Autophagy

Song Lei ordered his men to carry Rufus to the pile of unconscious bodies that were laid out on the floor. After they were done cleaning up the whole Section A, they would place them back in their rooms one by one.

Unfortunately, things were still not over.

"Get ready everyone, we have one more floor to take care of," Song Lei muttered. Hearing his words, a worried expression appeared on the trainees' faces.

"Are you sure? You should rest first," one of them said.

"We don't have time to waste in our hands," Song Lei said. He didn't know what kind of state Aston was in. He wanted to quickly finish his job so that he could reunite with Aston as soon as possible.

He got up from the ground. After stretching his sore muscles, he put his soul dagger back into its sheath. The trainees around him didn't have any objections. They themselves weren't that tired. If Song Lei didn't want to go easy on himself, so be it. After all, as Song Lei had said, they didn't have much time.

Every second they spent clearing out the dorms increased the chances of them being exposed. Their main assault against the people in the festival had to be a surprise one. With their numbers disadvantage, it was impossible to win a direct confrontation against so many people.

Considering all of this, Song Lei led his men to the staircase. That eerie, chilling feeling was still coming from the upper floor. The temperature there was so low that Song Lei could physically see the difference between this one and the upper floor.

The damp air had condensed because of the cold air. Those visible gasses rolled around like a bunch of coiling dragons. The more Song Lei stared at it, the more he felt like his insides were being frostbitten. This wasn't a physical cold. It made Song Lei's soul shake.

Song Lei didn't know if it was a good idea to bring his men to the upper floor. If there was something that could hurt their souls there, they may not be able to handle it. Song Lei would probably be able to get away unscathed with his high soul stat, however, the same couldn't be said for the others.

Worrying about them, Song Lei turned towards his men. They didn't seem like they were worried. This made Song Lei relax a little bit.

'I must be worrying too much...' Song Lei inwardly muttered. He started climbing the stairs carefully. He felt the cold air piercing into his skin like small needles. Disregarding the uncomfortable feeling, Song Lei forced his way through.

With each step, a disgusting smell filled his nostrils, making him frown deeply. This smell was a mix of all kinds of bodily fluids. The smell was similar to that of a fleshly abomination Song Lei had fought back in the Heaven and Hell Apartment albeit much worse.

Song Lei clasped his hand over his mouth and nose instinctually to block out the smell. Of course, this didn't really do anything.

Compared to him, his men were in a much worse situation With the disgusting smell penetrating into their brains, all of them had started puking and squirming on the ground. They had to wait a good ten minutes for all of them to calm down. In the end, Song Lei was pretty resistant to disgusting things by now. No normal human could compare to him in this aspect.

After everyone managed to pull themselves together, they finished ascending the stairs. The smell and the cold became even worse, causing Song Lei to shiver in his place.

'This doesn't seem right...' Song Lei thought. He couldn't exactly put his finger on it, however, there was something strange about the place. Song Lei had to spend a good amount of time staring at the hallway to figure out what was so weird.

'Why is this place so bright?' Song Lei thought. The dorms were almost completely dark. In comparison, this place was completely bright. The light constantly bounced off of the white walls.

"Boss, why is this place so bright even though there is no light source?" One of Song Lei's men asked. Song Lei helplessly shook his head in response. He, too, had no response.

Another thing to note was the fact that there wasn't a single patrol on this floor. It was completely empty. The lack of people and furniture made it look incredibly eerie. Not knowing what to do, he led his men into the hallway.

After walking to the middle of the hallway, Song Lei's body shook in its place.

'This is not good...' Song Lei muttered inside his head. He hadn't felt this kind of danger in a long time. The last time he had felt like this was during the three-way fight in Isabel's Mansion. Amidst the three high-level ghosts, Song Lei had felt incredibly helpless. A single hit from Amber's tentacles would have taken away his life.

He didn't know what was causing this feeling, however, he knew that this was no mere imagination. His sixth sense had helped him more than a few times.

"You guys go back to the lower floor," Song Lei said to the other six. Hearing his words, all of them were confused. However, they knew that it wasn't smart to defy Song Lei's orders. He wouldn't tell them to go away without any reason. Heeding his orders, they quickly descended the stairs and left the floor.

Seeing them go away, Song Lei sighed deeply. This floor had fewer rooms compared to the others. In the case there was something dangerous, Song Lei would be able to run away on his own.

Approaching one of the rooms, Song Lei pushed the door open. A dorm room with no out-of-ordinary features appeared in front of his eyes. He didn't dare to enter the room so he closed the door back.

*RUMBLE

'What is this..?' Song Lei thought as he looked around. The floor shook violently under his feet. He walked to the middle of the hallway and looked around to see what was causing the rumblings.

Suddenly, all the doors on the floor burst open. From all of them, a pulsating, red substance poured out. Seeing this Song Lei made a charge for the stairs. In the meanwhile, he took a close look at the red substance. It looked similar to the flesh that Isabel was commanding back in the mansion.

From this flesh's behavior, it seemed like it was very invasive. It was constantly multiplying and spreading onto the floors walls.

Fortunately, Song Lei managed to reach the stairs in time.

'What should I do!?' Song Lei panicked. He had no way to deal with this kind of monster. The only way he could think of was to set it on fire, however, that wasn't possible. After all, it would be incredibly dangerous to do so.

As he was panicking, a lot of footsteps started echoing up from the lower floor.

"You guys. Follow me," A calm voice resounded. This voice was familiar to Song Lei as he instantly recognized its owner.

"Aston!" He shouted in excitement. Aston appeared with twelve more men by his side. They walked to Song Lei's side. Although most of them were unable to go up because of the smell, Aston seemed pretty relaxed about it.

"What's the problem?" Aston asked.

"Come, look at this," Song Lei urged Aston to walk to his side. Aston raised one of his brows and rushed towards Song Lei.

"What the fuck..?" Aston muttered as he looked at the flesh spreading through the floor. "What is this?"

"I have no idea," Song Lei said. Hearing his answer, Aston sighed and stepped forward to take a closer look.

"Its composition looks similar to that of a soul worm," Aston said as he squinted his eyes. "Have you tried stabbing it with a soul dagger?"

"No, I haven't. I was worried that it would spread on it too, making it useless," Song Lei explained his reasoning.

"Hey, throw me that," Aston ordered one of the trainees that had crumpled on the ground in the staircase. The trainee hardly lifted his head and threw the soul dagger towards Aston. Catching it in the air, Aston walked next to the flesh that was spreading and stabbed it with the dagger.

"KREEE!"

As soon as he did so, a shrill scream resounded throughout the floor. The flesh three meters around the place he had stabbed instantly dispersed and shrunk away. As if it was scared of it, the flesh didn't spread around the dagger anymore.

"Just like I thought. This thing is also a being of spiritual origin," Aston muttered as he tapped his chin. His casual attitude surprised Song Lei. Aston didn't seem to care about the fact that there was a flesh monster spreading and covering the whole floor.

"You guys," Aston said while turning towards the trainees that were in the staircase. "Quickly get used to the smell and come here. We have to deal with this...."