The Choices

Damian had placed his fingers on the puppet, neither lifting it completely off the ground nor setting it down again.

"Why do I always receive death warnings? Am I just too unlucky, or is it something natural that everyone faces in a world like this?"

The next thing Damian did was slowly and calmly release his hand, only to discover a moment later that he hadn't been turned into a puppet by a spirit inside this doll.

"It seems that if the puppet wants to take over my body, it can't do so easily. I need to open the cabinet and confront several puppets to achieve it." Damian didn't know what he was thinking at this moment; there were so many things that could happen that his mind couldn't imagine every possibility.

Damian overlooked the puppet and prepared to retrieve the small, sealed trash cube while a malicious smile formed on his face. "Since you don't plan on returning to the closet, I'll treat you like trash!"

However, Damian's joy was short-lived as new writings appeared in the black book flying around him.

"[Don't rejoice too soon because, by not paying attention to where you would leave the doll the next day, Mark, who returned early in the morning, looked at the laboratory for a few minutes due to the great impression.

Since you didn't take care of the doll, it's causing havoc and destruction in the laboratory. Anxious Mark wasn't interested in hearing your explanation at all, so he vented his anger by beating you severely, leaving you disabled.

But don't worry, your left hand will be intact…]"

Damian squeezed his brows in frustration and grabbed the puppet from the floor with his left hand. "Are you a devilish doll? Damn it, wanting to take my body is an unforgivable sin."

Crack!

The force exerted by Damian's left hand on the puppet was so strong that he wanted to crush it into pieces. But unfortunately, the puppet was made of a very resistant material, so even with Damian's force, he couldn't break its arm.

After a few minutes of effort, Damian continued and stopped.

To his horror, the more Damian squeezed the puppet, the more it smiled diabolically.

Damian's thoughts started racing; a pensive expression crossed his face, and when he knew what he had to do, he smiled in the same way as the puppet. "Damn masochists, we should stop using materials with these affiliations."

Although there was no death warning while he held it tightly, Damian knew that breaking the puppet was not at all good.

"I hope you're listening well. I'm going to take you out and burn your body outside the tower." Damian didn't have to lie with his words at that moment.

Instead of warning him again, the hardcover black book retracted onto his left shoulder.

Although he didn't want to admit it, Damian felt very relieved. As soon as he left the room, he prepared to exit the last stretch of the hallway before going down to the lower floors.

But as he left the laboratory, a loud noise was heard behind him.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Damian's back sent a chill through him, and at that moment, from inside the laboratory, the doors containing the experimental puppets opened, spreading across the floor.

Turning around, Damian found himself faced with the eyes of all those puppets.

"Save me, save me, save me."

"Save me, save me, save me."

"I want it too; I also want to escape from this prison."

"Save me, save me, help me."

For a moment, it seemed as if hundreds of voices of people sounded in Damian's mind, who was ready to kill or die, and that made him stop.

As the tension rose in his body, Damian no longer cared about the warning of the beating Mark would give him the next day; what he did was turn around to run away, but before he could take a step forward, he felt something dragging him across the floor and fell like a dead log.

Damian wanted to get up, but he discovered that his limbs were as stiff as wood.

A sensation of being eroded by numbness was spreading from his limbs to his torso and his brain.

"They're abducting me." Damian, at this moment, remembered some of the things taught by his mental defense professor and immediately followed their guidelines to increase defense levels.

Although there was neither painting in his hand nor a crystal ball to help him in meditation, Damian still entered a meditative state in the face of the life-or-death crisis he was going through.

The complicated sounds in his ears immediately weakened but didn't disappear completely.

The numbness disappeared from the entrails to the limbs.

If a first-class mage were here right now, they would be surprised at the magical talent that was adapting to the circumstances and evolving their mana levels over Damian's body as if their talent had no limits.

But Damian still didn't want to get up; he needed to regain concentration because he was still a bit dazed.

"Come on, bony hand, you can do something." Damian looked at his left hand, which could move without any problem.

"Do those things think I'm dead?" Damian crawled like a worm towards the door, using only the strength of his left hand.

But as soon as he moved his left hand, he couldn't maintain concentration anymore, and the numbness spread again through his limbs.

Desperate, Damian simply abandoned meditation and focused on crawling with the power of his left arm.

Only when the numbness extended to his chest did Damian pause, meditate again, and let the stiffness retreat from his limbs.

In this way, he continued alternating between crawling, meditating, crawling, and meditating, and slowly he approached the laboratory door with difficulty.

"Holy mother of God, whoever the hell sent me here, send me your strength."

Damian's left hand was already pressed against the laboratory door. "My hand is so beautiful, hardworking, and special that right now I'm hesitating to heal it."

Looking at the door, Damian opened it slowly.

But when he tried with all his strength to hold the upper part of his body with his left hand and wanted to lean against the wall, the door suddenly opened by itself.

Mark's half-face protruded behind the door, his eyes straining to look at Damian, who was drooling and sweating as if he were poisoned. "Damian, what are you doing?"

"It's Chucky…" Damian felt that when Mark appeared, he was saved, but then he thought about the perverse mentalities of the mages in this place, which made him imagine many worse things.

"Is Mark the same Mark, or is it another Mark? Whatever it is, if he takes a step forward, he'll die." Damian's thoughts focused only on surviving.

At one point, electric sparks flashed from Damian's hands, and with this electrical discharge that invaded all around him, he regained full movement of his body.

Boom!

An explosion was heard in the laboratory, but this caused the trash bin to open, and pale hands emerged from it like a horror movie scene.

"What is this trash?" Damian's teeth started shaking again; unexpectedly, even after becoming an apprentice mage, he still couldn't escape the fate of being weak, defenseless, and just waiting to die.

The dark book that was attached to Damian flew in front of him, and the pages appeared in front of his eyes with a single phrase: "Don't do anything or you'll die!"

Damian wanted to throw this book directly in the trash, but he couldn't speak right now. "Hahaha, damn this shitty place; if I survive this, I won't leave my room until I'm strong."

He had lost a certain sense of reason right now.

"I better face them head-on; I'll roast them all!" Damian's hands flashed with electrical sparks.

Boom!

But suddenly, the laboratory door that was open exploded, and a wooden stick hit Damian on the forehead.

The maniacal smile on Damian's face was interrupted by that blow, and he held his forehead with both hands.

"What just happened?" Damian, knowing that this battle was anything but a fair fight, ran away.

At the door, Mark's half-face had disappeared. And at that moment, a man surrounded by dark bandages appeared at the entrance.

Except for a pair of crimson eyes, the rest of the man's body was well wrapped in bandages.

His ears, nostrils, and not even a trace of hair were exposed.

Watched by the man's crimson eyes, Damian lay half sprawled on the floor, unable to move; his mind went blank, and he didn't even feel fear.

"Kill me now; I surrender." Damian had had enough.

Fortunately, the man with bandages only looked at Damian as if he were a weird bug, then raised his head to look at the laboratory and whispered, "Go back, stupid kid."

Damian blinked as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"New apprentice, why did you spend the night in the laboratory?"

"Spend the night?" Damian turned his head to look at the wall clock, only to realize that the clock had reached eleven at some point.

"It clearly wasn't six o'clock when Mark left, so why is it already eleven?"

In Damian's perception, he never stayed alone in this laboratory for more than half an hour. "Am I alive now?"