Npc 139

It was difficult for Jian Hou to find the right words to describe the scene before him.

Amidst a storm of swirling, cascading rose petals, a young man in an academy uniform stood quietly behind a towering oak tree.

That was Jiang Yan.

He looked no different from usual.

His soft, obedient black hair was damp with rain, clinging to his forehead. His pale skin was adorned with delicate, unassuming features, yet his indifferent, crystalline glacier-blue eyes made him particularly striking.

If not for the white, fibrous mass—eerily similar to brain matter—that was continuously twisting and growing from the back of his head, Jian Hou would have thrown himself forward without hesitation, clutching his friend and sobbing uncontrollably.

If the white mass on the back of Jiang Yan’s head had not yet grown to tens of meters high, then perhaps a trace of joy might have surfaced on Jian Hou’s face—relief that, although his best friend had mutated, at least he was still alive.

However, at this moment, it was as if an enormous white brain tree had grown from the back of Jiang Yan’s head.

The tree was densely covered with human heads, all eerily resembling Jiang Yan, hanging like fully ripened fruit.

Half-formed, partially melted faces stretched between the heads like interconnected veins. Enormous, glacier-blue eyeballs writhed, pulsated, and oozed within the constantly growing, creeping mass of white brain matter.

Blink. Open. Close. Blink. Open. Close.

"Gluu... gii..."

"Gluu... gii..."

Like breathing.

"Old Jian?"

Jiang Yan seemed completely unaware of what was happening. He tilted his head slightly in confusion, staring at his friend’s horrified expression.

The enormous tree of heads behind him swayed with his movement. The human heads knocked against each other, emitting "Wuuu..." cries.

In an instant, both Jian Hou and the middle-aged man beside him felt chills crawl up their spines.

"No... no way... you clearly..."

The middle-aged man muttered in terror, stepping backward.

Crack.

He had stepped on something.

Instinctively, he looked down.

It was the severed wrist of a boy—pale, nearly glowing—half-buried in the mud where he had just buried a body, the same one Jian Hou had previously dug out halfway.

Now, that chalk-white wrist, resembling plaster, lay shattered at his feet.

"How... how can this be...?"

The middle-aged man stared at the severed wrist, murmuring.

How could this be?

How could he still be alive?

If Jiang Yan wasn’t dead, then the boy buried here was... who?

At that moment, his gaze fell upon a small, mole-like mark on the base of the twisted hand.

His breath caught.

With a sudden gasp, he collapsed to the ground, frantically digging into the mud.

"No... impossible..."

"This is impossible..."

The rain-soaked earth turned to sludge beneath his frantic fingers. Before long, his entire body was covered in mud.

The half-exposed body, which Jian Hou had struggled so hard to pull out, was now completely revealed under the storm.

It was a young man around eighteen or nineteen years old. His multicolored braided hair was soaked in filthy mud, with tiny worms and insects crawling through his braids.

His eyes were wide open in terror, staring at the sky, long devoid of life like a broken doll.

In that instant, the middle-aged man seemed to stop breathing.

The entire world was swallowed by a suffocating silence, leaving only the sound of the relentless downpour and the weeping, wailing heads behind Jiang Yan.

Crack!

A sharp snapping sound rang out.

The boy’s braided head twisted unnaturally, as if something had forcibly broken his neck.

White, writhing tendrils squirmed out from the severed stump of his neck, moving as if alive. They carried his head, slithering rapidly toward the grotesque tree of heads behind Jiang Yan.

"Gluu... gii..."

The countless round, soulless blue eyes blinked in unison, as if breathing. The heads hanging from the tree all turned toward the new arrival, then began to bite and devour him.

And at that moment, the severed, multicolored-braided head suddenly woke up.

As the teeth of its kind tore into its scalp and face, it instinctively twisted in terror, turning to look at the man kneeling beside its former body.

"Tao... Tao Tao?"

The middle-aged man stared blankly into his son's eyes.

Rip—

Half of the boy’s face was torn off by the others, his eyeball tumbling from its socket, still attached by red and blue nerves. He fixed his gaze on his father, letting out a heart-wrenching scream:

"Dad, why did you kill me?!!"

"Dad, why did you kill me—!!"

His raw, agonized cries shattered the silence, yanking the middle-aged man back into reality.

In his bloodshot eyes, the reflection of his son being devoured by the nightmarish head-tree grew clearer.

He turned his head stiffly, only to see his son’s mangled, half-buried body still trapped in the mud.

"Aaaahhh—!!!!"

A wretched, soul-piercing scream tore through the rain-drenched night—

Just like that stormy night three years ago.

【Oh no! Another player down.】

【Wait, what?? We saw Jiang Yan get buried with our own eyes, how is he here again?】

【Exactly. We literally just watched him get hacked to death!】

【No way, right?? The system does adjust real NPC stats based on the plot, sure but isn’t a "real NPC" just another mode for players? Can they really be put through this??】

【Don’t ask. If you ask, the answer is just “because he’s Jiang Yan.”】

【But… that doesn’t explain anything?? As a normal human being, with system values this distorted, shouldn’t he have already been corrupted?】

【That’s what I’m saying. Jiang Yan may not be dead yet, but can we even call him a real NPC anymore?】

【He’s probably already a system NPC. Even if the rumors are true that he has the main system and a Supreme God’s protection, his mind and body have been so horrifically twisted, there’s no way he can still be considered human.】

【Still, the fact that he’s even alive is a miracle in itself.】

In reality, Jiang Yan’s mental state was far from stable.

His memories were disjointed, the images in his mind torn into fragments, impossible to piece together.

He looked at his friend, who stood frozen in place, then at the middle-aged man kneeling not far away, clutching a corpse while staring at him in shock, screaming in despair.

The endless wailing and accusations ringing in his ears only added to his confusion.

He had no idea what was going on.

What… exactly had happened?

He wanted to take a step toward Jian Hou, but his body felt unbearably heavy, his feet refused to move.

He wanted to speak, to ask, but his soul and thoughts felt as though they were wrapped in a thick, gelatinous mass.

He didn’t know what it was, but his instincts told him that it emitted a faint, hazy glow.

“Old Jian, I…”

Just as Jiang Yan began to speak..

A sudden chorus of wailing erupted from all around, growing louder and closer.

The cries were sorrowful, piercing, and chilling to the bone.

"This...?"

Jian Hou’s expression turned wary as he scanned his surroundings.

The violently swaying tree branches in the storm looked like the clawing fingers of demons.

“Old Jian…”

Jiang Yan’s voice sounded unusually weak. When Jian Hou turned to look at him, he startled.

Jiang Yan had always been pale, but now, his face was as white as paper, completely devoid of color. Standing there in the heavy rain, he looked as if he would collapse at any moment.

"Yan Yan!"

At that moment, Jian Hou no longer cared about the terrifying mass growing from Jiang Yan’s head. He rushed forward, quickly stepping up to support him.

He wanted to ask what had happened.

Where was that darkness from earlier? Where had it gone?

But in the end, as his eyes landed on the grotesque tree of heads above Jiang Yan, he fell silent.

What could have happened?

Clearly, something had gone completely wrong, beyond their understanding or control.

The rain poured down harder, large raindrops pelting the ground, sending mud and crushed rose petals splashing in all directions.

The middle-aged man sat on the ground, clutching his son’s corpse, his face blank—a body left with only an empty shell.

The pitch-black sky above seemed like a beast with an open mouth, ready to swallow everything whole.

"Wuuu... wuuu..."

In the wind, the wailing grew closer.

Whoosh—!

A sharp sound sliced through the air as something round flashed past thema and shot straight toward the monstrous head-tree on Jiang Yan’s skull.

It was a human head.

A young boy’s head.

"How…"

The scene that followed made Jian Hou’s words completely catch in his throat.

He watched as, accompanied by rising wails, countless pale, black-haired boys’ heads flew in from all directions, all rushing toward the head-tree growing from the back of Jiang Yan’s skull.

Some of the heads still had partial bodies attached, some dragging their torn necks, others writhing with twisted limbs as they flew toward Jiang Yan.

"Wuuu… wuuu…"

They were crying, their variously colored eyes filled with the same despair.

They looked at Jiang Yan like drowning people staring at the last piece of driftwood on the water’s surface.

"Ah…!"

The head-tree behind Jiang Yan shook violently as countless heads threw themselves at it.

From the writhing white brain matter, bluish-purple veins extended outward, spreading like branches in a frenzy.

"Gulu… gulu…"

A blue eyeball, hanging from a bluish-purple vein, blinked open and shut.

Each head that got close was immediately wrapped in dense, vein-like tendrils, pulled into the tree, and embedded into its branches.

They were merging.

One head.

Two heads.

Three heads…

“Aaaah—!!!”

Jiang Yan let out a cry of pain, his body swaying unsteadily.

"Yan Yan!"

Jian Hou called out, completely helpless.

"Ding!"

[Item: Medical Bandages]

The Main System’s voice rang out like a savior’s call.

A white bandage pierced through the stormy night, flying straight toward Jiang Yan.

[Huh?!]

[How can this be?! A secondary dungeon… how could it have the Main System?!]

[Items shouldn’t even be usable here! Is this… a bonus?!]

[Completely twisted and breaking the rules… Could Tao Da and the others also be the Main God’s illegitimate children?]

[Something’s not right… I feel like the whole plot is off…]

"Teacher Jian!! Jiang Yan!!"

Jian Hou turned at the sound and saw Tao Shi, Cao Youfeng, Yu Jia, Cang Rou, and Ding Wanyu running toward them through the storm and the countless flying heads.

His legs went weak instantly, and he fell to the ground with a thud, crying out to his approaching companions in desperation:

"Save him… save Yan Yan!!!"

But instead of Tao Shi and Cao Youfeng rushing to help, what he got was their panicked, desperate screams:

"Teacher Jian! Take out an item! Get out now!!"

"Ding!"

[Dungeon: "The Bloody Bride of the Giants"]

[Dungeon Level: S]

[Main System Warning: Due to a system malfunction, the dungeon is about to reset.]

[Reset progress: 95%, 96%, 97%...]

"Yan Yan—!!"

Next Chapter NPC 140