Hospital 444
Chapter 401 - 18: Night Patrol

Chapter 401: Chapter 18: Night Patrol

"Is it related to the cursed item inside Mary?"

Upon hearing this from Virgil, Klein began to ponder the matter.

"Speaking of which, when Mary first joined the Demons Department, there was also the intention to arrange for her to monitor Damon Dailun. However, upon further consideration, if Damon wanted to make use of Mary, it wasn’t impossible either. She was the only member of our family authorized by the Dean to work in the Demons Department; if the cursed item were to awaken further there, it was not out of the question."

"Miss Mary has always been dedicated to the hope of peaceful coexistence between the two great families, right? So it’s possible that Damon used this idea of hers to conspire in some matters," Virgil said.

"It’s indeed something Damon Dailun would do."

Damon Dailun was someone who, as long as he could achieve his goal, didn’t mind resorting to despicable and shameless methods. His personality was extremely extreme; he would go to great lengths to protect the ones he loved, and for those he hated, he would use all means to destroy them.

"Damon will definitely take action," Virgil continued. "For instance, he might come here to Dark Demon Surgery. If he intends to do the same thing as Renice Dailun did back then..."

"Then it’s very likely he’ll come here. Or at least, send someone. So, you and Dave have to be more careful."

Virgil had realized something.

For Klein, what mattered wasn’t whether they found Mary or not, but whether they could suppress the Dailun family through this incident. As for Mary’s life or death, he didn’t care much about it,—just like he didn’t care much about the life or death of his sister Alujia.

Ironically, Virgil might be the only person who cared about Mary’s life and death. He hoped to find her alive because she was Lailiya’s sister.

...

The night in Dark Demon Surgery was incredibly quiet.

The doctors on duty in the outpatient area were primarily responsible for checking and expelling any evil spirits that might intrude into the area.

Sometimes, a ghoul might emerge from the shadows of the corridor. However, with the hospital corridor’s inherent suppression, these ghouls hardly posed any threat to the doctors.

At this moment, Virgil, holding a flashlight, was patrolling the corridor alone.

He kept thinking about what Klein had said during the day.

"Demons... do not have specific forms or independent personalities..."

This sentence, he felt, was actually very informative and vastly different from what people usually imagined demons to be.

When people mention demons, they think of names like Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Leviathan. Burning bodies, bat-like black wings, evil faces...

Yet... real demons were not like this.

They didn’t even have real forms. Only those whose bodies survived the Abyss’s invasion reaching level six without dying could potentially transform into Demon Cursed Items.

In fact, when a patient was invaded by the Abyss to level four, the image report of their soul would manifest a symptom known as the Sign of the Devil. Patients with the Sign of the Devil would typically be transferred to the Demons Department for treatment.

As for the true Demon Cursed Items, they could trigger a terrifying war that would engulf the entire hospital in a sea of blood. Just this alone indicated the scale of trouble Virgil had now been involved in. How much effort would the Faust family be willing to expend to protect him? Without them as a backbone, for the Dailun family to kill him, a mere intern doctor, was as easy as eating or drinking.

"Hmm? Ghouls again?"

At that moment, Virgil noticed some movement further down the corridor.

He was already accustomed to such things.

So, Virgil picked up the flashlight and shone it in that direction, to see if it was another ghoul leaping out from the darkness.

"Indeed..."

The patient that ghouls were haunting exhibited typic signs of a level one Abyss invasion. Generally, if two ghouls were found accompanying a patient, they could be diagnosed with a level one Abyss invasion.

And from within the darkness, the ghastly ghoul revealed its head.

Dark, pale, without hair or a nose, a face with eyes full of resentment and cruelty stared intently at Virgil.

Ghouls resided in all shadows, devouring powerless ghosts, even consuming vampires, and lingering around the living. When the Abyss invasion reached level one, the ghouls would begin to consume the living souls.

Catching ghouls was somewhat challenging, but within the hospital, it was nearly impossible for ghouls to inflict harm on doctors or patients.

The ghoul had just crawled halfway out from the shadows and had not yet inflicted any harm on Virgil when it was pulled by a force in the hospital corridor, eventually being swallowed up again by the darkness.

However, Virgil dared not take it lightly. He observed the spot where the ghoul was retaken by the corridor, considering how to cope.

"It must have just devoured another ghost,"

Although they are called ghouls, what they really consume are not corpses, but souls. The ghosts of the deceased can be directly devoured by them, while the living souls can only be gradually absorbed through the process of Abyssal invasion. Currently, at 666 Hospital, it is generally believed that ghouls will transform into demons over time.

"Ordinary people are almost unable to see ghouls, but once they enter 666 Hospital, most patients can see them with the naked eye. Huh?"

After that, Virgil abruptly turned and stepped back.

A fierce, gaping mouth almost bit off his neck!

The horrifying ghoul’s head burrowed out from behind the wall!

"Underestimated it..."

Then, most of the ghoul’s body forcefully tried to pull itself out from the wall.

"Does it want to absorb my soul..."

Virgil recalled the ghoul dissection lesson William had taught him.

Ghouls do not have a digestive system; there is no esophagus beneath the mouth, no stomach or intestines inside the body, and no respiratory system, which means no noses either.

Their bodies are only shaped and dissected within the hospital, and only experienced surgeons can extract some of the absorbed souls from within them.

The insides of their mouths do not have fangs like those of wild beasts but are not much different from a human’s oral cavity, except that the teeth are almost always in a highly decayed state. These teeth will not cause physical harm to humans but will snatch away a part of the soul.

If too much of a soul is taken, one can fall into a coma. Quick physical deterioration can lead to brain death, and once the spirit leaves the body, it will be completely devoured by the ghoul.

Once a ghoul transforms into a demon, it may be capable of absorbing the souls of stronger paranormal doctors. And if it’s a paranormal doctor, they usually just fall into a prolonged coma, but the loss of soul is irreversible, and treatment can only ensure one’s survival but not awakening.

The ghoul in front of Virgil seemed to perceive that he was just an intern and wanted to absorb his soul, but Virgil was not too scared.

He held his flashlight on the ghoul’s head, thinking of a strategy when an unexpected event occurred.

The once ferocious and malevolent face of the ghoul was suddenly overtaken by fear.

Then, the ghoul quickly retracted its head and body back into the dark shadows! It moved so fast that Virgil barely had time to react!

"What?"

Ghouls belong to a kind of Dark Demons that can transition into devils and are distinctly different from evil spirits. They do not possess feelings like fear!

Virgil aimed the flashlight behind him.

"Who’s there?"

His innate soul ability made him sense a kind of "darkness" he had never felt before.

Straight away... he began to approach the front.

At the same time, he quickly took out the red mask, just in case.

Soon after, he sensed something.

Ahead, the light from the flashlight began to be slowly devoured by the darkness!

He clutched the red mask, then activated the flashlight’s backup switch.

As the light reappeared, he saw a blurry figure emerge in the distance.

"It’s you... isn’t it?"

Virgil then picked up the red mask and step by step... moved forward!