Anon soared through the air, perched on his raven, gazing down upon the Nightmare Forest. A voice echoed in his mind as he muttered to himself, “Mike informed it to be here somewhere, I guess.”

“Master, Here, Down here.” called Mike from below.

Anon honed in on the source of the voice and spotted Mike standing amidst the forest. “Let’s get to work,” Anon said, leaping from his raven and landing beside Mike.

“Hello, Master,” greeted Mike.

“What have you found? Show me,” commanded Anon.

“Master, first of all, I apologize for my mistake. I let that bastard escape from my grasp. He was this close to me, and when I tried to catch him, he just vanished into thin air.” Mike apologized as he explained how the guy with blone hairs, escaped from his hands.

“Don’t worry, if he’s intelligent enough to create those zombies and that troll chimera zombie, it’s absurd to think he won’t have tricks up his sleeve to escape sticky situations like this,” Anon reassured as he tapped mike on his shoulder.

“This is the entrance to his lab, Master,” said Mike, pointing out a hole in the tree trunk.

“Let’s see what this sick bastard is making inside this tree. No.300, you guard the perimeter; Mike and I will go inside,” ordered Anon, stepping into the tree trunk.

“As you command, Your Highness,” No. 300 replied with a bow.

“Everyone, take defensive positions. We are to protect His Majesty,” commanded No. 300 to the other ogres.

Inside the tree trunk…

Anon ventured further into the lab, finding it eerily pristine with white walls and tidy floors. A slender hallway connected to the entrance through which Anon had come in.

As he reached the heart of the lab, he encountered a spacious room dominated by a massive white dining table. Seventeen chairs encircled the table, each with an empty plate, as though someone had recently dined there.

“Mike, did you see anyone here when you came in?” Anon inquired.

“No, Master, something is wrong,” Mike immediately responded.

“What do you mean? What’s wrong?” Anon asked, perplexed.

“This place was never like this when I entered earlier. There were no table or chairs; it was just an empty space,” reported Mike.

“What? Are you sure you didn’t enter this lab? Are you certain of your senses?” Anon questioned.

“Yes, Master, there was no dining table here. I’m positive,” Mike affirmed.

Anon surveyed his surroundings carefully, trying to make sense of the discrepancies.

There were five rooms branching off from the hallway—two on each side and one in front of the entrance. While the four doors on the sides were white, the one in the middle was a sinister crimson red.

“Master, nothing matches what I saw before. There were only three doors in the lab I saw earlier, but here, it’s entirely different. There was no red door,” Mike reported.

“Hmm, it seems like the first place we investigate,” Anon said, summoning his sickles and activating a skill, Wind Armour.

Together, they approached the red door cautiously and opened it slowly. A noxious odor mixed with a chilling gas poured out from the room, filling the air.

“Master, this is the smell of rotten corpses, I can tell,” Mike discerned.

Entering the room, they were confronted with a horrifying sight. Numerous human corpses hung from enormous metallic hooks, their chests impaled.

Anon’s shock didn’t arise from the macabre sight but from the sheer number of corpses. Hundreds, thousands, millions—countless lifeless bodies dangled in this morbid chamber, stretching back like a massive hall.

“What is this?” Mike asked, his voice trembling. Even he as an assassin hasn’t seen a view like this.

“Looks like hell to me, but it’s not. Believe me, i have been there.” Anon replied, stepping further into the room.

Men, women, and even children—every age was represented among the ghastly display. The corpses showed no signs of decay, a chilling spell preserving them.

Anon walked more and more inside the room. He felt the chilling airs getting stronger with every step he took towards the end of the room.

“Help,” a faint whisper reached Anon’s ears from a corner of the room.

“Mike, did you hear that?” Anon asked mike.

“Yes, Master. It’s coming from that direction, I believe,” Mike pointed to the southwest corner of the room.

“Let’s go,” Anon said, moving toward the source of the voice with Mike.

After walking for what felt like an eternity, they finally reached the source—a young child, around seven years old, hanging from two sharp hooks that pierced both of his hands. He whispered weakly, “Help, please. I need my momma. Please help.”

Anon’s heart clenched as he witnessed the child’s agony. “Mike, remove him,” Anon commanded.

He was dying slowly, like when you cut a chicken and left it hanging until all the blood gushes out of it’s body.

“I need to administer some sedative first, Master, to ease his pain. If I remove his hands without any, he’ll cry out, and I suspect whoever hung him here isn’t too far away,” Mike explained.

“Do it,” Anon ordered.

Mike swiftly bit the child’s neck, injecting a potent sedative to minimize his suffering. With great care, he removed the child from the hooks.

The child then glanced at Mike and murmured, “Grandfather?” before losing consciousness.

“This child is not an ordinary one, Master. He is a vampire,” Mike observed, noting the flicker of faint red light in the child’s eyes.

“If he’s a vampire, why aren’t his wounds healing?” Anon inquired, examining the holes in the child’s hands.

“He needs the blood of a human for recovery. Can Master provide some?” Mike asked. 𝘦𝘯𝑜𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝗇𝓔t

“Of course. Here, drink this, kiddo,” Anon poured his blood into the child’s mouth, and miraculously, the wounds began to close.

Thump-Thump

“Someone or something is approaching at high speed, Master,” Mike alerted.

“It seems action is coming my way. Keep that child alive at all costs; I want to know what’s happening here,” Anon ordered, his sickles ready to do some chop-chop.

“Yes, Master,” Mike affirmed.