Autophagy

"Then there's no need to wait anymore," Song Lei said. No matter how long he waited and chatted with Damien, he had to take his punishment in one way or another. He was still regretting killing Tao Cai a bit. When he killed Xiang Yimu back then, he had a pretty justifiable reason for doing so. But Tao Cai was killed because of a misunderstanding. He knew he wasn't the one to blame, but he still was an average young adult. Killing wasn't really his cup of tea.

"Okay then, I like that you're decisive," Damien praised. He got up from his chair and urged Song Lei to follow him outside to the hallway by holding his arm. "Come with me."

Song Lei followed along without saying anything. The hallway was dark and eerie just like before; although a bit weird, this situation of the hallway would actually relax Song Lei a lot. According to Old Wolf, they had no idea about the hell floors. Song Lei, a total newbie, would be exploring unknown ground. 'They're just sending me to my death aren't they?'

They reached the staircases. Song Lei Looked up and down the stairs and couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. Damien gave him some red chalk while whispering, "use this to draw safety lines while going up. The 15th floor is already done but you'll have to do it while going up to the 16th."

Song Lei nodded and didn't talk. He slowly started climbing the stairs with utmost caution. When he looked back, he saw Damien waving at him while smiling. This made Song Lei sigh. Damien really had a different mindset than other people. 'Old Wolf had said that the people whom I met from now on would be weird people. I guess he wasn't joking.'

After climbing up to floor 15, Song Lei felt something tugging at him. It wasn't in a physical sense, his entire being was being pulled. This made him feel nauseous. He was sweating bullets. Suddenly, a few lines of words appeared in his sight.

[You've entered nothing. The time you can be something inside nothing is related to your soul power. Time left until nothing: 00:02:21]

Song Lei had almost screamed because of the sudden system message, he quickly dismissed it. It 'Now I understand why the branch members couldn't pass the 15th floor. I'm guessing that the soul stat of an average person would be 2. Even though I have 5, I can't stay more than two and a half minutes. Branch members who ventured here wouldn't even know what hit them until they died.'

After passing by the 15th floor, Song Lei took out the chalk Damien gave him and started drawing the safety lines while going up. The tugging at his soul stopped after a few steps.

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[You've entered hell.] a system message showed up. It was to the point with no explanations. This one sentence was enough to make Song Lei shiver. He looked around to see whether something was wrong or not but there was nothing different. He kept climbing and soon reached the 16th floor. There were a few red balls scattered on the ground. Song Lei picked up one of them and threw it into his backpack. 'Damien said that I should collect these red balls. I wonder what they are used for.'

After picking a few up, Song Lei walked up to the wall and wrote a few words.

"DON'T GET NEAR THE RAILINGS"

After he was done, he slowly backed off and entered the hallway. 'Wasn't I supposed to get pulled into a dream space? Why am I- Oh.'

Song Lei stumbled and fell to the ground with a thud. His brain was getting smoother and smoother like he was falling into a deep sleep. He couldn't form any proper thoughts. Nothing he saw made sense. He couldn't move his muscles to his will. His sight blurry, he saw one last line of words and fainted.

...

[You've been pulled into a dream space.]

Song Lei's eyes slowly focused and realized that what he saw was an unfamiliar ceiling. 'Where am I?' He thought.

He tried his best to stand up but couldn't do so. His body was weak like never before. It wasn't that he couldn't control his body, he could, he just didn't have the power to stand up. He tried to push himself with his feet a little bit to take a look inside the room. 'Oh great. I'm not in my body.'

Song Lei looked at his feet and lower body while sighing. His body had become much smaller and weaker. From what he could see, every single piece of furniture in the room was ginormous. Compared to that, he looked like a little girl. After checking it, he realized that he really was in the body of a little girl. 'Come on... I had just gotten used to my new body and now I have to change it?'

He tried harder and harder to stand up. After a few minutes, he managed to do it. Although he was coughing and sweating, he could finally take a proper look at the room he was in.

The room had almond-colored walls and an amber-colored chandelier hanging from the ceiling. There was almost no furniture in the room other than a dressing table. This looked more like a hotel room rather than a little girl's room. It was too empty to feel at home, even Song Lei himself felt disturbed.

'Why is this body so weak? I don't think even a 3-year-old would be this weak.'

*Knock

Song Lei's eyes suddenly widened. Because he was absorbed in his thoughts, the sudden knocking on the door made his heart skip a beat. It wasn't an anxious, repetitive knock. The person on the other side just knocked at the door once and started waiting.

"Come in," Song Lei said with a childish voice. Because the room was devoid of furniture, his voice echoed. The door creaked open, the room got a bit colder and the lights were turned off. Song Lei squinted his eyes a little bit to get used to the darkness. When he did so, he started hyperventilating. There was a silver tray, slowly but surely floating towards him, footsteps were reverberating in every part of the room. Song Lei could understand that something was carrying the tray.

He still didn't have the power to get out of bed. Normally, he would quickly leave it and do his best to escape or fight. But now, even though his fight-or-flight response were ringing alarms, making his body filled with adrenaline, he still couldn't move a lot. As a last resort, Song Lei put on the best smile he could muster and spoke, "thank you."

The tray didn't change its course, the room was still filled with coldness. Song Lei cursed in his mind, 'It didn't work!? I thought that maybe if I were polite and thanked it for whatever was on the tray, it would leave me alone but that doesn't seem to be the case.'

He closed his eyes and waited. His very being, his soul was shaking uncontrollably. This wasn't a physical fear, it was coming from his deepest part. His soul knew that whatever the thing carrying the tray was, he was not a match for it.

After a few seconds, Song Lei felt himself being held. Then he felt a soft sensation on his back.

'What is this?'

Song Lei opened his eyes and realized that he was not dead. The thing had put a pillow behind his back and placed the tray on his lap. There was a plate filled with a seemingly normal tomato soup, a silver spoon, and some pills on the tray. Of course, they were oversized for Song Lei. 'Getting used to this will be hard. Was this how the world was from Ai's eyes?'

Suddenly, Song Lei's eardrums rumbled with a horrifying, unintelligible speech, "EA DAJ ASEAESA ASAS JAJAA?"

Song Lei tried to close his ears with his hands but he couldn't muster the strength. Because of the loud voice, Song Lei's balance was thrown off. If he was able to stand up before, he wouldn't be now.

After Song Lei's blurry sight recovered. He realized that the spoon was in front of his face being shoved into his mouth. As he didn't really have a choice, although he was hesitant, he drank the soup without resisting.

As the cold, tasteless and odorless soup went into his stomach, Song Lei felt disgusted at everything in the world, everything outside of this room was dangerous. Every single being was his enemy. Only negative feelings were present in this world.

Song Lei quickly pulled himself together. If he ate more of this soup, he would eventually become inhuman, turning into something made of hate. He refused to eat the next spoonful of soup. He made a gesture indicating that he was full to the invisible being. The spoon was put back into the tray.

Just as Song Lei sighed in relief, he felt a round-shaped thing entering his mouth.

'Fuck. It was the pill....'