Chapter 90: The Cry of Hell

Inside the Living Apartment, Gao Tian had spent weeks painstakingly practicing how to manually manifest a Wind Puppet. Finally, he had a good opportunity to put his skills on public display.

At present, the summoned Wind Attendant Buddha looked exactly like him in appearance and height. It moved fluidly, without any issues.

Nearby, the white-collar workers watching this "professional from the Supernatural Disaster Bureau" let out low gasps of surprise. A few even took out their mobile phones to snap pictures.

"Hey, hey, no pictures. After this incident is resolved today, everyone's mobile phone will be checked. You can only swipe your cards to leave work once we confirm no one recorded any videos," Supervisor Yao immediately ordered, proving himself highly adept at managing the crowd.

No wonder he was a manager.

At the same time, the strange Wind Puppet this young man had summoned out of thin air completely solidified his identity in the supervisor's mind. He truly was sent by the Supernatural Disaster Bureau; Yao no longer harbored any doubts.

"This puppet will go upstairs in my place," Gao Tian said. "It will observe everything that happens on the staircase exactly as I would and bring back the truth."

As it stood, this was the safest method.

Even if some man-eating Fierce Ghost was hiding on the stairs, the only thing that would be killed and scattered was the Wind Puppet. It wouldn't affect Gao Tian downstairs in the slightest.

The two shared a field of vision, so if the Wind Attendant Buddha encountered any accidents before its death, he would see them clearly.

"Spoken like a true professional. I'll stay right here and wait for you." Supervisor Yao gave him a thumbs-up.

Carrying a flashlight, the Wind Puppet slowly walked up the stairs.

Ten steps, twenty steps, thirty steps—as it continuously climbed higher, the Wind Attendant Buddha soon reached an altitude where it could no longer see Gao Tian and Supervisor Yao when it looked back.

Above, the staircase continued to stretch into the endless heights, showing absolutely no sign of an end.

The walls on both sides were also gradually narrowing and closing in. The Wind Attendant Buddha found it increasingly difficult to advance through the cramped passage, eventually having to lower its head to avoid bumping the ceiling.

Seeing this, Gao Tian seriously doubted whether the puppet could keep going if the passage continued to shrink.

Besides, once the passage narrowed to a certain point, a person of normal build definitely wouldn't be able to proceed. That security guard who came up earlier should have stopped around this height.

Why hadn't the guard returned the way he came?

Even if he had been killed by something on the stairs, there should at least be a corpse.

Right now, there was no sign of him dead or alive, as if he had completely vanished into this alternate space.

In the distance, that low "beast-like" roar echoed again, sounding much clearer than it had from the entrance.

The narrow staircase began to tremble slightly.

Gao Tian finally realized that the noise was not the roar of a lion or tiger at all. Ordinary forest animals couldn't possibly produce such an indescribable, horrifying sound.

It was the roar of a human.

It was just that the person's voice was incredibly deep, coming in rhythmic bursts like venting waves of air. Any normal person hearing it from afar would immediately assume it was a wild beast.

Just what kind of thing was that person howling upstairs? How massive was their lung capacity?

Gao Tian didn't know.

If he were here in person, he would be considering getting off this staircase right about now.

But it was the Wind Attendant Buddha climbing the stairs. He might as well let it keep going to see what was up there. Even if it was killed by a Fierce Ghost, he would still gain valuable information.

After struggling up another few dozen steps on the increasingly narrow staircase, the slope of the converging walls finally lessened.

In the beam of the flashlight, the Wind Attendant Buddha spotted a dark figure about fifty steps up, curled into a ball and shivering against the wall.

Judging by how hard they were shaking, the person seemed scared senseless, completely devoid of rational thought.

"Hey, who are you? Are you alright? Do you want me to help you get out of here?"

The Wind Attendant Buddha climbed a few steps closer, trying to communicate with the person.

The figure clearly reacted, but after glancing down once, they curled back into a ball and continued to shiver.

Suddenly, Gao Tian remembered that he was currently in the form of a Wind Puppet. At first glance, a person with zero knowledge of the supernatural definitely wouldn't see him as human.

He continued up the stairs.

Getting a bit closer, he finally saw that it was a young man in a security guard uniform. Except, his face was deathly pale right now. His eyes were wide open to their absolute limit, staring blankly at the ground while his mouth continuously muttered incomprehensible gibberish.

It had to be Xiao Liu, the security guard who had come up earlier. No wonder he hadn't come back down for so long; he looked a bit unhinged now.

"Snap out of it. I came up here to save you," Gao Tian said. "Don't let my appearance fool you; I'm a puppet created by a human, so there's no need to be afraid. Tell me, what did you run into up there? You'll be able to leave here soon."

The Wind Attendant Buddha walked up and patted Xiao Liu's cheek, trying to rouse him.

Xiao Liu looked up at the Wind Attendant Buddha again. Facing this humanoid figure made of flowing air, he showed no emotion at all—no surprise, excitement, or fear. Completely immersed in his own world, he lowered his head and kept muttering to himself.

Helpless, the Wind Attendant Buddha leaned in and listened to him for a moment.

He caught bizarre fragments like "there's a corridor upstairs," "a crazy woman is locked up," "it's like a mental asylum," and "some Americans told me to get lost."

What kind of nonsense was this? How did Americans get dragged into this?

It was entirely possible that there really was a corridor at the end of the staircase with a "crazy woman" locked inside. Gao Tian could understand that much.

Regardless, it was best to get him out of here first. Once he saved the guy, he could explore the higher levels further.

The Wind Attendant Buddha pulled the security guard up, preparing to forcefully drag him away.

Unexpectedly, this very action triggered a violent trauma response in the guard. He lunged forward and punched the Wind Attendant Buddha right in the face, his expression twisted like a demon's. "We can't get out! None of us can get out! We can only survive a little longer if we stay right here! Go die on your own, don't drag me to my death!"

Shoved into the corner, the airflow making up the Wind Attendant Buddha dispersed slightly, and it nearly collapsed on the spot.

Fortunately, it managed to stabilize its humanoid form at the last second.

After pushing the Wind Attendant Buddha away, Xiao Liu showed no intention of pressing the attack. He simply retreated back into the corner, shivering like a turtle hiding in its shell.

It seemed that as long as the Wind Attendant Buddha didn't force him to move, his violent trauma response wouldn't be triggered.

Seeing this, Gao Tian, controlling the puppet from the eleventh floor, helplessly turned to Supervisor Yao and a few other Jinhai executives who had gathered around. "I found Xiao Liu about two hundred steps up. However, his mental state is extremely unstable. The moment I try to drag him away by force, he becomes hostile and attacks. Since the puppet created by my item can be scattered relatively easily, I can't bring him down for the time being."

Supervisor Yao wiped the sweat from his face with a handkerchief. "Thank you for the hard work. Investigate the situation on the stairs first. Let Xiao Liu cool down in the corner for a while, and you can just bring him back when you come down later."

Gao Tian thought about it and decided that was the only way.

Step by step, the Wind Attendant Buddha continued its advance up the seemingly endless stairs.

A long time passed.

Without realizing it, the puppet had already climbed to a height of around three to four hundred steps.

The pitch-black staircase, which had remained entirely unchanged this whole time, finally showed some differences.

A hint of light appeared above.

A glaring entrance emerged at the end of the endless steps.

The woman's rumbling roar, which had echoed constantly, also quieted down at this moment.

Gao Tian knew that the end of the staircase had finally appeared.

It seemed that even though Xiao Liu had gone mad, the things he muttered about seeing actually existed. This inexplicably appearing staircase did indeed lead to a corridor.

He just didn't know what the "crazy locked-up woman" Xiao Liu mentioned actually was. A Fierce Ghost?

The scene before the puppet's eyes gave way to a milky-white corridor.

The floor was white, the walls were white, and the ceiling was white. Farther down, pendant lights hung at regular intervals, while rows of black doors lined both sides of the hall.

How should he put it?

This place did look a bit like a hospital, yet at the same time, that seemed highly unlikely.

It was more as if some creature had crudely imitated the internal structure of a human hospital, piecing together a bootleg ward.

At the moment, he couldn't tell what kind of building this corridor was supposed to belong to.

In the distance, that terrifying woman's roar started rumbling once more.

The Wind Attendant Buddha walked a few steps along one side of the corridor toward the roaring, trying to figure out exactly what kind of person could scream so loudly.

Just then, footsteps sounded from the corner. Before the Wind Attendant Buddha could react, a Caucasian man stepped out. He was wearing Goggles and body armor, armed to the teeth. He had clearly sensed someone coming up from the other side of the corridor.

The white man pulled down his Goggles, looking incredibly disgruntled as he endlessly complained:

"What the hell?! How did another random nobody manage to stumble into our spatial channel? Nancy, where exactly did you anchor our evacuation route? Are we even still in North America? I really don't want to clear this garbage instance only to have to book a damn flight just to get back to my five-hundred-square-meter mansion in California for a good soak in the tub."

Upon seeing that the "person" in front of him was a humanoid puppet made of swirling airflow, the American soldier panicked. Assuming it was another monster spawning in the corridor, he raised his Submachine Gun, aimed it at the Wind Attendant Buddha, and prepared to fire.

Fortunately, Gao Tian's English grades were pretty good, so he caught the general gist of what the white guy was saying.

He immediately raised his hands, gesturing for the other party to relax, and replied in English, "Don't do anything crazy. Look closely, I'm a puppet controlled by a human. That spatial channel of yours opened up on the eleventh floor of our building, creating a bizarre staircase. I just came up here to see what exactly was going on. Let's talk this out; neither of us really understands the current situation."