Autophagy

Song Lei took a deep breath and inserted the gemstone into the socket.

*Click

As soon as the gemstone made contact with the door, it blended into the door. Becoming a single entity that couldn't be separated from each other. Shortly after, the red eye that was in the middle of the shield started bleeding.

When Song Lei tried to touch the blood to feel it, he realized that the blood wasn't really there. In reality, the only thing that was changing was the emblem on the door.

Song Lei took a step back and looked at the other two girls that were standing beside him. Sugihara was looking at the door with a frown on her face as she crossed her arms in front of her. Meanwhile, Nishimura had clasped her hands over her mouth.

The blood that was coming out of the eye started becoming more and more. At first, it was like tears. Now, however, it had gone up to the level of looking like a stream of blood. Eventually, that stream started overflowing into the real world. The blood was gushing out of the door.

Song Lei frowned and tried to move from his place. Unfortunately, he couldn't do so for some reason.

He looked at Sugihara and Nishimura, their facial expressions were still the same. They were frozen in their place. Song Lei tried everything to make them move but couldn't do so.

The blood had started to accumulate quickly underneath their shoes. Song Lei cursed as he tried to take his shoes off. However, the blood seemed to freeze whatever it came in contact with.

In less than ten seconds, the whole corridor was filled with blood. Song Lei was trying his best to hold his breath. In the end, he was still a human, he couldn't hold his breath indefinitely as he started taking huge gulps of the blood into his lungs.

Song Lei closed his eyes and expected his lungs to start burning, however, that feeling never came no matter how much he waited.

He slowly opened his eyes and looked around.

'What?'

The blood was gone, Sugihara and Nishimura were still frozen in the same place. They already seemed to have lost their consciousness. Another thing to note was the fact that everything around Song Lei had become grey. He raised his hands to look at them. Weirdly, unlike everything else, he still had colors.

Song Lei raised his head to understand what really was going on with the door.

"Huh..."

He took a deep breath in and looked at the door. It had been opened while he wasn't looking.

He passed by the now frozen Sugihara and went into the door. As soon as he did so, he felt a comfortable feeling wrapping around his whole body. He heard a clicking noise so he turned around to look at the door. However, it was long gone. He was currently in a white space. It was stretching as far as he could see without a single disruption. Honestly, he was wondering if he had gone blind for some reason.

Song Lei understood that that wasn't the case when he saw someone coming closer to him from far away. Seeing that person, he decided to go towards him too.

He walked, walked, and walked... His distance perception was failing to tell him how much he had left to walk.

After walking for more than half an hour, he managed to finally see who this person was.

It was Song Lei himself...

Or it was Toda Anzai to be precise. There was a blank expression on his face as if he had felt every single emotion he could in this life. For him, there was nothing left to feel anymore. A total emptiness that he couldn't overcome.

After there were one and a half meters behind them, they both stopped.

"So you're the person who took over my body," Toda Anzai said. Hearing his words, Song Lei looked at his hands and body. He was now back to his old body. That fragile, small body that he despised. The reason that he was so powerless... This body felt like it was the reason Song Lei couldn't properly protect his little sister.

"Don't worry. I won't take that away from you," Toda Anzai said. His words woke Song Lei up from his daze.

"After all... I'm already stuck in this place," Toda Anzai continued. Song Lei looked at his blank expression.

"Why is that?" Song Lei asked. "What is this place?"

"That's a bit hard to explain," Toda Anzai said. He suddenly disappeared from Song Lei's sight. Appearing just behind him. Song Lei had guessed that Anzai would appear behind him after disappearing, so he wasn't that surprised.

"This space is the essence of this remnant world. I don't know how the others look like, but this place is like this," he said while pointing at a random place. Song Lei turned his head towards the place Anzai had pointed towards, however, he couldn't see anything.

"Well... To be precise, there's nothing here. Maybe the other world essences' are different," Anzai clarified. Song Lei tried to follow him with his eyes but couldn't manage to do so. He was constantly phasing in and out of reality.

"Why does this place exist?" Song Lei asked. This Remnant World's existence was truly confusing for him. How could there be such a normal place in the New World? This, Song Lei couldn't understand.

"I like your questions," Anzai said. There was a small smile on his face. "This place was created to nurture me."

"You? By whom?"  Song Lei asked.

"Long ago, I was transported to the New World just like you. I tried to somehow live here, however, my ability was too shitty to do so," Anzai said. "With time, I lost my sanity and became something that wasn't really human."

"And then?" Song Lei urged him to continue.

"And then? They came," Anzai said mysteriously. "The Secret Blood Order."

Song Lei quickly noted this name to his mind. He knew that there were other organizations in the New World besides the Heaven Alliance. This was the first time he had managed to learn any other organization's name.

"They made some kind of agreement with the old landlord of the Heaven and Hell Apartment," Anzai continued. "Although I don't know the details, they separated my body and soul. They locked my soul into this mirror while leaving my body behind. They would occasionally come and leave some well-preserved corpses in the bathroom."

"What? Why would they do that?" Song Lei asked.

"Why? To increase the chances of Lost One's spawning here," Anzai said. "And you were transmigrated into the last body that was left."

"Which is your body..." Song Lei muttered while touching his chin.

"Exactly," Toda Anzai said while clapping his hands. "As Lost One's kept spawning in the bathroom, those twisted monsters kept pulling them in. They forcefully fed me with them," he said. "As long as they kept making me eat those, I would eventually become an incredibly strong monster."

"What were they going to do with you when you turned into a monster?" Song Lei asked.

"That? I don't know," Anzai said. "And I don't care. Preferably, I want to disappear," he said.

"Do you want help?" Song Lei asked.

"Why would you even help me?" Anzai asked while appearing behind Song Lei again. He blew to Song Lei's neck making him shiver in his place.

"I don't want you to turn into a monster that could harm me," Song Lei said.

"That's a good reason," Anzai said. "I will tell you how to do it."

Song Lei started listening attentively.

"You haven't seen a single mirror since you came here right?"Anzai asked. Song Lei nodded. "And you haven't seen your reflection even a single time right?"

Song Lei nodded again.

"Go back to you- no. Our apartment room and take the gemstone with you," Anzai said. As Song Lei was thinking about what he meant, his eyes widened with understanding.

"But I can't leave this basement..." Song Lei said.

"Think simple. You can do it," Anzai said. Not another second passed and Song Lei found himself inside his body again.

He felt like he had been submerged underwater for a long time as he gasped for breath.

"Anzai?! What is happening? Wait... What happened to your body and clothes?" Sugihara asked.

As Song Lei did his best to calm down, he realized that his clothes were the same as the ones in the New World. Seeing this, he quickly brought his stat sheet up.

[Body]:8

[Mind]: 8

[Soul]: 11

Seeing his stats returning to normal, he sighed a breath of relief. After that, he clenched his fists to check his strength.

"It's back to normal..." Song Lei muttered. Sugihara and Nishimura were looking at him dumbfoundedly. They hadn't realized the time freeze so they had no idea what was going on.

Going back to normal, Song Lei cracked his neck. Although his body was the same as Anzai's it was much more muscular and tall.

Song Lei searched his backpack and took out his cursed knife from it.

"We are leaving," Song Lei said calmly.