The thickest ones were nearly as wide as two people, while the thinnest were the size of Gu Xiang Kai's arm, densely clinging to the walls and pulsating as if breathing.
Everyone watched, skin crawling with horror—had they really been working in a place like this all along?
The castle now resembled a beating heart, with everyone trapped inside its chambers, surrounded by a network of blood vessels.
"Ah!"
Su Hong's short scream rang out, and Nan Yue turned to see a human figure faintly visible inside a person-thick blood vessel near the second floor.
It was Zhao Xiao Shu!
"Help..."
Half of Zhao Xiao Shu's body had already been absorbed, and it was unclear if he had become a vengeful spirit or was still truly alive, numbly repeating his plea for help.
No wonder they could hear a man's cry for help whenever they went to the second floor but could never find the source.
He was inside the wall.
Or rather, inside the castle's blood vessels.
Such scenes were not uncommon, as Nan Yue saw many servants who had likely made mistakes in the past now encased in the vessels.
Some had been absorbed completely, while others were still struggling.
Coupled with the thick, pulsating vessels, the sight was dizzying and nauseating.
Su Hong squeezed her eyes shut, her mental stability dropping too rapidly; she would go mad if she looked any longer.
Xu Kang barely held on, his gaze lingering on Wen Que nearby, a flash of ruthlessness crossing his eyes.
Where had she hidden the key?
A cold glint appeared in Xu Kang's hand, and while everyone's attention was on Wen Chu, he suddenly struck, slashing open Wen Que's puffy dress.
There was no place on her body to hide a key, so the only possibility was inside her skirt.
He didn't want to face any boss; he just wanted to get the key and run.
As for the others...
They could serve as shields against this eerie castle.
However, the moment Xu Kang slashed the hem, he was drenched in a spray of gushing blood.
Nan Yue whipped her head around, her black mist coiling around Xu Kang's neck.
"No... it's impossible, I controlled my strength, I couldn't have hurt her!"
The veins on Xu Kang's forehead bulged as he realized Nan Yue truly intended to kill him!
He didn't know why, but Nan Yue was definitely going to kill him!
Wen Que had fallen to the floor, blood merging her skirt with the red velvet carpet as she gritted her teeth in pain, sweat breaking out on her forehead.
Nan Yue looked at Wen Que and saw her skirt moving.
The others clearly saw the horrifying sight as well, and Su Hong and Huo Fuyu instinctively backed away.
After a moment of hesitation, Nan Yue stepped forward and crouched down to lift Wen Que's skirt.
She wasn't blind to Wen Que's resistance and terror, but things had come to this, and she had to know the secret of this castle.
As the skirt was lifted, Nan Yue was so shocked she was speechless for the first time.
Beneath Wen Que's skirt were not deformed legs.
Instead...
There were countless tangled, red, and slimy blood vessels, like the tentacles of an octopus.
Those vessels plunged into the carpet, connecting her to the entire castle.
"Hahahahaha!"
Wen Chu burst into wild laughter nearby, doubling over with mirth.
"I was just about to ask, where exactly do you plan on taking this monster!"
Wen Que snapped her head around to look at Nan Yue, her eyes fierce like a leopard whose wound had been touched.
But Nan Yue clearly saw the tears she was holding back, along with a deep sense of fear and confusion.
It was the fear of being abandoned.
Huo Fuyu and the others avoided looking at the scene under Wen Que's skirt, but Gu Xiang Kai and his companions noticed that the moment Nan Yue saw Wen Que's condition, her expression turned ice-cold.
Wen Que saw it too, and assuming it was disgust, she endured the pain of a severed vessel and trembled slightly.
"You..."
Before Wen Que could finish, she saw the woman in front of her look up.
"Who turned you into this?"
Nan Yue's gaze was frigid, and Wen Que instinctively shuddered, answering without even thinking of arguing.
"...I've always been like this..."
Nan Yue laughed, though she rarely did so during missions, so Huo Fuyu and the others had never seen her laugh like this before.
Huo Fuyu's body shook; even though she looked beautiful when she smiled, why did it feel so terrifying?
Human intuition was rarely wrong, and those familiar with Nan Yue knew this was a sign of her being pushed to the absolute limit of her rage.
"Always like this?"
"Who would be born like this?"
Nan Yue's gaze slowly shifted to Wen Chu, who was waiting to see a good show.
Targeted by that terrifying gaze, Wen Chu backed away two steps and said in a panic.
"She... she just is! She's a monster!"
The black mist coiled around Wen Chu without touching him, instead forming a cage that trapped him.
Wen Chu didn't know what it was, but his survival instinct told him to stay as far away from it as possible.
"Fine, I'll talk... she doesn't remember, but I remember clearly that it started on her fourteenth birthday."
Wen Que looked dazed; she truly didn't remember, as in her memory, she had always been this way.
"What happened on her fourteenth birthday?"
Wen Chu swallowed hard as the black mist drew closer.
"I... I... when she was fourteen, I gave her to the current President."
The black mist suddenly tightened, but instead of piercing Wen Chu's skin, it acted like a branding iron under Nan Yue's control, searing wounds into his body that emitted trails of white smoke.
"Ahhh!!!"
A piercing scream rang out as Wen Chu struggled violently, his skin emitting the scent of seared meat.
At that moment, the entire castle began to grow restless.
The blood vessels that were originally attached to the walls began to peel away like writhing snakes, surrounding the tiny humans and preparing to attack.
Xu Kang and the others saw layers of teeth inside the vessels, shifting like sand in the waves as the vessels moved.
With just that one look, their mental stability plummeted.
Steel Thorns with a metallic luster surrounded Nan Yue and the others.
Though the two-man-tall thorns seemed like a futile struggle against the massive vessels, the castle seemed to have a memory and did not act rashly, instead staying back warily.
The white mist quickly healed Wen Que's injury, and she looked at the man and woman standing in front of her in surprise.
She had never been protected before, let alone by people she had only known for a few days.
Didn't these people care that she was a monster?
"What are you doing! She's a monster! Why are you healing her? She's going to control these disgusting vessels to attack us!"
Since Nan Yue had spared him, Xu Kang hadn't dared to move, but now he huddled within Gu Xiang Kai's thicket of thorns, staring at the vessels outside with a hysterical look.
Rate on N.U.
