41: Chapter 41 The Family Banquet Ends

Richard Webber returned to his bedroom in the east wing of the manor, in an impossibly good mood.

He couldn't even be bothered to take a shower, throwing himself directly onto the soft sofa and pulling out his phone to call his wife, Monica, who was far away in Manhattan.

"Darling, guess what I saw? The old man looking like he could drop dead at any moment—it was truly spectacular." As soon as the call connected, Richard couldn't wait to share his joy, his voice filled with irrepressible smugness.

Monica chuckled on the other end of the line: "He didn't do anything to you, did he? I heard that when he went to Los Angeles this time, he brought back two very strange large crates."

"Who cares what kind of trash he brought back?" Richard snorted disdainfully, pouring himself a full glass of whiskey. "Tomorrow, it will all be over. His favorite golf cart will have brake failure when it reaches the third turn. The downhill slope there is very steep, darling; by then, it will just be an 'accident' that no one can investigate."

He swirled the amber liquid in his glass, the ice cubes clinking crisply.

"I've already had the legal team prepare the estate division plan." He lowered his voice, like a snake flicking its tongue. "That stupid woman Catherine is still in the dark. By the time she realizes what's happening, the control of the trust fund will already be locked down by us."

"You really are a genius, Richard." Monica's voice was cloyingly sweet.

"Of course." Richard, basking in his wife's flattery, was just about to brag a little more when the bedroom door was knocked on, neither too lightly nor too heavily.

"Who is it?" he roared impatiently.

The steady voice of John, the manor's security chief, came from outside the door: "Mr. Richard, it's me."

"Spit it out!" Richard said, his mood irritated by the interruption.

The door was pushed open a crack, and John's eternal poker face poked in, his eyes calm and waveless. "Mr. Webber has ordered that all surveillance cameras in the east wing corridor be shut down for one hour for emergency system maintenance."

"Maintenance?" Richard frowned, but then waved his hand dismissively. "Got it. Get on with it, and get out when you're done. Don't disturb my rest."

He didn't take such a small matter to heart; everyone in the manor knew the old man liked to make a fuss.

"Very well, sir." John replied, closing the door expressionlessly.

Richard hung up on his wife, downed the whiskey in his glass in one gulp, the spicy liquid sliding down his throat and making him feel completely at ease.

He stood up and walked to the huge floor-to-ceiling window, overlooking the night view of the manor. After tomorrow, all of this, along with the vast financial empire of the Webber Group, would belong to him.

Less than two minutes after John left, an inconspicuous fire exit door at the end of the east wing corridor was silently opened from the outside. A huge metal crate was pushed in by two people wearing work uniforms. The indicator light on the side of the crate turned from red to green, and the electromagnetic lock made a soft "click" sound, unlocking.

...

Richard was immersed in beautiful fantasies about the future when he suddenly heard a strange sound.

"Click... click..."

The sound was very faint, like a mouse gnashing its teeth in the ceiling cavity.

He didn't pay much attention to it; this old mansion was nearly a hundred years old, so a few strange noises were normal.

But soon, the sound changed.

It was no longer that faint scratching sound, but a duller, dragging sound. It was like something weighing dozens of pounds was slowly crawling inside the central air conditioning ventilation duct. The metal duct groaned with a "creak, creak" under the heavy object, and the sound of nails scraping against the sheet metal was sharp enough to set one's teeth on edge.

"Who's up there?!" Richard's drunkenness evaporated for the most part, and he roared at the ceiling.

The only answer was dead silence.

The sound stopped too.

A chill inexplicably rose in Richard's heart. He picked up the phone on the table, preparing to call security. But just then, the white metal grille of the central air conditioning vent directly above his head suddenly buckled inward in an exaggerated arc!

"Bang!"

Before Richard could react, the entire grille was torn open from the inside by an unimaginable, immense force!

A dark red afterimage shot out like lightning!

It was a tongue, a tongue made entirely of muscle tissue, with no skin covering it, covered in mucus!

Its speed exceeded the limits of human vision, leaving only a blurred line in Richard's pupils.

"Splat!"

The expensive crystal whiskey glass in Richard's hand was instantly pierced. The tongue, its momentum undiminished, accurately plunged into the heavy oak desk behind him, sinking a full three inches deep!

Glass shards and whiskey splattered everywhere.

"Ah—"

A belated, distorted scream finally squeezed out of Richard's throat. He froze in place, his mind blank, only able to watch helplessly as that terrifying tongue pulled out of the desk, bringing with it a long trail of wood shavings, and then "whooshed" back into the dark hole in the ceiling.

The next second, a behemoth fell heavily from the torn-open ventilation duct!

"Crash!"

The gorgeous crystal chandelier in the center of the bedroom was smashed to pieces by it, and countless crystal shards exploded, like a brilliant rain of death.

It was a monster.

A huge reptile-like creature, crawling on the ground, resembling something that had been skinned alive. It had no eyes; its entire head was one huge, constantly opening and closing oral cavity with jagged, sharp teeth. It gripped the ground with its strong limbs, the smashed chandelier twisting and deforming beneath it.

The Licker!

Its eyeless head slowly turned in Richard's direction.

Richard's sanity completely snapped at this moment. He scrambled to turn around, used all his strength to pull open the bedroom door, and rushed out recklessly.

"Help! Help me!"

He ran crazily into the empty corridor. Behind him came the loud crash of the bedroom door being smashed, and the terrifying sound of the monster's claws tearing through the wooden floor.

He frantically pounded on the doors of the rooms next door, where his personal bodyguards lived.

"Open the door! Open up! There's a monster!"

However, there was dead silence inside the doors; there was no response at all.

Richard's heart sank little by little. He only then remembered that John had come by, saying he needed to turn off the surveillance. He only then realized that this corridor, which was usually heavily guarded, was now completely devoid of even a ghost!

John had cleared everyone out of here in advance!

A cold fear shot from his tailbone straight to his scalp.

"Sizzle..."

The corridor lights began to flicker madly, and finally, accompanied by a soft sound, went out completely.

The world plunged into darkness.

Only the green emergency exit sign at the very end of the corridor emitted a faint, ghostly glow.

Richard's gasping breaths sounded exceptionally clear in the dead-silent corridor.

He heard it.

It wasn't the sound of footsteps.

"Rustle... rustle, rustle..."

It was a sound of rapid movement, of something rubbing against the wall. The sound wasn't on the floor, but on the wall, or even on the ceiling! It was approaching him rapidly in the darkness in an unthinkable way!

Without thinking, Richard bolted and sprinted toward the end of the corridor where the emergency light was shining. That was the fire exit; as long as he could rush out, he would be safe!

He rushed to that heavy fire door with the fastest speed of his life and slammed against the push bar on the door!

"Clang!"

The door didn't budge an inch.

The door lock emitted a dull, metallic clank of being locked.

Richard pushed and slammed against it like a madman, but that door was like a mountain, cutting off all his paths to survival.

He turned around in despair and looked at the other end of the corridor. There was a fire door there as well.

He scrambled over there, but the result was the same.

Both exits had been locked from the outside!

He was trapped in this narrow, dark corridor of death!

"No... no..." Richard leaned his back against the cold fire door and slowly slid to the ground, all the color draining from his face.

Just then, that "rustling" crawling sound suddenly disappeared.

The entire corridor fell back into suffocating silence.

Richard held his breath, pricked up his ears, and looked around in terror, but he couldn't see anything in the darkness.

One second, two seconds, three seconds...

Just when he thought the monster had left, a drop of cold, viscous liquid with a heavy, fishy stench dripped onto his prominent nose bridge without warning.

Richard froze. He struggled, lifting his head bit by bit.

In the darkness, right on the ceiling directly above his head, a huge, skinless silhouette was silently hanging upside down.

That massive mouth, filled with sharp teeth, slowly opened.