The corpses clawed at his legs, their nails scraping against his skin hard enough to leave white streaks before breaking off.
More arms forced around his waist, pulling him deeper toward the hole as his vision shook.
His throat locked, mind twisting into the image of Lin's burned face staring at him from inches away.
Lin's lips were cracked open, revealing sets of blackened teeth. His empty sockets sank inward, and wet heat rose from the corpse's ruined chest as it pressed closer.
"Not even a god's favor would save you. You worthless, fateless being."
Lin's swollen fingers closed around Fèi Míng's ankle with enough force to bruise. The weight of all the corpses dragged him down. His chest tightened until breathing became impossible.
He reached for the bone mallet but his grip slipped. His power spiked without control and the mallet turned heavy enough to bow his arm, then light enough that it nearly flew out of his hands.
His vision blurred red, body convulsing as he let out a raw, animal cry. "AAAAGHHH!!!!"
More hands erupted from the hole, grabbing his shoulders, pulling, climbing over each other, reaching for his face. Their joints cracked loudly. Their rotten skin tore open, spilling larvae that crawled over his forearms and into the sleeves of his shirt. 'No, no, no, no!'
Suddenly, threads snapped around his ribs. A violent jerk ripped him upward.
The pile of corpses tore apart under him as if something dragged him from the center by force. The dead fingers scraped at his legs, leaving blood in streaks.
His back slammed against something firm and warm, and a hand bracing him upright.
Olive stood there, teeth clenched, with both his arms extended. Thin metallic threads shot from his fingertips, anchored into Fèi Míng's wrists, waist, and ankles. The threads vibrated under the strain of the corpses pulling him back down.
"Get your useless spine up!" Olive barked, voice cracking from the weight on his arms.
He yanked him, tightening his threads around Fèi Míng.
Olive's free hand whipped forward, sending three threads slicing across the nearest corpses. Their heads rolled down as black fluid spilled. Maggots burst from the wounds in clumps, hitting the ground.
Fèi Míng kept screaming, thrashing uncontrollably. His eyes were bloodshot, voice cracking until it barely sounded human. His fingers clawed at Olive's arm, not recognizing anything around him.
Olive's patience snapped.
He slapped Fèi Míng across the face.
"Get your head in the game, dumbass!" Olive shouted directly into his ear. "Do you really want to die that bad?!"
"I DON'T!" Fèi Míng's scream shot out of him.
"Good! Now get your clown shit together." Olive dusted his pants. His gaze lowered on Fèi Míng, clearly displaying how pathetic the scene was.
Olive cleared his throat, moving to another hole as he readied his threads. "I'll watch your back. So suck in your fear."
The moment Fei Ming stood, the shame coiled in his chest. His fingers trembled, jaw locked so hard it hurt.
'What a fool I was. A pathetic fool to react like that.'
He closed his eyes, taking deep breaths.
'Don't panic, Fateless. Panic solves nothing. It was just a fucking illusion. A fucking illus—'
His heartbeat steadied. Not fully, but enough.
The panic tangled inside him until it tightened into anger. Whoever ran this game dug through his memories, pulled out the one thing he buried deep, and used it on him. They even knew about RiaKai. That part scraped the inside of his head raw.
'They mocked me. They mocked my existence. These fucking gods knew about my deal with RiaKai.'
He forced one breath out. 'Keep a calm head, Fateless. There are many unknown probabilities. Getting angry solves nothing. I need to calculate my moves…'
Fèi Míng lifted the bone mallet. He increased its weight until the strain in his wrist felt steady and controlled. Then he pushed forward.
As the nearest corpse lunged forward, snarling, he swung down, crushing its skull.
Crack!
The body fell, but annoyance stirred under his skin. He planted his foot on the chest and struck again, reducing what was left to a flattened mess. 'Ah, I'm still pissed.'
Olive's threads flicked past, clearing two more corpses from his blind spot.
Another player stumbled backward, swinging wildly at a purple corpse. When the skull split, hundreds of larvae erupted in a thick spray, coating his face. "Aaaaahhhhh!!!" He clawed at his eyes, screaming, before collapsing into convulsions as the maggots burrowed deeper.
Fèi Míng stepped over the twitching body without paying much attention. He squeezed his bone mallet tighter, readying the next hit, until a player crashed right into his path.
His weapon cluttered to the ground. 'Shit.'
The man's eyes were wide, breaths short, arms shaking as he waved a broken mallet, panic making his movements clumsy.
Behind the player, two purple corpses reached over his shoulder.
Fèi Míng's eyes widened a fraction.
'Disgusting larvae zombies… I don't want them near me.'
He forcefully pulled a bone mallet back with a tug of his telekinesis, yanking the weapon straight out of the player's grip.
"What the—?! That's mine!" The player shouted.
With a flick of his palm, he knocked down the undead corpses, shifting the weight of the broken mallet and redirecting them with his telekinesis skill.
But the recoil knocked the man forward. He stumbled, lost his balance, and fell directly into the corpse's arms.
The corpse snarled, and tore into his throat.
"AHH!!! HELP!"
The corpse's jaws unhinged open, its teeth sinking deep into the man's neck once more as hot, putrid flesh ripped apart, and a glaring, crimson gouge was torn from his neck as the corpse's face burrowed deeper, its cold, dead lips sealing around the wound.
Fèi Míng stepped past them without a glance.
Another corpse crawled toward his ankle. He swung low, crushed the spine, and ripped the mallet free from the body.
Suddenly, a shadow dropped from above.
"CANNONBAAALL!"
Fèi Míng's head shot up.
And a young boy came flying down in his untidy pink hair sticking out at sharp angles. His sleeveless wine shirt was stitched together with dozens of metal pins shoved through the fabric in uneven rows. Some pins had tiny bloodstains. Others were bent like he'd forced them through too thick a fold.
'A boy covered in pins. Pinboy?'
His grin was wide enough to strain the corners of his mouth. His eyes were sharp, almost excited as his laughter filled the putrid air.
He struck his own mallet down on the corpse in front of Fèi Míng, smashing the skull apart in a burst of dark fluid and loose bone fragments.
Rot splattered across Fèi Míng's face. He wiped it away with a slow drag of his hand and frowned.
The boy landed beside him, straightening up like he'd just hopped off a playground structure.
Pinboy turned to him, still grinning. "Hiii!" He waved quite enthusiastically.
Fèi Míng stared at him once, observing the boy's… unique aesthetics. This 'Pinboy' was taller than him, about his age. 18 maybe? He then turned away without replying, lifting his mallet again to finish off the remaining corpses by squashing their skulls, while avoiding the purple corpses.
Across the pit, a woman with a shattered arm tried to crawl away from a cluster of rising corpses. One grabbed her hair. Another clamped onto her jaw. Her scream turned into a wet gurgle as they pulled her face-first into the dirt.
Fèi Míng smashed another corpse's head into smithereens. His eyes focused on nothing but just clearing the game.
After a few minutes, a tone rang across the arena.
[Congratulations! You have cleared the Mini Game: Whack-a-Mole Game!]
[Stage 3 cleared!]
[Current Players: 56.]
[Finish Two More Stages For The Grand Prize!]
The survivors heaved a breath of relief, dropping their mallets to the ground.
Olive whipped his head back to Fèi Míng. "So you have a skill, huh? Here I thought you were a weakass. What Path?" he asked.
Fèi Míng stared at him dead-eyed. He lowered his gaze to the half broken mallet. "I don't have one," he replied. A slight bit of distaste clung to his tongue.
'He's a Weaver… I see. He must have put up an interesting show for them to favour him.'
"Hmm?" Olive tilted his head. "So you won them as a prize in a game or you weren't a good enough exciting toy for the Forces?"
When Fèi Míng didn't respond, he sighed, retracting his threads back into his fingers. "So you're Pathless, yet a low level Skill Bearer. How… unique."
Ding!
[Get ready for the next game!]
Fateless gazed up at the Runic board. His expression blank, however, something in his blood boiled, the heat rushed to his face. Another wave of anger he has tried pushing down but failed.
'Whoever Force created this Game… I'll kill them.'