Just one more life theft, and they would finally be able to shatter Narcissa’s rule!
Old John raised a hand and slapped his cheeks a few tis. Once his mind had fully cleared, he turned the page of the book and stuffed the Book of Death into the hands of the endlessly chattering Gary.
Just like the countless tis before, Gary’s death information appeared on the new page.
Then Old John raised his pistol, aid the muzzle at Gary’s eye, and pulled the trigger—
Bang!
As blood splattered, the words in the Book of Death twisted and rearranged themselves, rapidly forming the following chapter:
Chapter Three: John
John Breton will die at 00:39 tomorrow morning in a car accident caused by another driver’s fatigue.
It was currently 7:59 in the morning. Gary’s original death ti had been 16:28 in the afternoon, which was still 8 hours and 29 minutes away. Old John’s original death ti was 16:10, and after adding those sa 8 hours and 29 minutes, it beca exactly the new death ti written in Chapter Three.
But this was not the final result.
The instant the last punctuation mark of the new chapter took shape, a shrill wail burst from the pages of the book.
The charred black hand that had appeared in the illusion suddenly thrust out from the center of the book, followed closely by a horrifying human face burned completely black as it flew outward.
The skin of the face’s eyelids and lips had all been burned away, exposing pale white eyeballs beneath and a mouthful of broken, scorched yellow teeth. Filled with hatred and murderous intent, it opened its mouth toward Old John and let out a blood-curdling screech. Thick black liquid, sticky like tar, stread downward from its wide, bulging eyes.
It was clearly Narcissa, burned to death.
Everly and Old John were both startled, thinking the vengeful spirit was about to risk everything to drag them down with her. Unexpectedly, the mont Narcissa’s charred body burst free from the pages and leapt into the air, countless thread-like red worms imdiately began erging from her body.
Like a blazing-hot net, they tightened more and more, binding the vengeful spirit firmly in place.
Wherever the worms crawled, the hard, charred surface softened and sloughed away like lted wax. Before long, the entire vengeful spirit dissolved into lumps of sludge-like semi-liquid matter, dripping ssily onto the open pages, where it was devoured by the red text-worms living within the paper itself.
Narcissa was only the beginning.
Behind her followed countless other vengeful spirits. Their power was far weaker than hers, and their bodies appeared half-transparent. So were missing their eyeballs, so had broken limbs, so had their stomachs ripped open…
These spirits seed to possess no self-awareness. Blankly following in Narcissa’s footsteps, they erged from the pages, drifting into the air in all directions, only to be sward by the red worms and transford into foul-slling black liquid threaded with sticky strands, which dripped back onto the book.
Among the final few spirits, Everly spotted a man whose skull had been sawn open at the back of the head. He looked very much like Jack from the surveillance footage. It seed those spirits were all victims killed by Narcissa through the curse system.
This horrifying “night parade of a hundred ghosts” lasted a full five minutes.
When the final drop of black fluid ford from the spirits was swallowed by the book, the text on the page—which had already settled into place—suddenly began boiling once more.
The earlier prophecy of “death at 00:39 in the morning” had been a false prediction based on the premise that “the death curse had not yet been broken.” Once Narcissa’s spirit burst out of the pages and was completely digested by the book, the original curse of “Old John will die today at 16:10” vanished along with it. Naturally, the death prophecy foreseen by the pages updated itself accordingly.
And this ti, the prophecy that appeared was the one closest to reality.
Hundreds upon hundreds of slender red text-worms wriggled across the white pages like restless tadpoles. As they moved, line after line of new text slowly began forming on the paper, taking shape bit by bit—
[Chapter Three: John
John Breton will live until…]
Plop!
Before the remaining words could appear, Old John snapped the book shut.
“Grandpa?”
“I think the reason the future is so fascinating is precisely because it is unknown.” The old man smiled at his granddaughter, a glimr tempered by years of experience shining in his deep eyes. “Sotis, knowing too much only makes people lose their happiness, doesn’t it?”
“…”
eting her grandfather’s gaze, the heat in Everly’s mind gradually cooled.
She had to admit he was right.
Knowing how long one would live did not necessarily bring happiness. Instead, learning the ending too early could cause anxiety and fear ahead of ti, making a person obsess over gains and losses… Worse still, if soone’s willpower were weaker, they might even be tempted by the Book of Death’s life-stealing ability and fall onto the twisted path of draining the lives of others.
Too dangerous. She had almost fallen for it herself!
“Yes, not looking was the right choice. Good thing you reacted quickly, Grandpa.”
Everly rubbed her forehead and smiled back at Old John.
No matter what the future held, at least for now, she and her grandfather had successfully overco the cursed chain letter.
After rewrapping the Book of Death, now torn down to only a few scattered pages, in black cloth, Old John took out his phone and checked his ssage list.
Sure enough, just like more than forty years ago, once Narcissa had been successfully killed, the cursed chain letter she brought with her vanished as well. Neither Old John’s received ssages nor sent ssages contained any trace of the ominous text ever existing.
They had truly broken the curse!
“Next, let’s clean up the scene.”
“Mm.”
Grandfather and granddaughter exchanged a glance and, with perfect unspoken understanding, turned to look at Gary on the restraint bed.
Gary: “…”
…
As the greatest contributor to breaking the curse this ti, Gary’s reward was being shoved into Erald Lake once again, turning into a stream of bubbling glug glug noises underwater.
Accompanying him into the lake were a restraint bed fra and four tightly fastened chains.
As for the phone and SIM card Everly had promised Gary… those things would be useless once they fell into the water, so kind-heartedly, she decided to “temporarily keep them for him” and planned to sell them later on a second-hand website to recover so expenses.
After dealing with Gary, Everly and Old John split up to work separately, erasing all traces left in the forest and campsite—shell casings, footprints, signs of struggle, and so on. As for Dana and the others’ traces, they did not touch those.
By the ti all the miscellaneous cleanup was finished, it was already close to noon.
Even though they were both hungry and exhausted, to avoid any further complications, the grandfather and granddaughter still decided to leave the campsite first.
They called over the only two survivors in the area and gave the two college students a ride out of the campsite. The car would pass a gas station on the way, and about two kiloters before reaching it, Everly stopped the car and let the two students get out to continue on foot.
“Keep walking a bit further and you’ll reach a gas station. Go there and ask the owner for help—have him call the police for you. As for what you should tell the police, I already taught you in the car. Rember: you encountered a serial killer who sohow wandered in from sowhere, not so monster with immortality. Got it?”
The two college students nodded nervously.
“Alright then, this is where we part ways.”
Everly waved at them as she got back into the car.
The vehicle continued forward and soon passed by that familiar gas station.
This gas station was also a classic location in the Blood Camp series.
In every film, the campers would stop here at the beginning to refuel. The gas station owner was a strange old man with a face disfigured by fire. Whenever he saw people heading to the campsite, he would suddenly appear like a scripted NPC, cryptically warning them in a riddle-like manner to “be careful of the demon of Erald Lake,” startling the innocent and clueless college students.
The old man looked like a villain, but he was actually a pretty good person. If those two college students ca to him for help, he would definitely assist them.
With that, the last loose end was finally tied up.
Because of the curse letter incident, Everly and Old John had been working nonstop in high-intensity shifts for the past three days. They had driven through the night, fought wits with Gary at the campsite, and repeatedly clashed with the Book of Death and the cursed chain letter… Now that they could finally relax, both of them felt an overwhelming wave of exhaustion at the sa ti.
Horror Movie Survival Rule #12: don’t get distracted while driving.
They pushed themselves to drive a bit further. Once they left the oak forest and reached a populated village, they no longer forced themselves. They imdiately found a small family-run inn to stop for the night. After getting out of the car, they first ate so hot food to fill their stomachs, then booked two rooms and stayed the night.
The next morning, Everly woke up. After sufficient rest, she felt completely refreshed, her energy fully restored.
When she went downstairs, she saw that Old John was already up too.
Today marked the fourth day since they had received the cursed chain letter.
Even though she already knew Narcissa’s curse had been eliminated, seeing her grandfather sitting safely at the table, slowly sipping coffee while watching TV, still filled Everly with a deep sense of joy and relief.
“Since you’re up, co have breakfast. We still need to drive back later.”
“Mm!”
……
Perhaps the bad luck of that early-sumr “chain curse letter” incident had all been used up, because in the days that followed, Everly and Old John experienced an unusually peaceful stretch of ti—no troubles, no incidents at all.
Not only that, Old John even had a rare streak of good luck—when he went to Micano City to buy household supplies, he rounded up his paynt at the checkout counter and casually bought a randomly drawn Powerball lottery ticket from the counter.
The results were surprisingly absurd: when the lottery drawing was announced, that ticket had actually won third prize—an enormous 50,000 US dollars!
Although after deducting various taxes and miscellaneous fees, less than 30,000 remained in hand, neither Old John nor Everly minded.
They cashed out the winnings and took Rebecca and Misha out for a full day of fun in the city and at an amusent park. After they had enjoyed themselves thoroughly, the remaining money was still enough to buy a good amount of weapons and ammunition, replenishing everything they had used at the campsite with so to spare.
And so, they spent two happy months back at ho.
By the ti sumr vacation was nearing its end, Everly found herself worrying about which connecting flight route to choose after browsing recent news.
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