The Gentleman at the End-Chapter 645 - 643: Escape from the Hospital

Catherine, using the octopus tentacles that grew from her palm, quickly unwound the bandages binding William; in the same motion, she spun around and kicked the shrine at the foot of the bed, sending it flying,

and the divine statue, veiled with a red cloth, fell to the ground.

Crack! Catherine stomped down on it with one foot.

The statue shattered... but the sound of it breaking was strange, not like stone or ceramic shattering, but like rotten flesh being crushed.

As the statue was destroyed, William also immediately regained his spirits, and the fatigue in his body nearly vanished, though it was still far from his state in the Old World,

"My illness! My Madness Brain!"

William suddenly realized that he could no longer sense any of his symptoms as a Patient of the Silver Circle, not even the core Madness Brain or the skin disease he contracted from his status as a gentleman.

However, when he examined himself and reached his abdomen, he found that the structure of the Abyss was still present, and the aura it emitted was the same as before.

"The Abyss is still here... only this ability came through? And it’s precisely the one related to ’Life’? Why is that? And is this a dream or a real World Crossing?"

"William, what are you muttering about? We must hurry and find a way to escape this place, everything here is so strange, and most of my abilities are heavily suppressed, I can only use the traits of a deep-sea octopus."

We should assume that someone will find us here soon."

Catherine was quite anxious; it seemed she had witnessed a terrifying scene outside during her approach to William’s hospital ward,

At that moment, a rapid flurry of footsteps came from outside the door, giving the two trapped individuals no room to retreat.

"Prepare for a desperate fight!"

Just as Catherine was setting up her battle stance, multiple octopus legs floating around her body, William’s hand gently rested on her shoulder.

Click~ the door to the hospital ward swung open from the outside.

A female doctor with rimmed glasses and a poised stance entered first, followed by two security guards with indistinct faces,

Her gaze quickly scanned the empty bed and the damaged shrine, "Yo~ the foreigners are quite capable... It seems the secrets hidden within them are indeed numerous, not just any common ’otherworldly.’

They probably haven’t left the hospital yet, just using some ability to hide themselves. Initiate ’Level Three Alert,’ temporarily close the hospital doors, and let the controllable Patients participate in the search for these two."

After confirming that there were no clues left in the hospital ward, the female doctor turned and left.

Minutes passed

In the empty ward, a small black hole appeared without warning,

As the black hole formed completely, it became a small Abyss,

A hand reached out from within, and two figures, covered in slime, struggled out from it; the first thing they did was to close the door to the ward.

Catherine stared wide-eyed, incredulously looking toward William’s abdomen, "When did you learn this trick?"

The sensation was quite astonishing,

The moment Catherine’s shoulder was touched, she immediately felt a ’falling sensation’; the hospital ward seemed to grow farther away, and she felt as if she were dropping into an endless Abyss.

"I just learned it not long ago, didn’t expect it would come in handy now... but let’s skip that for now! Catherine~ is this a nightmare or reality?"

Catherine shook her head, her expression indicating she knew nothing,

"This is my first time encountering this situation~ In the past, when I wanted to shape real dreams, I would always maintain a slight connection to the nightmare, akin to having access to modify the nightmare’s backend, altering scenes, objects, etc., or creating multiple layers of nightmares, even interrupting the nightmare at crucial moments.

But this time is different, I have no such connection in my hand.

My nightmare ability is also locked, completely unresponsive. Only the biological essence of the deep-sea octopus is barely preserved."

Thwap! William’s hand suddenly clasped Catherine’s chin, lifting her up against the wall.

Without saying a word, he just stared into Catherine’s eyes, trying to discern any ’impurities of lies’... but he saw nothing, which essentially meant Catherine was not lying.

"You, you’re still so distrustful of others... Look at what’s on the floor, do you think that belongs to the Old World? My imagination isn’t wild enough to conjure up such ’evil things’ I’ve never seen before."

William also looked down at the shattered divine statue on the floor, its red cloth that covered its face also lying afar.

Though the statue seemed majestic at first glance, beneath its shell was a honeycomb-like structure of rotten flesh,

and the face of the statue now revealed a bizarre spiral hollow with fine thread-like tentacles swirling inside.

Even though it was shattered, the sight of the statue’s facial structure still slightly perturbed William’s consciousness.

This weird statue reminded William of his encounter with the Tenth Abyss when Yi Chen performed the Three Bow Nine Kneels, revealing part of his sealed memories.

Yi Chen had once kneeled before a strange divine statue inside the small dark room of the Orphanage, ultimately being bestowed with the trait of ’Death’.

Layer upon layer of information on the side was telling William that the world he was in might be Yi Chen’s "world before death," and perhaps the combination of nightmares and Madness Brain had achieved a true World Crossing.

But the reality here was far stranger than the world before death that William remembered.

Moreover, Yi Chen could not be contacted, whether because the Madness Brain was not brought along or for some other reason; otherwise, they could have directly confirmed and understood the situation they were facing.

"William, is this your world before death? It’s too weird..."

"I’m not sure either, my life before isn’t quite me, but ’another person’."

Anyway, let’s first escape from this mental asylum.

Perhaps this place is merely a surreal dream formed by the interaction of your nightmare, Catherine, and my brain. Once we cross the boundary or achieve a certain purpose, we might just wake up."

"Wake up? No... This place is too interesting, I don’t want to leave just like that.

But ~ it is necessary to leave the hospital first. Let’s find a safe place and then slowly explore this interesting new world!

Woo-hoo~ It’s so much fun! Since birth, I’ve always been confined, even though I escaped from the deep sea, I needed to stay in the circus all year round, occasionally getting out to play during vacations.

Now, I am experiencing true freedom and fun, tee-hee~ I’m not even that mad at you anymore."

Catherine’s entire demeanor became extremely excited, and a certain malevolence began to spill out as well.

"Let’s go, escape from this hospital first."

"Wait a moment, the necessary ritual must still be observed."

Catherine’s index finger sprouted a tentacle, which squirted ink to coat her lips, and then she tied it into a simple ponytail.

Creak ~ The iron gate was pushed open.

A tentacle slowly extended through the crack in the door, carrying an eyeball on it, and after a brief observation, the tentacle retracted and pushed the eyeball back into Catherine’s eye socket.

With the outer corridor clear of people, the two walked out.

The cold and enclosed passage was covered in white, clean tiles, and the incandescent tubes continuously emitted white light.

To the right of the corridor was an elevator with no floor numbers indicated.

To the left was a staircase, clearly marked by a "Safety Passage" sign.

In such a situation, naturally, they chose the stairs,

The two dressed in patient garb pressed their steps as quiet as possible and headed towards the staircase,

Passing by many patient rooms along the way, they could see the general condition inside through the small windows in the iron doors,

A "Divine Statue" was a necessary decoration in every patient room,

and most patients were not restrained,

either sitting on the edge of the bed in a daze,

or continuously banging their heads against the wall,

or continuously kneeling before the shrine,

some even gnawing on their own fingers,

"William, I’ve got a great idea! How about we let all these guys out and create a large-scale disturbance?"

"Don’t... There are so many people here, we don’t know the strength of the hospital. They might easily suppress the entire floor. Besides, do you think these people would really help us instead of eating us?

Let’s just honestly escape."

Sizzle~

The Safety Passage sign at the end of the corridor continuously emitted an electric hum as if warning any ’guest’ wanting to enter the stairwell to do everything possible to ensure their own safety.

The stairwell itself was also fully enclosed, with no windows up and down, no sense of wind,

and the only illumination came from the green signs at the corner of each stairway; the faint green light made the darkness even more sinister.

William analyzed, "The exit downstairs must be locked, and with only one ability remaining, we would not match these guys... let’s head upstairs."

"As you say."

"Hold hands! This repetitive staircase structure is easy to get lost in, and it’s very likely we’ll lose sight of each other at a turn."

William attempted to grab Catherine’s hand, but was preemptively entwined around the wrist by a tentacle, and she urged with a face full of disdain: "Hurry up and walk!"

New novel 𝓬hapters are published on (f)re𝒆web(n)ovel.com