Chapter 278

Chapter 278: Iron Doll

To be honest, just looking at the iron doll made Yu Sheng feel a dangerous aura rush straight at him. That white-metal smile had no warmth at all, yet he could feel it staring directly at him, radiating pure intent to kill without a shred of emotion.

But it didn’t charge right away. It stayed several meters away, making small adjustments to its posture like a strange dance, as if searching for the best angle to strike.

The blades at its fingertips stirred the thin fog, flashing cold light.

Yu Sheng’s nerves tightened. In the brief exchange earlier, he’d already felt its shocking speed and power. Those seemingly thin blade-fingers could block his spiked club. That alone made it more dangerous than most of the Big Bad Wolf in Black Forest.

Foxy moved in slowly too, staring down the veiled humanoid like a beast ready to pounce. Fox fire bloomed silently in the air one by one.

“Irene, is this your relative?” Yu Sheng couldn’t help muttering.

“How could it be?!” Little Doll instantly blew up. “I’m noble and elegant ball joints. That thing is obviously the vile C Buckle. And you think it’s worthy of being related to an Alice doll?!”

Yu Sheng twitched the corner of his mouth. He’d been joking, but Irene’s rebuttal went in a completely different direction than he expected—and at almost the same time, he noticed a split-second, unnatural pause in the iron doll’s steps.

His intuition screamed.

He didn’t have time to think about counters. He raised his arm on instinct, and almost the moment he did, the tall, slender “woman” surged forward like a ghost, blades carving short, lethal arcs through the air.

Metal clashed. Sparks burst.

Yu Sheng’s arm went numb. In the blink of an eye, the iron doll danced backward. Despite looking like solid metal from head to toe, it moved like wind, slipping past his counterattack. Then another afterimage cut through the fog as it closed in again.

Blade-fingers flashed and struck nonstop—chops and thrusts blending into an endless storm the naked eye could barely track.

In the fog came a rapid series of metallic impacts and the sharp hiss of blades cutting air. Yu Sheng barely managed to block the first barrage and retreated with the momentum.

Fox fire exploded in front of him, a blazing curtain weaving into a net of flame around the iron doll. Immediately after, Irene locked on too—layers of black spider silk appeared from nowhere, casting down like a sinister web over the monster.

But just as the threads were about to tangle around its limbs, the iron doll twisted sharply. Its joints bent to impossible angles, as if snapping for an instant, and it slipped through tiny gaps in the web. Then it dodged several times in a row, leaving afterimages, and found another narrow opening through the fox fire barrage.

Its blades stabbed straight at Yu Sheng’s chest.

Fast. Silent. Powerful—bloodless, tearless.

The iron doll had clearly picked out the “boss.” Every strike was aimed at Yu Sheng. It made almost no unnecessary movements, and aside from the click of its heels, it didn’t make a sound.

An elegant, perfect killing machine.

Sweat poured off Yu Sheng. This was his first time fighting something like this. Right now he was only barely keeping up thanks to his enhanced, far-beyond-human body and the support from Foxy and Irene.

And at this range, Foxy’s high-power moves were unusable. Even Irene’s silk couldn’t keep up with the monster’s ghostlike speed.

What the hell was this thing?

Was it something born from the fog?

But its movements weren’t muddled and instinct-driven like the entities he’d seen before. They were guided—professional combat skill, deliberate intent. And it clearly wasn’t human. Irene’s reaction made that plain: this doll-like monster was definitely not an “Alice doll.”

“What the hell is this thing?!”

Yu Sheng raised his tetanus staff high. Maybe luck finally swung his way—his strike slammed into the monster’s shoulder and disrupted that constant, eerie dance for half a beat. In that stumble, Irene seized the opening instantly, black silk threads snapping around the monster’s joints.

“Who knows?! I really don’t know this thing!” Little Doll shouted, half losing her mind.

“Whatever—take it apart first and ask questions later!”

Yu Sheng charged, spiked club raised.

But just as he reached it, the iron doll lifted its head. The pale mask still wore that gentle smile, but the metal plates across its chest and abdomen snapped open.

A dark red glow pulsed between fleshy, writhing metal. A screen-like device lit up in the red light, numbers counting down fast.

Yu Sheng’s blood ran cold. “Holy shit?!”

It was too late to stop completely, but he stomped hard, trying to brake. Irene reacted instantly too. The moment she saw the red glow, she yanked her silk back and rewove it into ropes, wrapping herself and Yu Sheng together and hauling them backward. Foxy rushed in from the side—

But in the next instant, Yu Sheng saw the countdown inside the iron doll’s belly suddenly stop.

The metal snapped shut in a blink.

Before Yu Sheng, Foxy, and Irene could even react, the iron doll had broken free and was there in a flash.

Yu Sheng only managed to adjust his stance and raise an arm to guard his vitals before sharp pain exploded through him.

Two blades sank deep into his flesh, piercing straight through his arm and driving into his chest with lethal force.

For a heartbeat, time seemed to freeze. The fog went eerily quiet.

Yu Sheng lifted his head. From impossibly close, he stared into that elegant, terrifying mask, the smiling face practically inches from him.

“You can cancel your self-destruct halfway?!” he said, voice full of disbelief.

Of course it didn’t answer. It only tilted its head, as if confused by how calm Yu Sheng still was.

Yu Sheng lowered his gaze to the two blade-fingers buried in his chest. He thought it over and decided this should definitely be fatal.

But maybe he’d died so many times he’d built up resistance. The symptoms hadn’t kicked in yet.

“Your knives are very good,” he said seriously. “Give them to me.”

Blood began to seep along the blades.

The iron doll finally sensed something. Even without any change in expression, its reaction carried obvious panic. It yanked the blades out of Yu Sheng in an instant, then clicked its heels twice and leapt nearly ten meters back.

Yu Sheng reached out to stop it, but he only managed to snatch the black nun-like veil off its head.

Not far away, the iron doll raised its arm again, as if preparing to fight—but one arm’s response was clearly half a beat slower.

It froze, then started shaking that arm violently, like it was trying to fling off something filthy stuck to it.

The uncontrolled area spread quickly. First the fingers, then the hand, the forearm, the elbow…

Yu Sheng started to feel dizzy. His body swayed, and a white figure immediately came to his side. Foxy supported him carefully by the shoulder, her face full of worry. “Benefactor, are you going to die again?”

Yu Sheng waved a hand, eyes still locked on the monster struggling to break free. “Wait. Just a little longer.”

“Next time you run into this, don’t bother fighting,” Irene muttered. “Just charge in and sell blood. Saves a lot of effort.”

“I had to trade a few moves and see what it could do. And I had to show off a little—what if I could win?” Yu Sheng shot her a look, then sucked in a breath as pain tore through his chest and arm. He didn’t think he could hold on much longer.

He shoved the veil into Foxy’s arms and spoke fast. “You two get back now. If I die in a moment, I’m worried that thing will break free. And we don’t know what other creepy stuff might show up in this fog. It’s not safe for you two to keep wandering out here.”

“Huh?” Irene looked genuinely surprised and pointed at the iron doll in the distance, still not fully recovered. “You’re not letting me and Foxy take her apart while we can?”

“…No,” Yu Sheng said, shaking his head slowly. “This one’s weird. It doesn’t feel like a normal entity. Don’t kill it. Let my blood soak in a bit longer…”

Before he could finish, Foxy and Irene nodded at the same time. “Okay!”

Yu Sheng didn’t waste time. He raised a hand and opened a door back to Wu Tong Road 66.

Foxy and Irene rushed through without hesitation.

That was the trust built inside the Hotel. In critical moments, there was no bickering, no melodrama—only clean decisions.

Yu Sheng trusted Foxy and Irene to be calm and decisive. Foxy and Irene trusted that Yu Sheng was definitely going to die.

And the instant the door vanished, Yu Sheng heard a harsh crack of metal breaking.

He looked up in shock.

The tall iron doll was tearing at its own arm like it had gone mad—the one it was gradually losing control of. After several brutal rips, the arm dangled loose. Then it raised the arm it could still control, jammed its blade-fingers into the joint, and snapped hard without hesitation.

With a violent twist, it tore the entire arm off!