Horror Game Developer: My games aren't that scary!

Chapter 657: Desperate Struggle [3]

Osvald knew that he had to go all out.

He couldn’t afford to hold back anymore. Even after using several key items and nearly exhausting his nodes, he hadn’t truly gone all out yet. There were still some things that he could do...

But such things required sacrifices.

They required him... to put his life on the line. And for someone like him, this was asking for a lot.

However, he knew he didn’t have the luxury of holding back.

Feeling the Butcher’s gaze as it lifted its hand to strike, the hair on Osvald’s body stood on end.

Reaching into his pocket, his nodes churned faster and faster. Far faster than anything he was used to.

"⎯⎯!"

Almost immediately, a terrifying pain struck him, so intense it felt like his head was being split apart, like a sledgehammer crashing down against his skull.

Almost instinctively, his left eye twitched.

The Butcher’s movements were slow as it raised its hand to strike, yet in Osvald’s eyes, they felt incredibly fast.

Crack!

His expression crumbled as he heard faint, yet unmistakable cracking sounds inside his head. His face went white as paper with each crack, each one coming from one of his nodes.

It took everything he had to keep from losing focus as he quietly slipped a pill into his mouth, barely managing to stop the nodes from breaking any further.

’Damn it, for me to be reduced into this state...’

Osvald glared at the Butcher, hatred rising in his mind as the eyes around the room grew larger and more numerous. With each blink of the eyes, a faint wet sound rippled throughout. The air itself turned dense and heavy as they opened wide, their pupils shifting to a deep, blood-red.

Despite this, the Butcher never stopped, its hand rising all the way up as the air felt strangled.

"⎯⎯!"

Osvald’s face twisted as his eyes turned bloodshot, and his face started to shake.

Long, drawn-out straining sounds came from within Osvald’s skull as he struggled to maintain his expression. But as he looked at the Butcher, he knew his actions were working.

Its movements...

They were lowering down.

"!!"

But that was all there was to it.

Despite putting everything on the line, all he managed to do was slow the Butcher’s movements. It was still bringing its knife down, and as Osvald stared at the knife, he knew that the moment the knife fell completely, his head would be severed.

Shit! Shit...!

"Akh⎯Go!"

Osvald glared at the Team Leader, clutching his face as blood leaked from his eyes, the muffled cracking of his nodes continuing without pause. In fact, they seemed to grow even more numerous.

Cra Crack! Cra Crack! Cra Crack!

It hurt! It hurt so much!

Osvald held his face, struggling to suppress the pain. He wanted to stop everything, to free himself from it, but he knew he didn’t have much of a choice as he glared at the Butcher ahead, its hand still coming down.

It was now a little bit further down than halfway.

’Damn it! Damn it!’

Osvald screamed inside his mind, his body popping and squirming as he struggled to keep himself standing.

Without a second thought, Osvald reached into his pocket and retrieved several more pills, popping them into his mouth. Almost immediately, the cracking sounds ceased, and some of his nodes even began to show signs of healing.

The pain also stopped.

Tremendous changes began to take shape in the surroundings, the eyes covering the entire place growing larger and larger, nearly filling the room as they turned an even deeper shade of red.

One... closer to black.

They no longer blinked together. Each one moved at its own rhythm, the wet sounds overlapping, never settling into anything regular, filling the silence between heartbeats with something that felt almost breathing.

The Butcher’s hand seemed to have stopped.

For just a moment, everything seemed frozen...

Everything except the Team Leader, who had already begun moving toward the Conductor.

"H-ha... G-go."

Osvald hoarsely muttered while staring at the Team Leader. Osvald’s mind was hazy, and every breath felt as though he was breathing fire.

He was barely holding on. Staring at the Butcher ahead, he could feel its power increasing more and more. He could also feel the very space destabilizing further.

Almost...

Osvald’s eyes tracked the Team Leader as he approached the Conductor.

He was almost there.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion in that moment. For just a split second, Osvald thought about telling the Team Leader to change his target to the Butcher, but stopped himself when he realized the Butcher was anything but an anomaly. He wouldn’t be able to do anything if he got closer, and even if he did, Osvald feared it would only trigger the Conductor to act.

The priority was clear.

Take control of the Conductor.

But strangely...

Looking in the direction of the Conductor and seeing it staring at everything that was happening with amusement, as it was also controlled by the eyes, Osvald felt an ominous feeling.

But what...? What could he possibly be planning?

CRA CRACK!

"Aaaaakh!"

Osvald’s thoughts were shattered by a loud crack, his entire face changing as he stumbled back. He didn’t even have time to properly register what was happening before a terrifying bloodlust filled the air.

The bloodlust seemed to tear the very air from his lungs, and he barely managed to stay upright as the pain that shot through his head nearly made him collapse on the spot. It was so intense that, for a few seconds, his vision went dark, as if he’d gone blind.

By the time his vision returned, he was horrified to see that the Butcher’s hand had moved even further down. His expression twisted as panic set in, and he immediately reached into his pocket, shoving all the remaining pills into his mouth in one desperate motion.

The pills, just like before, brought immediate relief as his nodes stopped cracking and his eyes began to enlarge. Even so, it did nothing to stop the Butcher, which only seemed to grow stronger with each passing second.

’Come on! Come on!’

Osvald shifted his attention to the Team Leader, sweat trickling down the side of his face as he watched him appear not far from the Conductor. Strangely, the Conductor hadn’t moved a single inch from where he stood. Even as Osvald lost control of the ’eyes’ in that split second where his node cracked.

Instead, the smile on the Conductor’s face only seemed to twist further as it looked at the approaching Team Leader.

Everything slowed down further in Osvald’s eyes as he stared at the scene.

Ba... Thump! Ba... Thump!

The longer he stared at the Conductor and its expression, the more the unease in his chest grew. It swelled to the point where he nearly forgot about the Butcher, even as the blade was almost all the way down.

Cra Crack! Cra Crack! Cra Crack!

As the cracking inside his mind grew more pronounced, the pills he’d swallowed were no longer as effective as before, despite coming from the Sixth Order shop. Osvald watched as the Team Leader arrived before the Conductor, his figure fading in a flash and appearing right behind the Conductor.

He was incredibly fast. So fast that it even surprised Osvald, who didn’t understand how he had done it.

But above all...

He watched as the Team Leader pressed his hand against the Conductor’s back, and the Conductor’s lips twisted all the way up to its temples as it extended its hand and began playing.

A soft tune drifted in the air.