Chapter 57: Flesh and Skin

[In Front of the Dormitory Building]

The three of them were advancing cautiously.

Due to the emergence of the perimeter walls, the entire campus had transformed into a labyrinth. Coupled with the failure of communication devices, it was impossible to know the conditions of other areas or the status of other personnel.

They soon arrived at the first fork in the road formed by the walls,

where a considerate directional sign happened to be posted:

Pointing to the four directions of the campus respectively:

↑ Teaching Building, Administrative Building, School Gate

← Student and Staff Dormitories, Pavilion in the Woods

→ Track and Field Ground, Gymnasium

↓ Canteen, Laboratory Building

Following the monitor's suggestion, their best option now was to head to the sports center to regroup with the main force and wait out the crisis under the protection of the physical education teachers.

Roddy, however, hesitated. Instead of heading straight for the sports center as indicated, he stopped in front of the road sign to think carefully.

The monitor pulled Xiaoying along as she caught up. "Roddy, is something wrong?"

"Based on descriptions in the books, the doppelgängers who created the interstitial space are inextricably linked to No. 4 High School. They are extremely familiar with the campus and might even be students or faculty members of our school.

Choosing tonight, when the physical fitness tests are taking place, to do this—they must have made preparations.

The most formidable physical education teachers and senior students in the school are all concentrated in the sports center.

With such a dense concentration of people, a portion of the students buckling under the pressure of college entrance exams will inevitably be influenced by the [interstitial space] and undergo abnormal transformations, just like the dorm supervisor we encountered earlier.

As long as the conversion rate exceeds a certain threshold, a riot will erupt.

Furthermore, the sports center is definitely the area most heavily affected by the interstitial space. The situation inside might have already turned extremely grim.

Let's try approaching the track and field ground first to check the situation. We must not blindly focus only on regrouping with the main force."

"Okay."

Following the guide's directions, the three of them stepped into the walled corridor leading toward the sports center.

Having lived on campus for three years, they knew very well the distance between the dormitory building and the track and field ground. Right now, the distance was visibly much greater—the space of the entire campus had expanded.

The corridor before them looked incomparably long, stretching endlessly without a visible end.

To avoid getting separated, the three of them held hands, maintaining a high level of focus the entire time.

After walking for about five minutes, their steps slowed down.

Right ahead in their field of vision, deep within the corridor illuminated only by dim streetlights,

a female student wearing the No. 4 High School uniform, her face consumed by terror, was running wildly.

When the female student saw three living people appear before her, the despair in her eyes rapidly faded, replaced by entreaty and hope, while she shouted at the top of her lungs:

"Help! Save me... Everyone has changed!

They've turned into twisted, hideous monsters. My friends were all killed..."

Because people underwent changes on their way to take the exams, and it was the students who were changing, the teachers found it hard to step in and stop it right away. The entire sports center has descended into absolute chaos."

The girl recounted the situation there with great agitation while approaching the three of them like a drowning man grasping at a straw.

Just as the girl closed the distance to within one meter, Roddy raised his left arm, making a gesture to halt her advance.

"What is your name?"

"Fu Siyu."

"You..." Roddy wanted to ask further, attempting to eliminate any suspicion through a series of questions, when something fell from beside him, fast and fatal!

Thwack!

The sharp top of a metal crowbar smashed directly into the female student's cranial vault. The sound was so crisp and the impact so loud that even the usually calm Roddy was startled.

Yet what happened next was quite bizarre.

The female student with her head smashed open first tilted her head, looking in utter astonishment at the wielder of the crowbar—who was none other than Wu Wen, standing right behind Roddy—failing to understand how the other person had seen through her disguise.

Immediately afterward, the skin on the female student's body began to wriggle.

Swish!

The entire skin sac, along with the school uniform she wore, peeled off entirely as if it possessed a life of its own, slipping away...

Only a skinned corpse remained. The corpse itself had long been dilapidated, and without the skin to wrap it, it immediately disintegrated into scattered fragments of flesh and rotten bones on the ground.

Fritz-fritz~

The streetlights within the corridor all began to flicker, and an unfamiliar yet mature female voice came from behind:

"How strange~ To think there would still be students wandering outside instead of taking the physical fitness test, and they even seem quite 'exceptional'. Just how did you see through me?"

Accompanied by the voice, the three of them immediately turned around.

They saw hanging from a streetlight ten meters behind them, suspended by long black hair, a pale-skinned middle-aged woman wearing a school uniform.

A closer observation would reveal the [anomaly] of this woman: the parts of her exposed outside her clothing, such as her wrists and ankles, possessed no skeletal structure whatsoever, resembling nothing more than a human skin hanging from a streetlight.

The monitor showed no sign of fear whatsoever. Slinging the crowbar over her shoulder, she took the initiative to step forward and take over the conversation:

"Fu Siyu from Class 12 of Senior Year, ranked 604th in the grade. She usually had no friends, often moved alone, and had a rather withdrawn personality.

There is no such thing as her friends being killed while she managed to escape.

Furthermore, this person had a very obvious leg injury, likely caused by domestic violence or self-harm; even if she were running, she should have been limping.

Lastly, Class 12 of Senior Year should be undergoing strength tests inside the gymnasium, and anyone wanting to escape would still have to pass through the track and field ground.

We didn't encounter a single soul along our way here, yet the very first person we run into is a student with mediocre grades—doesn't that seem rather unlikely?"

The monitor's retort directly caused the skin-woman on the streetlight to burst into laughter:

"Hahaha, to think I would meet someone who understands my daughter even better than I do, and blessed with such a sharp mind to boot. I've decided—you shall be my daughter.

Though we will need to fit your head back into my daughter's skin sac.

Don't worry, as long as you are outstanding enough, no matter how much hardship Mother suffers, I will ensure you want for nothing."

Fritz-fritz~

The electric light holding the woman flickered for a moment, and after a relatively long pause in the flashing, the woman had vanished.

"Prepare for battle!"

Roddy and the others immediately formed a triangle with their shoulders touching, each observing one of the three directions.

Although Xiaoying was facing a real doppelgänger for the first time, bolstered by her recent experience in the dormitory building and the monitor's return, she mustered her courage entirely, sweeping her eyes rapidly across her assigned sector while gripping the claw knife tightly.

Yet the three of them waited for a long time, but the danger failed to materialize.

As time ticked away, considering the potential dangerous changes across the campus and the possibility of a second doppelgänger passing through here, the feeling scraped against the surface of everyone's brain like abrasive sandpaper, breeding irritation.

Roddy, who should have been the calmest, suddenly recalled the spider woman he had encountered in the residential complex. Back then, he had just looked away for a split second, and the monitor whose hand he was holding vanished without a trace.

The current situation bore a striking resemblance,

dim and eerie,

coupled with the opponent's ability to mimic others,

it was entirely possible that one of the three of them had been silently replaced.

At this thought,

Roddy's gaze shifted away from the front, and he turned his head to observe the two girls beside him.

They had neither turned into paper figures nor been replaced; both were in a state of high concentration, and he could even see beads of sweat sliding down their temples.

Just as Roddy breathed a sigh of relief and shifted his vision back to the front,

his peripheral vision suddenly caught sight of something moving on the ground—or rather, "a patch of the ground was moving." This moving piece of terrain had closed the distance to less than half a meter.

Without hesitation, Roddy swung his zombie blade downward decisively.

Clack!

The blade slashed into the concrete ground, leaving a shallow mark without hitting any suspicious object.

The ground before Roddy also returned to normal, showing no signs of movement whatsoever.

As he pulled back the zombie blade in bewilderment,

Hisst~ A sensation of itching came from his leg, rapidly spreading upward, passing his waist and abdomen, and reaching his neck.

The monitor and Xiaoying also turned their heads due to the sound of the slash.

"Ah!"

Xiaoying was so startled that she took two steps back. Although she tightly gripped the claw knife in her hand, she had no idea what she should do.

Within their field of vision,

one side of Roddy's cheek had already sprouted a pale set of facial features, identical to the woman who had just been hanging from the streetlight.