Chapter 388

Chapter 388

Seventh Master and I examined the platform from every angle, nearly jumping around it, but could not understand where the hand had emerged.

It had appeared from nowhere and made Tan Wannian vanish into nowhere.

“Seventh Master, do you remember Mr. Tan’s dreams?”

“He said Tan Wannian projected them, and a hand dragged him away every time.”

It was this hand!

I had seen it clearly. It was a human hand with slightly blackened skin.

Wasn’t that exactly the hand from the dream?

“Something’s wrong,” Seventh Master said with a frown. “We’re watching the scene from the night of the incident. If Tan Wannian was taken away, whose body did the police find…?”

While we remained confused, the platform changed again.

A black speck suddenly appeared at its center. At first, it was only the size of a soybean, but it visibly expanded outward in a perfectly regular circle.

Soon, it became a black opening the size of a basketball and continued growing. The entire platform disappeared, yet the darkness kept spreading.

We knew this was supposedly only a Spectral Replay, but instinct forced us backward. Neither of us dared stand within the black opening.

Seventh Master was even more curious than me. As he retreated, he reached toward its edge.

The next second, both of us stared in astonishment.

The opening seemed real!

A hand shot out of it and seized Seventh Master’s wrist.

His expression changed drastically. Judging from his reaction, he could not break free.

The hole kept expanding. If he failed to escape, it might swallow him.

There was no time to think. I pulled the broadsword from my back and hacked at the hand.

The blow felt like striking diamond-hard stone and numbed the web between my thumb and index finger.

But the broadsword truly deserved to be called a divine weapon. After one strike, the hand released Seventh Master and vanished.

I did not dare relax. I kicked Seventh Master hard.

The moment he fell aside, the hole swallowed the place where he had stood.

My scalp tingled. “The hole is real! Run!”

Seventh Master scrambled toward the Basement stairs in blind panic.

The black hole expanded faster and faster. I turned and ran, nearly being swallowed myself.

Fortunately, I reacted quickly and leaped directly onto the stairs at the Basement entrance.

Seventh Master and I clung to each other, terrified that one misplaced step would send us falling in.

The hole finally stopped expanding at the foot of the stairs.

It covered nearly ninety percent of the Basement in a circle. Since the room itself was square, small corners remained around it.

We stood frozen for a long time, unable to recover.

That had been close.

If I had moved any slower, Seventh Master would have disappeared into it.

“Chen Mo… what is this thing…?”

Seventh Master sounded dazed, his voice trembling.

“How would I know? Good thing that hand appeared quickly. Otherwise, I would’ve touched it with you…”

At first, I had assumed it was part of the Spectral Replay. Who could have imagined it was real?
How could something like this suddenly appear in an ordinary Basement?

After calming down, Seventh Master and I finally gathered the courage to cautiously peer at the black hole.

Fortunately, it no longer changed. Even after studying it for a long time, we could not see what lay below.

It seemed bottomless, and visibility was extremely poor. We could only make out its upper edge.

Smooth stone lined the rim. Anyone who fell inside would have no chance to climb back out.

The longer I stared, the faster my heart pounded. An inexplicable terror rose inside me.

There was a saying: when you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

The fear was impossible to describe. It felt as though a pair of eyes inside the hole watched me. The harder I tried to glimpse its depths, the stronger my urge to jump became.

I immediately stopped looking.

But Seventh Master’s curiosity was extraordinary, and he continued staring.

For safety, I grabbed his trouser leg in case he accidentally fell.

“Seventh Master, can you see anything?”

He shook his head and finally pulled back.

“I’ve lived most of my life and never seen anything like this.”

“At the very least, the stone along its edge could never have been used as a building foundation.”

Seventh Master looked utterly confused. “This hole wasn’t created by a collapse. It appeared from nothing…”

He could not understand it, and neither could I.

This had to qualify as a genuine supernatural phenomenon.

As we wondered what to do next, rustling sounds rose from deep inside the hole.

Something… seemed to be climbing its walls.

We exchanged a glance and hurriedly peered over the edge again.

The hole was probably too deep for us to see anything. We could only hear something climbing upward. From the sound, there seemed to be many of them.

My scalp instantly went numb.

A mysterious black hole appearing from nowhere, combined with unsettling climbing sounds…

Were aliens invading Earth?

Had The Three-Body Problem become nonfiction?

“Seventh Master… maybe we should run…” Fear made me stumble over my words.

His curiosity had somehow become even stronger. He nearly leaned into the hole to listen.

He seemed determined to learn what was climbing toward us.

“Seventh Master… if we don’t run… we’ll both get dragged inside…”

“Seventh Master… goodbye!”

I jumped up and sprinted away.

Seventh Master’s terrified shout came from behind me. “Wait for me! Chen Mo! Wait!”

Moments later, I heard him emerge. With a scream, he flew past me at astonishing speed.

The sounds from the hole grew clearer, raising goosebumps across my back.

I wished my body had a speed button.

“Damn it! Seventh Master! Wait for me!”

The Old Man ran as though possessed by Usain Bolt and reached the estate gates in moments.

I hurried after him, terrified he would drive away without me.

Once we reached the car, Seventh Master glared at me, clearly shaken. “Why are you sitting there? Drive!”

Equally frightened, I sat in the passenger seat and groped for an imaginary steering wheel before realizing what was wrong. “I’m in the passenger seat! The wheel is on your side!”