Perhaps those watching everything through the cameras believed that the immense light produced by the holy energy would somehow blind its caster, because they used the opportunity to send three more subjects without any delay.
A Black man dressed in dark clothing attacked him from behind, trying to reach his neck with the hook in his hand, using it like an "extension".
A man with a completely deformed face and wearing overalls, apparently they had no other clothes in these facilities, attacked him with an axe aimed directly at his head.
Meanwhile, from the front toward his chest, a chainsaw advanced, held by a man wearing a stained apron and a mask made of human skin.
Kaito showed a confused expression, not because they had successfully ambushed him. A simple vibration made all the weapons pass through him without harming him, and ice magic froze the three in place.
Kaito instantly unfroze Leatherface and Candyman at the same time before approaching the third.
"Who is this?" he murmured while looking at the deformed man. It did not seem like his condition had anything to do with his current state, but rather a natural deformity from birth.
"It doesn't matter" Kaito said, and incinerated him just like the others.
To his surprise, unlike the other two, this one immediately reappeared right behind him and attacked again, muttering incomprehensible words due to the state of his face.
Kaito immediately incinerated him again, only for him to reappear once more.
"I remember you now, Victor Crowley, right? As long as someone from your bloodline doesn't kill you, you will keep reviving" Kaito said as if he had just won the lottery.
"Then I won't kill you" Kaito said before freezing him again like he had done earlier.
Curiously, earlier he had only done that because when he saw they had sent three at once he thought they might send more for a surprise attack while he incinerated them, which was why he only froze them while staying alert. He did not expect that he had already solved Victor Crowley's problem from the beginning.
In reality, the difference in time between freezing them and incinerating them was only visible at Kaito's speed. The enemies were not capable of reacting that quickly and taking advantage of the time difference, but Kaito did not stop to think about that at the moment.
Kaito waited for the next one, only to be surprised when none appeared until he reached the end of the hallway.
He opened the door expecting an ambush. Instead he found himself in a corridor identical to the previous one with a slight difference.
Analog televisions, many of them.
All the walls had been replaced by dozens of old televisions that only showed continuous static.
"What are these things for when there isn't an intruder? Or did they create all these corridors as a trap?" Kaito murmured while observing the strange room when he heard the sound of a reel rewinding.
The televisions began showing numbers in reverse until they reached 0, and then a silent video began playing, recorded on a film reel with an old tone.
There was a formally dressed man wearing an elegant suit, dark eyes, and a fake smile on his extremely pale face.
He smiled toward the camera, or toward Kaito in this case, while he was surrounded by children.
The image changed, each one showing people being murdered, only for the camera to turn and reveal a child committing the murder, the same ones who were in the previous image.
After showing that, the camera returned to the original image.
But this time the children were gone. In their place were different characters who seemed completely incompatible with each other.
Kaito disappeared from the place in a blink, returning to the exact spot he had left.
He moved so fast that the sound arrived after he had already returned, as all the televisions on the walls shattered except the one directly in front of him.
One of the characters on the screen, a kind of black and white mime with a garbage bag on his back, dropped the bag dramatically while placing his hands on his face and showing a surprised expression as he looked around, as if he could see beyond the television and notice the others being destroyed.
He began to run in an exaggerated dramatic way and the camera followed him, only for him to arrive at what looked like a live recording of the hallway where Kaito was standing.
Kaito looked around but saw no one.
Art, on the screen, seemed to notice this.
He moved slowly and stealthily, with wide and cartoonish steps as he approached Kaito.
Finally he reached his side and Kaito tried to punch where he should be, but he only hit air.
Meanwhile Art pulled a saw from his bag, blood dripping from it, and began sawing at Kaito's neck.
"Sorry" Kaito murmured as he realized they could harm him by damaging his version in the video, but to Art's disappointment, no matter how much he kept sawing, and even though Kaito could feel the action, he could not penetrate his neck in the slightest.
Finally he dropped the saw on the floor with an exaggerated expression of exhaustion before pulling out a chainsaw this time.
He looked at the camera and smiled while starting the chainsaw.
Kaito tried attacking with holy magic, but just like before it did not harm the clown. However, Kaito noticed the clown slightly frown and move his right hand a little the moment Kaito used holy magic, as if he had felt it, but not from the direction Kaito used it.
His right hand was exactly the one within Kaito's field of vision while looking at the screen, so Kaito realized what was happening. He approached the television in front of him and concentrated holy magic into a single finger while pressing it against the mime's image.
Art began to melt dramatically in the video, and Kaito had no idea whether it was real or if he was simply acting.
But he did not have time to think about it. The image changed again and his finger was grabbed by tentacles coming out of the back of a tall faceless man.
Immediately afterward the man stepped out of the screen and attacked Kaito directly, and two more people came out along with him.
Bagul, the smiling man in the photo with those children, and, a classic among classics, the girl from The Exorcist.
But for Kaito it did not matter how many there were. Fire magic dealt with Slenderman and holy magic reduced Bagul and Pazuzu to nothing.
Once it was over, Kaito broke the only remaining television and looked at the camera in a corner of the hallway.
"You saw that, right? I could have destroyed the television from the start, but I played along and killed your experiments. Now that you've seen they don't work, how about you end all these distractions and let me pass?"
Even though there were speakers in the hallway, there was no response.
Kaito sighed in disappointment and opened the next door, finding himself in a large space styled like a child's room, filled with hundreds of identical dolls.
Kaito looked at the many Chucky dolls and smiled mockingly toward a camera.
"This has to be a joke, right? I incinerate immortal killers and you send an army of cotton and fabric against me?"
Kaito did not need confirmation that they would move. He conjured hundreds of tiny fireballs, the exact number of dolls in the room, and fired them.
As soon as the fireballs made contact, the dolls began to burn as if they had been thrown into lava.
Just as Kaito expected, they suddenly began screaming while cursing him.
"Son of a bitch, this hurts!"
"I'll smash your damn face and see if you like it!"
"I'll kill your whole family!"
While the burning dolls barely managed to take a single step toward him before collapsing to the ground and finishing burning, Kaito ignored them and opened the next door.
There were finally no more monsters, zombies, ghosts, or dolls there, only normal people with a lot of medical and research equipment.
Everyone stepped back in fear.
At least, until they stopped.
Suddenly all the people who had been retreating stopped abruptly and began speaking in unison.
"Lucifer, the demon from the other world. A threat from beyond this plane, or perhaps, just a simple messenger from the beyond. I did not expect you to find me" they all said.
"I know, you hid well. Luckily a kind girl helped me find a path" Kaito replied with a smile.
"I see, Eleven, the only successful experiment capable of opening a door.
And to think the only successful experiment would escape, open a door, and coincidentally be found by my worst enemy.
Anyone would think that more than a demon you are a prophet."
"The other world is beyond your understanding" Kaito said, not wanting to give explanations.
"Good. I also have another world. Let me... show it to you" all the voices said in unison.
At that moment Kaito saw a kind of tentacles coming out of everyone's heads and extending toward him.
They were not something real in a physical sense, but rather a manifestation of the Mind Flayer's mental power, something Kaito could only see because of his level.
Of course the tentacles could not reach him. The closer they got the harder it became to continue, and when they were half a millimeter away they could not advance any further no matter how much they tried.
"Sorry, my brain doesn't allow intrusions" Kaito said. He knew the Mind Flayer wanted to bring him into the mental world, a world where it is the king, and of course he would not enter there on his own.
Ignoring all the researchers in trance, Kaito kept moving forward.
"Stop, stop right there!"
Kaito ignored them. Dozens of doors were in front of him trying to confuse him, or perhaps they really were doors leading elsewhere and the facility was simply that large.
Kaito chose the one that led to the exit and kept moving forward.
Without needing to walk, he ran.
Finally, almost ten doors later, he reached the exit.
As soon as he opened the door he noticed the difference with the real world.
It was the exact same door he had entered through in Hawkins, but it seemed stuck in the past, with time completely frozen.
Strange black roots were everywhere, accompanying the natural darkness of the place, illuminated only by the light coming from the red sky above.
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+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)