The thudding grew closer.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

Each impact shook the ground like a hammer striking bone. The corridor beside the elevator distorted under the force, walls bulging with writhing veins as something massive advanced step by step.

Then—

The flesh-elevator behind them suddenly gurgled.

Its organic surface convulsed, peeling away like melting wax.

In seconds, it transformed back into a normal steel elevator.

"Something’s coming..." Fu Jia’s voice cracked.

He stared toward the dark stairwell, face pale.

Yan Bing hesitated only for a moment before rushing toward the elevator.

"Damn it! Open! Open!"

Bang! Bang! Bang!

But the doors refused to move.

Only Yu Ji remained still, his expression turning darker by the second.

He had already guessed what was happening.

"Whose blood stained the warehouse... whose body rests here..."

Those two warnings echoed in his mind.

Not stepping on the blood was one condition.

Not disturbing the long slumber was another.

And just now—

By forcing Shen Yu to pull the corpse cabinet, they had broken both.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

The sound was now right outside the corridor.

Dark red liquid seeped down the walls like living veins, spreading across the floor. A distorted human shadow stretched across the entrance, growing larger with every step.

"Open it! Open the elevator!"

Yan Bing slammed the button repeatedly.

But the doors remained shut.

"It’s too late," Yu Ji said coldly. "That thing is here."

Without hesitation, he grabbed Fu Jia and dragged him toward the morgue.

"Hide inside."

At the same time, Shen Yu moved as well, his eyes flicking across the room.

He had no intention of waiting to die.

Bang!

The morgue lights flickered out.

The entire space trembled violently.

And then—

Bang! Bang! Bang!

A towering blood-red figure appeared at the corridor entrance.

It did not walk normally.

It bounced.

Each impact landed with a hollow, flesh-crushing sound, leaving behind circular depressions in the ground instead of footprints.

Fu Jia swallowed hard.

"W-what is that... a zombie?"

But the moment he said it—

The creature reached the morgue entrance.

And leapt.

Thud.

Its head smashed into the ground.

Then it bounced again.

Thud.

Closer.

Closer.

Only then did Fu Jia realize the truth.

It wasn’t walking on legs at all.

It was moving by using its head like a spring, slamming it into the ground repeatedly to propel itself forward.

"Impossible..."

A cracked, blood-filled face appeared upside down in front of his coffin.

Its eyes slowly rotated upward, locking directly onto him.

"Found you."

The voice was laughter soaked in blood.

Fu Jia’s pupils shrank.

"No—no—how can you move like that—?!"

The upside-down head cracked open further, black-red fluid pouring out of its eye sockets.

And then—

It smiled.

In despair, the upside-down head’s eye sockets bled as it stared at Fuja. Then its eyeballs rolled out, spilling a thick black-red fluid across the floor.

After seeing this, Fuja’s eye sockets, nostrils, ears, and mouth all began to tremble uncontrollably as blood seeped out of every opening. He couldn’t even form a sound.

The next instant, his body moved on its own.

Arms flung wide—

Bang.

He slammed straight into the ground, carving out a human-shaped crater in the blood-soaked floor.

Wriggle. Wriggle.

The ground beneath him came alive. Bright red blood surged up like grasping hands, instantly wrapping around Fuja’s body. Under his terrified gaze, he was dragged downward and swallowed whole.

In the end, only a distorted face of agony remained on the surface before the floor smoothed itself over again.

A cold laugh echoed through the morgue.

"Ha... ha ha ha..."

"Dong! Dong! Dong!"

The sound resumed shortly after.

This time, it had clearly locked onto a target.

The upside-down corpse was heading straight for Shen Yu.

Dong.

A heavy impact landed on the coffin. The entire lid cracked violently.

Dong dong dong.

It kept striking the coffin with its head, each hit forcing deeper fractures into the wood.

Finally—

Bang!

The coffin lid exploded open.

The inverted head dropped straight down.

Inside, Shen Yu and Yinbing stared at it from within the cramped space.

"Damn, it’s really like this..." Shen Yu reacted instantly.

Without hesitation, he grabbed Yinbing’s neck and shoved her forward.

"You—Shen Yu!!"

The upside-down face collided with Yinbing’s body. At the same moment, her talent activated, and the descending corpse paused for a fraction of a second—its expression freezing in confusion.

Then, as if losing interest, it bounced away from the coffin and continued its erratic patrol through the morgue.

Dong. Dong. Dong.

It moved on.

Shen Yu exhaled slowly.

"I didn’t expect it to move only by head impacts... and its vision is strictly downward."

Yinbing glared at him, teeth clenched.

She finally understood.

From the beginning, he had been using her as a shield.

At the same time, the corpse had already left the area, its movements gradually fading into the distance.

Shen Yu’s eyes shifted upward.

Above the coffins, the topmost layer of cabinets stretched along the ceiling.

"Still alive..." someone muttered in disbelief outside.

Even the others had assumed Shen Yu would be dead by now.

But he wasn’t looking at them.

He was looking at the structure of the morgue.

One thing was wrong.

"018..."

He narrowed his eyes.

Then it hit him.

He had been interpreting the numbering horizontally.

But if the corpse’s perspective—its upward "field of vision"—was the rule...

Clang.

He pulled open the upper layer of the 018 cabinet.

Inside were about ten strange mushrooms.

They looked almost alive.

Each one was covered in tiny eyeballs embedded across its surface, all of them shifting and tracking Shen Yu at once.

A faint, unsettling tremor ran through the air.

Shen Yu didn’t recoil.

At minus-level contamination, what looked like horror had already become "normal" to him.

He reached out and touched one.

It fused instantly into his palm.

"Tch... it won’t come out."

He tried again.

But the remaining mushrooms slipped out of perception, as if they didn’t exist to him anymore.

"...So it’s limited to one per person?"