Chapter 141: « House Of The Weeping Woman »

The smell hit me first. Mold and stagnant water. My boots sank into damp, stained carpet. The transition was instantaneous. No portal, no light. Just a sudden, sickening shift in the air.

I looked around. I stood in a hallway. The walls were covered in yellowed, peeling wallpaper. A single fluorescent light tube flickered overhead, buzzing with a sharp, rhythmic sound.

*Buzz. Buzz. Snap.*

It felt like a cheap apartment complex from the nineties.

『Floor 23: The House of the Weeping Woman』

『Main Scenario: Survive the Night in Apartment 404』

『Time Remaining: 10:42 PM (Current Time)』

『Objective: Survive until 6:00 AM.』

I reached for the hilt of my sword. My hand grabbed empty air. My inventory was locked. A red icon pulsed in the corner of my vision.

『Warning: Physical skills and weapons are disabled on this floor.』

『Warning: Supernatural interference has severed the connection to the Stigmata.』

My pulse quickened. I tried to summon a spark of gravity. Nothing happened. I tried to call the Blue Tiger. The mana in my veins felt like lead. It didn’t move.

’I am powerless.’

The thought was a cold weight in my stomach. I had spent the last twenty floors relying on the absolute destruction of my skills. Now, the Tower had stripped me bare.

I looked at the live stream window. It was the only part of the system still functioning.

「 -Singularity? Hey, look at the screen for once!!- 」

「 -Is he finally ignoring the chat again? Dude, look behind you.- 」

「 -Wait, why did the genre change to Urban Horror? I hate this.- 」

「 -His skills are grayed out. Is this a forced survival floor?- 」

「 -Wait... what is that noise? Turn the volume up.- 」

I didn’t turn around. I heard it too.

*Drag. Drag. Drag.*

Something was being pulled across the carpet. It was slow. It was heavy.

I walked forward. My own footsteps were too loud in the silence. I found a door with a rusted metal plate: **404**. I grabbed the handle. It was cold. I pushed it open and stepped inside.

The apartment was small. A cramped living room, a kitchenette with a greasy stove, and a single bedroom door. The window was covered in thick, black plastic.

I checked the time. 10:45 PM.

*Survive until 6:00 AM? No. That’s a lie.*

I knew this floor from the memories of the Old World. People who stayed in this room until the clock hit 6:00 AM disappeared. The clock would simply tick back to 12:00 AM. The night never ended. The "Weeping Woman" would eventually find you in the corner, and then the screen would go black.

I had to find the remains.

I went to the kitchen. I opened the cabinets. Inside were stacks of rotted newspapers. I flipped through them. My fingers came away black with soot.

*Where is she?*

A sound came from the bedroom.

*Sob. Sob. Hiccup.*

It was a woman crying. It wasn’t a loud, dramatic wail. It was the sound of someone who had been crying for days. It was wet and exhausted.

I walked toward the bedroom door.

「 -DON’T OPEN THE DOOR.- 」

「 -I’m literally shaking right now. Kang Min, stop.- 」

「 -He’s actually going toward the sound without a sword? Is he insane?- 」

「 -The camera is shaking. Look at the shadows under the door.- 」

I saw them. Long, thin fingers of shadow were creeping out from the gap under the bedroom door. They weren’t moving toward me. They were scratching at the floorboards.

I didn’t open the door. Instead, I looked at the floor. One of the boards was slightly raised. I knelt. I used my fingernails to pry it up.

My breath hitched.

Under the floorboard was a photograph. It showed a woman holding a small child. The woman’s face had been scratched out with a needle. The child’s eyes were poked through.

I turned the photo over.

*Help me. He’s behind the wall.*

The crying stopped.

The silence that followed was worse than the sound. It was heavy. It felt like the air was being sucked out of the room.

I stood up. I felt a presence behind me. I didn’t turn around. I knew the rules of the fable.

*Don’t look behind you.*

I felt a cold breath on the nape of my neck. It smelled like old blood and wet hair. A strand of black hair, long and dripping with a foul liquid, slid over my shoulder.

My skin crawled. My heart hammered against my ribs.

*Keep your eyes forward.*

I walked to the kitchenette. I could feel her right there. Her face was probably inches from mine. I could hear her breathing—a wet, rattling sound.

I looked at the wall behind the stove. The wallpaper was bubbling. I reached out and tore a piece away.

The wall was hollow.

I used a heavy frying pan from the stove and swung it at the drywall.

*CRACK.*

The sound echoed through the apartment.

The breathing behind me stopped.

I swung again. And again. I tore a hole into the wall. Inside the insulation, I saw something white.

It was a bone. A small, thin humerus.

"I found you," I whispered.

The moment the words left my mouth, the apartment screamed.

The lights shattered. The black plastic on the windows shredded as if by invisible claws. The temperature dropped until I could see my own breath.

I grabbed the bone. It was freezing.

I ran for the front door.

I burst into the hallway. The hallway was no longer a single straight line. It was a labyrinth of flickering lights and doors that all led back to 404.

*Drag. Drag. Drag.*

She was in the hallway now.

I looked down the corridor. She was there. She was tall—too tall. Her head touched the ceiling. Her neck was bent at a ninety-degree angle. Her hair covered her entire face, reaching down to her waist. She wore a stained, white dress that was damp at the hem.

She didn’t have feet. She was dragging herself forward using her long, unnaturally thin arms.

"Do-yoon! Ha-neul!" I shouted.

I heard a scream from a door further down.

"Min-ah! Help!"

It was **Choi Ha-neul**. She was standing in the doorway of 408. She was looking at the woman.

"Don’t look at her face!" I yelled. "Close your eyes!"

Ha-neul squeezed her eyes shut. The woman turned her head. The sound of her neck snapping was like dry wood breaking.

I ran past the woman. I didn’t look at her. I focused on the bone in my hand.

I needed the other pieces. A ritual required a skull, a rib, and the heart.

I reached Ha-neul and grabbed her arm. Her skin was ice cold.

"Follow me," I said. "We have to go to the basement."

"The stairs... they’re gone," Ha-neul stammered. Her eyes were still closed. "I tried to find them. There’s only the elevator."

The elevator. A metal box in a haunted house. It was a death trap.

"We take the elevator," I said.

We ran toward the silver doors. I smashed the button. The display above the doors showed the numbers spinning.

4... 3... 2... 1... B1.

The doors groaned open.

Inside the elevator, the walls were covered in bloody handprints. Small handprints.

We stepped inside. I pressed ’B1’.

The doors closed. The elevator began to descend.

Then, it stopped.

The lights in the elevator went out.

*Drip. Drip. Drip.*

Something was leaking from the ceiling of the elevator. It hit my head. It was thick. It was warm.

I looked up.

A face was staring down through the emergency hatch. It was the child from the photograph. Its eyes were empty sockets. Its mouth was sewn shut with black thread.

It began to crawl down.

「 -OH MY GOD.- 」

「 -TURN IT OFF. I CAN’T WATCH THIS.- 」

「 -SINGULARITY, DO SOMETHING!! USE A SKILL!!- 」

「 -He can’t! His skills are still locked! Look at the red bar!- 」

「 -The kid is reaching for Ha-neul’s neck. RUN.- 」

"Ha-neul, move!" I shoved her to the corner.

I didn’t have a sword. I didn’t have gravity.

I had the bone.

I drove the sharp end of the humerus into the child’s empty eye socket.

It didn’t scream. It just let out a hiss of cold air. The child’s body dissolved into black smoke, but more smoke was pouring in from the hatch.

The elevator doors opened.

We scrambled out into the basement. It was a forest of concrete pillars and leaking pipes.

"The boiler room," I said, gasping for air. "The ritual site is the boiler."

We found it. A massive, rusted furnace that looked like the mouth of a beast.

I saw the rest of the remains. They were piled on top of the furnace. A small skull. A jagged rib. And a jar containing a shriveled, black organ.

The heart.

I placed the humerus on the pile.

"We need fire," I said.

Ha-neul looked around frantically. "I don’t have a lighter! My inventory is locked!"

I looked at the live stream.

"You guys," I said, looking directly into the camera. "I know I’ve been ignoring you. I know you’re bored. But if you want to see the 24th floor, I need a ’Spark’."

The chat paused.

「 -Is he... is he talking to us?- 」

「 -He needs a donation effect!- 」

「 -GIFT THE ’SOLAR FLARE’ DONATION!! QUICK!!- 」

A massive donation alert flashed in my peripheral vision.

『**User ’TowerWhale’ has donated 10,000 Coins!**』

『**Effect: [Solar Flare] animation activated!**』

A blinding burst of digital fire erupted in the air in front of me. It wasn’t a real skill, but the Tower’s system processed the donation’s visual effect as a physical phenomenon for a split second.

I grabbed the digital flame and thrust it into the furnace.

The rotted remains ignited.

*SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!*

The basement shook. The concrete pillars began to crack.

The Weeping Woman appeared. She was standing right in front of the furnace. She wasn’t dragging herself anymore. She was floating. Her hair was whipping around her like snakes.

She reached for my throat. Her fingers were inches away.

I didn’t move. I watched the bones burn.

"It’s over," I said.

The white flames consumed the heart.

The woman’s hand stopped. Her fingers touched my skin, but there was no force behind them.

She began to change. The black hair turned gray, then white, then vanished. Her bent neck straightened. The stained dress became clean.

For a single second, I saw her face. She was beautiful. She looked tired.

She looked at the burning bones, then at me. She didn’t say anything. She just nodded.

Her body turned into a flurry of white petals.

The basement, the apartment, the flickering lights—it all began to dissolve.

『**Main Scenario: Survive the Night in Apartment 404 - COMPLETED**』

『**Clear Result: EXORCISM (True Clear).**』

『**Condition: The Grudge is Resolved. The Remains are Sanctified.**』

『**Player Kang Min has acquired the ’Soul-Soothing Incense’.**』

『**Warning: Connection to the Stigmata is being restored...**』

I felt the mana rush back into my body. It was like a dam breaking. The lead in my veins turned back into liquid fire. I could feel the [Singularity] pulsing in my fingertips.

I looked at Ha-neul. She was sitting on the floor, shaking.

"We’re out," I said.

I looked at the chat. It was a mess of emotions.

「 -That was the most intense thing I’ve ever seen.- 」

「 -He used a donation to light the fire... that’s 500 IQ.- 」

「 -My toes are literally curled. I’m never going into an elevator again.- 」

「 -Singularity is back. Look at his eyes.- 」

「 -Floor 24... here we go.- 」