Chapter 92: The Hour of Descent

Chapter Ninety-Two: The Descent of the Ancient Horror

Then he suddenly saw, from the opening in the crypt ceiling, a hand clawing its way out, followed by a bloated figure, and then several long, bamboo-like limbs, like the frame of a gigantic malformed spider.

It seemed to wear a crimson coat woven from flames. Beneath it, pale flesh studded with growths was slowly knitting itself back together. Fire and reborn flesh, burning and renewing in mutual hostility, a veil of white steam rising from it like water boiling over a blazing stove.

It was the Old Madam of the Li Family. She had crawled out!!!

The hideous monster, her single eye flashing with deep-seated hatred like a demon from hell, swept the world around her with a vicious glare. Her body was huge and repulsive, every inch of skin seeming cursed, the tumors twisted and grotesque.

When she saw Zhang Sanlu standing in the center courtyard, that eye of hers instantly locked onto him with venomous loathing, as if she meant to devour him whole.

"Scree--" With a piercing shriek, the monster struggled up onto the roof. Her movements were clumsy yet forceful, like a colossal malformed spider climbing. Her eyes never left Zhang Sanlu, and her hateful stare seemed intent on piercing straight through him.

The monster clambered across the roof, shrieking as though she would pour all her hatred and malice onto Zhang Sanlu alone.

Yet a smile suddenly appeared on Zhang Sanlu's face.

"Do you know? It looks like you're about to win. That pleasant feeling brought by the umbilical cord makes one want to flee. But the one thing you should never have done, the one thing you absolutely should not have done, was impersonate my family. Do you know? My heart hurts so much right now!"

Zhang Sanlu's expression twisted as he widened his eyes, clutched his chest with one hand, and shouted through gritted teeth.

"It hurts so much I want to die!!!"

With that, Zhang Sanlu yanked the thing in his arms out all at once. The instant its sharp edges bit into his palm, he felt the pain in his heart come alive.

He thrust it into the place where his heart was, and at once the sharp token underwent a strange change. It seemed to take root there, and as it was soaked through with blood, it slowly turned the color of crimson.

As Zhang Sanlu screamed in ruin, he reached beneath his ribs.

That broken rib was lifted up, trembling in his hand, then stabbed brutally into his abdomen. Under the savage pain, his shaking hand dragged it to the right, tearing open his already wounded belly so that even the red and white of his intestines were laid bare to the air.

Countless shadows had already lunged at him, but by then it was too late.

With his other hand, Zhang Sanlu gripped the splintered rib, his face half in tears and half in laughter, and drove it savagely into his abdomen at the point where the blood-colored umbilical cord was attached.

"Pain!" His heart felt as though it were being sliced by a knife, and the vast wound opening in his abdomen made Zhang Sanlu tremble all over from the agony.

Yet even as his inner torment and bodily pain surged to the limit, Zhang Sanlu was smiling.

He looked on smiling at the things running out of the rooms and houses. In the shadows were the Taoist from the temple, Qiu Ming, Man Shan, Doctor Zhou, Nurse Liu, and Zhang Sanlu too, another Zhang Sanlu exactly like him, all shouting something.

"No! No! Let go!"

"Ka-ga!" As Zhang Sanlu clenched his teeth so hard they ground together, he twisted the broken rib embedded in his abdomen sharply to the left, then yanked it hard.

And so Zhang Sanlu's intestines were ripped out alive. One end of them still connected to Zhang Sanlu's abdomen, the other hanging from that umbilical cord, with the broken rib driven through the middle, swaying in the air and steaming.

"Ahhhhh!!!" Zhang Sanlu, nearly driven mad by pain, threw his head back and screamed at the sky.

His senses seemed to have suddenly sharpened to their utmost. He felt himself floating in midair, could feel the blood rain in the heavens, droplets of blood pouring down like a torrential storm. He seemed able to see the裂 in the sky growing wider and wider, and an irresistible force surging forth from it.

Once again he sensed that thing in the deep void, the thing no one could bear to gaze upon.

Under that inescapable aura of force, Zhang Sanlu's bodily agony and inward wounds seemed to begin transforming into something else entirely.

In the next instant, an atmosphere of extreme terror and despair spread out from Zhang Sanlu. It was a power that did not belong to this world. A crushing pressure descended all at once, and everything around Zhang Sanlu seemed to creak and bend away, toppling aside. Even the flames were forced down by that pressure until they lay flat.

Zhang Sanlu raised the broken rib bound up with his own intestines and pressed downward with all his strength.

All the living things surrounding him, all that stood upright, were crushed into pulp. Some of them had just begun to flee, but after only a few steps they collapsed and were pressed into the mud, into the blood.

That remaining eye struggled to cry out in terror. Zhang Sanlu smiled, lifted the broken rib in his hand once more, and drove it brutally back into his chest.

At that instant, everything within a radius centered on Zhang Sanlu shared in the extremity of pain.

They began to twist and deform more and more, becoming ever more horrifying, endlessly changing shape in resistance to that agony. Some even screamed in even greater despair because of the pain.

Among them was naturally the Old Madam of the Li Family in the distance.

But in that one instant, she was swallowed whole by the overwhelming sensation of pain, and with the fastest speed imaginable she collapsed in despair upon the roof.

Zhang Sanlu's swaying body slowly began to fall to the ground.

At this moment, his pain seemed to have been stripped away, as though it had become even more tangible than before. Yet Zhang Sanlu was smiling. He did not know why he was smiling, but he was smiling all the same.

"With injuries this severe, I should die this time, shouldn't I? Hahaha!!"

He could feel his organs spilling out through the hole in his abdomen, but Zhang Sanlu showed not the slightest desire to push them back in.

Half-dead, Zhang Sanlu's mind was dazed.

He felt that his illness had truly been cured at the edge of death.

Because this world had gone mad.

In the next second, Zhang Sanlu's vision went black, and he knew nothing more.

Amid a series of cracking crashes, the entire Li residence collapsed. The massive body of the Old Madam of the Li Family rolled in and fell into the flames. The great carved beam she loved so much snapped, and its jagged broken end thrust straight through her body, bursting out in a huge bloom of blood and flesh. Layers of wood splinters and flesh were locked together so tightly they could not be told apart, pinning her there!

Like a spider, the swollen Old Madam of the Li Family was crushed beneath the fallen house in the fire, like a fat pig being boiled in a cauldron. Her enormous body, like a purse pierced through, kept leaking blood and foul flesh, shriveling away rapidly until at last it became a wrinkled mass twisted together in ruin.

When the fierce blaze rose up, Zheng Ji, who had been prepared, rushed out of the side room and woke the groggy Hui Niang. Thinking he could never outrun it on foot, he pulled her to the back courtyard's stable and at a glance saw the carriage waiting at the entrance. By then the stable had also caught fire, and horses and cattle were screaming in chaos.

Zheng Ji lunged forward, unfastened the tethered reins, and shoved Hui Niang onto the carriage. Then he leaped up to the driver's seat and lashed the whip hard, and the carriage shot forward at once.

Behind them rose blazing fire and a storm of cries. Zheng Ji only whipped the horses harder, making the carriage run faster still.

When the carriage reached the town gate, Zheng Ji suddenly saw Zhang Sanlu lying on the ground. His heart lurched, but he quickly steadied himself, pulled on the reins, and the horse came to a stop with a neigh.

Zheng Ji sprang down at once and ran to Zhang Sanlu's side. He shook Zhang Sanlu's body, but there was no response. With no time to think further, Zheng Ji hoisted Zhang Sanlu onto his shoulder, threw him onto the carriage, and leaped back up.

Under Zheng Ji's urging, the carriage surged forward once more. The fire and cries behind them grew farther and farther away, until at last they vanished completely into the darkness.