Chapter 6: The Bloody Banquet
The brightly lit corridor evoked a sense of familiarity. The sounds of fighting echoed in his ears, and upon seeing the bald man in metallic scale armor, he realized it was the same corridor from before. Had he been thrown out of one glass door only to be thrown back in through another? When Suren looked back, the shattered glass had miraculously restored itself. If it weren’t for the shards of glass still on the floor, he would have thought he had experienced an illusion. There was something wrong with the space in this mansion!
“An illusionary space? Or is it the ability of the ‘Ghost Species’?” Suren felt increasingly that this world was strange, but soon he had an epiphany, “Of course, if it were so easy to escape by jumping out of a window, those guys wouldn’t have been killed by these bizarre puppets.”
With that leap, Suren had fallen back into the corridor and into a pile of puppets. He was like a lamb to the slaughter. The puppets might not cause much harm to the bald man, but for an ordinary person like Suren, they were definitely lethal.
Suren had already resigned himself to his fate, but to his surprise, the puppets seemed to ignore him and floated past him, heading towards the bald man. “Huh, they didn’t attack me?” Suren watched the puppets float past him, feeling a sense of relief as if he had survived a disaster. He speculated quietly, “Could it be because they discovered the ‘surveillance’ earlier?”
He had a hunch that these puppets didn’t kill him because the “Ghost Species” found him to be an interesting toy and didn’t want to kill him so quickly. This was quite a predicament.
Just then, without warning, he heard a series of chilling bone-breaking sounds. Upon closer inspection, all of Markus’s joints had been broken in reverse. Like a marionette, he was suspended in the air by invisible threads, his head drooping lifelessly.
Markus was dead!
After his death, the knife-wielding puppets stopped attacking the bald Ivan and retreated like a tide, disappearing at the end of the corridor.
Not far away, Bald Ivan, who had just witnessed the sudden and gruesome death of his subordinate, was clearly dumbfounded and cursed, “Damn it!”
There were no puppets around Markus, so how did he die? He suddenly realized that the “Ghost Species” might have more tricks up its sleeve than just controlling puppets.
Bald Ivan naturally noticed Suren, who had been spared by the puppets earlier, and guessed that he might know something.
But before he could ask, a closed door nearby suddenly opened. An amiable old man in a tailcoat walked out and said emotionlessly, “My master invites the two of you to dine in the banquet hall.”
Master, dining? Upon hearing this, Suren raised an eyebrow. This didn’t seem like good news.
As he heard these words, his gaze fell on the butler-like old man. He noticed that the old man’s eyes didn’t move at all when he spoke, and upon closer inspection, his skin had a waxy sheen.
Clearly, this butler was not a living person.
Suren remained calm. The key point was, even if he wanted to make a fuss, he couldn’t beat them.
But how could Bald Ivan, with his explosive temper, tolerate this?
You just killed one of my brothers in front of me, and now you’re inviting me to dinner?
“Go to hell!”
Bald Ivan cursed and fired a shot. The butler was blown to pieces.
But then, that deep voice suddenly sounded again, ominously saying, “If you don’t follow the rules of the game, you’ll be killed.”
“Hmph!”
Bald Ivan snorted, still somewhat dismissive.
But suddenly, without any warning, his entire body stiffened, just like Markus when he died.
Suren, who was not far away, saw clearly this time. A series of crystal-clear threads like fishing lines had bound Bald Ivan, making him unable to move.
And as the threads tightened, the metallic scales on Bald Ivan’s skin cracked open, and the threads cut directly into his flesh, spilling bright red blood.
Suren watched with his eyelids twitching, “What a bizarre method.”
Clearly, the power of that bizarre creature far exceeded his imagination.
Seeing that Ivan would be dismembered into several pieces in the next second, just before his body was torn apart, Bald Ivan, who had lost all his previous bravado, shouted, “Wait, I’ll go!”
And so, Suren and Bald Ivan were invited into the banquet hall by the butler, who had been half blown to pieces.
The place was also extravagantly decorated, with soothing music playing from a phonograph.
The dining table was already filled with many people. It looked lively, and the dining atmosphere seemed quite harmonious.
Suren was guided to an empty seat by a maid puppet.
He glanced at the people at the table and had a rough idea.
Although these “people” were all sitting in their places, their faces were expressionless and their bodies stiff.
Clearly, none of them were alive.
They were either puppets or corpses fixed to their seats with threads, looking extremely eerie and bizarre.
However, Suren wasn’t too surprised. He naturally wouldn’t think that the “Ghost Species” would kindly invite them to dinner.
And looking at Bald Ivan’s disgusted expression, he probably recognized these corpses.
The two of them took their seats, and the maid dressed as a puppet tied napkins around them, then lifted the silver cover from the plate in front of them.
Suren had smelled a strong scent of blood when he sat down and had a vague guess about what was coming.
When the cover was lifted, the smell of blood was even stronger.
In front of him was a piece of reddish-brown liver, still slightly bloody, as if it had just been taken from a living body.
There probably weren’t any live animals in this mansion, so it wasn’t hard to guess what kind of liver this was.
Suren raised an eyebrow, not too surprised.
In this bizarre mansion, if it were normal food, that would be strange.
He had played many twisted horror games, and this plot wasn’t too outrageous.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that his plate was relatively good.
In front of the bald man was a human head. The eyeballs were placed in a small dish, seemingly a “dessert” for after the meal.
Upon seeing the green hair next to it, he realized that the head was an old acquaintance – the rooster head that Suren had killed in the study earlier.
At this time, that haunting voice sounded again, “The rules of the game are: you must finish eating. Otherwise, you’ll die.”
At this moment, all the “people” at the table, whether they were puppets or corpses, turned their heads and stared at the two living people on the table with hollow eyes.
The butler next to them also urged them with a warning tone, “What, esteemed guests, does the food not suit your taste?”
Neither Suren nor Bald Ivan intended to eat the things on their plates.
But clearly, whether they ate or not, it wasn’t up to them.
At this time, several transparent threads had quietly fallen from the beams and bound their limbs.
Suren noticed something, but didn’t feel anything unusual about his body.
Bald Ivan next to him obviously realized what was happening. His face turned very ugly, and he muttered despairingly, “Mental ‘body control’, at least a ‘gold level’ Ghost Species, we’re done for.”
He had already experienced the power of these threads. He thought it was just physical control and thought he might have a chance if he found an opportunity.
But he didn’t expect that sitting in this chair, he would confirm that the “Ghost Species” was also good at mental control.
This was an ability that could easily kill him.
Suren listened carefully to what Bald Ivan was muttering.
Soon, he also understood what “body control” meant.
At this time, he found that his hands were lifting uncontrollably, then picked up the knife and fork next to the plate, and began to cut the liver in the plate, his movements elegant and gentlemanly.
This feeling was very strange, not simply like a marionette, but as if the brain had lost control of the body. He could only watch as his hands uncontrollably cut the meat on the plate.
In this quiet banquet hall, it was particularly creepy.
(End of Chapter)
