A dead end.
He had run into a dead end.
As the light swept across the thick gray walls, Shi Rang's face gradually turned ashen.
The more he stared at this space of less than five square meters, the more it felt like a custom-made tomb.
'I need to get out of here before that thing arrives, then keep running...'
Clutching his mobile phone, he reached back and fumbled for the latch. His fingers were trembling so violently that he could not even tell if he was trying to lock the door or open it.
Suddenly, a pushing force came from the other side of the door, completely severing Shi Rang's last shred of hope.
It was here.
The mobile phone slipped from his grasp and hit the ground. The light swayed and flipped, eventually shining upward to illuminate his pale face. He slid the latch shut and stumbled backward from the iron door, finally collapsing onto the floor, his entire body shivering uncontrollably.
'What is that?'
'What the hell is that?!'
A scream caught in his throat, unable to break free. His mangled right arm was draining away his blood and all his strength. He could not tell if he was crying; his mind was entirely consumed by delusions and regret. When another heavy impact struck the door, Shi Rang snapped out of his daze, realizing he was staring blankly at the flashlight beam. Mustering his courage, he crawled over to the door, retrieved his mobile phone, and shrank back into the deepest corner of the Boiler Room.
His hands were covered in blood. Terrified of ruining his final hope, he frantically wiped them on his clothes a few times before he dared to press the power button.
The lock screen displayed a graduation photo of him and Ying Shang in their academic gowns. Their smiles, framed by a cluster of vibrant flowers, beamed directly at Shi Rang's face.
[Battery Remaining: 7%]
The screen failed to recognize his fingerprint. He painstakingly typed in his passcode to unlock the mobile phone, but he could not make a call.
No signal.
'Even if the call goes through, what then?'
'The door is about to give way. That monster will burst in at any second.'
'Why is this happening to me?'
At this very moment, the minor details he had observed earlier flooded into his mind. Shi Rang felt a growing certainty that he knew what was battering against the door. He seemed to have seen the human torso perched at the very top of that monster before...
'Where?'
'Where have I seen it?'
In his daze, he found the answer.
Even in this dead zone with no signal, he could still log into the Management Bureau Main Station. The last page he had browsed was displayed right before his eyes—
[CVA-B-108-2: Stitched Walkers]
A fusion of human bodies, possessing intelligence and high infectivity, with structures resembling swollen blood vessels and nerves on its surface.
The very thing he had used to pass the time and fuel his imagination had crashed into reality.
'Am I crazy, or has the whole world gone mad?'
'If all of this is just a hallucination born in the dark, then my arm and my leg...'
The fading adrenaline worsened his tremors. Shi Rang inhaled a sharp breath of freezing, dust-filled air and coughed as he continued to scroll down the page, desperately searching for a way to deal with this monster.
["The Stitched Walker" does not possess defensive structures. It is recommended to use standard lethal firearms to strike its lower limbs, causing incapacitation and self-destruction.]
Shi Rang's mouth twitched.
'Right, why didn't I think of simply using a gun?'
Besides, the Records were wrong. The walker outside was clearly a more advanced variant. It no longer possessed distinct lower limbs, and its intelligence was significantly higher.
At this moment, he finally recalled where he had seen the face attached to the walker.
There was a photograph of the person on the active page.
The fugitive former deputy director of Facility 031, Director Bjorn.
Crash!
Another heavy impact echoed from the direction of the door. Shi Rang raised the mobile phone's flashlight, taking in the sight of the buckling iron door. The gap was not yet wide enough for the walker to contort itself and squeeze through, but the door was on the verge of giving way.
There was a gleaming pool of dark red liquid on the floor, looking like spilled, dirty paint.
He had lost a lot of blood.
Shi Rang curled tightly into a ball. The bone-chilling cold blurred both his pain and fear. He struggled to breathe, his thumb moving aimlessly across the screen.
'Should I record some last words, leave a message?'
'But who would I even leave it for?'
'I still haven't found Ying Shang...'
'And no one is going to come looking for me...'
Shi Rang stared blankly at the text on the Records page and tapped it into edit mode.
'I could slip a cry for help into the description, but tampering with the Records like this will probably just be deleted immediately as a prank, right?'
Crash!
The iron door was blasted off its hinges, smashing directly into the opposite wall.
The flashlight's beam outlined the walker's horrifying silhouette. It was grotesquely bloated, resembling a giant brain sprouted with numerous limbs and faces, while the blood vessels tangled across its surface looked like protruding intestines.
'It grew so many arms and legs, only to end up slithering...'
'How inefficient...'
Shi Rang watched as it dragged itself toward him.
Its movements were sluggish. As if knowing its prey could no longer run, it crept slowly over the trail of blood.
'If it melted upon contact with water, that would be an interesting weakness.'
'Maybe it actually would. It probably hasn't ever encountered a rainy day, right?'
Chaotic thoughts and fragments of the past flashed continuously before his eyes, intertwined with the sound of Ying Shang's voice and her laughter.
Shi Rang did not dare look any longer at the steadily approaching specter of death. He wanted to close his eyes, to escape from it all and sink into his memories, begging for a peaceful end. Yet, primal terror forced his eyelids to remain wide open.
His finger hovered over the mobile phone screen. The typing cursor blinked in the [Weaknesses] section of the edit page.
The massive walker obstructed the flashlight's beam. The narrowing light converged onto its body, condensing into a single, blinding focal point.
On the brink of death, a sudden spark of inspiration leaped into his mind—
'If only light could burn right through it.'
Shi Rang shifted his finger. Right after [Physical Impact, Incapacitating Strikes, Electric Shock], he typed the word [Light]. Just as one of the walker's arms lunged for his face, he hit save.
This would be the final mark he left on the world.
The edit bar loaded, immediately refreshing back to the Records page.
That icy touch pressed closer against Shi Rang's forehead, bearing down until sharp nails sliced into his skin.
Suddenly, the crushing pressure vanished.
As the walker closed in, the focal point of light that had shifted from its torso onto its outstretched arm acted like a blazing blade, slicing the limb clean off. The severed arm tumbled down right in front of Shi Rang, bouncing off his calf before flopping to the side. The thick nerves coiled around it twitched violently, as a stream of black blood poured from the stump.
In utter disbelief, Shi Rang witnessed what happened next.
With the obstruction gone, the point of light landed on the closest object behind it—the torso of the Stitched Walker. It first pierced through its flesh as a concentrated dot, then, as the physical barrier melted away, the beam rapidly expanded back to its original radius, searing a massive, gaping hole right through a cluster of crowded faces!
It took the monster a moment to realize what had just happened.
It scrambled backward frantically, retreating into the darkness beyond the flashlight's reach.
Severed blood vessels and meridians flailed wildly in the air like ruptured hoses, spraying a foul-smelling rain across the room.
This hollowed-out cavity was not a fatal wound for the walker. Devoid of internal organs, it had merely lost a significant chunk of its mass. It hastily squirmed, drawing its surrounding flesh together to mend the horrific injury.
But a second later, the lethal glow that had been resting on the far wall suddenly flicked upward and gave chase.
[Battery Remaining: 3%]
Holding up his mobile phone, Shi Rang limped forward, relentlessly pursuing the bloated monstrosity.
The tables had completely turned. Now, the hunter was fleeing, and the prey was on the hunt.
The flesh and blood of the Stitched Walker vaporized under the harsh light, melting away like ice cubes tossed onto a searing iron skillet.
Initially, the monster moved faster, but as its body began to collapse in on itself, Shi Rang let out a primal roar and caught up to it.
[Battery Remaining: 2%]
Two dying figures staggered back and forth in the suffocating darkness, tethered together by a conical beam of light.
[Battery Low. Shutting down...]
Right before collapsing from total exhaustion, Shi Rang mustered every last ounce of his strength and hurled the mobile phone forward.
The beam of light spun wildly through the air, carving the walker cleanly in half straight down the middle.
Accompanied by a series of soft popping sounds, the abomination finally died.
Shi Rang never saw the mobile phone hit the ground. Its screen went black while still in mid-air.
Darkness swallowed him whole once again.
"I won."
Lying on the floor, he raised his left arm toward the pitch-black void and squeezed out a weak laugh.
"I won..."
Severe blood loss eroded his consciousness. He lay in a pool of his own blood, gradually sinking into the very bottom of the abyss.
As his mind blurred, he saw a distant vision of his front door tightly shut. He was standing in the past, two years ago, on the last day he and Ying Shang had spent together. He stood beside a table full of food, waiting for her to come home.
The next moment, the phone rang.