Autophagy

Listening to his sixth sense, Song Lei tried to relocate but couldn't do so. Seeing that he was blocked from doing so, he decided to face whatever there was head on.

After leaving the room, Song Lei started walking down the hallway. If he could, he would pick a place that he could be in an advantageous state. Unfortunately, there were two problems with this.

The first one was the fact that Song Lei didn't know what he was dealing with. Although his sixth sense told him that he was in danger, he didn't know what the problem was. To pick a place that would be advantageous to him would need him to have knowledge about his opponent. If he tried to blindly create an advantage he could as well create an advantage for the enemy.

The second problem was the fact that there wasn't that much of a terrain advantage he could create in this place. The whole place was made up of same-looking hallways and rooms. The most he could do would probably be staying in the bathroom that was relatively spacious compared to the rest of the basement.

After walking for a little bit, Song Lei felt the danger slowly closing in on him. He stopped walking and started waiting for whatever was to come.

As he was waiting, Song Lei started hearing footsteps. Compared to the erratic footsteps of the twisted monsters', these footsteps were much calmer and more in order.

Shortly after, three silhouettes appeared around the corner. Song Lei looked at them briefly and made sure that there wasn't anyone approaching him from his back. He had to be careful as someone could be waiting in any of the rooms to backstab him.

As those three silhouettes got closer and closer, their features became more prominent. Song Lei looked at them and frowned.

'So it's you guys...' He thought. Those three people were wearing black robes. Just like the ones in back in the apartment. These people's robes had much more intricate designs than the one Andres was wearing. So Song Lei assumed that they were superior to Andres.

As those three kept coming closer, Song Lei raised his guard. He wasn't sure what kind of abilities these people had, so he had to be extra careful.

Robed men stopped walking when they were 10 meters away from Song Lei. They stopped at the exact same moment as if they were one entity. When they lowered their hoodies, Song Lei realized that they were, in fact, the same person. They had the same faces and body shapes. Song Lei was sure that this person had an ability that was letting him clone himself.

"Hand over the gemstone," the robed man in the front said. Song Lei smirked and didn't answer. "Hand over the gemstone. This is our last warning," the robed man said without an expression on his face. Song Lei sighed deeply.

"And? If I hand it over, will I be able to get out of here alive?" He asked. He already knew the answer.

"No. But you'll die a painless death," the robed man said. He slowly took out a flask from his sleeve. This flash was filled with a grey fluid that was constantly moving on its own.

"That's so generic..." Song Lei muttered to himself. The robed man opened the flask and dipped his hand in it. When he took his hand back out, Song Lei realized that the grey fluid wasn't actually a fluid but a swarm of grey worms. This made him frown deeply.

The robed man finally smiled and showed a crazed expression on his face. "Great! I knew you would try to put up a fight! I could smell it!" He shouted. His nostrils were rapidly expanding and shrinking as if he was able to smell Song Lei from 10 meters away. This made Song Lei uncomfortable.

The robed man raised the two squirming worms in his hands and inserted them into the ears of the other two clones of his at the same time. As soon as he did so, those clones started squirming in the same manner as the worms. Shortly after, their bodies started changing.

There were calluses growing in every part of their bodies. There were disfigurements like their arm getting twisted and their head bending sideways. From this alone, Song Lei was able to figure out that this person was the source of those twisted monsters.

Song Lei raised his knife and charged at the robed men, leaving a small dust cloud behind. He didn't plan to give those twisted monsters enough time for them to transform. If he could take out even one of them before they were able to do so, he would gain a huge advantage.

The robed man wasn't ready for Song Lei to act so quickly. Normally, people would be in shock, realizing that the twisted monsters were actually his creation. Unfortunately for him, Song Lei wasn't. He had the ability to react quickly and don't give the enemy time to do whatever they wanted.

Song Lei was actually surprised at the man's stupidity. He could've just turned those people into twisted monsters before coming out. Instead, he had just given Song Lei a chance to counter him freely.

Song Lei, not letting this chance that was given to him go, swung his knife rapidly. Just as his knife was about to connect with one of the twisted monsters' necks, He felt his knife hitting cold hard steel.

*CLANG

As soon as he felt the collision, he twisted his body in the air to his best and avoided whatever had blocked his knife. However, This led him to crash directly onto the twisted monster. Fortunately, it hadn't finished transforming yet, so it wasn't able to attack Song Lei.

Using this chance, Song Lei tensed all of his muscles and pulled out the twisted monster's head with his hands.

[Congratulations! You've managed to exorcise a "Twisted Monster". You've gained Exp!]

After he finished dealing with the monster, he quickly turned around and took a look at what the robed man was doing.

Before he was able to see what was going on, his hair stood on its end. He felt something approaching his neck at high velocity. Feeling the danger he was in, Song Lei quickly raised the knife in his hand and blocked the attack.

*Clang

Metal hitting metal noise resounded in the whole basement. Fortunately, although it was fast, the attack didn't have that much power behind it. For this reason, Song Lei could block it.

After blocking the attack, Song Lei jumped backward to recover his tempo. Managing to do so, he was finally able to get a proper look at the robed man. This person was holding a Chinese Jian sword with golden engravings in his left hand. Although Song Lei wasn't sure about its durability, it definitely looked cool.

Song Lei felt that something was odd about the man's posture but he couldn't really understand what the problem was. Disregarding this thought, Song Lei charged again. However, it wasn't a mindless charge like the other ones this time. He was pretty controlled in his movements as he felt like the robed man was hiding something.

Song Lei reached the robed man and started swinging his knife at him. Unfortunately, he had never trained in any martial arts before so he wasn't able to fully utilize his inhuman strength. However, Song Lei was still able to suppress the robed man. His attacks had so much momentum and speed behind them that even the robed man who obviously was an expert in blade fights such as this wasn't able to properly hold his ground against Song Lei.

Seeing this, Song Lei kept the pressure up as best as he could, slowly pushing the man into a corner. He was quickly running out of time as the twisted monster was about to finish its transformation and join the fight. If that happened, although it wouldn't be certain that Song Lei would lose, things would definitely become much harder for him.

After a few more swings, the robed man suddenly stopped defending and jumped backward. His left wrist was swollen red. It seemed like he couldn't put up a fight anymore. Song Lei, waiting for the robed man to take the sword into his right hand and continue fighting, realized that that wasn't happening. The robed man stopped hiding his right hand. It was completely broken, dangling like a dead piece of meat off of the robed man's arm.

'It must've broken at the start of the fight,' Song Lei guessed. His first attack was so sudden and so strong that the robed man's arm had been broken in a single attack. The reason he was hiding his right hand was to keep this fact from Song Lei.

Just as Song Lei was about to dive in and deal the last blow, he heard a creaking noise right behind him. He quickly rolled on the ground and dodged to the side as a claw passed by his head. The twisted monster had finished transforming.

Song Lei frowned. Fortunately, a weakened man with incapacitated arms and a single twisted monster wasn't nearly enough to hold him down. Just as he thought this, a wide grin appeared on the robed man's face.

"You're done...."