Chapter 119: Total Loss of Control

—Despair.

It is a deeper, purer despair than the one felt when first seeing that ghostly face on the ceiling.

There is no guidance from Liu Can's voice.

This time, only he and this nightmare from hell.

"Thud......"

"Thud......"

The footsteps are neither hurried nor slow, each step feeling like a foot on his heart.

Luo Feng broke down.

He collapsed on the ground, tears streaming, and let out a pig‑slaughter‑like wail and pleas of mercy toward the slowly advancing black silhouette.

"Don't come! Please! Don't come!"

"Spare me, spare me, I'll do anything!"

Eighth: Ghost Nun halted her steps.

It tilted its head, seemingly savoring the prey's final ugliness.

The next second.

Its figure vanished from the spot in an instant!

Luo Feng's pupils trembled; before he could react, a massive force clamped his neck and lifted his whole body into the air!

It is Eighth: Ghost Nun!

Its pallid, bloodless face was pressed against his, the stench of decay spewing onto his face.

"Crack!"

A crisp bone‑cracking sound rang out.

Luo Feng's right arm was brutally snapped at a Weird angle!

The agony surged like a tsunami, instantly engulfing him!

"Ah—!"

A mournful scream echoed through the vast Seventh: Xiu Dao Yuan.

But this is only the beginning.

"Crack!"

Left arm.

"Crack! Crack!"

Both legs.

Eighth: Ghost Nun was like a cruel child, toying with a broken rag doll, snapping his limbs piece by piece.

It did not kill him immediately.

It wanted him to, in his clearest state, savor every fraction, every second of ultimate pain and terror.

Finally, when Luo Feng had completely lost his voice, only a hissing breath remaining in his throat, Eighth: Ghost Nun opened its mouth, torn to the ears.

It bit off his head in one bite.

"Heart rate zero!"

"Target pupil dilation! Vital signs lost!"

"Defibrillator! Again!"

In reality, the dormitory of Haibin Daxue was in chaos.

Medical staff, drenched in sweat, performed a final rescue on the convulsing, twisted body on the bed.

But everything was in vain.

On the ECG monitor, the line representing the heartbeat, after its last violent surge, stretched into a cold straight line.

"Beep—"

A shrill long wail announced the end of a life.

On the bed, Luo Feng's corpse assumed a terribly horrific posture.

His limbs were twisted at an unnatural, Weird, reverse‑joint angle, as if every bone had been broken inch by inch.

His eyes bulged, veined with blood, frozen with the ultimate fear and pain of his final moment.

The air was filled with a nauseating, putrid stench.

He soiled himself.

Nie Yang stood aside, the signature gentle smile on his face long gone, replaced by an unbreakable solemnity.

L stood before the ECG monitor, the heavy lens reflecting the death‑sign line on the screen, obscuring her gaze.

She simply stood quietly, like a sculpture without emotion.

"Useless......"

In the corner, a doctor was icing Liu Can's neck; he stared at the tragic scene on the bed, trembling all over.

Liu Can's voice was hoarse, his eyes filled with post‑catastrophe dread and a bewilderment from a knowledge system completely upended, "Marked by it, entering the dream is a dead‑end."

He delivered the final conclusion, each word weighing a thousand pounds:

"There is no 'Life Gate' at all."

On the returning military helicopter, the atmosphere was oppressively terrifying.

No one spoke.

The massive roar of the rotors could not mask the death‑like silence.

L rapidly typed on her handheld terminal, encrypting and uploading all the operation's data, along with that shocking conclusion, back to the reporting server.

Nie Yang leaned against the chair back, eyes closed, not knowing what he was thinking.

Liu Can was the most exhausted of them.

The searing pain in his neck, the massive mental drain, and witnessing firsthand an A-level Weirdness incomprehensible Terror Force killing method almost completely sapped his energy.

He leaned against the cold cabin wall, his eyelids growing heavier.

Eventually, he could not resist the overwhelming drowsiness and fell into a deep sleep.

When Liu Can opened his eyes again.

The roar of the propellers by his ears vanished.

He found himself sitting on a cold wooden chair.

He was in a dim, dilapidated room.

The wall plaster peeled off in large sheets, revealing dark red bricks beneath, and thick cobwebs hung in the corners of the ceiling.

This scene......

It was described by Luo Feng, the scene from his dream!

Liu Can's heart sank sharply, but his professional poise as a top psychologist made him calm instantly.

It was a dream!

Was it because of extreme fatigue and mental stimulation that he was having a nightmare too?

He tried to stand up; his body could move.

Good, he was not restrained.

He surveyed his surroundings, trying to find the dream's "anchor point".

On the opposite wall hung the oil painting of the Eighth: Ghost Nun.

His heart trembled, but immediately realized something and exhaled.

This should not be Midnight Nightmare striking him.

The image of the Ghost Nun could not scare him.

What is he most afraid of now?

It is the one that makes his prized hypnotism and psychological theories utterly fail, the one that toys with the human mind, the one that is incomprehensible and unbeatable......

Midnight Nightmare itself.

And the instant that thought surfaced in his mind.

"Crack."

The opposite oil painting split open with a crack down the middle.

A chilling, pure malice seeped out from that fissure.

It wasn't the Ghost Nun!

Liu Can's pupils contracted sharply.

An indescribable, purely darkness‑made "humanoid" was squeezing out bit by bit from the cracked painting!

It had no facial features, no substance, like a humanoid void carved out of three‑dimensional space.

The surrounding light, air, even space itself were being wildly devoured and twisted by it.

Just by looking at it, Liu Can felt his sanity disintegrate rapidly, his mind filled with harsh static!

Although Liu Can had never seen this figure before.

He nevertheless had a strong perception.

He sensed that the presence before him...... was Midnight Nightmare!

An unprecedented intense fear enveloped Liu Can.

Liu Can tried to run, but found his legs felt as if filled with lead, unable to move.

He tried to scream, but no sound came out.

His prized psychological knowledge, the techniques that could easily shatter ordinary minds' defenses, were as fragile as paper in the face of this pure, irrational terror concept.

The humanoid black shadow completely "walked" out of the painting.

In an instant it stood before Liu Can.

A "hand" made of pure darkness brushed his cheek.

Cold, void.

Yet it carried a terrifying force that seemed to freeze and extract his very soul.

"Ah...... ahhh......"

Fear and despair turned to tears, spilling from Liu Can's eyes.

The next moment.

"Snap!"

The sound of human bones cracking rang out.

"Captain!"

On the helicopter, L's shout shattered the silence!

Nie Yang snapped his eyes open and saw Liu Can in the seat beside him, his body convulsing uncontrollably, his face filled with the same extreme terror Luo Feng had shown before death!

"Liu Can!"

Nie Yang grabbed his shoulder and shook him hard.

"Wake up!"

No use!

Liu Can's body convulsed more violently, a strange "hoho" sound emanating from his throat, white foam and murky liquid seeping from his mouth and nose.

How could that be?!

Nie Yang's head buzzed.

They watched helplessly as Liu Can's body went from violent spasms to gradually going limp, and finally lost all signs of life.

Those tightly shut eyes flew wide open, the eyeballs bulging, dying without peace.

He died.

The Federation-assigned psychological consultant died just like that, silently and without a sound, on the return flight.

Inside the cabin, it fell into a deathly silence.

After a long while, L's voice, trembling slightly and like a dream utterance, slowly sounded.

"Captain......"

"I just...... checked again."

"Liu Can...... he never came into contact with the source contamination information."

"He never saw that news about Character: Gao Zhiyuan."

Those words struck Nie Yang's heart like a silent heavy hammer.

No contact with the source.

So how was he marked?

Nie Yang's shocked gaze fell upon Liu Can's face, frozen in extreme terror.

The situation...... has completely spiraled out of control.

ps:

No draft saved again.

Moreover, I'm expected to work overtime tonight.

The next morning I have to get up early for another meeting.

I'm really burned out; I beg everyone to flick their little money‑making hands and throw some rewards at the kids.

Running on love is fine too.

I'll try to get tomorrow's installment out.

Thanks for the support; I will never stop updating for all of you.