Life Dungeon Game

Perhaps in that alley, in an ending without He'ao, Jess died, and his body and soul were taken as materials to support the operation of the magic circle.

Just like how livestock can be reused after they die.

However, although the souls before He Ao have always been here, bound by some kind of force, it seems that those whose souls are not strong enough or whose inspiration is not high enough cannot see them.

For example, that receptionist nurse.

At first, He Ao thought she was ignoring these people, but when He Ao greeted the soul that reminded him to 'hurry up',

She asked He Ao in confusion why he had stopped, and at that moment, He Ao had already realized that something might be wrong.

However, he hadn't fully grasped this point at the time, so he didn't activate his super memory to see these patients and nurses. Later, the receptionist in black stockings mentioned that there weren't many nurses in the hospital.

However, as soon as He Ao entered the lobby, the nurses walking around seemed to be quite idle.

He Ao knew then that the nurses and patients in the lobby were special, but he didn't realize it until he saw the magic circle in the huge space on the third and fourth floors, and saw the structure related to the restrained soul in the magic circle carved on the floor.

He Ao was able to be completely certain that these people were in a soul state.

To be precise, they exist in a state between soul and physical form, created by a mysterious person as a kind of mutated evil spirit for food reserves.

He Ao didn't know how the mysterious person had managed to do this; perhaps it was with the help of a hidden being who was still asleep.

However, he knew very well that the power binding these spirits must have come from the magic array above.

In this mental hospital, there are only

That magic circle has a stable energy source—through sacrifice.

Therefore, as long as that magic circle is destroyed, these spirits will be freed.

Therefore, He Ao judged that he and these spirits shared common interests and that he could obtain their help.

However, the premise is that the minds of these spirits have not been completely assimilated. In their alienated and incomplete souls, there are still some emotions of their own. Only in this way can they make judgments and cooperate with He'ao.

He Ao was somewhat confident about this, because since the 'patient' who sat in front of the elevator was able to break free from the assimilation of those thoughts and remind him to leave, then other souls might still have some self-awareness.

However, he wasn't entirely confident.

He gazed at the spirits, raised his bracelet to check the time; fifteen minutes had passed since he entered the building.

If everything goes as he expects, the FBI will arrive in at least fourteen minutes.

He turned his gaze back to the spirits before him.

Without the help of these spirits, his plan would be difficult to carry out.

If all else fails, he will have to try to use his super memory to spread his soul power and see if he can forcibly awaken the self-awareness of these spirits.

An eerie silence pervaded the hall, broken only by the cacophony of the enormous television screen.

In the silence, a thin figure in a hospital gown, head held high, slowly stood up and walked toward He Ao.

His cloudy eyes stared at He Ao.

They seemed to be waiting for He Ao's next words.

Immediately afterwards, the souls behind him came one by one, approaching Heo.

He Ao breathed a sigh of relief. He looked at the thin figure leading the way; this was the same person who had warned him to leave quickly earlier.

He seemed to have suffered some kind of severe torture before his death; his neck was broken, and he could only hold his head up. His cheeks were also somewhat deformed, making it difficult to see his original appearance.

He stared at his face, trying to mentally correct his features to look normal.

Then he turned his gaze to the spirits, knowing they could understand him. "If you want to be freed from these constraints, go to the ninth floor, then the tenth floor..."

······

As the instructions were given, the spirits slowly floated up and entered the elevator shaft, drifting upwards along it.

The one who remained at the end was the soul that held its head high and kept expressing goodwill towards He Ao.

He Ao gazed at the emaciated figure, comparing him to someone in Jess's memory, and said slowly, "You stay here. If anyone tries to come in later, can you help me stop them?"

The soul seemed to sense some emotion flowing through his cloudy eyes as it gazed at him. He nodded gently and slowly walked towards the door.

He Ao watched his retreating figure, breathed a sigh of relief, and then jumped directly into the elevator shaft, quickly climbing upwards along it.

He first went to the sixth floor and opened all the closed doors.

Those who, in theory, should have lost their minds and been completely assimilated, instinctively stepped out the moment the door opened.

Among these people were two superhumans who had gone completely insane due to mind assimilation.

Those who tried to attack He Ao were all cleaved in two by He Ao with a single axe blow.

After everyone left the room, several illusory spirits appeared behind He Ao and, together with He Ao, pulled and pushed these completely assimilated people into the elevator.

He Ao didn't stay there. After seeing the first group of people off in the elevator, he went straight up to the ninth floor via the fire escape stairs. By then, it had been 20 minutes since he entered the hospital.

"Ghost!!!"

The ninth floor was in complete chaos, with illusory spirits moving through the rooms and opening the locked wards.

Those who were imprisoned in the wards, whether they were truly mentally ill or not, instinctively rushed out of the wards.

The people here are all ordinary people; they can't see those spirits.

However, He Ao instructed those spirits to interfere with the outside world as much as possible and demonstrate their presence, such as by rocking the bed, overturning the vase, and shaking the lamp.

To coordinate with the actions of these spirits, Heo had Eve control the building's central air conditioning system, switching it to rapid cooling mode.

A cool breeze then swept through the entire hospital.

The corridor was filled with panicked people rushing towards the elevators and fire escape stairs.

There are also a few nurses who work the night shift to take care of these 'patients', but their numbers are very small.

These nurses may not know the true situation of the hospital, because they themselves are, in fact, the hospital's 'livestock'.

They had no idea that this job might lead them to their deaths.

In the lobby on the first floor, many of the souls are nurses.

The chaos was brought under control after Heo's arrival.

After a series of killings, the fear emanating from He Ao's 'terrorist' form had become extremely intense. Powerful superhumans might not feel it, but for ordinary people, this fear was akin to a tiger opening its massive, saliva-covered maw above their heads.

Some patients were so terrified that they remained in the area.

The remaining people frantically ran towards any place that could leave the floor.

Seeing the situation developing in the direction he had hoped for, He Ao breathed a sigh of relief.

After roughly driving these people away, He Ao went to the next floor, going up floor by floor, and in the process, he sowed the seeds of fear in the same way.

During this process, he felt his mastery of the 'Fearmaker' talent sequence was rapidly improving; he could even selectively control which target to apply stronger or weaker fear to.

Indeed, the core of the terrorists' understanding is still 'spreading fear'.

After 'intimidating' the patients on the thirteenth floor...

He Ao glanced at the time.

Twenty-seven minutes had passed since he entered the hospital.

The thirteenth floor was the last floor with people.

He leaned against the window on the thirteenth floor and glanced out. A black and white vehicle with the FBI emblem was slowly pulling up in front of the dilapidated iron gate outside the hospital.

The FBI agents arrived two minutes earlier than he expected.

They must have been on duty nearby and were directly dispatched here.

Two agents in FBI uniforms got out of the car, pushed open the iron gate, and quickly headed towards the building.

At this moment, He Ao had already withdrawn his gaze, jumped into the elevator shaft, and slid down to the empty fourth or fifth floor.

In the cave.

He stepped over Ellen's enormous corpse and re-entered the space shimmering with purple light.

As the assimilated 'sacrifices' on the sixth floor were quickly transported away, the purple magic circle became unstable.

He walked to the back of the space and placed his hand on the wooden box.

The commotion could be faintly heard coming from upstairs; it was the sound of people being driven away from the hospital by spirits.

······

"Ghost! There is a ghost!"

As the two FBI agents approached the entrance, they saw a large group of patients and nurses frantically running out of the mental hospital and fleeing.

The two agents exchanged a glance, drew their pistols, squeezed through the crowd, and quickly moved forward against the flow of people to the elevator door.

The instant they crossed the gate, the bright lights in their field of vision turned blood red.

Various twisted instruments of torture appeared continuously along the blood-red walls.

Shadows began to emerge from beneath the instruments of torture.

The young FBI agent instinctively raised his gun to fire, but was stopped by the older agent next to him. "Don't be impulsive, it's an illusion. There are evil spirits in this building."

After saying that, he took out a silver cross from his clothes, held the gun in one hand and the cross in the other, and slowly moved forward. "Follow me and be careful not to get separated from the crowd."

The young detective nodded and followed behind the older detective.

A faint, hazy light emanated from the cross, enveloping the old detective and the space around him, preventing the blood-red shadows from getting close for a moment.

“Strange, this evil spirit isn’t very strong,” the old detective frowned, looking at the people running out in a panic. “Could there be other evil spirits?”

"It seems like fewer people are escaping."

The young agent following behind him said with some confusion.

“Yes,” the old detective nodded, “these evil spirits seem to be intentionally driving away the people in this hospital.”

He frowned. "What do these evil spirits want to do?"

The orders he received from above were that powerful superhuman thugs had infiltrated the building, and that evil spirits might be involved in causing harm and disturbances; he was to investigate.

But what he sees now seems different from what was ordered.

He saw the evil spirit, but it didn't seem to harm anyone.

The only thing that showed him aggression was the evil spirit that created the illusions upon entering, but even that spirit only wanted to stop them from coming in, not to harm them.