua Community suffering the worst.
Most of the noise was coming from that direction. The people from the Cursed Hospital should be somewhere near that building.
With employees clearing the path, the black mist couldn't get close to Chen Ge. Protected in their center, he observed the looming, half-visible monsters through the fog.
Although it was an extremely tense moment, Chen Ge still had the sensation that he was strolling through a zoo. The monsters in the black mist were completely different from the ghosts in the blood-colored world—their appearances were far more grotesque and bizarre. Most people probably couldn't dream up something so deformed even in their worst nightmares.
"If the Nether Fetus weren't following me, I could capture some of these monsters for experiments right now. Oh well—it doesn't matter. Even if I can't bring these monsters out, now that I know what they look like and how they behave, I can make my own later. Man-made nightmares don't necessarily have to lose to the real thing." With his employees present, Chen Ge's tightly wound nerves relaxed just a little. He glanced back at the Nether Fetus—the child was like a shadow, an lingering spirit that simply wouldn't leave him alone.
On the way to Building B of Jinhua Community, the Nether Fetus attempted several fierce breakouts, but every time was restrained by the employees. It never managed to harm Chen Ge, and only made him more resolute in his plan.