With extrely fast movents, Everly finished securing one side of the chains. By the ti she glanced over, Gary’s corpse on the ground had already regrown more than half of his head.
She turned toward the distant hillside and made a hand signal, then stepped back slightly with the two assistants.
“Bang!”
Old John, positioned on the slope, understood the signal and fired another shot at the rapidly regenerating Gary.
The barely-ford head was struck by the bullet and once again exploded into a burst of blood.
Everly seized the opportunity. She instructed the panicked Dana and Corbett to each lift one of Gary’s legs, while she grabbed both of his arms. The three of them worked together, lifting the blood-soaked “corpse” like it was a dead pig, and placed him onto the restraint bed.
“Quick! Don’t waste ti—wrap the chains around him a few tis, then lock the other end onto the restraint bed!”
Everly urged them repeatedly.
The two survivors were likely still overwheld by everything that had happened that night. Hearing Everly’s instructions, they skipped any real thought process and instinctively obeyed. One of them lifted Gary’s legs, while the other wrapped the chains around him several tis in a hurry. Then they pulled the other end of the chain and locked it firmly onto the far side of the restraint bed with an iron lock.
Everly, standing by Gary’s upper body, was not idle either.
While the two handled his legs, she secured his chest and arms. By the ti both sides finally finished, wrapping Gary tightly like a cocoon with sturdy chains, his skull on the restraint bed had also completed its regeneration.
Outside the pale bones, sensitive nerves, fine blood vessels, and dense muscle tissue grew layer by layer at a shocking speed. Before long, a layer of bright red flesh had already covered the skull, and new eyeballs had ford within the empty sockets.
Once the pale skin finished growing, golden curls and eyebrows sprouted rapidly from the follicles, covering the previously bald head. Beneath the thin eyelids, the moist eyeballs rolled once. Thick eyelashes fluttered lightly. The eyelids slowly lifted.
Everly t a pair of familiar brown eyes.
“Ah, Everly… how cunning. I’ve been caught again.”
He blinked his moist eyes, sighing through newly regenerated vocal cords.
“Ahhh! He—he—he… he ca back to life again!” Dana and Corbett, standing nearby, scread in terror almost simultaneously.
Everly didn’t have ti to explain to them.
She casually replied, “Because he’s immortal,” then bent down and began carefully checking the restraints, inspecting them piece by piece to ensure nothing had been missed or loosened.
While she checked the chains, Gary lay on the bed, staring at her unblinkingly with his brown eyes. His voice kept muttering—soft, sticky, almost whining, like he was throwing a childish tantrum.
“It’s been so long since we last t… can’t you at least talk to ?”
“Hey—Everly, pay attention to ~”
“What exactly is the third answer…?”
Everly had no intention of responding.
Experience told her that the more attention soone like Gary received, the more excited he beca. Unless his mouth was physically sealed, there was no way he would shut up.
After carefully verifying every fixed point and confirming that the restraints had fully immobilized him, Everly turned around and signaled toward the distant hillside, indicating that Old John should co down.
During the waiting ti, she quickly explained Gary’s origins and characteristics to the two survivors, warning them that after leaving here, they should not tell anyone about what had happened—otherwise, they might bring death upon themselves.
“After all, you’ve probably heard of it—the U.S. military likes collecting all kinds of bizarre experintal subjects to study terrifying war machines. If you go around talking about this, you could easily end up being targeted by them. And on top of that, the cult that created Gary has been searching for their ‘ssiah’ all this ti. Those cultists don’t hesitate to kill. You wouldn’t want to lose your lives just because you couldn’t keep your mouths shut, right?”
“No, we won’t… we’ll definitely keep it a secret!”
The two survivors were terrified by Everly’s embellished warning and imdiately swore to the sky that they would never speak of it outside.
“Everly.”
A series of footsteps ca from not far away. Everly turned her head and saw Old John approaching, carrying the heavy Barrett weapon case in his hands.
“Next, my grandfather and I are going to do sothing that may be a bit dangerous. To avoid you getting caught up in it and injured, how about you go back to the cabin and rest?” she said, turning to the two survivors beside her.
“Uh…”
“Don’t worry. We’ll call you when it’s ti to leave.”
“Okay… then we’ll go rest.”
Dana and Corbett exchanged a glance. Not daring to linger any longer, they obediently turned around and ran toward the nearest wooden cabin under Everly’s watch.
After they left, Everly took a rechargeable floodlight from the jeep, switched it on, and aid the beam at the restraint bed on the ground.
The powerful light illuminated the entire area around the bed, and it was bright enough to make Gary squint painfully.
With a proper light source now available, Everly removed her night-vision goggles. She walked back to the jeep, opened the door, and took out the black cloth-wrapped bundle Rebecca had given her from the glove compartnt.
“What is that? I can feel a very heavy aura of death coming from it…”
Gary, lying on the restraint bed, blinked his tear-filled brown eyes, scorched by the intense light, and asked curiously.
Unfortunately, neither of the two present had ti to answer him.
After retrieving the bundle, Everly did not dare to touch whatever was inside. Still wrapped in the black cloth, she handed it to Old John.
“Open it, then turn to the chapter with my na on it. That’s how it’s used, right?”
“That’s right.”
After receiving his granddaughter’s confirmation, Old John took the bundle and removed the outer black cloth, which was covered in strange, intricate symbols.
Underneath the cloth was a book.
The cover of the book was made from so kind of animal hide. It felt cold and slightly slick to the touch. On the cover, the title “Book of Death” was embossed in ornate calligraphy. Apart from that, there was no publisher or author information recorded anywhere.
Following his granddaughter’s instructions, Old John opened the book and quickly flipped past the first chapter titled “Sophia,” then the second chapter labeled “Thompson.”
At the end of the second chapter, on the blank pages that followed, red blood-like text began to seep out at a speed visible to the naked eye.
[Chapter 3: John
Chapter Content: John Bretton will die today at 16:10 in a car accident caused by fatigue while driving (death caused by a vengeful spirit’s curse).]
It was extrely strange. When the “Book of Death” recorded Old John’s cause of death, it not only listed the surface-level reason, but also added a parenthetical note revealing the underlying cause—the curse of a vengeful spirit.
It seed that as a special object, the “Book of Death” was capable of perceiving the curse of Narcissa.
This discovery made Everly more confident in their plan.
According to Rebecca’s explanation, the “Book of Death” requires two conditions to register a new “reader” and generate a corresponding chapter:
1. The book must be opened to a blank page;
2. The cover of the book must be touched by a person.
Only when both conditions are t will a new chapter corresponding to the person who touched it be revealed.
Therefore, once Old John finished being registered, he imdiately flipped the book to the blank page corresponding to Chapter 4 and placed it into Gary’s hands on the restraint bed.
The mont Gary’s fingers touched the leather cover, blood-red text began to erge from the blank page. The fourth chapter, titled “Gary,” appeared before everyone’s eyes.
[Chapter 4: Gary
Chapter Content: Gary Heworth will die today at 16:28, drowned in Mirror Lake when he is subrged together with the restraint bed by a ruthless girl nad Everly.]
Seen this way, the Book of Death did seem quite accurate. Because under the assumption that Old John would not take Gary’s life, Everly would indeed keep him alive until Old John safely passed the critical point at 16:10 that afternoon, and only then proceed to sink Gary into the lake. In theory, Gary still had more than ten hours left to live. Even the person who would kill him and his final cause of death all matched Everly’s plan exactly.
Could the book read minds?
“Hey, Everly, what exactly is this book you’re holding? I feel like it’s biting my hand. That’s weird—it looks so small, but it’s actually kind of fierce!”
Gary kept making sticky, tireless noises on the bed like a curious child.
Fortunately, Everly had already learned to filter out his voice.
Her full attention was focused on the new chapter of the Book of Death. Seeing that both Old John and Gary had been recorded by the cursed book, she gave her grandfather a nod.
According to the book’s hidden rules, anyone who has a corresponding chapter within it can, through mutual killing, inherit the remaining lifespan of the other party.
Old John was under Narcissa’s curse and was destined to die 72 hours after receiving the cursed letter.
And now, through the life-stealing rules of The Book of Death, he would break the curse placed by Narcissa.
Success or failure would be decided here.
Old John set the book down, took a deep breath, and raised his shotgun, stepping up to Gary. The black muzzle pointed directly at the man on the bed.
Facing death, Gary showed no fear at all. He simply blinked his brown eyes innocently, like a naïve child, and called out to Everly beside him:
“If I’m going to be killed, how about letting Everly do it? If it’s her…”
“Bang!”
Before he could even finish speaking, Old John had already pulled the trigger, turning the person’s head on the bed into a shredded ss.
“How is it? Has anything changed in the Book of Death’s chapter?”
Even for a reinforced Gary, taking a shotgun blast to the head at point-blank range ant dying at least once.
The body on the bed jerked once, then quickly went limp.
Old John bent down, picked up the Book of Death from the ground, and flipped back to Chapter Three. He saw that the text was already changing at high speed.
At so point, the originally elegant dark-red calligraphic letters had twisted and elongated like iron worms, turning into countless thin strands that writhed and crawled across the page in dense, chaotic clusters. Just looking at it made one’s skin crawl.
At the sa ti, the pages began to look as if they were rotting. From all four corners, thick patches of green mold slowly erged.
Those mold spots seed alive. The mont they appeared, they rapidly spread outward, carrying a terrifyingly cold aura as they advanced across the page.
Wherever the mold spread, the dark-red “worm-like” letters seed to encounter a natural enemy. They writhed in panic, emitting faint, shrill “squeaking” sounds as they retreated toward the center of the page.
But the mold spread too quickly. In the blink of an eye, it had expanded from the edges to the middle of the page. The four corners converged, forming an encirclent that trapped the writhing “insect-like” text inside.
The letter-ford “worms” clearly refused to accept being trapped so easily. Driven into a corner, they counterattacked. Like countless small serpents, they coiled together at their tails, facing the mold, raising their “heads” and hissing in intimidation. Then, with a sudden burst of force, their slender bodies shot outward—
RIP!
The mont the text-worms t the mold spots, it was like water vapor striking a red-hot iron plate. The worms twitched their tails futilely for a brief instant before letting out shrill “squeaks,” dissolving into wisps of black smoke that vanished from the page.
One strand, two strands, three strands…
The encirclent tightened smaller and smaller. Countless text-worms surged forward in waves, like moths drawn to a fla, throwing themselves at the mold only to be devoured in return.
At last, the final remaining worm on the page was also consud by the mold.
At the sa ti, the page—previously only discolored by mildew but otherwise intact—suddenly behaved as if struck by an invisible monster. With a sharp rip, it tore down the middle, crumbling into fine fragnts. A gust of night wind swept through, and the pieces scattered into ash, drifting away into the air.
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