Chapter 2774: Phantom Death Chamber (Part 11)

Schiller was very clear that events in the Cthulhu Mythos often differ from those of superheroes; they usually involve long periods of foreshadowing before the true disaster reveals its face.

Previously, Schiller had felt the hotel fit this pattern well—starting very calmly, then gradually manifesting various eerie situations, eventually evolving into a catastrophe that would engulf the entire city.

But if his own time point was the past and Peter's was the future, the level of eeriness exceeded all imagination.

Because it was blatantly obvious that his hotel was filled with abnormal phenomena everywhere: the 19th floor from which one could go up but never down, the elevator sounds that rang incessantly at midnight, and neighbors whose conditions were clearly poor. How could this be anything other than the product of a supernatural event already in full swing?

Conversely, Peter's side was very peaceful. He had checked into the hotel smoothly, could move about freely, his neighbors were normal and could be communicated with, basic survival supplies were sufficient, and no supernatural events had occurred.

But assuming the situation had already become like this at Schiller's time point, what was with the peaceful facade on Peter's side?

If the time gap between the two were vast, spanning entire eras, that would be one thing. But the short man living in Room 1903 in both hotels was clearly the same person; his voice and appearance hadn't changed much, meaning the time span couldn't be decades. The change must have occurred within a single year.

That is to say, it couldn't be a situation where the supernatural event erupted, wiped out the town, and then everyone forgot about it and started over.

It also couldn't be that the supernatural phenomena erupted during Schiller's time, then spontaneously healed, suddenly becoming fine, only to become terrifying again by Peter's time.

Then only one possibility remained: the supernatural phenomena had been continuously worsening. Schiller's hotel was actually before the worsening, while Peter's hotel was after, with all the peaceful scenes being mere disguises, concealing unimaginable terror in the depths.

Jerome's appearance on Peter's side was corroborating evidence. According to Schiller's understanding, this investigator could chase Bruce Wayne until he was jumping up and down; if Peter's hotel were truly fine, he wouldn't have appeared there. On the contrary, his presence proved the hotel's problems had grown to an unimaginable scale.

Schiller sighed in his heart at Peter's bad luck, but just as he thought to use the communicator to warn Peter, the scene in the room began to change, and a person gradually appeared.

It was a beautiful, plump blonde woman. She stood in the center of the room with her back to the window, and the messy living room suddenly vanished, replaced by a luxuriously decorated guest room.

Schiller felt the figure was somewhat familiar, but he couldn't recall it for a moment, so he didn't move, leaning back on the sofa with one leg crossed over the other, fully prepared to watch the show.

The woman was touching up her makeup with lipstick. After a while, she smoothed her hair and finally turned around, looking at Schiller sitting on the sofa outside the window, saying, "Why are you still sitting there? Didn't we say we were going to chat?"

Schiller narrowed his eyes slightly. What was this? A honey trap?

No, that wasn't right. The woman looked familiar; she must be someone Schiller had met before. Just as Schiller was trying to recall who she was, the woman walked to the window, smiling enchantingly at Schiller, saying, "It seems you've forgotten me. Do you remember? We once had a romantic date..."

At the word "date," Schiller seemed to recall something. He did indeed know this woman; she was a socialite he had met at a banquet while studying in the United States in his previous life.

Not good at action, so you're trying drama now? Schiller thought with interest.

He wasn't surprised that some entity in the room could read his memories. The Cthulhu Mythos was an expert at playing with memories, knowledge, and emotions; it would be strange if they couldn't do this.

Schiller even felt this wasn't an illusion created by any magical energy, but rather an interference with his brain waves, appearing only in his own eyes—equivalent to putting a film over his eyeballs.

Sure enough, as the memories associated with this woman gradually surfaced in his mind, the room transformed into a bedroom.

Schiller felt it was somewhat amusing. The room seemed to be trying very hard to find moments when he had emotional fluctuations.

Ordinarily, the memory of a first date with a lover would be a good object for nostalgia.

But Schiller was never ordinary.

As his memories surged and thoughts flashed through his mind, the white, fleshy body lying on the bed transformed into a fresh, red, jumping live fish, and the rich, bloody stench seemed to threaten to burst the room.

*Swish*—the hallucination vanished.

The room's color tone turned gloomy, becoming gray and cold. A stern, white-haired professor was sitting at a desk reading a book. He pushed up his glasses, looked at Schiller outside the window, and said, "Long time no see. How have you been lately? Have you published any new research papers?"

"Long time no see, Professor," Schiller replied as if he were truly greeting him. "I really haven't had any research results worth showing off lately."

He began to recall the professor's face, and as he struggled to flip that face out of his memory, countless memories concerning the old professor were flipped out simultaneously.

The room turned blood-red again.

The shadowless lamp was suddenly switched on, and the room began to gradually transform into an operating room. A hospital bed was pushed in, and a pale little boy lay on it. A nurse shouted anxiously toward Schiller, "Doctor! Chief surgeon! Why are you just standing there? The patient's surgery is about to begin..."

Schiller flipped through his memories again, and the operating tables in the room suddenly turned into two: one with a man lying on it, ripped open, and the other with a woman lying on it, eyes wide in death.

The operating room scene also began to fade, but no new hallucinatory scene appeared. The room seemed to have frozen.

Schiller, however, laughed and said, "Trying to find happy memories to lure me back? You can try flipping through them again; I remember there were a few times that didn't evolve into murder cases."

The phantoms in the room began to change again. Schiller felt very familiar with this scene; it was the prayer room he often stayed in during his previous life. An old priest opened the door and walked in.

"You've come very early today," he said.

"Because I have things to do," Schiller answered habitually. "You can go back and rest; I will help you entertain the other believers."

Then the scene jumped to the church's back garden. In front of a rusted flower pavilion, dirt was piled high, and a large pit appeared in the center of the room, with a corpse that had just died lying inside.

Schiller leaned back on the sofa relaxedly and said, "That was truly a period of carefree years worth missing."

The corpse began to move.

"In the end, you still want to haunt me?" Schiller said, as if talking to himself. No one in the room answered him.

"Why did you kill me?" the old priest, covered in corpse spots, stood up and looked at Schiller outside the window. "I am not your enemy, and I have never stood in your way."

"That's true, you even took good care of me," Schiller nodded, looking at the corpse. "Are you hoping I'll feel guilty?"

"Shouldn't you feel guilty?"

Schiller shook his head and said, "You told the believers the wrong truth; I was merely stopping you from spreading fallacies further."

"You are a devil."

"And the angel you kept thinking about didn't come to save you," Schiller said. "You were the first priest I knew. Your death was not meaningless; it gave me a good start."

"You killed the innocent me."

"It was God who killed you, because God didn't save you," Schiller looked at him calmly. "Have you ever resented God?"

The other party seemed to have glitched again.

The fantasies in the room vanished in an instant, turning back into that messy state. Schiller compared these memories and found that they seemed to be playing in reverse chronological order.

Many corpses appeared in the room, most of them no longer human in shape, standing in a row in the messy living room.

"Why did you kill me?"

"Why did you kill me?"

"Why did you kill..."

"Why did you..."

They repeated this phrase together, constantly approaching the window, reaching out their hands from the broken window, seemingly wanting to drag Schiller back, but clearly, the distance wasn't enough, and the phantoms seemed unable to affect the area outside the window.

"It was God who killed you," Schiller answered. "Because when you were struggling in pain, He didn't come to save you. No matter how pious you once were, or how much you paid for your faith, when you died tragically, the omnipotent God did not appear."

"It was you..."

"It was you..."

"It was you..."

Schiller glanced at his watch. It was 11:00 PM. He said, "I guess you have to stop before 'it' comes. You have one hour left. If you still want to continue being a repeater here, I won't stop you."

The corpses stopped moving and stood blankly by the window. But because most were already so deformed that they couldn't even trigger the uncanny valley effect, they didn't look very terrifying.

Schiller looked at these corpses with nostalgia. Unique memories are the pillars that constitute every personality trait.

Clearly, these corpses had become like this with his participation, but that was a long time ago.

As the memories he had stirred up surged continuously, the gentle expression belonging to "Schiller" reflected in the glass vanished.

Replacing it, on that strange face, were sharp, knife-like brows and eyes.

These suddenly appearing "old acquaintances" reminded him of his youth.

The young Schiller was a vast wind; when he came, the rivers flowed mightily, and when he left, he was filled with ice and snow—aloof, biting, and unstoppable.

He had turned the deep-seated, stubborn illnesses beneath the earth upside down. He used the black blood flowing in the deepest evil arteries to forge himself into a sharp, surging sword.

On that face, three parts killing intent, three parts chivalry—even if heartless, it was still moving.