Chapter 42 The Second Key

While Xia Shou was thinking, a sharp, excruciating pain struck his left eye without any warning.

Another scalpel flew through the air, plunging deep into his eye socket.

The animalistic terror of losing an organ, combined with the agonizing neural feedback from the base of his eye, made it almost impossible for Xia Shou to make any tactical adjustments in his thoughts. However, from the direction the scalpel had flown, he managed to determine the enemy's approximate position.

Furthermore, he was certain that the opponent had not noticed the blood filaments drifting in the air!

The bloodline at his fingertips constantly transmitted the unnatural sensation of being pulled taut.

He had locked onto the coordinates of the Otologist, and now he had a chance to touch him—even if this opportunity would only come once!

Xia Shou gently patted Su Weiyu, signaling her to get down from his back.

Su Weiyu froze for a fleeting second before immediately understanding Xia Shou's intent. She slid off his back in silence, her feet making barely a sound as they touched the ground—though such cautious movements were practically meaningless against the Otologist's supernatural hearing.

After shedding his burden, Xia Shou progressively tensed and relaxed the muscles in his thighs and waist, silently loosening up his joints to tune his body to its absolute peak condition.

Yet even so, he knew he was not someone inclined toward athletics.

Without the augmentation of special abilities, he was merely an ordinary high school student who barely scraped by on a one-kilometer run.

The next second, Xia Shou pushed off the ground with both feet and violently charged toward the direction of the enemy!

The chaotic tremors transmitted through the bloodline at his fingertips told him that the Otologist had also begun moving at the exact same moment!

Although he did not know the opponent's precise trajectory, Xia Shou stretched his arm out as far as he could, groping forward.

...His palm grasped only empty air.

He had lunged into nothingness.

Immediately afterward, a piercing, agonizing pain flared in his flank as a heavy, formidable kick slammed viciously into his ribs.

A smile, however, broke out across Xia Shou's face.

"I thought I missed, but you actually took the initiative to attack me!" Xia Shou shouted aloud, though being deaf at the moment, he could no longer hear his own voice.

None of that mattered now, because the instant they made contact, his ability had successfully activated.

[Misery Loves Company]!

This skill, acquired from devouring an anomalous patient, allowed him to transmit the negative physical sensations he was experiencing to anyone he touched through physical contact.

This effect remained active during the duration of physical contact, but once they separated, it would persist for only thirty seconds.

The discomfort Xia Shou currently felt stemmed primarily from three sources.

His throat had been pierced by a scalpel, and to heal that fatal wound, he had utilized [Stanching Blood], consuming a portion of his blood. The blood filaments scattered throughout the air had also induced symptoms of anemia.

On top of that, he had deliberately refrained from healing the wound where his eye had been pierced; that excruciating pain would now be experienced by his opponent just as vividly!

And most crucially of all, before making his move, he had intentionally deafened his own ears.

The Otologist's greatest advantage—his superhuman hearing—had now been sealed off!

Though their contact had been brief before they rapidly parted ways, the duration of [Misery Loves Company] would extend far beyond thirty seconds, because the moment he activated [Misery Loves Company], he had also triggered [Perpetual Wound].

For the next ten minutes, any wounds he inflicted would be utterly unhealable.

As long as the opponent remained alive, his own wounds would also fail to heal, but compared to the damage he was inflicting upon the enemy, none of that mattered at all!

Before using this ability, Xia Shou had not been certain whether the negative sensations transmitted this way counted as wounds.

Right now, however, he knew for sure that he could no longer consume blood to heal the injury to his eye.

This proved that [Perpetual Wound] had successfully activated, meaning the negative effects caused by [Misery Loves Company] were indeed classified as "wounds"!

"Su Weiyu! He can't hear either now! Take him down!" Xia Shou roared.

Agony! Unspeakable agony!

The negative sensations brought on by [Misery Loves Company] doubled in intensity, hurting so badly that Xia Shou pulled the scalpel out of his eye socket with his own hand and scooped out the shattered eyeball inside.

Yet the pain did not diminish; the nonexistent eyeball continued to send wave after wave of excruciating torment through his nerves.

This demonstrated that the price of [Misery Loves Company] could not be bypassed by the clever trick of covering old wounds with new ones.

At this moment, Xia Shou no longer had the capacity to participate in the battle; every ounce of his mental focus was consumed by the fight against his bodily torment.

How much time had passed, he did not know, when the agony in his eye suddenly subsided.

Xia Shou instantly consumed blood to heal his eye and ear.

"Is he down?"

"He's down! I took him down! How are you holding up?"

Su Weiyu grabbed his hand, hoisted it over her shoulder, and wrapped her other arm around his back to lift Xia Shou up from the ground.

"I'm fine, I'm okay," Xia Shou waved a hand to signal that he could stand steadily.

"And you say you're fine! You were screaming so horribly just now!" Su Weiyu's voice trembled with anxiety.

"Was I?" Xia Shou asked in confusion.

Ah, right, he had almost forgotten that he was deaf just now, which was why he couldn't hear how miserably he had been yelling.

"Minor issue. I was just paying the price for my supernatural ability, nothing actually happened," Xia Shou forced a smile. But as he spoke, he noticed his own voice growing faint once more.

...He was deaf again.

The next second, the hand that had been gripping him tightly let go.

After a moment, two cold keys were pressed into his palm.

Xia Shou's vision returned, and his hearing came rushing back with it; he briefly reverted to a healthy human being.

Before him, Su Weiyu had now transformed into a deaf-mute. She stood frozen in place, her pupils unfocused, her face etched with worry.

"Are these the keys to the Otology Department?"

Xia Shou rubbed the two intricately shaped keys in his palm, but his heart was enveloped by an even greater wave of despair.

They still had a long way to go before escaping the domain, and they would need to acquire three more keys of the same tier.

From now on, only one of them would ever be able to hear the other's voice at any given time. Unless the other person knew how to read lips, communication would become extraordinarily difficult.

Xia Shou returned the Ophthalmology key to Su Weiyu while simultaneously borrowing Alice's perspective to share Su Weiyu's field of vision.

Now he could see as well, except that he was viewing things through Su Weiyu's eyes—which meant he was looking at his own face, giving him the strange sensation of staring into a mirror.

Xia Shou crouched down on the ground and, guided by the reflection in Alice's eyes, began tracing blood onto the floor to write... Since verbal communication was impossible, they would have to converse through text.

[We don't have any intel on the next doctor, but judging by the first two, the next one will likely have some form of camouflage corresponding to their medical department.

Since the one in charge of eyes could make people blind, and the one in charge of ears could make people deaf, the ones in charge of hands and feet might make people unable to touch or kick things. But that's just a guess, we'll have to adapt on the fly.] Xia Shou wrote on the ground.

Su Weiyu nodded and wrote beside Xia Shou: [Do you remember what Liu Guangyao said at the very end?]