Resolution

Whoosh!

A black spike pierced through Zhu Yan’s mist-like body and thudded into the tile behind him.

“Wow.” A female voice sounded unexpectedly right by his ear. “Congratulations, player.”

“You’ve been struck by a [Plague Ghost] bone spike.”

What was there to congratulate?

Zhu Yan didn’t understand at all.

Outside the door, the corpse-sticks had crowded in tighter, their dense bone spikes falling like rain in a storm, one after another sinking into the flesh-and-blood-formed [Mist].

There were more corpse-sticks than Zhu Yan had expected. At a glance, their glossy, thick scalps packed together into a dense, unbroken mass.

“Congratulations—you’ve already taken the [Plague Tincture].”

The female voice continued, almost gleeful.

Zhu Yan had no time for it.

He focused on what was ahead, waiting until the first wave of spikes had thinned out before carefully edging forward a little more.

The corpse-stick ahead wore a rigid expression, reaching its icy fingers into the fog and stirring.

“…Is it dead?”

Clearly not.

That strange mass of shredded flesh and bone-blood was still flowing, and the player’s smell hadn’t weakened in the slightest.

“This thing’s weird. Is it some kind of horror creature that gives off the scent of human meat?”

It stared at the empty spike-launcher in its hand, then reached out and stirred the fog again with force.

The blood-mist stretched all the way into the depths of the corridor inside the [Kitchen], dense as a wall.

“That’s not right. The spikes are all used up—why is this thing still like this?”

The corpse-stick said stiffly and coldly, as if genuinely confused.

Dragonfly was beside it, rubbing its forelegs like a fly, a gleam of sharp light flashing through its glittering compound eyes.

It could only see the blood-mist and smell the thick aroma of meat.

But unlike the corpse-stick, it knew better—corpse-sticks were the dumbest of the dumb.

The blood-mist was obviously a [Hunter]!

And this [Hunter]—did it have more than one ability, or had it gotten lucky and awakened the kind of rare, destiny-grade talent?

Either way, this was fascinating.

Dragonfly shuffled back a couple of steps, silently watching the situation unfold.

The corpse-stick raised an arm and waved, leading a few rigid companions a few steps forward.

Just a few meters away, in the corridor, a humanoid puppet was slowly rising to its feet within the blood-mist.

Zhu Yan flicked his mind, and the military knife appeared in his hand.

He walked forward slowly. Soon, the corpse-sticks outside saw a hazy silhouette moving through the mist.

“Who’s there?” One of them asked in a cold voice, raising its launcher and pulling the trigger uselessly.

“Are you a high-level [Demon] sent by the Head Chef?”

But a high-level [Demon] wouldn’t have such a perfectly proportioned human form, would it?

Inside the blood-mist, the silhouette drew closer.

“Yes.” A voice answered the corpse-stick’s question—youthful, with a slightly hoarse edge.

“I’m the one it sent. But…”

The corpse-stick froze in displeasure.

The figure moved fast, and the surrounding blood-mist grew thinner and thinner.

It had already gotten a full look at this “[Demon]”—

It was clearly just a human!

This human didn’t have that rich player-scent, sure, but that vibrant skin, that innocent face, and those lively eyes that only humans had…

How could this possibly be a high-level [Demon]?

The corpse-stick opened its mouth to speak.

But the other side was much faster. It only heard a crisp crack from below its neck.

The next second, its vision spun wildly—what it could see shifted from that “player’s” head to the dense forest of corpse-sticks’ feet.

A casual explanation drifted down from above, filling its ears.

“…But I killed the Head Chef, actually.”

With another crack, a second severed head—one in the same sorry state as its own—rolled into its field of view.

“Ah, whatever. That was just an excuse, anyway.”

Their neck bones were stiffer than other horror creatures’—Zhu Yan only realized that after test-cutting two of them.

Luckily, the knife’s quality was excellent.

Even though the blade met more resistance cutting through the neck bone than before, severing the head was still effortless.

Zhu Yan swung away diligently, chopping at these rigid-limbed horror creatures like he was slicing green onions in a vegetable patch.

While his hands kept busy hacking, he took a moment to explain to them.

“It’s just that high-level [Demon] is the horror creature category I’m most familiar with.”

It was the category he could impersonate most convincingly.

“If I’d known you were this easy to fool, I’d have said I was a False Human.”

Gotta keep some cards hidden in front of Dragonfly!

Head after head flew off, thudding against the floor with the dull, muffled sound of a deflated ball hitting tiles.

The military knife followed up, stabbing into their bodies, and sticky fluids spurted out from the tops of their necks like fountains, surging in waves.

Cutting off heads was a useless, redundant move.

But cutting off heads came with that satisfying rush—like slicing fruit or chopping vegetables!

“You killed the Head Chef!” The lead corpse-stick let out a shriek.

The sound had no real emotion behind it, just an earsplitting pitch that hurt Zhu Yan’s ears.

“Impossible?! You’re a [Hunter]? But you’re so low-level!”

Zhu Yan kicked aside a few headless bodies standing frozen, then booted the screaming head across the room.

It slammed against the corridor wall with a thud, its piercing shriek nearly tearing through the entire kitchen.

“Enough! How dare you treat me like this?! How dare you destroy a treasure instrument like mine!”

Treasure instrument?

Zhu Yan raised an eyebrow.

He pinpointed the corpse-stick’s half-body among the crowd, and the military knife sank cleanly through its chest cavity.

Silence at last.

A few steps away, Dragonfly huddled among the bodies with its neck tucked in, eyes gleaming at the [Hunter] in front of it.

What a brilliant move—borrowing arrows with that straw boat!

In such a short span, everything had changed—utterly changed.

How had this [Hunter] swapped out its skin like that?

Such advanced craftsmanship—it reminded Dragonfly of a shapeshifting puppet it had recently sold at its shop, where the buyer could specify one alteration of appearance.

…Could this be it?

Dragonfly thought of the buyer’s identity and shrank its neck again.

This [Hunter] was no simple thing!

It was becoming clear that staying out of it and playing dead had been the smartest call it ever made.

Dragonfly stared at Zhu Yan, who was still slaughtering relentlessly nearby, and let out a loud wail.

“Aaaaah—I’m so doomed!”

“I finally make a trip here, and this happens again. It’s too terrifying for a dragonfly!”

Zhu Yan chopped off a corpse-stick’s reaching claw and glanced over at Dragonfly.

Dragonfly was right there—flailing among a pile of headless bodies.

As if sensing Zhu Yan’s gaze, it tilted its compound eyes sideways and then, without warning, slammed its head hard against the wall.

“Rather than get scared to death, I’d rather do it myself!”

It was a flimsy excuse.

But it was enough to show the [Hunter] it had zero desire to get involved.

Dragonfly’s head smacked into the corner, and in the same moment, Zhu Yan cut down the last corpse-stick in the corridor.

He turned his head—Dragonfly had already collapsed limply to the ground, its condition unknown.