Chapter 9: The Infinite Labyrinth

“It looks like we need to speed up.”

The maximum duration for the self-destructive rewind was one hour, and the blood vial given to him by Shangguan Yan also only lasted an hour.

Since rewinding was inevitable, it was best to apply all available buffs to avoid being caught off guard by unexpected events.

With that in mind, Xia Shou took out the blood vial and gulped it down to the last drop.

He discarded the empty bottle, crossed the living room, and continued following the red line’s guidance until a door blocked his path.

Because everything was upside down, the upper part of the door had become the threshold.

Xia Shou lifted his leg, stepped on the threshold, slipped through the doorway, and jumped to the other side, entering an enormous space ten times the size of the living room.

Beneath his feet was the ceiling of an office floor, with dozens of energy-saving lights arranged neatly on the ground at two-meter intervals. At regular distances, air conditioning vents punctuated the space.

Looking up, there was a dense array of cubicles overhead. Each desk held a laptop, printer, and files—everything arranged exactly like a real office, as if the scene had been perfectly copied from reality.

The only difference here was that it was completely empty.

Xia Shou turned his head to look out the office windows, but instead of an urban landscape, he saw spaces with completely different styles.

A casual glance revealed classrooms, restrooms, train stations, coffee shops...

These spaces, each with entirely different functions, converged here, stitched together illogically like scenes from a dream.

Here, crossing a window could transport one from a European classroom to an Asian library; stepping through a door could lead from a tin shack in the slums to a billionaire’s bedroom.

Though Xia Shou had long suspected the interior space of the Blood Demon House to be far larger than it appeared from outside, he hadn’t expected it to be this extreme—it was practically an infinite space!

“Finding that investigator in a place like this will be incredibly difficult. But ironically, this works in our favor; a hundred meters’ cost is easy to pay... Besides, we’re not exactly here to rescue anyone,” Xia Shou said to Alice.

Looking down, he noticed the thickest red line beneath his feet had somehow shifted from the left side to the right side and was moving at a very slow pace.

Seeing this, Xia Shou furrowed his brow.

The effect of “Seeking Death” was to indicate the most dangerous path. If the most perilous endpoint was a fixed location, then the red line would point steadily to the boss’s lair without shifting randomly.

But now, the most dangerous direction was changing on its own.

This meant the greatest threat here wasn’t a fixed spot but something moving.

The enemy wasn’t a monster waiting passively at a fixed location for prey to come to it but a stalking predator that actively tracked its quarry like a hunting spider.

So... could the red line’s endpoint be the Blood Demon itself?

But what exactly was the Blood Demon?

Although Xia Shou had reviewed information about the Blood Demon House before coming, the records didn’t clarify what the Blood Demon truly was.

Since ten years ago, when the legendary investigator Edward lost contact inside the Blood Demon House, the Control Bureau had made no further progress in understanding this strange phenomenon.

Though they named it the “Blood Demon House” because its exterior matched a description in a bizarre notebook, in reality, they knew nothing about what was inside.

That name was merely a label derived from the house’s appearance aligning with an eerie account.

The frustrating part was that, despite the notebook containing records about this house, the writer’s deranged style and chaotic mixture of languages rendered it indecipherable to the Control Bureau.

Their only conclusion was that the house had existed for at least several hundred years and was extremely malevolent.

To put it bluntly, the Control Bureau’s knowledge of the Blood Demon House was almost nonexistent.

However, one fact was worth noting: ten years ago, the entrance hall of the Blood Demon House was not upside down as it was now.

Why it had changed to this state remained a mystery.

Xia Shou took a deep breath, withdrew his thoughts, and focused on the red line beneath his feet.

The first exploration was primarily to gather intelligence.

No matter what, it was best to find that legendary investigator as soon as possible.

Since he had managed to survive in this alternate space for ten years, he must have discovered a way to live and likely possessed valuable special information.

With this in mind, Xia Shou looked down again, silently memorizing the changes in the red line.

If Edward had survived this long, he probably stayed in the safest place, so reversing the use of “Seeking Death” might lead him to Edward’s hiding spot.

The thinnest red line led to the safest location.

“Alice, let’s hurry up!”

With that, Xia Shou began running across the office ceiling.

The larger the initial search area, the better for him—not only in terms of intelligence gathered but also skill gains.

If he could find more “nourishment” like the corpse in the living room earlier, he would have a better chance against the Blood Demon.

Xia Shou nimbly ran across the office ceiling, awkwardly opened a window, and climbed into a coffee shop on the other side.

Although “Seeking Death” offered no hints, he was certain he had already advanced 56 meters and needed to go just a little further to pay the cost and gain freedom.

Thinking this, he realized this skill was quite powerful, especially compared to the increased tolerance from rewinding; the cost of a hundred meters was negligible.

As Xia Shou entered the coffee shop, he noticed scattered bloodstains on the ceiling beneath his feet, trailing toward the far side of a load-bearing wall.

Following the bloodstains, he stepped behind the wall and saw a pale, smooth back and a beautifully tempting silhouette.

Before him stood a girl with a bloodied bandage wrapped around her left arm and a nearly two-meter-long wild longsword slung across her hips.

She had just removed a blood-stained shirt and was picking up a fresh white blouse from the floor, apparently intending to change clothes.

As she bent over, she noticed Xia Shou standing nearby. Her gaze swept over his face, but her expression remained unchanged as she continued dressing, as if he wasn’t there at all—like there was only air beside her.

Xia Shou had expected to be scolded for spying, but the girl’s complete lack of reaction, not even a glance, made him feel awkward.

“Uh... are you with the Control Bureau too?” he asked.

Before he finished speaking, the girl paused mid-motion.

She suddenly looked up, eyes wide, staring at Xia Shou as if she had seen a ghost.

“You... you you you! You can see me?” she asked excitedly.