NOVEL WEB Chapter 6: THE MASK OF TEETH
"What you wear becomes who you are. On this floor, it decides your face."
Jié emerged into red light.
Not firelight. Not flame.
Vein-light.
The room was vast — cathedral-sized — but pulsing with a low, living hum. The air vibrated with wet heat, and everything glistened. The ceiling pulsed in slow waves like a diaphragm, as though the chamber itself was breathing.
And all around him?
People.
Dozens. Maybe a hundred.
Some stood. Some sat. A few cried silently. Others just… watched.
But they all had one thing in common.
Each wore a mask.
He paused.
Scanned the chamber.
The masks were made of flesh and bone. No two alike.
Some were stitched leather, drooling with old blood. Others were carved from jawbone, with teeth still embedded. One girl wore a porcelain face — smooth, expressionless — but blood ran from the seams in her cheeks.
A man near the far wall had no mask.
He was being devoured by the floor.
Slowly.
From the feet up.
His legs had sunk into the red. Only his upper body remained — arms twitching, jaw slack, mouth forming silent screams.
"He refused the mask," someone said behind Jié.
He turned.
A woman.
Tall. Gaunt. Wrapped in dark cloth. Her mask was made of teeth, all pointing inward.
"No one refuses the mask."
She didn't sound cruel. Just tired. Like someone explaining gravity to a corpse.
[SYSTEM EVENT: MASKING CEREMONY TRIGGERED]All entrants to Floor 1 must accept a role.A mask will find you.Do not remove it until the floor ends.Do not let others take it.If your mask is destroyed, so are you.
Jié didn't flinch.
He scanned the room again.
People avoided each other.Some huddled in groups — tribes formed in fear.Others stood alone, backs to the wall.
The only thing that unified them was the waiting.
And the masks.
A table rose from the floor behind him.
He turned.
It hadn't been there a moment ago.
Now it stood, slick with membrane — a circle of bone with six masks resting on it.
All different.
All wrong.
He stepped forward.
Each mask whispered.
Not in words.
In feelings.
Regret. Hunger. Pain. Hate.One radiated pure stillness.Another stank of teeth grinding in the dark.
His eyes locked on one in particular.
Black.
Smooth. No mouth.No eye slits.
Just a mask of absolute absence.
He reached out.
[MASK ACQUIRED: NULL FACE]
Role Assigned: Witness
Status: Untouched by liesPassive Effect: Gain truth from falsehoodsActive Effect: ???
Warning: You cannot lie while wearing this mask
He placed it against his face.
It sealed.
Not with straps.
With intent.
For a moment, he saw everything.
Every person in the room.
Every heartbeat.
Every face beneath a mask — the truth of who they were before they stepped into this hell.
Then—
Darkness.
Vision cut out completely.
The mask gave no eyes.
No sight.
Only stillness.
This is how they want me to survive.
Blind. Still. Listening.
He stood, unmoving, as the room shifted.
A bell rang.
Low. Deep. Bone-chilling.
Everyone turned.
A door peeled open across the far wall.
The next stage.
A man pushed forward.
Then another.
The crowd surged toward the opening.
Jié remained still.
They're being herded.
But herded by what?
And into what?
A voice echoed behind his skull.
Not the system.
Not a person.
The mask.
"You are not prey."
"You are the breath before the scream."
"Let them go."
"The floor will return what is taken."
Jié took one step back.
Then another.
Let the crowd pass him by.
Thirty… fifty… a hundred people filtered through the opening.
A few looked back.
But not at him.
They couldn't see him anymore.
He stood alone in the cathedral.
The doorway still open.
He stepped forward.
And followed them.
Into the dark.
Next: Chapter 6 – The Surgeon
"It knows your bones. It remembers your guilt. And now it wants your face."