Spirit Origin

As soon as he pushed it open a bit, he felt the door hit something blocking its path. Looking up, he saw through the crack a bloated and pallid face, mostly concealed by wet, dark hair, with only a swollen dead fish eye visible.

The eye was devoid of life, almost no iris visible, just the whites remaining.

This pallid, swollen face seemed straight out of a horror movie, made even more eerie and terrifying by a layer of fluffy white hair growing on its surface.

Caught off guard, Simon had never expected to suddenly encounter such a terrifying and eerie face. It scared him so much that he couldn't help but let out a piercing scream of horror, instinctively turning to run away.

With a loud "bang," the door was violently pulled open, and Simon, who had just turned around, felt something wet and slimy lunge at him. The force was tremendous, causing him to lose his balance and fall heavily to the ground. His forehead struck the floor, stars exploding in his vision, blood flowing freely, followed immediately by the sensation of a heavy weight pressing down on him.

In this life-and-death moment, Simon could not afford to be afraid any longer. He immediately struggled desperately, using all his strength in his arms, legs, knees, and waist, flipping over violently to throw off whatever was pinning him down.

At this moment, he finally saw clearly.

The thing that had just lunged out and pinned him down was none other than the female corpse that had been soaking in the stairwell's water earlier.

Her swollen, pallid face, bloated body, with large portions of flesh on her chest, abdomen, and legs gnawed away, exposing white bones underneath, and faintly visible viscous organs. Her body and hair were wet, continuously dripping with water.

But the most terrifying aspect undoubtedly was the layer of pale, fluffy hair growing on her exposed flesh and face, resembling the mythical white-haired zombie.

She possessed great strength, but her joints seemed somewhat stiff, lacking the agility of a living person. Just as she was overturned by Simon and fell beside him, she stretched out a hairy hand, attempting to grab him, but her movements were sluggish.

Simon struggled to climb to his feet and swung the cleaver and hammer in his hands at her.

Instantly, blood and flesh flew, splattering on Simon's face.

He couldn't understand why this corpse would move, let alone attack him. The only explanation he could fathom was necrosis—this corpse had turned into a creature akin to a zombie.

The female corpse, though terrifying in appearance and strong in strength, moved stiffly and lacked evasion skills. Quickly, Simon's cleaver chopped into her face, while the iron hammer smashed down on her skull with a resounding "crack," fracturing the bone.

Simon exerted almost all his strength in this blow. He was in extreme fear and panic, unleashing unprecedented force. The hammer directly caved in the corpse's head, splattering brain matter outward.

In a frenzy, Simon continued to swing the cleaver and hammer. By the time he paused, panting heavily, the swollen face of the corpse had been completely disfigured. Seven or eight deep cuts marred her face, each one penetrating deep into the facial bones. The hammer was coated in flesh and blood, nearly obliterating half of her skull.

Watching the unrecognizable corpse slump down motionless, Simon finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Strangely enough, as the corpse collapsed, the layer of fluffy white hair on its body surface swiftly retracted and vanished, as if it had been drawn back into her skin. Following this, Simon noticed a thumb-sized white sphere emerging from the chest where most of the flesh had been gnawed away. The surface of this white sphere was fuzzy, resembling a convergence of countless white hairs.

The cluster of white fuzz sprang forth from the female corpse's chest as if possessed of autonomous consciousness, suddenly bouncing up.

Simon's heart jolted. Could it be that this corpse had undergone a sudden metamorphosis, capable of movement and growing a layer of fluffy white hair? Was this bouncing cluster of white fuzz the true cause of everything, the real culprit?

Watching the bouncing white fuzz, Simon tried to swat it down with the cleaver.

At this moment, he suspected that this white fuzz might be some unknown insect-like creature, possibly parasitic within the corpse.

With a sharp "crack," the cleaver struck flat against the corpse's chest. However, the bouncing speed of the white fuzz far exceeded his imagination. The cleaver missed, and in a flash of white light, the fuzz pounced on his face.

Simon felt an itch on his forehead, a great horror in his heart. Knowing it was bad, he reflexively used his hand to wave it away from his face.

Waving at nothing, Simon frantically touched his face, finding nothing there. He hurriedly got up, shaking his clothes, but the white fuzz had vanished without a trace.

"What's going on? How did it suddenly disappear?" Simon wondered in bewildered amazement, when suddenly, he felt a surge of information flooding his mind, as if a completely foreign memory had been inserted into his brain out of thin air.

"Source of Spirit: 1/5."

Simon couldn't help but cover his head, his face filled with shock. "Source of Spirit 1/5? What does this mean? What exactly is the Source of Spirit?"

Immediately after, he suddenly felt a warmth emanating from his forehead, as if a warm current was spreading outwards in all directions throughout his body, reaching to the tips of his fingers. Soon, his entire body became warm.

However, this warmth came and went quickly, disappearing in just a few seconds.

After the mysterious warmth vanished, Simon felt that something was amiss with his body. Initially, his forehead was throbbing from the injury, with intense pain, but now the pain had disappeared, and the wound felt cool.

Not only that, after wildly hacking and smashing the female corpse with the cleaver and hammer, his arms had felt sore and his whole body weak and exhausted. But now, the soreness in his arms and the fatigue in his body had disappeared, replaced by renewed vigor and vitality.

All these sudden changes left Simon momentarily stunned, but he quickly took a deep breath to calm himself down, sensing the message that had inexplicably appeared in his mind, beginning to understand it vaguely.

The spherical white fuzzy ball did not mysteriously disappear, but rather fused into his body the moment it pounced on his forehead.

"The message that suddenly appeared in my mind should be the information brought by this thing integrating into my body. Source of Spirit: 1/5. Could it be that this fluffy white ball... is this so-called Source of Spirit? This Source of Spirit seems capable of altering my constitution, making the wound on my forehead no longer painful, eliminating fatigue, and even seemingly increasing my strength a bit."

Simon lightly swung the hammer and felt that the swing was a bit easier. This was not an illusion but a reality; his strength had indeed increased somewhat.