Mysteries On Marvel

Faced with the sudden change, Eren slightly shifted his body to the side, letting the ghastly pale face brush past him.

With a loud thud, the body crashed onto the yellowed tiles below, cracking them with its impact.

The suffocating wave of despair that had accompanied the falling figure barely stirred Eren's mind. While he hadn't yet mastered true serenity, his mental fortitude was more than enough to suppress such an invasive emotion with ease.

The despair dissipated almost as quickly as it spread, crushed under the weight of Eren's indomitable will.

"Huh, a dead body here?"

Eren frowned slightly. The Ping'an Apartments had been cleared out under orders from the Chinatown council. Surely, a building inspection was conducted during the evacuation.

If a corpse had been this visibly present at the entrance, it would have been impossible for the inspectors to miss it.

This could only mean one thing—the body must have appeared after the building was cleared.

Interesting.

Eren refrained from touching the corpse. Instead, he crouched at a safe distance and shone his flashlight over it.

It was a woman's body. Based on the evidence, her death couldn't have occurred too long ago.

Yet the overpowering stench of decay made it seem as though she had been dead for weeks, contradicting his initial assessment.

Still, Eren wasn't surprised. The corpse radiated faint traces of supernatural energy, hinting at the involvement of otherworldly forces.

Her grotesquely elongated tongue made her resemble someone who had died from hanging or suffocation. However, there were no visible injuries or marks on her neck.

"It seems she suffocated to death. Is this the ability of the Forbidden Item Shadow of Suffocation still in gestation?"

Eren stood and directed his gaze toward the dark, foreboding corridor ahead.

The building was larger than he'd anticipated. Despite its eerie state of disrepair, the floors were surprisingly free of trash, save for a thin layer of dust.

The long, winding hallway made the interior feel even more oppressive. The green-painted doors lining both sides added to the claustrophobic atmosphere, while the peeling, discolored walls enhanced the sense of desolation.

With a measured step, Eren began moving deeper into the building.

As he walked, he noticed something unsettling—the fallen wall paint occasionally revealed dark red stains beneath, resembling dried blood.

Worse still, the air around these spots reeked of decay, as if the walls themselves concealed hidden corpses.

Not far from his starting point, Eren discovered another body slumped beside a trash bin.

"The second one..."

Moments later, he came across a third corpse.

As Eren delved further into the building, even ascending to the second floor, the number of bodies continued to grow.

Some were curled up near trash bins; others lay motionless in stairwell corners. A few knelt against the walls, their faces twisted in anguish.

The sheer number of corpses made Eren's expression darken.

Men and women, young and old, well-dressed professionals, and tattered vagabonds—people from all walks of life were united in one grim similarity: they had all died from apparent suffocation.

Despite their intact bodies and unmarked necks, the unmistakable signs of asphyxiation were etched into their final expressions.

A chill crept over Eren's heart as he pressed onward.

Simultaneously, an odd sensation began to stir within him—a nagging feeling that he was forgetting something important. Yet no matter how hard he tried, the realization eluded him.

As he mulled over the puzzle, his footsteps slowed, and he murmured to himself:

"All these bodies... suffocated without any visible wounds. What's going on here?"

Suddenly, Eren's legs froze mid-step. A faint heartbeat echoed in his ears as a shocking thought struck him.

"I think... I haven't breathed in a long time?"

In the deathly silent Ping'an Apartments, his voice resounded like a thunderclap in his own mind.

Eren realized with horror that, at some point, he had stopped breathing entirely.

The nagging sensation that had plagued him earlier finally made sense.

Breathing was an instinctive, automatic function—something even unconscious bodies did naturally.

And yet, here he was, standing in eerie silence, his body completely neglecting this most basic reflex.

How absurd.

It wasn't until his chest began to ache and his mind replayed the agonized expressions of the corpses around him that Eren became aware of the issue.

Panicked, he tried to take a deep breath, but the air felt thick and unyielding, as if the atmosphere had congealed into an impenetrable barrier.

"Breath... air..."

Eren's voice grew hoarse as he realized what had happened.

Somewhere along the way, the Shadow of Suffocation had begun exerting its influence over him, causing him to abandon the most fundamental of human actions.

"So, the Shadow of Suffocation is already affecting me..."

A cold gleam flashed in his eyes.

"If it's resorting to this so early, it must be... impatient."

(End of Chapter)

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