Gordon could barely make out the puppet’s outline amidst the hazy darkness.
The vague humanoid shape seemed ready to rise from the bed at any moment.
‘Are the puppet’s hands in a different position from before?’
He gave himself a light slap on the cheeks.
Why were his thoughts spiraling out of control, as if he was under some insidious spell? A puppet that was not imbued with magic could not move, no matter how realistic it appeared. It was an inanimate object, incapable of independent action. That much was obvious.
Gordon recast the illumination spell, and flipped the puppet over.
While its back was free of graffiti, several characters had been carved into the back of its head, seemingly with a knife. He leaned close, in an attempt to decipher them.
‘Sally.’
It looked like a name.
As Gordon returned the puppet to the bedside, a strange, inexplicable feeling washed over him — He could feel the weight of several gazes on his back.
He peered through the door gap, but found only darkness in the empty corridor.
With a sigh of relief, he stepped out of the second bedroom.
Passing by the third room with its door ajar, he figured he would give it a quick look before leaving.
“Rumble!” A flash of lightning bathed everything in white, revealing countless eyes and a dark figure standing by the window.
“Who’s there?!” Goosebumps erupted all over his body as he drew his sword and charged inside. With the aid of his illumination spell, the being’s appearance was revealed to him.
A graffiti-ed face and crudely made body; It was another wooden puppet identical to the one from before. Its eyes, outlined in garish paint, seemed to be locked directly onto him as it stood by the windowsill.
“Another one of these nasty pranks.” Gordon glared at the wooden puppet for a moment. He took a deep breath to steady his nerves, and slowly slid his starfire sword back into its scabbard.
He realized he needed to get out of here fast. The shadowy figure lurking in the depths of the apartment had probably heard his shouts. It was only a matter of time before it would find him.
Just as he was about to move, a sense of confusion gripped Gordon. He turned to look at the puppet behind him.
He could have sworn it had its back to him when the lightning illuminated the room…
Perhaps his heightened state was causing him to see things.
“Clink!” Preoccupied with the puppet, Gordon accidentally scraped his sword against the wall, peeling away its white paint to reveal dark patches underneath.
“That’s…” He furrowed his brows slightly. An idea seemed to form in his mind, and he scraped further with his blade. As more of the coating fell away, the surface beneath was revealed to be blackened and charred — confirming his suspicions.
‘Burn marks, and severe ones too. So that’s why they decided to paint the second floor in white — To cover this up…’
As he thought back to Ji Bai’s earlier words and the unnaturally perfect condition of the building…
…an answer began to form in his mind.
This building, too, had fallen victim to the devastating fire decades ago. The renovated second-floor walls bore witness to that. However, the ground level below told a different story; It was pristine and untouched, suggesting it had largely escaped the worst of the disaster.
Given that fire naturally spreads upwards, he figured the third floor must have suffered the same fate as the second, and therefore bear the same white paint as well.
This realization made him pause. Perhaps the reason they were forbidden from venturing upstairs was far more complicated than he had thought.
He turned around.
The puppet standing by the window sill continued to stare intensely at him. Its shadow, stretched long by the illuminated ball of light, writhed faintly across the floor.
As the room was once again illuminated by a pale bolt of lightning, a terrifying thought struck him, sending chills through his limbs and making his scalp crawl.
‘Decades ago, the fire had consumed these upper floors, taking every resident with it. And now, at midnight, those lost souls would return to their former homes…’
‘If that’s really the case, then…’
Gordon checked behind the puppet. Just as he expected, he found a name inscribed on the back of its head. Just like the one before.
‘Are those puppets actually alive? Could that shadow be the vengeful spirit of someone who died here…?’
‘No, I shouldn’t jump to conclusions before getting to the bottom of this. Perhaps someone is playing a prank on me.’
‘But what could their motives be to orchestrate all this in the shadows?’
He exited the third room and made his way back to the stairwell.
Should he turn back now, or investigate further?
He looked towards the third floor, where the darkness was so thick it seemed to devour even light itself.
He felt there was something suspicious about this building, especially the strange statues placed at both ends of the corridor. They were most likely connected to the Ancestral God cult.
In the back of his mind, Gordon had a nagging feeling he had overlooked something.
“When beings of higher realms descend, the half-shattered tower shall crumble, surrendering its form to dust…”
‘The iron tower with that half-bull, half-snake creature coiled around it… Doesn’t it look like the broken spire in Silk Shuttle City?’
Indeed, he had only revealed part of what he knew to Ji Bai about these prophecies.
While that prayer-like phrase had indeed come from a ruin, he had deliberately downplayed its origin, leading them to dismiss it as unimportant.
Perhaps only he knew the true meaning of those words.
He suspected that there was a connection between the Lord of Sins and those strange statues. As for why they were placed throughout this building, he would likely only discover the answer by venturing upstairs and learning the details of the disaster that year.
He tightened his grip around the hilt of his sword and, without hesitation, ascended to the third floor.
The cold wind felt like the ragged exhalation of some giant beast. This sensation only grew stronger with each passing moment he was there, as his mounting restlessness and unease threatened to consume him whole.
Every cell in his body screamed danger, urging him to flee, yet the deep yearning in his heart compelled him to take the first step forward.
As he did so, his footsteps echoed softly through the corridor.
The layout was almost identical to the floor below, yet the cold air was much more intense here, like an invisible hand tightening around his throat.
Wooden puppets frozen in various poses filled the hallway, creating an unnaturally eerie sight.
Gordon knew he needed to find the mastermind behind all this. Ignoring the eerie figures for now, he focused on forcing out that dark figure hiding on this floor. Once he did so, all of this would end.
He steered clear of them and entered the first room in the hallway.
Like the others, this one was poorly furnished. It contained only a bed, a large wardrobe, and a puppet by the window of which he subconsciously ignored.
Aside from the wardrobe, the otherwise empty space offered no place to hide.
He flung its doors open, only to find nothing but a few hangers inside.
He realized something was amiss from the moment he entered, but he could not put his finger on it.
‘Where’s the graffiti? It was all over the rooms on the second floor, but here it’s only on the ground. What’s going on?’
Only the floor had drawings of facial features similar to those on the second floor; the four walls were pristine white, without any markings whatsoever.
‘Hold on, am I missing something…?’
‘That’s strange. The drawings are only on the floor here, whereas on the second floor they covered the ceiling too. This means the same surface has these grotesque facial features on both sides.’
As the realization dawned on him, he felt the sense of dread from before return. Suddenly, something clicked in his mind.
He ran his fingers across the graffiti on the floor, probing its surface until they slipped into a small hole.
“Just as I thought.”
Gordon withdrew his hand from the opening.
If the white paint was concealing charred bricks, then the drawings were likely hiding something as well.
Sure enough, there was a small hole, cleverly concealed among the dense facial features…
…Through this opening, he could see everything in the first room below.
Gordon’s heart skipped a beat.
It all clicked. The feeling that someone was watching him on the second floor earlier… It turned out that they had been doing that through this very hole all along!
That must also be why the black figure had checked that room earlier.
Even Gordon, who normally scoffed at fear, could not help but feel a cold dread creep over him when he realized that.
However, he could not understand why they had not searched the second room despite sensing his presence. Was something holding them back? Or were they not smart enough to deviate from their methodical search pattern?
He suspected it to be the former.
Heading back to the corridor, he found the strange, eccentric statues placed at its far end, as expected. But the iron tower the bull-serpent had been entwined with had vanished; The monster, now freed from its restraints, stood poised to strike, its wings unfurled and claws bared.
As he surveyed the layout more carefully, he was struck by just how obsessively symmetrical the entire building was.
Every part was perfectly aligned, from the way it split down the middle to the ways the rooms themselves were partitioned.
‘What could this possibly all mean?’
He turned around. The puppets in different poses had completely disappeared. A gust of chilly wind whistled through the barren corridor, the sudden emptiness sending shivers down his spine.
‘Has someone taken them away, or…’
He charged into the first room, and immediately stopped dead in his tracks.
The puppet standing by the window had vanished, just like the ones in the hallway.
‘Why did it suddenly disappear? It couldn’t have hidden somewhere, could it?’
Gordon’s eyes fell on the large wardrobe, the only hiding spot in the room.
Grasping the handle, he slowly pulled one of its wooden doors open.
For some reason, he needed to apply slightly more force this time. He figured its hinges, rusted from years of moisture damage, were to blame. seaʀᴄh thё NovelZone.fun website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.
The wardrobe was just as it had been, with the same hangers dangling inside.
‘Certainly large enough to hide someone.’ He thought, as he opened the other door.
Suddenly, a jolt shot through him – Someone was blowing icy air on his neck!
Every hair on his body stood on end as he spun around to face whatever was there.
A dark figure loomed rigidly behind him in the pale moonlight. Before he could react, it shoved him into the wardrobe and slammed the doors shut.
“Shit! What the hell is that?” Seized by panic, he swore uncontrollably in the cramped darkness.
As his prison of wood sealed shut, he was plunged into a void where he could not even see his hand. The claustrophobic space, the unknown figure outside, and the terror of being swallowed by shadows robbed him of all his composure.
He felt as if he had been buried inside a coffin.
“Bastard, just wait till I get my hands on you!” He could clearly sense the dark figure lingering outside, jamming something between the wardrobe handles to trap him in.
The confined space prevented him from using his sword to dislodge the obstruction, while his frantic pounding was only met with eerie silence from the outside.
He gradually calmed down. Taking out his casting materials, he searched his memory for a spell to get him out of this predicament.
‘Since brute force did not work, how about this then?’
[Origin Unknown | Lesser Fireball Spell]
“Boom!” The blast sent the doors flying outwards in a cloud of green smoke, taking the dark figure blocking the entrance with them as they crashed to the floor.
“Cough, cough… Damn it.” Casting the spell at such close quarters meant that Gordon was caught in its effect as well. This left him in a miserable state: His clothes were in tatters, and he reeked of smoke and charred fabric – looking every bit like a beggar who had stumbled out of a blazing fire.
‘I swear I won’t let this despicable bastard get away with this!’
When terror reached its peak, it would tip into insanity. Gordon glared at the dark figure with fury in his eyes. At the sight of the flames, the figure seemed to snap, bolting from the room and fleeing down the corridor like a madman.
“Where do you think you’re going?!” He roared, charging out in pursuit, only to find his path blocked by a wall of silhouettes in the doorway.
“What the…?” Gordon took an involuntary step back, the bizarre scene before him quenching his anger and frenzy in a wave of icy dread.
The puppets stood in perfect unison, completely filling the stairwell entrance. In the light orb’s glow, their crudely drawn faces took on a strange unsettling quality.
From where he stood, he could see they had overrun the third floor’s hallway, and likely the stairway down to the second floor as well.
“They’re just a bunch of wooden puppets, so why…?”
The dark red eyes painted on their faces seemed to come to life, as they stared unblinkingly at the intruder who had intruded into their domain.
He had barely taken two steps back when a prickling sensation on his neck made him whirl around. The figure was right there, standing directly behind him…
The light revealed a gaunt face with deep wrinkles and bloodshot, drooping eyes. A tattered coat hung from its frame, reeking of burnt fabric. Its skin was an inhuman pallor—not the complexion of someone alive.
Tears of blood flowed from their eyes, a sight that chilled him down to his bones.
The face before him looked strikingly similar to the old man in his dream.
‘Is he actually a ghost?!’
Gordon wasted no time, swinging his longsword. Sparks erupted as the blade struck the apparition, seemingly cutting through its arms.
“Bang, bang, bang…” A cacophony of harsh, jarring sounds rang endlessly in his ears.
The puppets’ heads clattered to the ground, rolling about like beans on a drum before their arms followed after.
Soon, severed parts littered the floor.
Gordon suddenly found himself unable to move, as if something was holding his body in place.
“Welcome, you’re one of us now.” An otherworldly voice, devoid of emotion, echoed through the air.
Bark enveloped his skin, hardening into a rigid shell around him. Before long, he could no longer scream.
—————————————————————
Warm rays of sunlight pierced through the dewdrops, lighting up the earth below.
The lump wrapped in the bedding shifted slightly.
Fully armored, Ji Bai cast a glance at the bundle on the bed and let out a sigh of relief.
Peace had arrived at last. Though he did not know exactly when, it had finally grown still after trembling all night.
Sleeping on the floor beside the bed, he had doubted whether the aging wooden frame would survive the night.
This place was truly eerie. Even in his sleep, he could hear faint footsteps and distant shouts. It was as if there were other people in the buildings with them, other than the innkeeper.
He was going to wake Gordon and get out of here, fast. Any hotel in the southern district would be far superior to this creepy old place.