Infinite: Dawn Game

Chapter 428 Glass Shards

The moment the axe swung down again, the illusory human-faced cat-bodied figure deep within the brain tumor at the back of Fang Xiaoxiao's head suddenly let out a shriek.

"Ouch—ouch—it hurts—it hurts so much—"

The phantom let out a heart-wrenching scream, the sound piercing through eardrums and into the brain. Yu Shijiu raised the axe that was being bitten by the fleshy bud again and chopped down without hesitation.

At the same time, Yu Shijiu's pupils underwent another terrifying change.

The brain tumor slowly disappeared, but the once-black iris became strangely bloodshot. Tiny granulation tissue sprouted from the whites of the eyes and drooped down to the cheeks, wriggling towards the axe handle like living things.

Chen Yi, who had been observing this scene, was trembling with fear. He was holding a prop that had switched his position with Yu Shijiu until it was burning hot. Just as he was about to use it, he saw Yu Shijiu suddenly laugh out loud.

"...does it hurt?"

Yu Shijiu smiled and winked, the wriggling fleshy buds leaving behind bits of flesh on his cheek, twisting and contorting little by little.

"I don't feel any pain?"

As Yu Shijiu spoke, he completely ignored the twisted substances wrapped around his body and raised his hand, ruthlessly slashing at the brain tumor again!

One! Two! Three...

The eerie phantom within the tumor grew fainter and fainter, and the shrieking sound grew weaker and weaker until it almost disappeared.

"..." Chen Yi suddenly loosened his grip on the scalding prop, raised his hand to wipe the cold sweat that had broken out on his forehead, and slowly exhaled a breath of stale air.

If it had been a second later, Chen Yi would have used the prop—

Chen Yi's pupils, which had just relaxed, suddenly contracted.

He noticed that deep within the tumor that Yu Shijiu had cut open, half of a familiar face was vaguely visible—it was the blue cat he had seen in the male player's pupils before.

Deep within the tumor, the cat's face was eerily merging with the face of a human infant, blooming like a horrifying doll clumsily stitched together.

Blue Cat?

wrong!

Chen Yi remembered that the female player named Fang Xiaoxiao's pet was a black cat—

How did it turn into a blue cat?

In an instant, Chen Yi's mind went blank, and an unbelievable guess took over all his thoughts.

"Shi Jiu!!!"

Chen Yi shouted in a hoarse voice, "Quick! Kill the pet inside the tumor!!!"

This seemed to confirm Chen Yi's conjecture.

The illogical lighting on the top of the elevator suddenly exploded!

Amidst the shards of glass, countless translucent cat shadows appeared from all directions—cats and dogs of various colors lay on the blood-splattered operating table, some with sutures, others with human limbs embedded in them, emitting a chorus of human cries… The consciousness invasion was not limited to the player, but also included all the NPCs and monsters within the Fuling Hotel!

"Understood, Brother Chen."

Yu Shijiu's voice came from mid-air. He seemed to sigh, his voice filled with barely concealed frustration.

"It's so hard to split! I didn't believe it could be that thick..."

Fang Xiaoxiao let out a sharp scream as she struggled to twist her contorted neck and body. The huge brain tumor at the back of her head had been split into pieces by Yu Shijiu, leaving only a tiny bit remaining.

Yu Shijiu seized the opportunity and finally struck the still-wriggling brain tumor—

puff.

The brain tumor was finally completely shattered, and at the same time, the countless barking of cats and dogs, and the howling of men and women in the elevator disappeared.

Inside the elevator, the players who had been fighting against the lifeless corpse of the male player simultaneously lost their strength, collapsed to the ground, and gasped for breath.

The male player's corpse also remained eerily still in place. A few seconds later, he looked up blankly at Fang Xiaoxiao, whose body was gradually becoming soft and decaying in the air, and then collapsed to the ground with a thud, motionless.

Yu Shijiu used the momentum from mid-air to jump down.

—There was no other way; to avoid getting hurt, he had to step on Fang Xiao's small corpse…

Perhaps because he had been exposed to a lot of positive things lately, Yu Shijiu felt a strange sense of guilt as he stepped on the corpse.

...It seems like stepping on corpses isn't a good thing?

Yu Shijiu used the momentum to stand up, coughed, and looked at Chen Yi, who hadn't said a word.

"Brother Chen?"

Yu Shijiu looked at Chen Yi, who had his head down, and patted him on the shoulder.

"What are you looking at?"

"...fragments".

Chen Yi opened his hand, revealing shards of broken glass from the lamp fixture in his palm.

"Look, is there something up there?"

Yu Shijiu: "?"

"What is this?" Yu Shijiu's breathing became slightly labored.

Within the shards of glass, a faint image seems to be gradually emerging—

Judging from the background, it appears to be a dark room in the Fuling Hotel, where a child covered in injuries and several men and women with severed limbs are being carried by people in hotel uniforms to a pristine white bed that resembles an operating table.

Beside them stood two or three hotel staff members, each holding a scalpel, bending over as they slashed at the two people on the bed.

The person placed on the operating table had two familiar faces.

—It's Fang Xiaoxiao, whom they just dealt with together, and the male player whose right brain was pierced!

"?"

Yu Shijiu exclaimed in surprise, "I remember this is a game instance called 'Chasing'?"

"..." Chen Yi remained silent for a moment, then looked at the brain tissue and intestinal membranes on the elevator wall that still showed no signs of dissipating.

"...It must have been upgraded."

Just as Chen Yi was about to explain in detail, he suddenly heard Fatty's sharp, shrill roar.

"Meow!!!"

Get out of the way, meow!!!

Yu Shijiu quickly pulled Chen Yi aside to avoid a sneak attack with a brain-shaped object. He frowned and was about to speak when he saw several other players next to him with brains piercing their heads at the same time, still with their mouths open as if trying to scream.

Yu Shijiu and Chen Yi: "..."

"These brains won't do; we need to find a way out—"

Chen Yi frowned and turned to look at the elevator keypad, then at a bunch of bloodshot eyeballs condensed on it.

Chen Yi's eyes seemed to sense his gaze, darting around, but he quickly looked away just before their eyes met.

"..."

"It seems like I can't press it."

Yu Shijiu pursed his lips and raised his wrist to check the time on his watch.

"There are only ten minutes left until break time, Brother Chen, shall we hold on a little longer?"

Yu Shijiu did not hear Chen Yi's response.

He looked up in confusion and saw that the remaining few surviving players were frozen in place with brains stuck in their heads.

Within a dozen seconds, only Yu Shijiu, Chen Yi, and the cat Feifei were able to move freely inside the elevator.

"?"

Yu Shijiu swiftly dodged three or four brains flying towards him, and then raised his axe to chop off several of them.

"How come there are so many..."

Yu Shijiu was very irritable and tiredly rotated her wrist to continue resisting.

"...I can't hold on any longer."

Chen Yi, who was behind him, closed his eyes after confirming something and rubbed the throbbing veins on his forehead.

"This is a plot point, there's no way to avoid it."