The eccentric doctor never makes a misdiagnosis!

After a brief moment of hesitation, she seemed to have made up her mind and patted her developing, tender chest.

"Then I'll take you there! Nighttime is the easiest time to get lost, and it's easy to encounter danger without someone to guide you."

Flamel stood up from his wheelchair, took Heida's hand, and walked into the nameless town.

Taking advantage of this brief respite, Haida also had time to observe the suddenly appearing girl more closely.

Aside from their almost identical appearances, there are some differences between them.

Flamel had no sutures on her wrists and neck, nor did she have the downy white feathers in her hair. Like an uncut gem, she had not yet left any trace of the doctor's features.

As a malevolent darkness descended, the streets were covered by rusted steel mesh. Black liquid dripped slowly onto the ground, filthy and sticky, a mixture of oil and putrid blood. Mutilated corpses lay scattered in every corner, swarming with flies and mosquitoes.

It was like a deep abyss in a nightmare.

Haida could clearly sense the probing from the shadows in every corner. But no monster dared to step out of the shadows and risk its life to test the edge of the power sword "Nirvana".

Flamel, with Heida in tow, carefully and diligently avoided the wandering monsters. Their bare feet trod silently on the rusty ground.

As the two passed through an alleyway at a street corner, they inevitably encountered several "men in cases" lurking in the shadows. Haida immediately used her power sword "Nirvana" to cut them all into pieces.

Flamel's eyes widened in surprise as he watched Haida wield her sword with practiced ease.

"Sister Haida is so amazing! Every time I encounter these monsters, I just want to stay far away from them."

"...It's not difficult; they are actually quite fragile."

Even with Haida's personality, she felt inexplicably embarrassed by such sincere praise from the girl with Fran's face.

The high-level evil offspring she faced generally possessed tenacious vitality and rapid self-healing abilities, requiring her to tirelessly finish them off even after vital points were damaged... She was quite unaccustomed to encountering such monsters that could be killed with a single sword strike.

Flamel peeked out of the alleyway and looked around. When he came back, he had a clear idea of ​​the route ahead.

"We're just two more blocks from Shisham Hospital, so we need to be extra careful on the way."

　∩∥五qi〖六≡liu＜‰—Ｑun： Her tone was somewhat solemn.

"Because 'she' is wandering outside the hospital. Although Sister Haida is very skilled with a sword, no matter how skilled a person is, they should not be her enemy."

Before Flamel could finish speaking, Heida quickly reached out and covered both her mouth and her own.

Haida's psychic powers roared in her mind. Excess blood slid from the corners of her eyes, turning into two lines of tears.

A sense of impending danger crept up her spine and into every part of her body, almost stopping her heart. The whispers of death seemed to echo in her ears, a feeling she had never experienced even when facing the servant in the cup.

"Thump." Heavy footsteps echoed across the street.

With each step forward, the rusty iron floor creaked under the strain.

In the dim light of the dying embers, "she" also revealed her figure.

—It was a colossal statue, even larger than the tower.

Its body is composed of the remains of tens of thousands of dead, and its crown is woven from a creeping, pale green carpet of fungus. The constantly mutated living merge together, twisting into rings that fall on its head... This is the Emei crown.

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Chapter Ninety-One: In the Deep Alley [The Hill of Silence]

Using the dead as bodies and the living as crowns, what exactly is that?

Haida was unaware of this, nor did she understand it.

All she could do was follow her survival instincts, suppress her breathing, slow her heartbeat, and remain as silent as possible... until the other person left.

Was Haida afraid of death? The answer is probably no.

As a funeral maid, even when she fought to the last moment with the evil heir in the snowy alley of the North District that day, she did not feel fear, only some resentment.

But this doesn't mean she would waste her life meaninglessly.

If I were to rashly confront that colossal statue now, I would likely end up as one of the living corpses adorning its crown.

Flamel's first reaction to being held in someone's arms with his mouth covered was to struggle and panic.

The girl seemed to loathe being restrained. Haida's movements seemed to awaken painful memories she didn't want to recall.

But with her rather petite arms... she clearly couldn't break free from Haida's embrace.

Flamel raised his head with a hint of displeasure, and then felt a drop of liquid fall on his cheek.

The texture was soft and warm, with a hint of sweet, metallic taste lingering in the air... those were tears of blood that had slid from Haida's eyes.

Even just peering at the shadow of the colossus through the embers of the burning rusty iron, the funeral maid's psychic awareness was nearing its breaking point. Blood and tears were one of the most intense symptoms of psychic feedback to the physical body.

This is why there is the saying "the eyes are the windows to the soul".

Blood...she's injured?

Flamel's initial struggle was merely a hasty stress response, much like a feline's subconscious displeasure when suddenly picked up.

Realizing that Haida's actions meant no harm, the girl pursed her lips and let her hug her like that, seemingly deflated.

Although through the tough leather armor beneath her nun's robes, Haida's body still felt soft and warm, and the rhythmic beating of her heart was close at hand.

Time flowed slowly, each second feeling like an eternity.

Only after the terrifying behemoth finally disappeared at the end of the street did Heda release Flamel, gradually breaking the almost absolute silence that had been present.

"Sister, you startled me."

Flamel's words carried a hint of reproach, but her pale cheeks also flushed with a touch of shy blush.

I don't know if it was because my mouth was covered for a long time or for some other reason.

Haida's chestnut-grey eyes narrowed, her expression becoming somewhat subtle.

Although Flamel is a younger version of Dr. Fran, and the two are very different, seeing the emotion of "shyness" on that seemingly perpetually smiling face still feels somewhat unreal to her.

“Sorry, Flamel. I didn’t have time to think about the situation just now.”

Dispelling her somewhat chaotic thoughts, Haida sincerely expressed her apologies.

Even if she unintentionally offends someone, she will sincerely apologize and seek their forgiveness. This is her consistent style of interacting with people, and it is also the basic etiquette upheld by the hunters.

"...I'll forgive you this time, but next time you should let me know in advance."

As Flamel spoke, he lifted the long sleeves of his straitjacket and wiped away the blood-stained tear stains on Heda's cheeks.

"Cough! Cough..."

With her mind relaxed a little, Haida began to breathe softly and weakly.

This was the first time she had ever felt her psychic awareness nearly bursting.

Although Haida had encountered many almost divine beings during her previous medical visits, Fran was usually present at those times.

The doctor seemed to be able to weaken most of the mental influences around her. Probably due to the effect of that brass pocket watch.

Heda, adjusting her breathing, asked Flamel about the monster that had just run over the street.

Do you know who 'she' really is?

She didn't expect the strange girl to give her a definite answer, but judging from her previous remarks... Flamel had some understanding of this colossal monster.

"I don't know either, I only know that she's been wandering around here for a long time."

The girl raised her eyebrows, trying hard to remember.

"This monster will devour any living thing it encounters; it's terrifying. But it seems to only eat passively, so there's no danger unless you run into it head-on. Even if you are discovered, there's a chance of escape if you run away in time."

Flamel had already wiped the blood off Haida's face, but her gray sleeves were stained with a little crimson.

Why is that monster referred to as "she"?

Haibada was quite puzzled by this. The giant statue didn't seem like something that could be defined by gender at all.

"Well... well..."

Flamel scratched his face with his index finger, looking somewhat troubled.

"Perhaps it's intuition?"

Haida nodded slightly to indicate that she understood and did not ask any further questions.

It must be said that Flamel's personality traits are at least 70% similar to Fran's. When faced with important issues, they almost always choose to speak vaguely and try to get away with it by feigning cuteness.

In fact, Haida still had many questions, but it seemed impossible to get the answers from the girl by asking her directly.

For example: Why is she so familiar with this town? What is her relationship with Fran? Why is she completely unafraid of the hellish scene here?

If Flamel were merely a girl he encountered by chance in the town of Silent Hill, Heda would treat her with the utmost vigilance and caution, and might even execute her if necessary.

But if we consider her as Dr. Fran after undergoing some kind of change, then everything seems to make sense...

It should be noted that the black chain of "Reaching for the Moon" is still connected to the wrists of the two people.

Flamel crossed his fingers between his eyebrows and glanced once more at the neighborhood beyond the shadows of the alleyway.

“Sister Haida, since we’ve encountered ‘her,’ it means we’re almost at the hospital. But if we go straight out onto the street, we might run into that guy again. It wouldn’t be good if we bumped into him head-on…”

Haida keenly discerned the unspoken meaning in the girl's words.

"So... there are still roads that don't require entering the main street?"

“Hmm.” Flamel nodded with a smile.

“My initial thought was that if Sister Haida couldn’t handle those small monsters like I could, we would take the risk and run directly through the main street. Although there was a possibility of encountering ‘her,’ we wouldn’t be trapped in a narrow area with nowhere to escape.”

She blinked her amber eyes and glanced seemingly unintentionally at the power sword "Nirvana" on Haida's body.

"But if you can handle the smaller monsters, we'll have more options. We can get to the hospital by going through alleys and buildings, and it's not a detour, just a bit more troublesome."

"Let's see which side Sister Haida wants to go."

"...Let's take the alleyway."

After a moment's hesitation, Haida chose the second route.

While taking the main road is undoubtedly the fastest way, if she were to encounter that monster made up of the dead and the living again... her already weakened spiritual awareness might not be able to withstand a second mental breakdown.

"Okay, Sister Haida."

Flamel smiled, she too was more inclined to choose this option.

After all, dealing with these twisted little monsters was a piece of cake for Haida, so the two of them naturally had no need to provoke that big guy.

"For the first part of the road, you can just walk through the alleys. But there are three buildings in the middle that you can't get around; you have to go through the inside of the buildings."

As if afraid that Haida might regret it later, she added some extra information.

"I see."

Haida was somewhat reluctant to enter the interior of this unfamiliar building. If she were blocked by a monster in a narrow space, she probably wouldn't even have room to escape.

But compared to encountering that colossus... carving a bloody path through the twisted monsters doesn't seem so unacceptable.

"Then let's go."

As Flamel spoke, he took Heda's hand again and nimbly and nimbly made his way through the narrow, dilapidated alleyways.

Darkness, gloom, the entire town had now transformed into an extremely oppressive abyss of hell.

Everything was covered by rusty iron mesh, from the walls to the floor, and mutilated corpses were everywhere.

Some of these still writhing and struggling bodies were placed on the ground, almost rotting into mud, while others were hung in sharp wire mesh, like stranded and rotting dead fish.

The sky was murky and dark, devoid of stars and moon. Only a few lingering embers of fire burned on the iron mesh, offering a meager amount of light and heat to the surrounding area.

"three."

Upon arriving at the back door of the first building, Haida noticed three monsters of different shapes lurking in the surrounding shadows.

They lacked facial features, their faces were hollow and distorted, and their skin was a filthy, deathly gray. In terms of appearance alone, they were far more horrifying than ordinary lesser evil offspring…

"Don't stray too far from me."

After giving a word of instruction to Flamel behind her, she gripped the power sword "Nie" with both hands, the tip of the sword barely touching the ground, and pierced the head of one of the monsters.

"Woo..." Its cry when injured was bizarre and eerie, like the sobbing of a weeping person. II

As the single-molecule stacked blades pierced its tough skull, shredding its contents, the mournful wailing abruptly ceased.

"The first one." (Three)