Chapter 15 Reaching limb

"Get out of my way!" Wang Zitong shouted in rage, shoving the stunned Zhao Hao aside as he sprinted forward.

As for Fang Xiu, the moment he saw the others fleeing in terror, he had already pressed himself against the wall, avoiding the chaos.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Once office-bound colleagues now dashed past Fang Xiu like seasoned athletes, the wind howling in their wake.

Poor Zhao Hao, however, was not as fortunate. He was knocked over multiple times before collapsing onto the ground.

"W-wait for me! Young Master Wang! Don't leave me behind!" Li Feifei had scrambled to her feet, her terrified screams echoing through the corridor. Her once-delicate face, now contorted in fear, bore the smudges of ruined makeup, streaked by tears.

She was the last one in the group, not just because she had been pushed down, but also because she was wearing towering stiletto heels—an unfortunate choice for running.

Of course, it might also have had something to do with her prior... exertions.

It was worth noting that not only was she wearing sky-high heels, but also a form-fitting pencil skirt. Tight, elegant, and undeniably alluring—yet utterly impractical for running. Anyone with experience would know that with each hurried step, the hemline would inevitably creep upward...

"Ah!"

Li Feifei had barely managed a few steps before a sharp pain shot through her ankle, sending her tumbling to the ground.

Her fair, slender ankle swelled instantly, flushed with an angry red.

As it turned out, running in heels was not just impractical—it was dangerous.

She barely had time to register the searing pain before she tried to scramble up again, but in the next instant, her vision went dark.

A thick, jet-black curtain of hair cascaded before her eyes, writhing like a nest of serpents.

It was the female doctor's hair.

Li Feifei's entire body trembled, her heart clenching as though it had been seized in a vice. Slowly, instinctively, she lifted her head.

A deathly pale face loomed above her, its soulless, milky-white eyes staring straight into hers.

She froze. It was as if all the strength had been drained from her limbs—she could not move.

Then, the doctor's hair shifted, brushing against her cheek with a cold, slick caress.

"Ahhh!"

A bloodcurdling scream tore from Li Feifei's throat as she frantically crawled away on all fours, heedless of the raw, bleeding scrapes her delicate knees suffered against the rough concrete floor.

"Help... help me!" she cried, her desperate gaze darting toward Fang Xiu and Zhao Hao—the only two left in the corridor.

The others had already vanished around the bend, far beyond reach.

"I don't want to di—"

Before she could finish, a gleaming arc of silver flashed through the air.

Her world spun. Her vision tilted—upward, sideways, then down.

Thud.

A heavy, muffled sound.

It was the sound of her head hitting the ground.

The surgeon's scalpel was terrifyingly sharp, and with her grotesquely elongated limbs, the doctor's attack range was devastating.

With a single sweep of her hand, she had beheaded Li Feifei in an instant.

So swift was the strike that her body remained kneeling, still in its crawling posture. The cleanly severed neck, white and smooth, gushed crimson, blood spouting like a macabre fountain.

Some of it splattered onto Zhao Hao.

Fang Xiu, standing behind him, remained untouched.

Zhao Hao had barely begun to recover from his shock when the gruesome scene shattered his fragile composure once more. The sheer horror of it should have made him wet himself—had he not already emptied his bladder earlier.

The doctor did not pause. She simply lifted her scalpel again and resumed her grim work—dismembering the corpse.

Her movements were precise, methodical, almost surgical. Fang Xiu and Zhao Hao stood mere steps away, yet she paid them no heed.

Only when the dissection was complete did she descend upon the remains, devouring them with the ravenous hunger of a beast.

Watching this unfold, Fang Xiu's eyes darkened with understanding.

He had deduced the doctor's pattern: she killed only one person at a time, and always the nearest target.

Otherwise, there was no reason she had ignored him and Zhao Hao.

Her method of murder was clear—dissection with a scalpel, followed by consumption.

Her habits, no doubt, stemmed from her former profession.

The way she wielded the scalpel with such familiarity—the meticulousness of her dissection—suggested that, in life, she had performed many surgeries within the walls of a psychiatric hospital.

A surgeon, after all, operates on only one patient at a time.

No doctor would ever hold scalpels in both hands, slicing into two patients simultaneously.

Perhaps that was why she adhered to this grim rule, killing only one victim per session. A twisted echo of her past discipline.

As for the cannibalism—

That was likely an instinct born from her transformation into something inhuman.

Having deciphered her nature, Fang Xiu took a step forward, halting beside the doctor.

The scene before him was a grotesque tableau of carnage, but he remained unfazed.

For that, he had his wife to thank.

He had witnessed such horrors countless times before—only, in those instances, he had been the one being devoured.

Abruptly, he clenched his fist and swung.

Bang!

A dull impact.

As he retracted his hand, droplets of blood trailed from his knuckles.

He frowned slightly, glancing down at his injured fist, then back at the doctor's face—utterly unscathed.

She continued her ghastly feast, entirely undisturbed, as if his strike had been nothing more than an inconsequential breeze.

It was then that Fang Xiu grasped the vast chasm between their strengths.

Every entity he had encountered so far possessed an overwhelming lethality against which humans were powerless.

Before these horrors, humans were as insignificant as ants.

Perhaps the only way to change that was to become a Spirit Master.

Behind him, a trembling voice broke the silence.

"X-Xiu… Brother Xiu, w-we should run!"

It was Zhao Hao.

He had somehow managed to recover from his terror. Unlike the others, he had not fled immediately but instead turned back for Fang Xiu.

Yet Fang Xiu did not move. He merely stood there, composed.

"This entity only kills one person at a time," he stated calmly. "Which means that while she's eating, this is the safest moment."

"B-but… she's almost done!"

"Li Feifei had a rather… ample figure. She wasn't one of those frail, slender beauties—her legs may have looked slim, but she had… generous proportions elsewhere. Based on her… body mass, I'd estimate she'll last at least three minutes. Perhaps four. No need to rush."

His voice was eerily level, speaking of flesh and consumption with an unsettling nonchalance.

Zhao Hao, already at his limit, gagged violently and vomited on the spot.

Chunks of vegetables, instant noodles, wide glass noodles, and golden enoki mushrooms splattered onto the floor.

Clearly, his last meal had been spicy hotpot.

"Prince Wang mentioned that becoming a Spirit Master requires allowing the entity's power to seep into your mind. And the place where that power is most concentrated is near the entity itself. So, I intend to stay a little longer. If you're afraid, you may leave."

With that, Fang Xiu turned away from Zhao Hao and reached out—his fingers brushing against the doctor's grotesquely long, spider-like legs.

He was unsure how one allowed their mind to be tainted by an entity's power.

But physical contact seemed like a good start.

The sensation was ice-cold.

Like touching a corpse.