Chapter 171

Clutching the slightly dampened velvet wad against her mouth, Yin Feng crawled through a gap at the edge of the dust zone; looking down, she saw the clear outlines of five fingers, the hollow shape of an arm, and radiating patterns stirred by violent coughs—undoubtedly the silhouette of a body fallen here.

She thought it might be a clever servant who had feigned death to escape, or someone dragged away by those things—but the silhouette was too complete, too sharply defined, with not a trace of struggle or movement, as if some force had lifted him whole into the air.

No time to think further, she slipped between two chairs, crouched beneath the table, wiped the sticky dust from her skirt, pinched her nostrils to stifle a sneeze, her chest and throat aching from the strain.

Irregular, barnacle-like shadows dragged themselves among the upright legs of tables and chairs, trembling with the flicker of flames, passing over a patch of bright light beside her.

She almost felt she could reach out and touch the texture of fungal clusters fused with corpses within that shadow; the uneven stone floor seemed to soften and swell beneath its passage, the hard rock patterns trembling and undulating.

But it was merely an illusion of light and shadow; once it passed, everything returned to its original state.

It was even less frightening than ghost stories told to scare children—after all, ghosts could still reach out and grab kids hiding under beds, whereas these things could not pass through walls or see through objects.

She moved again, crawling beneath the tabletop to the far end. A servant's corpse lay stretched between her and another table, its head tilted to one side, the cloudy white cataracts behind its pupils fixed on a nonexistent point, carrying a faint, lingering gaze toward the living still hiding.

On a face powdered heavier than a courtesan's makeup, frozen terror and clinging attachment to life were twisted by clown-like pigment stains. Its open, hollow mouth was caked with dust, as if desperately spitting out some horrifying last words—or silently demanding answers.

【This isn't my fault】

Yin Feng ignored the face, crawled over the corpse, and hid beneath another table. She was now near the epicenter of the dust explosion; the gauze filter offered little protection—every inch she crawled sent dust rising from beneath her knees and between her fingers, trying to enter her breath.

And there, just a few steps away, on the ground thick with dust, lay the keychain—its original color indiscernible. It was hard to imagine how these particles must have floated in the air, making one feel as if drowned in mist.

Fortunately, the tabletop blocked part of it, allowing her to approach slowly. She had to move with utmost slowness, lest she disturb the thick layer of dust and send up a cloud.

A distance normally trivial stretched into an agonizing crawl; Yin Feng spent long moments inching forward until she reached the closest point she could attain to the keychain.

One mottled husk had turned to the opposite side of the hall, while another finally reached the blind spot hidden behind the pillars.

She reached out from an angle least likely to brush against table edges or chair legs; this chair—three long legs, one short—looked unstable, but no other angle was reachable by her short arms, and she lacked the strength to move it.

To extend her arm fully, she had to lie flat against the floor, bringing her eye level to match that of Interior Official Wilbert's body.

The official's corpse had become inseparable from the fungal host; from this height, she could see how white, downy filaments had grown where the fungus contacted his skin.

At the approximate position of its head, the full, crown-like fungal cap had split open and bloomed, releasing all its dust, leaving behind a dry, hardened, yet still vividly colored husk, fused to Wilbert's face.

Dense, fresh, tender mycelia sprouted from the thickened web of filaments, still appearing as multicolored specks; scattered identical growths spread along the neck and outstretched arms, until they hooked onto the fingers clutching the keychain.

Yin Feng tugged gently on the keychain; the dead joints were stiff and sluggish, nearly dragging the entire arm with it. She pressed lower, extended her hand farther, and pried open each finger hooked around the ring.

She felt her hair strands sinking into the dust, the itch in her nasal passages thick and sharp with slight pain—but she did not pause. The shifting light revealed the fungal wanderers moving; she had to lift the keychain slowly and steadily before they turned back.

All her focus centered on her slender, calloused fingers; the keys rose one by one as the ring lifted from the ground. She wasn't certain if this produced any sound—even if it had, it was drowned by the pulsing of her own blood in her ears.

Finally, the small metal chain hung completely free, carefully maneuvered around the chair legs, and drawn back into shadow.

【It's kind of scary】

Common sense told her she ought to feel that way, but fear always lagged behind action—her fingers moved as if guided by their own will, searching, identifying the key engraved with the target number, slipping it free from the ring.

Next came waiting—waiting for the swollen, lantern-pants-like lower limbs, bloated by solitary fungal growth, to pass.

They showed no habit of lowering their heads; they stepped over outstretched hands of corpses, utterly unaware of what lay beneath their feet, as if merely strolling—so simple that a single tripwire could make them collapse forever.

It was deeply deceptive, but Yin Feng knew how they moved—their climbing posture on cliff faces was far swifter than any human's.

If discovered, survival was impossible; she knew this well, yet she felt little fear—more accurately, she was desensitized, numb.

She had witnessed the longest, most agonizing deaths, where even death itself seemed insignificant compared to the process. She had seen swift, brutal deaths too—blunt and sharp weapons carving wounds of every shape by different methods.

Her understanding of death was concrete, yet lacked deeper, abstract meaning.

When the same fate befell more people—or perhaps even herself—she felt no great shock, nor did she wonder whether this was normal; she simply thought, then acted. She kicked the man who had nearly killed Kup, waited until his skull was crushed by a hammer, then took the dagger from his hand.

Now Yin Feng was going to take another dagger.

She waited until they moved far into the blind spot, crawled out from under the table, turned the lock with the key, slipped into the room like a ghost, closed the door behind her, her hand hidden in her skirt folds gripping the wooden handle.

She imagined Bramer must be inside, performing some necromantic ritual that bound him to the room. If he moved at all, she'd have to distract him briefly, using her identity to lower his guard.

But when she pushed open the door, the room was not the black void she had expected.

A figure clad in black robes lay supine on the floor, bathed in a hazy, unnatural red glow. The light's intensity was less than a candle's, as if the tear membrane had been replaced with drying, putrid blood—making the eyes feel abnormally dry and irritated, compelling an instinctive turn away.

Yet every visible surface was saturated with this constant, unyielding light, impossible to escape. It came from a crude pendant that had fallen from the black robe's collar; the rigid hand, stretched toward it before losing consciousness, had frozen mid-reach, the fungal blotches on its back glowing fiercely under the red light.