My ‘Healing’ Game
Chapter 384: Heart of the Nightmare (4000)

Chapter 384: Chapter 384: Heart of the Nightmare (4000)

"A shattered insect cocoon?"

Gazing upon that giant cocoon fragment atop the blood-colored flower sea, Han Fei’s eyes filled with confusion. It seemed that something had already emerged from a cocoon in the deepest depths beneath Dead Building, completing its transformation.

"The butterfly’s strength should still be at the stage of hatred, yet the aura emitted by the insect cocoon fragments is already of an unspeakable level."

"This isn’t the butterfly’s cocoon!"

The death intent radiating from the insect cocoon enveloped the Dead Building residential area, and it was because of this very death intent that the complex was named Dead Building.

Approaching the flower before him, with dewdrops of death intent lingering on its vibrant petals, Han Fei stood at the elevator door clutching the Rebirth Slaughter Saber. He was very resistant to entering that sea of flowers, but inside him, two voices were incessantly urging him on.

One was the Big Evil entrenched within Han Fei’s arm, which had become totally excited. It seemed unable to control the spikes on its body, causing a significant amount of soul poison to seep into Han Fei’s blood, mingling with the death curse.

The other was that maniacal laughter. The butterfly’s death curse had shattered something in Han Fei’s Brain Sea, and the laughter kept echoing in his ears.

"Since I’m here, might as well accept it." Han Fei dragged the unconscious boy out of the elevator.

Stepping on the flowers, it was as though he was walking on flesh and blood; the thick death intent wafted around him, and Han Fei felt as though he was strolling on the ocean floor.

"The child in the seventh basement-level closet asked me to destroy a heart. But with such a vast sea of flowers, how can I find that heart?"

The manager would return at 4:44 a.m., and Han Fei was also prepared to disrupt the soul-returning ceremony. He simply didn’t have the time to look for any heart.

The laughter near his ear was causing him to grow increasingly irritable. He would look around after taking a few steps, always feeling as if someone were crouching right behind his head.

"Forget it, I’ll leave it to Big Evil. It and the butterfly both emerged from human pupae, so it should be able to sense something."

The scene before him reminded Han Fei of the corpse pit under the Security Company, except the flower sea beneath Death Building was nearly ten times larger. A glance revealed the dim underground filled with bright red blood flowers.

Raising the arm where Big Evil lay hidden, Han Fei moved through the flower sea by relying on Big Evil’s instincts.

He climbed up a slope, and looking down, Han Fei was utterly dumbfounded, his complexion turning pale.

The massive insect cocoon fragment visible above the flower sea was just a minuscule part of the whole cocoon! The real shattered cocoon lay buried beneath the sea of flowers!

From the high ground, he could clearly see, the giant cocoon, whose surface was carved with countless human faces, split open in the middle, its original shape vaguely distinguishable.

This was a human-shaped insect cocoon, and its fractured limbs and head resembled that of a person. The colossal shell itself was propping up the four Death Buildings in the complex.

If it was just that, Han Fei might have been shocked, but his complexion wouldn’t have changed so drastically.

Inside the shattered cocoon’s enormous carcass, there were children hanging, their bodies connected to the roots of the flowers above their heads, some of their skin already blurring into translucency.

What sent chills down Han Fei’s spine was that many children’s expressions would occasionally shift, as if they were enduring an extended nightmare.

"My god..."

The butterfly had collected many of the children’s nightmares, which harbored their emotions and memories, nourishing the blood flowers.

"Each blood flower corresponds to a child?"

The maniacal laughter near his ear became even more piercing, more desolate, more insane.

Han Fei felt as if someone pushed him, and he jumped down from a high place, dragging the unconscious child next to him.

Clinging to the blood-stained roots and stems, Han Fei looked closely at the human faces on the insect cocoon and the children hanging inside it, and he started to understand why the butterflies stuffed fierce ghosts with insect pupae, which were called human pupae.

The things that seemed like insects were, in fact, the filthy essence of the human heart. For the human pupae to emerge, all emotions and memories related to humans had to be absorbed.

"How did this insect cocoon grow so big?"

Climbing down, Han Fei grabbed each child’s arm, stepping on their nightmares as he descended towards the bottom of the valley.

Looking up, the abyss where devils resided seemed no more than this, with blood flowers everywhere and the cliffs filled with children repeating nightmares.

Seeing this, Han Fei couldn’t help but recall the mission prompt the system gave him during the Soul-returning Night.

"Falling into the valley of nightmares, the nightmare and devils stared at the silent me, wondering why I didn’t struggle and call for help. I wondered why they would ask such a question?"

"Could it be that not every child in this world is like me?"

"From being locked in a cocoon room since birth to finally sprouting wings?"

Connecting these sentences with the current scene, Han Fei was truly startled.

"Is the bottom of the valley of nightmares mentioned in the hint this deep part of the insect cocoon?"

"The butterfly must have come here for some reason, just like the other children hanging alongside, but it was different, transformed by the devil and nightmare into a brand-new monster."

"This shattered insect cocoon is the birthplace of the butterfly!"

At this thought, Han Fei grew even more perplexed. The insect cocoon was unrelated to the butterfly—it had appeared before the butterfly’s birth.

What could emerge from this cocoon? And who hung so many children’s nightmares here?

"The butterfly has always wanted to create its own kind..." A chilling thought suddenly struck Han Fei: "Could it be that the butterfly succeeded long ago, and the butterfly active now is just a scapegoat?"

Staring at the torn insect cocoon, feeling the dense death intent on it, this was merely a torn shell, but the aura it emitted was already beyond mere hatred.

Han Fei wanted to stop and think, but the presence of Big Evil and the sound of Kuangxiao didn’t allow him any peace. Soul Poison dripped down his arms, and the alert of increasing resistance to the pain and Soul Poison kept drilling into his brain.

Continuing downward, at the very bottom of the giant cocoon, it seemed someone was fighting, stirring up the black fog with their hatred.

Approaching slowly, Han Fei showed a hint of surprise when he saw the person.

"Zhuang Wen?"

After the Building-jumping Ghost from Building One merged all her consciousnesses, she went straight into Building Four, intent on killing her own father.

Han Fei hadn’t seen her in Building Four and didn’t expect Zhuang Wen to have come here.

The black fog continuously gathered around Zhuang Wen, the center of the swirling black vortex being where she was.

Zhuang Wen seemed to want to destroy this place, but the black fog suppressed her firmly.

In this place, the stronger one’s power, the more they were targeted by the black fog.

However, upon closer consideration, weak grudges couldn’t even make it this far before being crushed by the Death Intent. Han Fei was a complete anomaly, a living person who possessed a Big Evil and had also received the blessing of a large-scaled Grudge.

"A vast amount of black mist scattered, trapping the Gesheng. Could the lingering Death Intent still suppress an existence close to Hatred?"

If it weren’t for Gesheng and Zhuang Wen, the Death Intent Han Fei would be facing would definitely be several times stronger than it is now.

Approaching Zhuang Wen, Han Fei originally wanted to see if he could communicate with her, but only when he got closer did he realize that Zhuang Wen had been completely dominated by Hatred.

Normally, Ghost and Monster entities at the level of Hatred could completely control the hatred in their hearts, but Zhuang Wen’s case was the opposite. Having failed to surpass Hatred for the first time, the Hatred within her was growing more intense. If Han Fei were to move any closer, he might also be attacked by her.

"Forget it, let’s go see what the Big Evil really wants."

Guided by the Big Evil, Han Fei began to wander the bottom of Nightmare Valley.

As he observed the nightmares of the children around him, he felt an inexplicable discomfort, and the sound of Kuangxiao around him seemed to lessen somewhat.

He walked for an indeterminate amount of time, until finally, he stopped in an inconspicuous corner.

This place was no different from the rest of the Bottom of Nightmare Valley, and there was nothing to distinguish it, but the Big Evil insisted on coming here.

Gently moving aside a child pierced by roots, Han Fei saw an old shrine deep within the blood flowers.

"A shrine? Again, a shrine?"

Han Fei now had some aversion to shrines; the reason he entered the Death Building ahead of schedule was that he had opened the shrine at the entrance of Happiness Residential Community, causing Gesheng to go mad and chase him all the way into the Death Building.

"At the bottom of Nightmare Valley, deep within the blood flowers, what kind of god dwells within a shrine hidden inside a shattered cocoon?"

The shrine before him was covered in blood flowers, surrounded by the souls of children. Han Fei felt conflicted. He was indeed afraid of the shrine but also wanted to move those blood flowers aside to see what was inside the shrine.

It was like having an unknown red button in front of him that he was especially tempted to press and try out.

The Big Evil within his arm was completely excited, and blood-red patterns spread from his arm to Han Fei’s chest, constantly urging him on.

"You’re always tempting me to court death," Han Fei lamented.

Han Fei moved aside the children’s souls and squeezed into this unremarkable corner.

If it were not for the Big Evil, no one would have discovered the shrine.

As he drew closer, the reactions of the Big Evil grew stronger; the blood-colored patterns spread over Han Fei’s entire body, scorching his skin.

The shrine deep within the Insect Cocoon was not quite like the one in the Happiness Residential Community; it looked much older, and the black cloth covering the shrine had already rotted away.

Taking a deep breath, Han Fei took out his Rebirth Saber to cut away the blood flowers outside the shrine. He bent down to look inside the shrine.

"Alert to the player with the ID number 0000! Illuminating the shrine has failed! Every shrine hides a different ’god’ behind it, and opening a shrine at random could cost you your life!"

As the system alert appeared in his mind, Han Fei also saw the contents of the shrine.

It was a damaged heart, surrounded by dense, fine blood vessels, which were connected to the roots of the flowers and continuously drew nightmares from the souls of countless children.

This heart emitted a strong stench, as if it had been dead for a long time, but it still hadn’t stopped beating.

"Is it the source of all the Death Intent in the Death Building?"

Big Evil was extremely excited, the more excited it became, the closer Han Fei got to death; this was one of its talents.

"Shatter it directly?"

Gripping the Rebirth Slaughter Saber tightly, Han Fei stared at the shattered heart in the shrine, as if he had returned to the Flesh Factory.

After the forging of the Rebirth Slaughter Saber was successful, what was used to consecrate the saber was the Spider’s Heart of Evil, and now he was about to shatter a heart greatly related to the Butterfly.

Perhaps shattering the Spider’s Heart of Evil was an event premeditated by the Spider, as it seemed that only this way could the Rebirth Saber come into being.

Without hesitation, Han Fei recalled everything he had experienced in the Death Building, all the crimes committed by the Butterfly, and all the suffering and despair the victims had gone through.

He held the slaughter saber with both hands, slowly raising it; he was going to bring out the ultimate characteristics of the Rebirth Slaughter Saber!

Shadows appeared behind Han Fei, joining him in gripping the saber handle.

The vivid blade appeared instantly, beautiful, hopeful, the most dazzling character of humanity was held in Han Fei’s hands, and then everyone slashed down together!

Blood flowers withered as if the root-like blood vessels were torn apart, Han Fei’s slaughter saber split open the shrine, landing on that rotten heart!

Never before seen in the Deep World, the saber pierced that heart, and almost instantly, Han Fei felt as if a pair of eyes in the shrine opened; he didn’t even see what it was before his body was flung far away.

His hands, holding the Rebirth Saber, were covered in fresh blood, and his chest, cheeks, and lower abdomen facing the shrine were a bloody mess.

The Rebirth Saber did indeed cut into that heart, shattering the black scab, but the thing inside the shrine reacted too quickly.

He lost feeling in his arms, and turning his head, Han Fei discovered that the blood patterns on his body had disappeared, as if Big Evil had left his body.

Looking towards the shrine, Big Evil, now several sizes smaller, was crouched on top of that broken heart, nibbling at the heart enshrined within the shrine through the fresh wound made by Han Fei’s slash.

The blood vessels connected to the surrounding blood flowers started to tremble, and the souls of the children hanging on the walls of the Giant Cocoon struggled as if they were being awakened from a nightmare.

The trembling continued to spread outward, and the black mist beat against the Insect Cocoon Fragments like a tsunami.

"That broken heart definitely doesn’t belong to the current Manager of the Death Building, but to whom does this thing belong?"

Han Fei’s Life Value was nearly depleted, the Midnight Butcher’s Professional Talent was triggered, he didn’t hesitate even for half a second, retreating at a speed even faster than before, but it was already too late.

The entire Bottom of Nightmare Valley was in turmoil, the very foundation that had always supported the Death Building was having problems!

The tiny shrine and the entire Insect Cocoon as one, the ocean of blood flowers crashing inward; Han Fei watched himself about to be crushed into pieces when a massive red shadow enveloped him.

Han Fei looked aside with lingering fear, in Zhuang Wen, the Building-jumping Ghost’s eyes, the Hatred Black Fire burned, that raging fire was torching a little girl’s soul.

The girl seemed to represent the last bit of Zhuang Wen’s sanity, and when the girl could no longer bear the scorching of the Hatred Fire, that would be the moment Zhuang Wen lost control again.

"Escape upwards! The way out is above!" Han Fei shouted loudly, but Zhuang Wen showed no intention of leaving.

This woman, whose eyes burned with the Hatred Black Fire, seemed to have finally found something on which to vent her hatred and began to attack the shrine in this state of fury.