723: Chapter 723 [A Place of Fear] 723: Chapter 723 [A Place of Fear] The skyscraper was bustling with activity, the lower levels home to shopping centers, while the upper levels housed offices.
Moreover, this skyscraper was owned by the Jintian Corporation.
Yet, within such a bustling edifice lay a hidden enigma, on the first floor in a concealed spot, there was an entrance guarded by scores of skilled fighters.
A young man in a suit, after passing through stringent security checks, entered this entrance.
Once through the entrance, he traversed a top-secret underground passage, arriving at an elevator.
Only after the young man input a lengthy series of passwords did a chime sound, and the elevator doors opened.
Riding the elevator for a full thirty seconds, it finally came to a halt.
Without a doubt, he was now deep beneath the surface.
Though the entrance was small and the passageway narrow, what lay underground would astonish absolutely anyone; it was like an underground kingdom, sprawling farther than the eye could see.
Through a variety of buildings, the young man arrived at a place resembling a castle.
In contrast to the areas before, this place was pitch black, to the extent that one couldn’t see one’s own hand in front of them.
Using the light from his smartphone, the young man made his way with difficulty.
Rich, pungent odors of blood and decay filled his nostrils, causing him to frown and tremble; he was evidently overwhelmed by fear.
After passing the main control gate, the young man’s legs began to shake.
As he looked up, his eyes were met with light.
There were countless tiny holes in the dome above, densely packed, and through those holes streamed sunlight.
It was incredible that sunlight could be seen so deep underground.
The chamber before the young man was quite spacious, about the size of a soccer field.
In the center was a stone altar half the height of a person, with many tools hanging from the ceiling above it, such as large hooks and ten-meter-long guillotine blades.
In front of the stone altar lay a pool roughly the size of a swimming pool.
However, this pool contained not a single drop of water; it was filled with fresh blood.
The entire pool was flooded with blood, emitting a revolting stench, showing how much blood there was to fill an entire swimming pool.
The young man’s heart could no longer be described merely as filled with fear; his legs quivered as if electrocuted.
His gaze shifted slightly to an area near the wall.
“Thud!”
The sight made him collapse to the floor, drenched in cold sweat.
For on either side of the walls there stood a row of display cabinets, transparent glass at the front, showcasing their contents like a museum of specimens.
But unlike museum exhibits, what was on display here were round, swollen heads.
With just a glance, the young man saw heads of all ages, both sexes, as well as a diversity of racial heads: black, white, and Asian.
Naturally, the heads were not skull and bone, but rather fresh, lifelike decapitated heads as if they had just been severed from their bodies.
Combined, there were over a thousand heads on both sides, each bearing the same expression: utter horror.
This scene could terrify someone to death; the fact that the young man simply collapsed showed his mental fortitude.
“Lord Nogawa…” the young man struggled to his feet, his lips trembling as he spoke.
However, no response came from the vast chamber.
Gathering his courage, the young man stepped down from the platform and slowly made his way towards the center of the room.
The rich scent of blood and decay in the pond made the young man shudder involuntarily, pinching his nose.
On the stone platform, there knelt a man, his body hung with many hooks, his back to the youth, unclear whether he was dead or alive.
However, the youth let out a sigh of relief because the man’s head was still in place.
“Nogawa…”
But just as he spoke, he heard a loud bang, and the person in front of him exploded, blowing to pieces, with limbs and flesh flying in all directions.
“Pfft!”
Blood slowly splattered across his face, blurring his vision.
The heat brought the youth back to his senses, he couldn’t help but wipe his eyes with his hands, and slowly his sight began to clear.
“Ah!”
But the next second, he cried out in shock, for there laid a head on the stone platform in front of him, its face twisted grotesquely, and its dead fish-like eyes staring fixedly at him.
The sudden sight nearly sent the youth’s heart flying out of his chest.
“Heh heh heh…” Waves of insolent laughter drifted over, causing the youth to sweat profusely, his body trembling nonstop.
“Don’t be nervous, my cute specimen, tell me what you’re here for?” came a voice, grating and extremely hoarse, making the young man’s scalp tingle, wishing this were all a dream.
All he wanted now was to report the message and leave this ghastly place as soon as possible.
He felt that after leaving this place, he would definitely have nightmares for several months.
“My lord, just now…
just now, I received a message from Mikako from Divine Land, saying…
saying…
that Lord Heimu and Master Konghai who went with her have both been killed, gruesomely dead in Divine Land.” Finally, the young man blurted out the message in one breath.
“…”.
Silence, an eerie silence.
After the youth relayed the message, there was no response from the other side, only an unnerving quiet.
The quieter it was, the more terrified the youth became, standing in the middle of the room, feeling like thousands of eyes were staring straight at him, and the key was that these thousands of eyes weren’t those of the living.
“I have to leave!”
Once he made up his mind, the youth slowly began to walk towards the exit, gradually picking up speed until he was running, as if afraid a second’s delay would leave him trapped here forever.
“*&%#@….”
Just as the youth was about to step onto the stair, a terrifying, sharp noise rang in his ears, as if it was going to tear his eardrums apart.
“Huh?”
He stopped in his tracks, his mouth agape wide enough to fit an egg, his face full of horror.
And the sight presented on his retina was extremely horrifying; in the air before him, no less than eight ghostly black shadows floated towards him, accompanied by piercing, tearing sounds.
In the end, sixteen hands simultaneously struck the youth’s head!
In an instant, the young man’s head compressed like a spring under the relentless smacking of the sixteen hands until it was squashed to the extreme.
“Bang!”
The youth’s head, like a steamed bun, was brutally flattened!
Brain matter and blood splattered everywhere, eventually turning into a flat piece of flesh.
It was followed by another strange sound tearing at the ears, a sonic boom-like noise.