Puzzle Madness

Chapter 76 Sacrifice
There were no corridors anymore—just an open square. Broken doors, shards of glass, and chunks of cement were blown around, forming a rough circle.

The corridor, which had been crushed by the tightening of the electric wire noose, was also reopened by the storm.

Doudou stood in the middle and looked around. The witch in the building he had slapped had disappeared, leaving only crimson fragments and scraps of flesh on the ground.
"Huh? Maybe she acted too quickly. Maybe she has some new tricks? I didn't even have time to see them."

That slap must have completely shattered the witch in the building. At least, she was nowhere to be seen in the surrounding mess; only splattered bodily fluids and body parts.
But it's not over yet --
Doudou felt his heart growing heavier, as if it was about to fall into his stomach.

"Hmm - I get it. She can affect other people's moods, and it makes me feel bad too. Even the dead are not sunny enough."

He felt the subtle emotions left by the witch in the building, like perfume sprayed on his wrist, which could not be shaken off no matter what -
"Eh"

A strange feeling came from the palm of his hand, causing Doudou to lower his head:

There, tiny specks of pink, white, and red were rising—as if invisible threads were pulling them together again. This brain tissue, bone powder, and blood should have announced the complete disappearance of the witch in the building.

They swirl and gather rapidly:

Entangling, bonding, and reorganizing with each other.

First, it was a simple line, then it was like a sand tower, gradually solidifying and forming from the foot bones.
The hazy outline of the witch in the building appeared in front of Doudou again.

Doudou pinched his chin with his hand - he had never expected this resurrection:
"Do supernatural monsters like this really exist in real life? They can't be killed. They'll crush you into powder, and even that won't work? It's from 'The Mummy Returns'."

Doudou felt a surge of uneasy excitement. He was curious about this monster, but at the same time, defeating it felt like solving a puzzle, something that couldn't rely solely on pure violence and catharsis. The experience now felt a bit like completing a summer homework assignment.

But immediately, he cleared his mind of these depressions and chuckled twice:
"Haha! I just love a challenge."

He actually didn't like it very much - but the atmosphere had already built up to this point, and Doudou felt that this was a relatively appropriate line:

And encouraging yourself frequently is very important to maintain a good mood, especially in this depressing atmosphere brought by the witch in the building.

Doudou suddenly stretched out his five fingers and pinched the other person's still-reforming cervical vertebrae. With his other hand, he scratched his scalp and finally came up with a serious proposal:

"Hey, if I chew you up and eat you, will you come out of my stomach?"

"Forget it, it's disgusting. If it doesn't work, let's try again—"

He released his grip on the witch in the building, interlaced his fingers, and vigorously moved his wrists and shoulders.
-
The display screen was filled with snowflakes, and the battlefield could no longer be observed.

"--Chief! What should we do now? Do we need to feed them again?"

The operator stuttered, no longer paying attention to the display screen in front of him, and turned his whole body to face the section chief's profile.

The section chief remained the same as before, staring at the buzzing flickering on the screen without blinking - like a wax figure, as if the current situation was just a movie he was watching.

But she suddenly laughed, without making any sound, but her body was shaking with laughter.

A slow but clear answer finally came from those tightly pursed lips:

"Sacrifice."

The operator's eyes widened, his mouth dropped open in horror. He grasped the edge of the console, trying to prop himself up.

"But--"

boom!
He didn't have time to finish his protest: the bullet entered the operator's temple and exited the other side, lodging in the floor.

boom.

Another shot rang out; the operator on the other side also fell.

The section chief put his service pistol back into his suit pocket, casually pushed aside the operator's limp body, and put his mouth close to the microphone.

Behind him, there was the sound of people rushing out the door, office chairs being overturned and falling, and doors swinging and banging - the remaining operators all fled the control room, but the section chief didn't even turn his head:
No matter where they fled, whether they lived or died, it made no difference.

She turned the knob to adjust the volume of the entire PA system; because of her braces, her voice was a little lisp-like:
"All units, attention! All units, attention! We are now beginning the sacrificial process for the [witch in the building]."

"You've all been trained and know what to do."

"Start remembering the people you love most—if you can't remember them, die: if you haven't loved anyone, why bother living?"

After saying this, the section chief unbuttoned his shirt collar, cleared his throat vigorously, and said solemnly:

"Ah—ah—ah—" She opened her mouth wide and made a high-pitched sound, as if practicing her voice; when she was finally satisfied, the section chief grabbed the microphone and brought it to his mouth—
Then she began to sing a strange ballad:
“Dodo, l'enfant do”

It's not Chinese, the melody is soft and slow, like a song to lull a baby to sleep:
"L'enfant dormira bien vite."

The voice was hoarse and dry, with a drawn-out cadence like sawing wood; it had nothing to do with being pleasant. It wasn't even emotional, like someone reading from a manuscript:

"Dodo, l'enfant do"

It was a short lullaby, half sung in a blink of an eye -
Click, click: the sound of limbs hitting chairs.

The bodies of the two operators beside the section chief suddenly began to twitch. Although their brains had been damaged by the bullets, their nervous systems seemed to be still functioning: one hand covered their chest, the other covered their mouth.

puff!

With a tearing sound, a large hole appeared in the center of the operator's shirt, and the buttons burst open.

Sizzle, Sizzle, Sizzle:
The abdomens of the two operators suddenly swelled up into small hills, as if they were pregnant for ten months, and then split open in the middle of their belly buttons.

There was no spurting blood, and even no organs could be seen in the opened chest and abdomen:

Camel red, crimson purple, sea blue, goose yellow, and white.
Colorful ropes surged out of the open chest and abdomen - where the operators' large and small intestines should have been, there were now bundles of colorful rubber wires flowing and tumbling inside.

“L'enfant dormira bientt”

The section chief sang a lullaby with an expressionless face, seemingly unaware of what was happening around him.
-
Doudou, who was halfway through warming up, pricked up his ears and listened carefully to the hazy singing coming from all around him -
The turbulence caused by my previous slap had caused a huge mess in the area; it seemed that it had even broken the sound system, and now the sound was muffled:

"Hey, that's the auntie with the awful voice who sings awfully. What was she talking about? What about love? What about training? Is she singing a love song?"

Doudou squinted his eyes, trying to appreciate the music; but he immediately gave up because it was too unpleasant to listen to—like a tape with its fabric tangled.

"I really don't understand. They have to sing background music in the middle of a fight. People are a bit weird these days—oh my god!"

He turned his head and just happened to see the face of the witch upstairs, which scared Doudou.

Now, the witch in the building no longer looked like a corpse, but she was still very different from a normal person:

The waxy pale skin became more red, and the chest began to rise and fall; the teeth clashed, making a "clicking" sound.

But the "eyes" of the witch in the building were blurry - like a pinball that was accidentally stuck in a gap but had not yet lost its kinetic energy, bouncing and jumping around in its eye sockets.

In the whites of his eyes, he could see the ever-changing words formed by the blood vessels of the conjunctiva; but Doudou couldn't recognize a single word.

She moved her lips like blades, uttering words that Doudou couldn't understand:

“MamanMamanMaman”

Doudou narrowed his eyes and pondered for a while, but still couldn't figure out what the other party was talking about:
"Ah! So you really are a foreigner. I think your face looks quite foreign. Do you understand me? Hello?"
-
Tap, tap, tap.

The sound of scattered footsteps not far behind him interrupted Doudou's attempt at friendly communication:

This was the first time anyone had approached the battlefield between Doudou and the [Witch in the Building] since the previous "feeding".

He was a heavily armed man, and judging by his gear, he seemed to be a member of the suppression force, who had also been transporting the bodies. He staggered, nearly falling in the rubble, and clutched his stomach with one hand, as if he was looking for a toilet because of diarrhea.

Gulp, gulp: the man made a strange sound in his throat, and his cheeks kept bulging, as if he had an unbearable urge to vomit when he was drunk; in his other hand, he was holding a photo, which was deformed by the scratching, but he still held it in front of his face and stared at it, no one knew what he was looking at.

The man stared at the photo, shook his head, and opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something; but no sound came out -
puff.

A roll of shiny, saliva-soaked rubber wire spun out of his mouth.

Thin wires broke out and exploded from every orifice in the man's head: his eyeballs were squeezed out of his sockets and his teeth were pushed out of his gums.

The buttons of the bulletproof vest on his body were torn as his belly bulged out - more wires tore through his abdomen and clothes, and he twisted like a python.

Rubber wires were connected outside his body, twisted into a thick bundle; it was wrapped around his neck and then nailed upwards into the ceiling. The man, no longer able to move, was suspended like this, swinging forward.

Behind him, the rest of the suppression force emerged from holes and cracks in the distance—some of them were unfamiliar to Doudou, wearing frilly uniforms.

One after another, their intestines transformed into wires piercing their chests and abdomens, dancing upwards, twisting their necks, and nailing the rest of their bodies to the ceiling. Their faces were bruised and their cheeks were swollen; they lined up and, like the witches in the building before them, swayed into the small square.

(End of this chapter)