Honkai: Husband-Chasing Crematorium

"You did very well. You saved me a lot of time," Li Mo praised.

Shaori Heyou smiled in satisfaction, basking in the praise as she enjoyed his affectionate pat on the head.

Li Mo approached the portrait and examined it closely. There was no picture on the portrait itself.

Shaori stood quietly behind him, watching.

Even though she had seen the heads charging towards them earlier, she felt safe as long as her brother was here.

She wasn't the only one. The other sixteen students Li Mo had brought from the broadcast room shared the same feeling.

"The coffin is open. The lid is on the ground nearby."

"The funeral portrait has no picture, and the coffin has no body inside."

"The five incense sticks—only the first one is burning quickly, much faster than before. The other four are burning, but there's almost no change in their length. This means the incense burns sequentially: only when one stick burns out does the next begin to consume."

"Earlier, the ghosts appeared as the incense burned. That means the incense has both protective and warning properties. It likely represents five days of a funeral ritual."

"But now, the incense isn't lasting a full day. Something must have gone wrong."

"Five incense sticks… five days… an empty coffin… a picture-less funeral portrait…"

Li Mo's mind worked furiously as he spoke his thoughts aloud to organize them.

"Don't tell me I have to lie in the coffin myself?" Li Mo suddenly muttered a chilling thought.

In past incidents involving coffins, any living person who entered them would die without exception. Not even the most fearsome ghosts could escape such a fate.

"Hey! Those heads are coming!" Kira shouted anxiously.

"Captain… are we going to die here?"

"Captain, I don't want to die! I'd rather die fighting Honkai beasts or being corrupted by Honkai energy. Anything's better than being eaten by those heads!"

The crowd began to panic as the heads crossed the "line" and entered the auditorium.

"Damn it!" Kira raised her sword. Faced with the grotesque tide of heads, she felt a wave of hopelessness.

But she was the captain. She couldn't retreat.

Kira was afraid of ghosts. Terrified, even. As a child, she had once spent a sleepless night alone when her parents left her home in the dark.

But she couldn't let that fear show.

Everyone else could fear, retreat, and tremble.

But she couldn't—especially not in front of her juniors.

---

The first incense stick was now down to its final centimeter.

Li Mo fiddled with the incense sticks, suddenly realizing something. "The five incense sticks represent the five days of a funeral. Though funeral customs vary by era, the first thing they do is usually for encoffining the body."

"Kira, put the coffin lid back on the coffin. But don't close it all the way—leave a gap!" Li Mo shouted.

Hearing his instruction, Kira didn't hesitate. She rushed to the lid and grabbed it, trying to lift it.

But something was wrong—the lid wouldn't budge.

"Ugh! Why… why won't it move?!" Kira gritted her teeth and poured her Honkai energy into her arms, but the lid refused to move an inch.

"Captain, let me help you!"

"I'll help too!"

But the outcome remained unchanged.

"Heads, the heads are coming!"

"What should we do, brother?!" Shaori kept retreating, her back pressed against the wall, the escape route closed off. The heads were now less than half a meter away from them.

Li Mo was feeling anxious, unable to figure out what he had missed.

The Encoffining, the Vigil,

The announcement of death, The condolence visit, burial...

Coffins, corpses, incense, clocks, funeral portrait...

"I didn't study funeral services in college!!"

Just as Li Mo was about to lose his mind, a heart-wrenching scream echoed through the hall.

"Ahhhhhh!! Don't come closer, get off my head!! Get off!!"

A bloody, mangled head latched onto a young girl, its sharp teeth piercing through her skull, mixing blood and brain matter, which dripped to the floor with a soft "drip, drip" sound...

Soon, the screams stopped. The head ghost had devoured the girl's head.

Then something even more bizarre happened—the mangled face of the head ghost began to clear, and to everyone's horror, it became the face of the very girl it had just consumed.

The head bounced and jumped, landing perfectly back on her neck, her eyes snapping open.

Suddenly, the girl who had collapsed after her head was eaten slowly began to rise. Her limbs twitched uncontrollably, as if her body were cramping.

Perhaps due to her body's disorientation, her arms twisted backward, and her face was now turned towards her back...

"I... I didn't die?"

"Wait, what's... ahhh!"

When the girl realized her head was facing the wrong way, she let out a deafening scream again.

At that moment, the first of the incense sticks in Li Mo's hand went out... completely extinguished.

The ghost, now unbound, rushed forward madly.

The girl who had been devoured by the ghost lost all consciousness, but she still managed to show an eerie smile towards Li Mo.

A familiar head appeared in Li Mo's vision—it was Aikiri...

She was already dead, and the ghost within her body had revived, bringing her head here.

"Ahhh!!"

"Captain, help me! Save me!"

In an instant, the entire auditorium had become a true "hell"

Chunks of flesh flew in all directions as desperate wails and shrieks filled the air. Blood pooled inside the black coffin, and outside, countless heads slowly approached.

Just like the notebook's prophecy: "Before the original host dies, I will not be targeted by the ghost in the broadcast room."

But after Aikiri died, Li Mo became its primary target.

Suddenly, Aikiri's head shot towards Li Mo, lunging at him.

Shigure Kira, whose right hand was bitten by several heads, grimaced in pain, her expression twisted in agony.

She noticed one head leaping towards Li Mo and, without hesitation, threw away her weapon. She abandoned all defense, throwing her body at Aikiri's head to block its path.

Kira fell, and countless heads jumped up, blocking out the light above the auditorium and the hope of survival.

She could no longer feel her body's pain.

"Sorry, Li Mo, I think this is the end for me..."

Before she could finish her words, the sounds of heads tearing into flesh drowned her out.

A few minutes passed, and the auditorium was now filled with only the head ghosts and those consumed by them—except for Li Mo.

Li Mo's face was dark, staring at the bodies and severed limbs scattered around the floor.

The mercury from the head ghosts spilled onto the ground, mixing with the crimson blood.

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