Chapter 6: Demon Arena (4)
The once noisy barrage of comments suddenly went completely blank — a clean, silent emptiness.
Tang Mobai glanced at the man who hadn’t reacted at all since he’d entered. No matter what Tang Mobai did or said, Deville hadn’t even looked in his direction.
His eyes were vacant, fixed on the void, as though he were completely lost in his own world.
That strangely familiar state made Tang Mobai’s heart stir slightly. He stared into Deville’s eyes and moved toward him slowly.
“Hello? My name is Tang Mobai. Sorry to meet under these circumstances. You’re Deville, right?”
“…”
“Hey? Can you hear me? How about we work together? You don’t look like a newcomer — you must’ve been here for a while. Do you have any other intel? What’s supposed to happen tonight?”
“…”
No matter what Tang Mobai asked, Deville didn’t respond. After a moment of thought, Tang Mobai stood up and carefully approached him.
Three meters… two meters…
Tang Mobai hunched his back, keeping both hands visible in Deville’s line of sight until he was within about one meter.
Then, suddenly, the man who had been motionless sat up sharply, a flash of ferocity in his eyes, starting to raise his arm.
Tang Mobai immediately took a step back, crouched, and held his hands out to show he meant no harm.
Deville stared at Tang Mobai, his fierce expression slowly fading into confusion again, his gaze turning empty.
This time Tang Mobai didn’t try to get closer. Instead, he turned to grab the oil lamp on the wooden table. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Deville watching his every move, so he deliberately slowed down, letting him see each motion clearly.
Tang Mobai picked up the lamp and, in the darkness, carried it over to Deville. He placed it at the one-meter boundary between them, then sat down right beside it.
Deville looked at him, then at the lamp. After a while, his shoulders relaxed slightly, though his expression remained blank — within seconds, his focus drifted off again, returning to the same dazed state.
Tang Mobai sat quietly, staring into the darkness. Occasionally he glanced at Deville and murmured, “He really is a lunatic…”
He had thought the chat’s “crazy” comments referred to Deville’s behavior in the arena — his brutal fighting style — but now he realized they had been literal.
This condition… Tang Mobai knew it far too well — so well it almost conjured up hallucinations from his memory.
“To be in that state and still be alive… you must be insanely strong,” Tang Mobai muttered softly. “Lucky you. I wish I could be that strong too. So, what are you, huh? Autism? Something else?”
“Were you like this since you got here, or before that?”
“I thought I was unlucky enough already, but looks like someone’s worse off than me.”
No matter what Tang Mobai said, Deville never responded. Tang Mobai had gotten used to it, and didn’t mind — he just kept mumbling to himself. After all, a voice, any voice, was better than the suffocating silence of the night.
Deville still said nothing. He took out a piece of black, moldy bread and bit into it.
“Hey—don’t eat that!” Tang Mobai turned around and instinctively reached out to stop him—
Swish!
Tang Mobai jerked his hand back just in time. A thin line of blood appeared on his fingers — if he had been a second slower, they would’ve been sliced clean off.
Deville’s right hand had somehow transformed into a metallic blade. He glared at Tang Mobai coldly and protectively, finishing the bread in two or three savage bites.
Tang Mobai didn’t say anything. He blinked and obediently retreated back to his pile of straw, making no further attempt to talk.
Silence returned — so absolute that even a pin drop would’ve echoed. In the darkness, every negative emotion grew stronger.
Less than a minute passed before Tang Mobai found himself missing the noisy, vulgar barrage of comments. At least then his mind was filled with anger, not unease or dread.
Anger drives you to fight forward. Fear only makes you retreat.
Time passed little by little. Midnight brought fatigue that washed over reason like a tide.
About five meters away from Tang Mobai’s hut, Xu Weiyi, drowsy and half-asleep, finally closed his eyes. Normally, two newcomers shared a house — they placed an oil lamp in the center and lay on straw, taking turns keeping watch. But Xu Weiyi was too tired; his eyelids kept drooping.
The huts arranged by the black-robed figures were extremely crude — honestly, rural brick houses looked better. Cold wind seeped through unseen cracks, and just as Xu Weiyi was about to fall asleep, a chill breeze woke him up again.
Then, a strange sound reached his ears.
“Hehehe… heeheehee…”
It was a child’s laughter — sharp, high-pitched, and eerily distorted.
But this was the Revival Match — where could a child possibly come from?
Xu Weiyi snapped awake, his nerves instantly taut. He looked toward the direction of the sound, but saw no one — only bloody handprints slowly appearing on the cracked walls of the hut, as though… someone was crawling across them like a spider.
The bloodied prints were creeping closer and closer to where Xu Weiyi lay.
He swallowed his scream and instinctively reached out to shake his companion awake.
“Wake up, wake up, wake up! There’s danger!”
He kept his eyes locked on the wall while pushing the person beside him — but suddenly, his push felt lighter, the body softer. A cold, damp sensation began crawling up his arm.
“Hee… crack… heehee…”
The laughter was closer now — right next to him.
Xu Weiyi turned his head instinctively toward where his partner should have been—
—and saw a child, five or six years old, limbs twisted outward, skin blistered and peeling like a burn victim. The exposed flesh glistened wet and red, one eyeball hanging loose from its socket. The child’s tiny hands clutched Xu Weiyi’s arm.
“AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
Xu Weiyi’s mind went blank. He couldn’t stand it anymore. Clutching the oil lamp, he rolled and scrambled away, completely forgetting the warning about the limited oil supply, and lit the lamp instantly.
One hut after another lit up — and within the faint light’s reach, the haunting shadows vanished.
For now.
Inside Tang Mobai’s hut—Bloody handprints slowly appeared on the floor. The air grew icy as ghostly laughter echoed from all directions.
Children, women, and elders — pale, distorted bodies — materialized from the darkness. Their limbs bent at unnatural angles as they crawled like monstrous human-shaped toads, glaring at Tang Mobai with eyes full of hatred, black blood dripping from their sockets.
Yet even so, Tang Mobai remained impossibly calm.
If this had been the old him, he would’ve already bolted for the door — or lit the oil lamp at once.
But now, after two weeks of training, Tang Mobai had learned how to stay composed under any extreme circumstance. It was his most vital survival skill — because in the face of danger, emotions only cloud judgment. Only calmness could help him survive.
The oil lamp he’d set earlier sat back on the table. Forcing his trembling fingers still, Tang Mobai glanced, almost casually, at Deville.
The man was surrounded by ghostly shapes too, but remained motionless.
According to the chat logs, Deville had been here a long time — holed up after losing his sanity. That meant he wasn’t ignorant of what was happening.
With that in mind, as the ghosts drew closer, Tang Mobai’s eyes flickered with hesitation — then, gritting his teeth, he mimicked Deville’s response: he shut his eyes and did nothing, though his eyelids trembled violently.
Eerie laughter echoed faintly through the air. The ghosts coldly watched their prey. Only a few lingered resentfully by Deville, while most turned toward the fresh newcomer.
Creak… creak…
Scratching noises came from the wooden door. The hut’s only window rattled. Amid the laughter, Tang Mobai thought he heard a woman crying outside—
“Open the door! Please, open the door! Help me! He kicked me out—please, save me!”
Tang Mobai’s eyelids twitched. His fingers pressed against the floor as he forced himself to stay perfectly still. It was obviously a trap — and besides, the black-robed man had explicitly warned them not to leave their rooms.
“Open the door…”
The woman’s voice grew weaker and weaker, until it was thick with hatred. The pounding on the door grew heavier, as though she would break it down any second.
“Open the door…”
Bang!
The sound of the door slamming open filled the room, followed by a sudden, chilling gust of wind.
Tang Mobai couldn’t hold back anymore — his eyes flew open. Right in front of him was a woman’s face — twisted features, ghastly pale, and full of venomous hatred. Blood tears streamed from her eyes. Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly — her tongue was gone — yet she still rasped out a hoarse, despairing voice:
“Why… didn’t you… open the door…”
At this point, Tang Mobai was barely a meter from the oil lamp on the wooden table.
All the ghosts avoided the area around the lamp, even kindly clearing a path so he could easily reach it. If he lunged, he could light it in an instant.
The female ghost waited, anticipating the newcomer’s fear, his scream —
But Tang Mobai only twitched the corner of his mouth and muttered quietly, “Ma’am, that jump-scare trick is way too old.”
The ghost: “?”
Was he scared? Yes. Terrified. As a normal human being, he was absolutely scared to death.
But as a trained normal human being who’d endured two weeks of relentless horror conditioning, his instincts had begun to yield to reason.
All living things act with purpose. Even ghosts — if they retain reason — must act with purpose.
At this distance, if they meant to attack him, they could’ve taken his head off already. Yet they only went for a face-scare.
And his traps hadn’t been triggered.
When thought took over his nerves, the fear started to ebb.
More importantly — Deville, practically engulfed by ghostly figures, still hadn’t moved.
Maybe it was his imagination, but Tang Mobai thought he saw a flicker of disappointment flash across the ghost’s face — and then all the phantoms faded away. The room returned to stillness.
Only the pounding of Tang Mobai’s heart echoed in his chest.
“…It’s over?”
He had realized it by now — those ghosts were most likely illusions.
Logically speaking, any normal person facing such terrifying phenomena would panic, act irrationally — like running away or lighting the oil lamp immediately.
That was probably the first trap.
Given the limited oil supply, if the lamp was kept burning all night, it definitely wouldn’t last till dawn. And once the light went out, who knew what would happen in the second half of the night?
Unfortunately for the game designers, Tang Mobai had spent the last two weeks immersed in one supernatural horror scenario after another.
Maybe because he feared ghosts, and his last failed trial just happened to be in a haunted world, his training schedule had included a lot of paranormal drills.
Honestly, compared to those, these “ghosts” weren’t even that scary.
His simulation exams had been written by world-class horror directors, Oscar-winning special effects artists, and award-sweeping actors and actresses — all under the guidance of psychology experts who customized every scenario to his cultural background and personal fears.
Even the horror movies and games on his computer had been studied and blended into his training.
Fake, yes — but far more terrifying than anything real.
After all, ghosts just wanted to kill you.
The training system wanted to scare everyone and still have them pay for it willingly.
That was a service. Ghosts didn’t care about customer feedback.
Recalling those two weeks of hellish training and comparing them with the current illusions, Tang Mobai’s mind gradually calmed.
No… something wasn’t right.
If it were just hallucinations, it shouldn’t have caused the people in the other rooms to turn on each other.
Unless… this was only the appetizer.
As time passed, the screams outside slowly faded. After all, not everyone was a fool — soon some would realize the initial ghosts were illusions, and the phantoms would begin to fade away.
…That was how it should have gone.
But then, a furious shout cracked through the night like thunder.
Tang Mobai wrinkled his nose — he caught a metallic scent. Blood.
Blood? But hadn’t the ghosts disappeared?
He stared blankly into the dark, and then realization slowly dawned.
The ghosts weren’t outside anymore. They had come out — from the hearts of men.
“Xu Weiyi! Xu Weiyi, wake up!”
Li Xuelei swung his arm and slapped Xu Weiyi hard across the face. A red handprint bloomed instantly — but at least it broke the illusion.
The terror in Xu Weiyi’s eyes slowly faded, replaced by confusion. Under the lamp’s light, Li Xuelei stood there unharmed. The bloody handprints on the walls were gone.
Only then did Xu Weiyi fully process what had just happened. He looked down at the lit oil lamp — his face pale and twisted.
“I told you,” Li Xuelei snapped impatiently, “we only light the lamp when both of us agree!”
They had planned to take turns keeping watch. But when Li Xuelei woke to Xu Weiyi’s scream, the lamp was already burning.
“I… I’m sorry,” Xu Weiyi stammered, bowing his head, unable to speak further.
But it was already too late. The damage was done.
The oil lamp’s fuel was scarce to begin with. They had agreed to save it for emergencies — now that it was lit, it couldn’t be turned off. Who knew if it would last until the second half of the night?
Irritated, Li Xuelei snatched up the lamp. “I’ll hold onto this. Otherwise you’ll—”
He stopped mid-sentence.
Because he saw the look in Xu Weiyi’s eyes. And because Xu Weiyi had subtly pulled his hand back.
The huts the black-robed figures had led them to had no soundproofing — worse than cheap rural brick houses.
But now, Li Xuelei realized those flimsy walls had one crucial function.
When the first scream ripped through the night again — Everyone knew.
The balance had been broken.
[Mini-Theater – Special Training Edition]
Instructor: One of the most important tasks in these two weeks is to train your mental endurance.
Tang Mobai: Uh? For example?
Instructor: Meet your new instructor. Looks familiar, doesn’t she? She’s a big screen star. She’ll be specifically responsible for you from now on. You’ll see her often in these two weeks!
(A super-beautiful woman appears)
Tang Mobai: Oh, oh, oh, I love this training. Hello, instructor. You’re so beautiful!
Female Instructor: Thank you. I hope you think so too after training. 🙂
Training in progress.
Tang Mobai had just lain down in bed in the middle of the night when he heard a noise beneath the bed and looked down in surprise.
Female Ghost: Hello.
Tang Mobai: Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!
Next morning, while washing up, he saw a reflection in the mirror
Female Ghost: Good morning!
Tang Mobai: Help! Help! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!
After the evening physical training, he was exhausted and was stuck in a maze on the way home.
Female Ghost: Thank you for your hard work.
Tang Mobai: Not hard, you did hard work. 🙂
Thank you for reading 🙂 I hope you all liked my translations. If you enjoyed my work, please consider buying me a Ko-Fi 😉
