The previous mirror had never pulled anything like this.
The freshly repaired heart was torn apart again. The horrifying feeling of life slipping away left him no room to think clearly.
Thankfully, he had a backup plan. A thick tentacle burst out from his back. At its tip was a freshly grown, beating heart. It pulsed realistically.
Ivan tore out his damaged heart without hesitation and replaced it with the new one. Seeing this, the mirror started clapping slowly. "Magnificent. Truly magnificent. You never cease to amaze me."
Ivan ignored the mockery. His face stayed cold as he tried to figure out a way to break this deadlock.
Did he need to completely destroy the mirror to escape this space? But that strange ability suggested that killing it would kill him too.
"Are you curious how I can do this?" The mirror stepped closer, still smiling. "Because I am your desire. Your desire is not to die, so my desire is the same. I simply bound us together. Hehehe."
The mirror stood right in front of him and slowly pulled the knife out of its chest.
Right now, it looked like a perfect dead end.
Shatter the desire and he dies. Don't shatter it and he stays trapped in this mirror space forever.
In the real room, Ivan's fusion panel floated silently. The progress bar was climbing at a ridiculous speed: 43%… 55%… 63%…
...
Meanwhile.
Cha Hyun-soo suggested they carefully check every floor. He knew that even if he took a fatal wound, he could recover quickly. In his head, he kept replaying what Lee Eun-hyuk had told him before he left.
"You're the one closest to turning into a monster, which makes you the best person we have for dealing with them. I'm asking you to think about the people still alive in this building."
Pyeon Sang-wook hadn't objected at first. But he noticed that every time Cha Hyun-soo killed a monster, the black in his eyes grew a little darker.
Worried the kid was about to be completely consumed by his desire, he suggested they head straight to the fourteenth floor to pick up Han Du-sik and the others.
Cha Hyun-soo agreed on the surface. But when they reached the seventh floor, he suddenly stopped in front of a door painted green. "I can feel a monster inside. Let's go hunt it. We can take it down."
His eyes had changed again. Deep, pitch-black darkness had swallowed both pupils.
He shoved the door open and turned to Pyeon Sang-wook with a mocking grin. "What's wrong? You scared?"
Pyeon Sang-wook instantly sensed something was wrong. He grabbed Cha Hyun-soo by the shoulder and yanked him back. Seeing that twisted smile on the kid's face, he knew the desire was eating him again.
Without saying a word, he punched Cha Hyun-soo hard in the gut. Cha Hyun-soo doubled over like a boiled shrimp, clutching his stomach and coughing violently.
That punch snapped him back to his senses. Cha Hyun-soo looked up at Pyeon Sang-wook in confusion, unsure what had just happened.
Behind the door was a raging inferno. Suddenly, an unnaturally long monster arm shot out from the flames and grabbed Pyeon Sang-wook, dragging him inside.
The arm was freakishly long, and they couldn't even see the monster's actual body. The Long-Arm Monster used to be an ordinary father. After his son was snatched away by monsters, he fell into despair. His strongest desire became: If only my arms were longer, I could have saved my son.
That single obsession turned him into this abomination.
Seeing Pyeon Sang-wook get dragged away, Cha Hyun-soo charged in after him.
But before he could catch up, another monster slammed into him, sending him flying. He rolled across the floor and looked up to see a monster with extremely long legs and a glowing red light pulsing from its chest.
The Long-Legged Monster used to be a track athlete. After losing to his best friend in a race, jealousy consumed him. He murdered his friend and hid the body in a closet. As the corpse rotted, the stench became unbearable. After turning, he had no nose, and his greatest desire became running faster than everyone else.
The Long-Legged Monster was insanely fast. Just as it was about to pounce on Cha Hyun-soo, an arrow shot in from behind and drove it away.
The two who fired the arrows were Park Yu-ri and Ahn Gil-seop. The former was a pretty girl with asthma who used to be a nurse, so she knew how to treat and bandage wounds.
The latter was an old man wearing thick reading glasses. He was the longest resident in Green Home and had been told by doctors he only had six months left to live, yet here he still was, stubbornly alive.
The sea of flames in the hallway was their handiwork. Their arrows had been specially modified to ignite the moment they were shot.
"Careful," Park Yu-ri warned as she saw Cha Hyun-soo walking toward them while clutching his shoulder. She immediately raised her bow and aimed it at him.
The Long-Arm Monster lay dead at her feet, burned to a crisp. Pyeon Sang-wook was lying next to it. Park Yu-ri crouched down and checked his pulse. "He's still alive."
The group then headed together to Han Du-sik's room.
...
Back to Ivan.
Of course, he had no idea what was happening to Cha Hyun-soo. Right now he was focused on breaking the deadlock in front of him.
"Wait a second," Ivan said, his lips slowly curling into a smirk. "If you don't want to die either, why would you risk stabbing yourself in the heart? I don't buy it. If you actually knew my abilities, you wouldn't have looked so surprised earlier."
He slid his hands into his pockets, calm as ever. "You did that because you know you can't actually kill me that way. You were just trying to make me feel the fear of death. Am I right?"
The mirror's expression didn't change. It raised the knife and pressed the tip against its own temple. "You sure about that? If I drive this into my brain, I doubt you'll survive. Stop pretending. I can feel your worry and fear."
The mirror grinned arrogantly.
"Go ahead," Ivan replied, completely unfazed.
"You're not scared of dying? Hahahaha! Everyone's scared of dying. What the hell are you pretending for?"
"Then try it," Ivan said coldly. This kind of childish trick meant nothing once it had been seen through.
He trusted his judgment completely.
"Fine. Let's try it!"
The mirror suddenly slammed the knife straight into its own temple!
___
[]~(￣▽￣)~*
Read 12 Advance Chapters—P@t- Captain69