Chapter 247: Since it

The main hall of Fog Mountain Sanatorium lacked the musty smell of abandoned buildings one might expect; instead, it was filled with a nauseating formalin odor, so strong it felt like being shoved into a specimen jar pickled for years.

The floor tiles beneath their feet had lost their original color, coated in a slick, dark-yellow grease that made a soft "gulili" sticky sound with each step.

"Watch your step, don't touch the walls." Jiang Yuan lowered his voice; the shadow behind him stretched out like tentacles, probing the surroundings.

Ouyang Feng walked last, his palm constantly rubbing the hilt of the "Death Dragon" blade at his back.

That icy touch was his sole comfort at the moment.

Just as everyone stepped into the center of the hall, the flickering overhead light suddenly emitted a hiss of electrical overload.

Zzzzt—

The light twisted without warning. Like the glitch of an old TV, the surrounding space produced a nauseating sense of dislocation.

Ouyang Feng felt his vision go black, then a wave of vertiginous weightlessness.

When his vision cleared again, Jiang Yuan, the loud‑mouthed chuuni Liang Wen, and the good‑for‑nothing Li Qi beside him had all vanished.

Emptiness.

This was no longer the hall just left behind, but a long, narrow, dim corridor.

Rusty, mottled iron hooks lined both walls; the floor was laid with black‑and‑white checkerboard tiles, their gaps filled with dried, blackened blood grime.

Above, a crooked sign swayed in the dim yellow light:

【Correction Department】

"Space division...?"

Ouyang Feng's mouth twitched into a scornful smirk. He gripped the blade's hilt with his reverse hand; being alone didn't frighten him—it gave him a faint sense of liberation.

No Jiang Yuan freak stealing the spotlight, no others getting in the way.

Here, this was his hunting ground.

"Hehehe..."

From the shadows at the corridor's end came a rapid clatter of metal, light and quick like some multi‑legged insect scuttling across a steel plate.

A figure in a stained white lab coat slowly shuffled out of the darkness.

Its lower half was a rusted wheelchair fused with rotting flesh; its upper half bulged like a flesh ball, with four arms sprouting from each shoulder, each hand clutching a different "medical instrument."

Either a blood‑dripping bone saw, a bent iron hook, or a boning knife flashing with cold light.

Its head was bald, featureless save for a vertical slit of a mouth packed with countless tiny sharp teeth.

"Patient...... late......"

From the monster's split maw came a garbled rasp, like sandpaper on glass, making ears sting: "Unpunctual...... needs correction......"

Ouyang Feng let out a low roar, releasing all his pent‑up brutality at once.

His black combat uniform left a blur in the air as he shot forward like a cannonball straight at the monster.

"Death Dragon" unsheathed!

The blade's light fell like a waterfall, a piercing shriek tearing the air as it aimed for the monster's head.

Clang!

Sparks flew.

The monster didn't even budge; it merely lifted two of its arms. The two high‑speed spinning electric bone saws clamped precisely onto the Death Dragon's blade.

A tremendous recoil traveled up the hilt, splitting Ouyang Feng's tiger's mouth and instantly dyeing his palm red with blood.

"How...... could this be......"

His pupils contracted. He'd held nothing back on that strike—enough to cleave steel in an instant—yet it was blocked so casually?

"Bone...... cut...... reforge......"

The chief physician let out an excited cackle, the remaining six arms swinging assorted blades like a meat grinder lunging at Ouyang Feng.

Splurt! Splurt!

No matter how swift Ouyang Feng's footwork, there was nowhere to dodge under such an airtight net of attacks.

Shoulder, thigh, ribs—in just a few seconds he gained several deep wounds down to the bone; blood spurted out, soaking his black combat uniform.

Pain.

Agony.

Yet this pain only stoked Ouyang Feng's ferocity. He roared, abandoning defense, gripping the blade with both hands, ready to trade lives.

"Break it!!!"

He poured all his strength into the blade, trying to sever the opponent's arm.

However.

Crack.

A clean, heart‑breaking snap rang out, especially piercing amid the noisy saws.

Ouyang Feng froze solid.

He stared blankly at the weapon in his hand.

The Tang sword "Death Dragon" that had accompanied him for so long, slain countless weird things, and which he cherished as his life, snapped cleanly in half.

The broken blade tip spun away, embedding itself in the distant floor with a humming vibration.

Like the death‑rattle of a dying man.

"No......"

Ouyang Feng's gaze instantly went hollow.

Before he could recover from the shock, a massive iron hook slammed through his abdomen, hoisting him aloft.

"Ah!!!"

A shrill scream echoed through the corridor.

The chief physician waved the boning knife in his other hand, sliding it slowly and methodically down along the wound from the iron hook.

Splash!

Warm organs mixed with fresh blood splashed out across the floor.

"The organs... are not neat... need to be removed..."

The monster tilted its head, as if admiring its handiwork, then suddenly flung the torn-cloth-bag-like Ouyang Feng hard against the medical cabinet by the wall.

Boom!

The glass cabinet door shattered, and various unknown medicine bottles and instruments scattered across the floor.

Ouyang Feng lay in the glass shards, the pool of blood beneath him spreading rapidly.

Life was rapidly draining from that huge gap.

His vision began to blur, and the sounds in his ears flickered between far and near.

"Is this... how I'm going to die?"

"To die in this dark corner, ripped open like a stray dog?"

I refuse to accept this!

In his mind, images flashed by like a revolving lantern.

Chen Shao's scarlet, indifferent left eye seemed to be looking at an ant.

Jiang Yuan's calm, indifferent silhouette, and that all-consuming black shadow.

Even Liang Wen, that clown-like figure, could strut arrogantly before him.

"Is this... hell...?"

Ouyang Feng's fingers unconsciously scratched in the pool of blood.

Suddenly.

His fingertip touched something.

Cold, slick, and even... faintly throbbing.

He struggled to open his eyes, glued shut with blood.

It was a section of spine.

Only half a meter long, deathly pale, each segment covered in fine barbs. It was not a dead object, but crawled along the ground like a snake, seemingly trying to find a host.

It seemed to have been poured out of the medical cabinet.

—How could such a thing be in the medical cabinet?

Ouyang Feng didn't know.

He only saw the monster pushing a wheelchair, creaking as it approached him, drool dripping from its big mouth onto the floor, sending up puffs of white steam.

"Still... need to... continue... treatment..."

Ouyang Feng looked at the writhing deathly pale spine in his hand, then glanced at the distant broken "Death Dragon."

That knife broke.

His pride also broke.

As a "human," Ouyang Feng had been utterly defeated.

Thinking again of Chen Shao, Jiang Yuan, and the others, intense jealousy and unwillingness overcame his fear of death.

Given the current crisis, this was his only option.

"Since the harder I try, the more I realize humans have limits..."

On Ouyang Feng's blood‑smeared face, a grin more hideous than a ghost's suddenly burst forth.

That was the expression only a madman in dire straits would have.

"Then... I'll stop being human!"

He gathered his last strength, seized the spiky ghost spine, aimed it at the huge tear in his abdomen, and drove it—

—stabbing it in!

Pfft!

The living ghost spine, like a shark smelling blood, instantly burrowed into his body.

Er—ahhhhh!!!

This was no longer a sound a human could make.

It was the wail of a soul being torn apart.

The moment the ghost spine drilled in, it began frenziedly gnawing at his original spine. The sound of bones cracking exploded inside his body like a string of firecrackers.

Excruciating pain?

No, it had surpassed the limits of pain perception.

Ouyang Feng's body thrashed wildly on the ground, arching like a cooked shrimp.

Beneath his skin it felt as if countless mice were scurrying—new bone growing wildly.

He felt a violent consciousness trying to seize his will.

But he suppressed it with extreme willpower, intense unwillingness, a will to survive, and a desire to keep it down.

The monster chief physician halted its movements.

Even though it was a weird entity, it now sensed from the dying human an aura that unsettled it.

"Error... mutation... purge..."

It raised all its blades and came crashing down on Ouyang Feng in a frenzy.

Clang—!

A crisp metallic impact sound.

No flesh and blood flew.

Only Ouyang Feng was seen kneeling on the ground, his two forearms' outer sides each piercing the skin, sprouting a segment of stark white bone blade.

The bone blade displayed a semi‑transparent jade texture, its surface covered with dark red Blood Channels, its hardness terrifyingly surpassing steel!

That strike just now was made by these twin bone blades, firmly bracing the monster's chainsaw and cleaver.

Ouyang Feng slowly lifted his head.

His pupils, once stark black and white, had now turned a pallid white, with only a needle‑tip‑sized black iris at the center, brimming with primal brutality and murderous desire.

The skin on his back explosively tore open, a row of sword‑like Bone Spikes pierced his combat suit, snarlingly exposed to the air.

"Hehe... Hahaha..."

He stared at his now mutated arms, letting out a nervous, maniacal laugh.

Power.

This is the power he has long coveted!

No damned technique is needed, no bullshit will is required; as long as one abandons humanity, it can be obtained so easily!

"Come..."

Ouyang Feng stood up; the once‑lethal wound in his abdomen had been forcibly sewn shut by newly formed bone, only the dark‑red flesh still writhed.

He yanked the bone blade free, removed it from his hand, and fused it into a bone‑crafted Tang Sword, still dangling with a few strands of shredded flesh.

"The battle has only just begun."

Swoosh!

He moved.

This time, there was no afterimage.

Only a stark white line of death.

The monster hadn't even had time to shift its gaze when Ouyang Feng's silhouette already appeared behind it.

The eight‑armed monster's body suddenly went rigid.

Immediately after,

From crown to hips, a fine Blood Channel slowly surfaced.

Whoosh!

The massive torso split neatly in two, the incision smooth as a mirror.

Filthy blood and entrails burst everywhere in an instant, painting the narrow Corridor with a hellish tableau.

Ouyang Feng stood in the rain of blood, letting the foul liquid drench his entire body.

The madness in his eyes gradually cooled, replaced by a heart‑pounding ashen death.

Ouyang Feng walked to the shattered mirror.

In the mirror, that monster stared at him coldly.

That is his current form.

Ugly, terrifying, no longer human.

Yet he smiled.

He smiled with unrestrained joy.