Autophagy

After pulling the door's handle, Song Lei walked inside. He held onto the door frame and opened one of his eyes.

'Great! The room has a floor!' Song Lei shouted in his mind. He looked back to see the nothingness still filling the corridor. 'It's great that I at least have this much foothold.'

After memorizing the room to his best, Song Lei closed his eyes and walked inside. There didn't seem to be any noise in the room as if it was devoid of air. Song Lei opened his eyes again to better understand the layout of the room. Song Lei guessed it being a girl's bedroom because of its pinkish design.

He kept looking and saw a canopy bed in pink, fitting the room's design. There seemed to be something sleeping on it.

'What is that?' Song Lei thought to himself. His Ethereal Eye would make his eyesight better but the skill wasn't developed enough to see details beyond the curtains of the bed.

Song Lei walked up to the bed while crouching. He didn't want to make any noises as he was scared of alerting whatever the thing on the bed was.

*Creak

'Oh fuck,' Song Lei thought while facepalming. The silhouette in the canopy bed moved. It seemed to be mostly humanoid with weird ears and a face shape Song Lei couldn't really explain.

"Oink?" The silhouette said. Song Lei squinted his eyes. He tried to remember where he had heard this voice before.

'Oh right! This is that talking pig that I met back in the dining room,' Song Lei thought.

"Oink?" The silhouette's voice echoed in the room. It sounded to be nervous

'I will probably have to close my eyes to understand,' Song Lei guessed while listening to the nonsensical oinking.

A furry arm reached out of the curtains of the canopy bed and pulled them aside. Song Lei took a deep breath and gulped.

'I have the advantage,' Song Lei reassured himself with an awkward smile on his face. 'Because of the reverse light rule, it can't see what's happening while I'm in bright light.'

Song Lei kept crouching and made sure he didn't move. If he raised his foot at the moment, there would be another creak. This would make the pig more alert.

After almost two minutes of silence, the pig laid down on the bed again. Song Lei sighed inside his mind. He had almost been caught because of a floorboard.

He took off his bag to use as a placeholder weight for himself and left it on the floorboard that had creaked. After making sure that he didn't make any sound, he finally managed to get to the bed. The pig human was lying on the bed, breathing softly, seemingly asleep. Song Lei lifted the cursed knife and took a deep breath.

*Stab

Song Lei stabbed the knife while pulling the curtains to the side. The knife ripped through the sheets and hit a pillow.

'Fuck! It deceived me!' Song Lei shouted in his mind. He pulled out the cursed knife and pushed himself backward by kicking the bed.

"Oink!" An angry voice shouted. Song Lei lifted his head and realized the pig had already left the bed. It didn't have any weapons in its hand.

'Ugh…' Song Lei was disgusted. The pig humanoid was literally a pig humanoid. Song Lei had expected it to be something more humane like a human with pig ears but that was not the case. It had pinkish fur covering all of its body. Its nose was protruding out of its face and it had fully black eyes that were staring into Song Lei's soul.

This monster's only differences from a normal pig were it being bipedal and around the same body size as a human.

Song Lei squinted his eyes as the pig's loud oinking was making him disoriented. He was pretty nervous and was afraid that all the noises would pull reinforcements of the mansion towards him.

The pig charged at Song Lei with an incredible speed. It could easily be compared with Tao Cai he had killed back in room 1401.

Song Lei used all of his body muscles to step forward in time. The pig was very surprised at Song Lei's counterattack and stumbled while trying to stop itself. Song Lei used this opening to jump forward using all of his body weight and headbutted the pig using his forehead.

The pig fell backward and rolled on the ground to get away from Song Lei. Song Lei tried to follow it.

*THUD

"Fuck!" Song Lei shouted. 'The backpack!'

Song Lei had tripped over the backpack he had put on the floorboard as a placeholder. Because of the fall, he was disoriented.

As Song Lei finally managed to pick himself up, he felt a huge wave of air crashing towards his face. He did his best to dodge to the side but couldn't do so in time. As he moved his head a little bit out of the way, the pig's punch hit his cheekbone. He heard a crushing noise as the unbearable pain and dizziness settled in.

Song Lei was launched towards the bed. All the curtains of the canopy bed wrapped around him as he hit his head on the soft bedhead. Fortunately, this lowered the damage he took from the collision.

'Fuck! This pig would've killed me in a single punch if I hadn't raised my body stat to 3!' Song Lei shouted in his mind. He was really grateful for his smart spendings.

As Song Lei managed to unwrap himself out of the curtains, everything went dark. 'The pig has turned the lights on!'

Song Lei quickly got up and did his best to remember the room's layout. Because he had a mild concussion, he couldn't form proper thoughts. He chose the bluntest way he could.

After waiting for a second, he felt a crushing force approaching his abdomen. But he was prepared. He pushed his hip backward while holding the hoof that was about to hit him. He ignored the pain he felt and pulled the hoof as best as he can while turning his body to the right.

The pig was launched forward uncontrollably because of its momentum. It hit its head to the wall and the wall cracked a little bit. He couldn't finish it off as he had dropped the cursed knife back when he was thrown to the bed. He ran up and turned the lights off.

After getting his sight advantage back, Song Lei glanced through the room and located the cursed knife. He ran towards it and picked it up. He rushed forward towards the pig. It was still trying to recover from the collision with the wall. Although it was stronger than Song Lei, it didn't have the same amount of tenacity as him.

*Stab

Song Lei pushed the knife into the pig's abdomen. The pig, however, didn't lose its energy. Instead, it became angrier and angrier. Song Lei pushed the knife upwards as he left a gaping wound of five inches in the pig's abdomen. When the knife hit the monster's ribcage, he realized that he couldn't push the knife further.

'I did it! This knife should have been bad at cutting since it's so rusty but it seems to work well on supernatural beings.'

While Song Lei was celebrating his victory in his mind, the pig collected all of its remaining energy and punched Song Lei in his solar plexus.

"Hiss…"

Song Lei frowned and felt all the air leaving his lungs as he lost all of his power. He crumbled to the ground with the pig. The pig's eyes were devoid of life. It had already died. A few lines of system notifications appeared as Song Lei slowly lost consciousness.

'I got careless…'