Hell’s Handbook - Chapter 296

296: Worshippers

Ye Yun was a really good fighter. She was pretty small-sized, but her body seemed to explode with strength. The black man was not her match at all. When he realized this, he immediately pounced toward Kano Mai. Even if he didn’t dare to kill Kano Mai in front of Ye Yun, he could at least take Kano Mai hostage and force Ye Yun to let him go.

He moved pretty quickly too. He had just been sent flying by Ye Yun, so they were a distance from each other now. So, he figured that if he captured Kano Mai right now, Ye Yun wouldn’t be able to stop him in time.

But just when he was about to grab hold of Kano Mai, he felt a terrible pain in his abdomen. It made his entire body shake before he collapsed onto the ground, howling in pain.

Not too far from him stood Ye Yun in a kicking stance. A wound about the size of a finger in the man’s abdomen was bleeding profusely.

It turned out that Ye Yun had kicked a small stone toward him quickly. Her master level strength turned this stone into a bullet that pierced right through the man’s abdomen.

The black man lay on the ground and clutched his abdomen in pain. He was clenching his teeth tightly and things didn’t look good for him.

Ye Yun called out to Kano Mai, “Sister Mai, let’s go! Let’s go look for Brother Su and the rest!”

Kano Mai was still in a daze. Everything had happened too quickly, and she hadn’t had the time to even figure out how all of this happened. But she knew that Ye Yun had definitely saved her.

“Ye Yun, you’re… you’re amazing,” Kano Mai couldn’t help but compliment the younger woman. Before this, everything she knew about Ye Yun had come solely from Su Jin’s description of her. She had often heard about Ye Yun but did not know everything about her, so she certainly had no idea that even without the powers given by the Handbook, Ye Yun was still such a formidable fighter.

Ye Yun grinned back. “It’s nothing! Don’t worry, Sister Mai! As long as I’m here, I won’t let you get hurt.”

“I’ll be counting on you then, my little sister.” Kano Mai felt a little more relaxed now. She was relieved to have such a formidable person with her.

“So… what do we do about him?” asked Kano Mai as she glanced at the black man wailing in pain on the ground.

Ye Yun frowned and said, “The stone I kicked through his abdomen went through his internal organs as well, so even if I don’t do anything now, he won’t be able to last long.”

“There’s a Chinese saying, good begets good and evil begets evil, it will definitely happen, just that sometimes it’s late. I guess you can say that he got his just desserts.” Kano Mai shook her head. It was common for owners to turn against each other in Challenges, but it wasn’t so common to find someone who killed for fun like this man. Such owners were pretty much an enemy of all owners, so his death was definitely good news to anybody.

They left him alone and walked away, but shortly after they had left, Ye Yun paused for a moment. She said to Kano Mai, “That guy’s dead. I’ve just received one point.”

On the other side, Su Jin had walked away from where the huge gravestone was. He continued to advance carefully, since this Island of Mistakes was where memes, ghosts and monsters were gathered together. One wrong move could result in his death.

He was now trying to get to the edge of the island, which was basically the beach. That was the outer perimeter of the island and was safer in comparison. Or at least, it was an easy destination for other owners to head for. As long as they moved in one direction, they would eventually reach the beach.

“I hope Ye Yun and the rest think of this and get to the beach safely.” Su Jin sighed. He was very anxious. It was hard to say how many out of the 36 who had landed on the island would eventually survive.

Su Jin hid himself behind a group of small monsters. These monsters were vicious and dangerous, but they were able to avoid memes and ghosts. If they weren’t able to, they would have been wiped out by those supernatural beings by now.

But he didn’t dare to follow too closely behind or for too long. Most of the time, once he found a monster, he would make sure it was headed in the same direction as himself, then run faraway to hide. After the monster had left, he would proceed to go through the same path the monster did. His priority was to ensure his safety.

This time, Su Jin spotted a monster that looked like a qilin, a Chinese mythical beast. This monster looked a lot like a qilin, but it was covered in boils and certainly did not look like the symbol of luck and prosperity that the qilin was supposed to be. It looked more like a dead qilin that was rotting.

The dead qilin was very vicious. As it made its way forward, any monsters that tried to block its way would be torn to pieces. The path of this beast was essentially covered in the blood of others. But it was also thanks to the dead qilin that Su Jin was able to travel very safely. Nothing came toward him at all.

Just when Su Jin was ready to keep following this beast, the dead qilin suddenly stopped in its footsteps. It turned to look in Su Jin’s direction with a start and made a weird noise.

Su Jin did not think this was a coincidence. The dead qilin must have discovered him, but he didn’t know how that could happen, since he maintained a good distance of a few hundred meters all the time.

Just then, a gentle breeze blew past Su Jin’s face and he got it immediately. “It’s the wind. This thing has a very sensitive nose and the wind has blown my smell toward it. That’s how I was discovered.”

He had been discovered, but he didn’t dare to move at all. He had watched how this dead qilin had killed those other monsters. This beast moved at a speed that even a cheetah was no match for, never mind Su Jin as a mere human. If he tried to run and the dead qilin came after him, he wouldn’t be able to get away at all. If he remained here, he still had a chance.

The dead qilin approached Su Jin slowly and Su Jin’s palms were all sweaty already. But just when they were only about 30 meters apart, the dead qilin suddenly stopped moving, then turned and ran at top speed.

Su Jin did not feel happy at all when that happened. Anything that could make this dead qilin turn and run like that had to be even more dangerous than the dead qilin.

Su Jin slowly turned around to see a few people quietly standing behind him. They were all dressed in blood red cloaks, and their faces were hidden by their hoods.

They did not move at all, as if they were just statues. Su Jin could even smell the stench of blood coming from them. The stench seemed to come from their red cloaks.

Su Jin swallowed hard. Since this group could scare the dead qilin, they were definitely a force to be reckoned with. But he was a mere mortal now. What should he do now?

Just then, one of them suddenly pushed his hood back to reveal a frightening face. He was bald, had wounds all over his face and his eyes glowed red. His mouth was filled with teeth that had not been brushed in ages. The plague stuck between his teeth smelled gross enough for anyone to vomit.

ROAAR! The man let out an animal-like roar and Su Jin immediately felt dizzy. He tried to keep himself from fainting, but collapsed with a thud anyway.

By the time he woke up, it was nightfall. He found himself tied to a rock. The thing tying him to the rock wasn’t a rope, but the intestines of some animal. The bloody intestines went several rounds around him. The smell alone was enough to almost kill him, never mind try to break free.

A short distance away, those red cloaked men sat around a large cauldron, and something inside the cauldron was struggling and screaming away.

Su Jin looked more carefully and sweat immediately started rolling down his face. Water was boiling inside that cauldron, and the thing struggling and screaming inside was actually an owner. Su Jin remembered seeing this owner earlier. He didn’t know the name of this owner, but he was sure that that was an owner.

The owner did not scream for too long, because the boiling water had boiled him alive. The owner slowly sank to the bottom of the cauldron and the red cloaked men seemed rather excited. They began to walk round and round the cauldron as they prayed and growled weird chants.

“Cannibals? Or some cult?” Su Jin was dismayed. He didn’t die at the hands of the meme, but it looked like he was going to end up as food for these guys instead.

As Su Jin thought, after these men were done with their ritual, they hauled the cooked owner from inside the cauldron and used a knife to cut him into sections. Su Jin could see clearly that the knife used was a boning knife. It was used to carefully slice all the meat off the owner’s bones.

It didn’t take long for the owner to be left with nothing but bones. The strange men gathered in a circle again and began to enjoy their food.

As he watched them eat, Su Jin actually started feeling hungry as well. It wasn’t because Su Jin was into cannibalism or anything like that, but he had landed on this island for some time and used up a lot of energy by this time. He was genuinely hungry.

After eating for a while, the men started to mumble something to each other. They had taken more than an hour to eat, and once they were done eating, they washed the boning knife with great care and respect, then bowed to it to worship the knife. It was as though the boning knife was some totem to them.

Su Jin felt that he was probably safe for the time being, unless these guys ate every hour or something. But his happiness was short-lived. Just a few minutes later, the men walked toward him and surrounded him.

Su Jin’s heart sank. The men just stood around him and did not say anything. They just stood there and stared quietly at him. Su Jin felt like this was some sort of ritual as well.

“Can we uh, talk?” said Su Jin. He didn’t want to just let these fellows kill him without even trying to do something about his situation.

“You are not a believer… you are food. We are… acolytes… acolytes… do not need to… talk to food.” One of the strange men spoke to Su Jin in a very stilted manner.

“I can convert to your beliefs,” said Su Jin with an awkward smile.

Immediately after he said that, another man grabbed his neck. He held up that same boning knife from before and was about to bring it down toward Su Jin.

In that moment of crisis, Su Jin’s eyes lit up. He suddenly called out, “My god, Sheeveh!”

After Su Jin made that exclamation, the man suddenly put the knife down. He looked puzzledly at Su Jin and the rest exchanged glances.

“These people… these people are really her believers!” Su Jin grinned to himself. The feeling of having just escaped death made his heart pound wildly.