CH 390

In this area, Ziggurat was the scariest building and Cattle Alley was a close second. Han Fei remembered this observation, the outsiders controlled by the Butterfly would never enter Cattle Alley. At the time Han Fei thought Cattle Alley would be very scary to deter Butterfly but when he was at Cattle Alley in person, he realized that was not true, there was not even a Large Lingering Spirit there.

Now that he thought about it, while Han Fei was at Cattle Alley, he did not meet the complete Spider. The Spider who he encountered was made up from endless pig-faced monsters. The Heart of Evil that was used as a sacrifice to the knife and the Heart of Kindness which was manipulated by the Doctor were just Spider’s hearts. According to the Doctor, Spider’s body had been shared by the monsters at Cattle Alley, but was that the truth?

When Spider fought with his Doctor persona, Spider only used one talent which was to spread his spider web throughout Cattle Alley and overwhelm his opponent with pure strength. But as the manager of Cattle Alley, was that all he was capable of? The Spider who fought with the Butterfly to a draw would be weak enough to allow his sub persona to control him? After all, the real Spider had personally murdered all of his 8 other personas just to have an upper hand over the Butterfly.

Therefore, Han Fei had a feeling that everything that happened at Cattle Alley was just part of Spider’s plan, a performance for Butterfly to see. Cattle Alley was a rare place where humanity could still be found. Just like how Butterfly had been collecting ‘pots’ to create outsiders, Spider had been searching for souls with humanity.

Butterfly tried its best to create its clones to prevent the scene from its nightmare from coming true where it would be sliced by the Butcher’s Knife. For the Spider, it was the opposite. He separated his heart to gather the greatest sin and kindness at the cryptic world in the aim of forging that knife from Butterfly’s nightmare!

These two psychopaths fought from the real world to the cryptic world. Neither of them managed to kill the other until Han Fei’s appearance. With Han Fei’s help, Spider managed to forge the Butcher’s Knife cryptic world had never seen. The knife would be used to massacre monsters greater than the Butterfly.

The spider web was thick with sin. This power was different from hatred and resentment in most ghosts’ hearts. This was the first time Han Fei encountered a power like this. If most monsters and ghosts were creatures of negative emotions and despair, then Spider’s power came from his penance towards his sin.

The talisman which hung over the Writer’s window was torn open by Han Fei. The spider web of sin sliced through Butterfly’s night sky. Under the blackness, it weaved into an inescapable spider web. Normally speaking, Butterfly should be entirely capable of avoiding the spider web but it had lost its mobility and it discovered the Spider a bit too late.

The Spider had been waiting for years for this moment. He was like the predator hiding deep in the spider web, he only showed his fangs at the most crucial moment. Strands of spider web dropped on the Butterfly, trapping the Butterfly. It flapped the wings of nightmares as strong as it could but it could not break the seemingly thin spider web. The Death Curse would bring despair and the Butterfly could use the negative emotions to strengthen itself but it could not do anything against the penance and salvation of sin.

Spider’s every web was spun from his own consciousness. They connected his memory of reality and illusion. They also represented Spider’s understanding of murder and humanity. Over the past decades, the cryptic world had given Spider a lot of time to think. His eyes had seen many things between life and death, the current Spider was much stronger than the Spider in real life.

“The biggest mistake I made was not killing you in real life.” The more Butterfly struggled, the more tightly he was bound inside the spider web. The wings that had drained the cryptic world of its colors flapped powerfully. In the end, the Butterfly stirred its own night sky. Black butterflies crawled out from the night and attacked the tenants at Ziggurat indiscriminately.

Before the tenants knew what was happening, their souls were punctured by the black butterflies. The butterflies fed on their resentment and then carried their Death Curses back to the Butterfly. Butterfly was the manager at Ziggurat but it was completely different from Han Fei. It saw the tenants at Ziggurat as nothing but its own food and tools, when necessary, they all could be sacrificed for its own survival. In contrast, Han Fei was willing to use his own body as bait to lure away the Singer to save the tenants from Happiness Neighbourhood. They were both managers, but they were completely different.

“You won’t be escaping this time.” Blood reflected in the Spider’s eyes. His fingers plucked a strand of the web and the 8 shadows behind him started to expand like they had received some kind of order. Each of their hearts had a bleeding butcher’s knife stuck in them. They grabbed at the Butterfly’s wing and yanked in 8 different directions!

After the Butterfly’s wings were apprehended by these shadows, the senior monster and Zhuang Wen who were affected by the nightmare dust slowly recovered. Little Eight used this opportunity to pummel Butterfly. The beautiful wings became tattered. The situation was leaning towards the Spider but the Spider didn’t let his guard down. He noticed Butterfly still had its eyes on Han Fei. Even at this juncture, Butterfly hadn’t given up on Han Fei, it still wanted to complete the ritual, that meant that Butterfly still had tricks up its sleeves. Butterfly’s impossibly handsome face was covered in death spots. Its eyes were frosty.

“You will regret this. Everything is just a nightmare, but you do not even have the chance of beating me in a nightmare.” The Butterfly warned cryptically. After saying that, blood vessels lurched out from its hollow chest. The vessels surged towards the altar under Han Fei’s feet and connected to the broken heart. Butterfly couldn’t use the vessels to remove Big Sin from the heart, so it pulled both the heart and Big Sin directly into its chest.

The altar inside the giant cocoon crumbled. The hope for Butterfly to break through its hatred had disappeared. Instead, it used the power of the heart to absorb all the Death Curse inside the Ziggurat. All the tenants were drawn into its darkness, the bride who hid at the corner, the female livestreamer who was blocked outside Building 4, the madman from Building 1, the old lady on the top floor, even Zhuang Ren’s oldest daughter was tormented by Death Curses. She was holding a broken figurine in her arms or else her soul would have been crushed by the Death Soul already. Butterfly consumed everything at the Ziggurat madly. The floors were collapsing. All the tenants wailed in despair but the paper dolls made by the Butterfly played their instruments, the dirge overwhelming the wails.

“You will die in my nightmare, I will become your new nightmare and revive using your bodies!” The Butterfly resisted everyone’s attacks. Before its wings were torn apart, its blood vessels bound around the neck of the old lady on the top floor. Of all the tenants, only this old lady didn’t resist the Butterfly.

“Grandmother, there are around 30 plus people in our family. All of them see me as a monster, only you were willing to share a sentence with me.” The old lady couldn’t breathe, her neck was misshapen. Her eyes flowed with muddled tears. “But I know you never love me too, you don’t even know my name.” The blood vessels bound harder. They dragged the old lady into the Butterfly’s heart. “Your one sentence allowed you to live another 10 years in the afterlife but now it is time for you to join the rest of the family.” The old lady’s soul was stuffed inside that broken heart. The heart cracked and inside were the faces of Butterfly’s family. Their faces were glued together and lived inside the chamber of that heart. After the old lady returned, the shattered heart started to beat again. New vessels grew out from the heart, they looked more like flesh tendrils. They crawled out from Butterfly’s chest.

Butterfly turned to grab at the dresser behind it. It smiled coldly at everyone. It exploded the giant meat blob underneath it and then grabbed Han Fei and pushed open the door to Dresser 4444. The broken wings fluttered madly. Before Butterfly entered the door, it pulled Han Fei towards the broken heart. The fleshy tendrils lashed towards Han Fei. Butterfly wanted to force the ritual. It wanted to control Han Fei’s both consciousness and shell and then escape through the nightmares.

Perhaps due to the intervention of Big Sin, the fleshy tendrils moved very slowly. Spider, Little Eight and tenants from Happiness Neighbourhood charged at Dresser 4444. The spider web limited Butterfly’s movement. It couldn’t directly consume Han Fei to complete the final step of Resurrection.

Both parties were fighting for time. Spider’s 8 shadows had fully shredded Butterfly’s wings but the endless Death Curses had heavily injured everyone present. At this last moment, a hand picked up Rest in Peace that had fallen into the night. The Evil Soul whose face was soaked in blood picked up the knife.

The senior monster’s body had been fully destroyed by the Death Curse. The faces on his back were unrecognizable. His skin wrinkled like aged bark and his hair was fully white. The black flame of hatred was flickering weakly but the butterfly’s Death Curse was still very much active.

“Is my lineage forced to suffer this curse forever?” The senior monster used the last bit of his strength to stand up. His crooked hand grabbed Rest in Peace. The souls on his spine shattered and crawled into the hilt. The senior monster teetered among the broken bodies, holding the bladeless knife. With each of his steps, a segment of his spine would turn into dust. His giant body was shrinking but the fading black flame of hatred was still burning stubbornly.

When only the Evil Soul’s face remained, the senior monster who had been silent finally spoke, “I wouldn’t be able to use your knife, it is time for you to inherit this lineage.”

“Will we meet again?”

“As long as the lineage is alive, we will forever live in your spine, supporting you.”

“I will relay that to your grandchild, is there anything else?”

“No more.” The senior monster and Evil Soul’s faces turned blurry at the same time. A giant and transparent soul disappeared into Rest in Peace and all the faces on the senior monster’s spine vanished. Instead the senior monster’s own face took on the Evil Soul’s appearance.

“The eyes are wet, were you crying earlier? Since you know your family loves you that much, why run away from home? But then again, you managed to escape the familicide because of it.” The Evil Soul grabbed Rest in Peace and the black flame of hatred started to burn again. He ran and the expression on his face turned from calmness to madness!

He charged at full speed. A large withered hand appeared on the hilt and then it was followed by many other hands!

The brilliant blade cut through the Butterfly’s night sky. The senior monster sacrificed himself to provide the Evil Soul the power similar to that of a Pure Hatred!

The temporary brightness blinded everyone. The Evil Soul dragged Rest in Peace and the blade made from humanity cut at the broken heart inside Butterfly’s chest!

“Let me make your nightmare come true!”