Immediately after, a shrill scream rang out from outside, belonging to another female prisoner. The piercing shriek, full of terror, mixed with the faint sounds a man makes when on the verge of death, stabbed into her ears from near and far. She hadn’t seen what kind of attack the man had just suffered, but the two people in the rooms on either side definitely saw it clearly.

Before coming here, Ethan Clark had spent half a month in Yulin District Prison, surrounded by death row inmates, most of whom possessed a cruelty beyond ordinary people. The female prisoner next door, it was said, had, together with her husband, committed dozens of major robbery and murder cases over ten years, and later killed her husband in a dispute over the division of their loot. Such a woman was now screaming in terror like this.

Ethan Clark stared stiffly as the shadow outside the door disappeared, watching the crack in the door light up again, and slowly moved closer.

The first thing she saw was a foot at the edge of the corridor outside the door—a solitary foot that had been discarded.

In an instant, all her senses awakened, especially her sense of smell. She realized she had been holding her breath, and as she suddenly inhaled sharply, the thick scent of blood, mixed with an unknown floral fragrance, assaulted all her senses.

A severed foot alone wasn’t enough to terrify her; half a month ago, she had already witnessed the most horrifying scenes. But the blood flowing from that foot slowly turned into strands of red thread, connecting into the altar—such a bizarre sight was beyond her imagination.

How could blood turn into red threads? And it wasn’t just one thread; in the shadows scattered across the floor, on the tiny chunks of debris, red threads squirmed as if being pulled by someone, all falling into the altar.

Ethan Clark saw a strange shadow standing in the altar, with those threads attached to it, making it look like a marionette. The marionette was pulled by the blood threads, its shadow growing larger and larger on the curtain, as if it was about to leave the altar and come out.

An unknown terror pinned her heart in place. Ethan Clark didn’t dare look any longer, but her body was so stiff she couldn’t move. All she could do was press helplessly against the door, hoping it would protect her from being seized by the monster in the altar.

But this was clearly futile. Accompanied by two screams and the sound of the door being smashed open, Ethan Clark felt her body suddenly become weightless, and she was flung out in confusion.

The door in front of her was wide open, several red threads grabbing her and dragging her toward that terrifying world outside. The world she had glimpsed through the crack in the door suddenly unfolded before her eyes. She saw the sea of red more clearly, and the other doors, also wide open. The other two people hiding in their rooms were also being dragged out by the red threads.

The woman was struggling, the man was frantically clawing at the red threads on his body, while Ethan Clark didn’t dare move at all. Her eyes were fixed on the inside of the altar, now glowing with a bright red light, her terror reaching its peak.

The shadow, covered in countless red threads, approached a curtain. The blood-colored threads pulled the curtain aside, revealing the true form of the figure.

Its head hung low, face hidden beneath the shadow of long, pitch-black, flowing hair. Its body was completely wrapped in a strangely styled white garment, as if there was no flesh or blood inside, only emptiness. Long white sleeves trailed along the ground, with countless blood threads extending from beneath them.

Human, yet not human.

At some point, the entire courtyard had become a cage of crisscrossing blood threads, dividing the world before her eyes into fragments. The monster with white sleeves stepped on those threads, like a white spider crouched on a red web.

The blood threads lifted the fragments and delivered them to its front. The sleeves, seemingly alive, covered them, and after a chewing sound from who knows where, the chunks of flesh quickly disappeared.

Suddenly, Ethan Clark understood: the four of them, all death row inmates, had been brought here as food! What she had thought was a hope for survival was actually an abyss of death. Realizing this, she saw the monster step along the blood threads toward the other man.

That man struggled fiercely, shouting incoherently in panic. Perhaps because of his “noise,” the monster chose him first.

The sleeve that had devoured flesh remained pure white, floating down like a cloud over the man’s head. In an instant, a gush of red turned into countless blood threads extending from beneath the sleeve, weaving the courtyard’s web of red even denser.

Ethan Clark closed her eyes. She didn’t scream in vain like the other female prisoner; she just squeezed her eyes shut, just as she always did when faced with something she couldn’t accept.

Then, the woman’s screams abruptly stopped as well. The rich scent of flowers and iron in the air grew even stronger, so strong it was almost suffocating. She knew what had happened, and what was about to happen. Though she didn’t scream, she couldn’t stop herself from trembling all over.

The monster approached her, its sleeve as soft as a cloud, still carrying that strange floral scent, floating down to envelop her.

It’s here! It’s here!

A sudden sharp pain at her neck, as if something had bitten her. Ethan Clark imagined her head being bitten off in the next moment, leaving nothing behind, just like the other three.