Chapter 180

Yin Feng blinked her dry eyes, easing the discomfort from the red light in the dark. At first she thought it was a lantern behind glass, but the source was small and steady, resembling an eye embedded in the floor, casting a red gaze full of incomprehensible meaning upon what lay buried.

Leaning against the door, she did not rush to lock it; her hand behind her gripped the bolt. If the person inside truly lacked control over the growing mushroom corpses—as she suspected—opening the door could serve as a highly effective threat, for no one wished to face them in a confined space.

But for now, it might not be necessary.

The red light flowed over every surface in the room, including the face of the man lying on the ground. His cheeks, long unwashed, were coated in a thin layer of scales, spreading from mouth and nose into raised, moss-like rings above the skin. These were new fungal patches, densely linked into a membrane covering his entire epidermis.

His raised hand failed to reach its target, nor did it fall limp; the curled fingers, wrist, and elbow struggled against some invisible force, motion frozen mid-air. Wart-like mushrooms clustered between his fingers, fused with tendons, extending into subcutaneous swellings like pockets of pus.

Unlike those outside who had lost life—or rather, become soil for another form of life—the faint creases in his clothing revealed his chest still rose and fell, sustaining a faint breath. His eyes were glazed and clouded, their consciousness impossible to discern. Without the glowing pendant, he looked more like one of the victims.

The professor did not appear capable of rising to pose a threat. Yin Feng locked the door, gripped the dagger beneath her skirt, and crept forward in small steps until she could lean down and reach the pendant—Brimmer made no response. She drew her hand back, pinched the pendant through her sleeve.

It felt no different from a stone—unpolished, yet with rounded edges, as if it had been removed from somewhere already shaped thus.

Yin Feng lifted it slowly and gently, then yanked sharply, tearing the peculiar object—its purpose unknown—from Brimmer's neck. As if sensing something, he emitted a rough, guttural grunt; his eyelids strained open, but the white fungal veil over his pupils revealed nothing.

His breathing had sunk to the bare minimum needed to sustain life; his lips bore the familiar deep hue, incapable of uttering even a single coherent plea—but he still clearly possessed self-awareness.

If there was anything Yin Feng still feared, it was this: losing all mobility, enduring a slow suffocation as if a noose tightened gradually around the neck, fully conscious of every moment—death, in such a case, seemed a profound release.

It was hard to say whether the greater torment lay in being powerless before all that had happened, or in the prolonged agony of dying.

Sensing someone nearby, he trembled violently, trying to move to beg for help. Yin Feng tried to pin him down, but found every muscle she touched was rigidly tensed; his body arched backward, rendering his limbs incapable of any motion except convulsions—the reason his hand remained frozen in mid-air.

Yet these convulsions produced noise, intensifying with his desperation. Even if he retained some awareness, it was likely minimal—reduced now to a simple, primal urge to cry out to the unknown stranger for survival, unaware that making sound would draw the wandering fungal husks.

She pressed her knee against the trembling body beneath the black robe, throwing her full weight upon him—but as a child, she could not control an adult man's convulsions; instead, she nearly toppled over.

【Must control him immediately】

Within moments, she had to subdue someone far larger and stronger than herself. There was only one way. Yin Feng knew exactly what she must do; she had prepared herself mentally before coming—but her preparations had envisioned surprise counterattacks. Reality was simpler than imagined, yet harder.

The finely honed, thinly oiled blade slid smoothly from its sheath—she had had it sharpened two days prior. The craftsman had not understood why a lady's dagger needed an edge, but his disciplined military mindset compelled him to do it well.

The grip's non-slip winding was practical; her damp palm held firm. Every inch of the dagger's movement came from her will. Following hearsay on its use, she guided it to the most lethal point she knew: the unprotected neck. The man writhing in fungal infection felt no trace of that slender coolness.

Time was short; she had no moment to spare for one last look at the face she had known for less than a day, already growing unfamiliar.

His face, distant from the light, was dark—like the servants she had met briefly, blurring in her vision and memory into a uniform, featureless template, receding into distance like distant lights seen from a cliffside, disconnected, unconnected…

【End point】

The blade slid in cleanly through the center; little fluid spilled out, its hue blending under the strange light with everything else—only darker.

Her hand pressed down on the hilt. The blade first entered a cavity, then struck something hard, halting halfway. The convulsions did not cease—they grew stronger.

The dagger paused, then shifted direction, slicing sideways. At a certain angle, something spurted—a pulsing sensation transmitted faintly through metal and wood, then vanished. It worked. The troublesome tremors weakened, subsiding into stillness.

Kneeling, she listened for a moment, then remembered the object in her hand. She pulled it free, wiped both sides on the nearest fabric, and slipped it back into its sheath. The pacing footsteps outside passed without stopping.

She was unsure what she had done. Logically, she should have felt sympathy, fear, or something else capable of overwhelming her emotions.

But in truth, beyond the instinctive revulsion at touching warm liquid, she felt nothing else. Even the notion that she "should" feel something came only from hearsay, lacking any real weight—yet she understood fully the process and its outcome.

Objectively, it served her safety; subjectively, there was no need for sympathy or grief. She thought this was abnormal, yet also saw nothing unreasonable in it—after all, it was a stranger, even an adversary, who had undergone a death not unfamiliar to her.

Objectively, she had spared him much suffering. Should this count as repaying malice with virtue? Though the Church preached this, Mr. Kraft did not endorse such conduct.

She fiddled with the pendant, finding no link to the mushrooms, then searched Brimmer's belongings, seeking the object she needed—the key to touching the extraordinary.

In a hidden inner pocket of the robe, she found a delicate small vial—so tiny it held less than a sip, containing a liquid that barely stirred when shaken, unlike any liquor a sailor would carry.

Yin Feng pried off the stopper and peered through the narrow neck. She had not expected to see anything in this light—and indeed, the interior was pitch black. Yet some inexplicable feeling arose, whispering that this darkness was the liquid's true color.

A liquid never seen before—like a being armored in chitin or parasitized by fungi—an irrational existence. The vial's mouth was a fissure offering a glimpse into that world.

Her hand lifted it unconsciously to her face. A voice from deep within murmured, urging her to touch it.

【This is that thing】

She forgot everything else and drank it all.