“Hmm… Based on our previous experience, when we ’find’ a certain thing or monster, the quest will be triggered…” Feng Bujue was only halfway through the sentence when the ’dead body’ suddenly stood up, and at a same time, a creepy laugh echoed in the group’s ears.
It slowly raised its head, and the face that was slowly being lit up by the flashlights was covered in a layer of shadows. Its facial features were barely discernible, and the skin was as green as lead.
“Is he still alive?” Long Aomin asked in a soft voice.
“Still alive?” Feng Bujue walked around Long Aomin to head toward the thing that looked like a dead body. “That would explain many things. The laughter earlier could be the survivor’s joyful manifestation after realizing he’ll be saved.”
He had been wearing the goggles, so he was clear that the man’s hostility was placed on him. Seeing Feng Bujue’s approach, the monster instantly made a second response.
“Ah!” Ms. Saddest suddenly screamed. Not only her, even Mr. Loneliest was spooked and yelped. Wang Tanzhi’s scream was stuck in his throat. His face was white, and his heart stopped for several seconds. Only Long Aomin’s response was relatively normal, but his hair was standing on end, and he sucked in a cold breath.
Various decaying arms reached out from the surrounding pipes. They formed a curtain, dark and eerie. The echoing groaning and pleading filled the sewer and hit them like a wave.
Ms. Saddest staggered back in panic and waved the golf club blindly in panic. Her boyfriend tried to calm her down, but he almost got hit in the process. Wang Tanzhi was frozen in fear. His eyes were round with shock, and he did not dare move. His hand that held the knife were shivering, and his palm was slick with sweat.
Several seconds later, Long Aomin shouted, “Don’t panic! These are all illusions!”
He had not lost his ability to think and instantly realized that the arms were just an illusion because he notice some of the arms that poked up from the ground went through his leg, but he did not feel anything.
“Even if they’re real, they are not able to touch us!” Long Aomin screamed again.
Ms. Saddest finally regained some of her senses. Mr. Loneliest hugged her tight and whispered comforting words into her ears. Even though he was afraid, seeing how flustered his girlfriend was, it made him realize that he had to be steady. He told himself repeatedly that it was just a game. No matter how scary things were, it was fake and temporary.
About ten meters away, Feng Bujue walked confidently toward the monster. The scary images and sounds did not affect him in the slightest; the man did not even blink. He held the baseball ball in his hand and loosened up his shoulders, like he was getting ready to swing the bat.
Seeing that its skill did not affect Feng Bujue, the dead body came up with a third reaction.
It turned from a male body covered in tattered clothes into a living, breathing beautiful woman. She looked around twenty and wore a sexy black strappy dress. Her skin was fair as snow, and practically half of her breasts were hanging out of the dress. Her legs were shimmering, and a seductive smile was hanging on her lips.
Feng Bujue was startled for a second. Then, he surprisingly placed the ball back in his backpack. The male teammates behind him saw this and instantly tossed him condescending look, even though internally they understood why he did that.
“I almost forgot…” Feng Bujue just put away the bat and quickly retrieved the wrench. “Since it’s a humanoid creature, attacking with this special effect weapon will earn me some Skill Points.”
He said that easily, raised the wrench, and rained heavy blows down on the monster’s skull.
The wrench fell on the monster’s head again and again. The black block splashed all over the place, and it was a mentally-scarring scene to witness. When Feng Bujue’s attack connected with the physical body of the monster, it changed back to its original form, and the surrounding illusions disappeared after the monster suffered serious damage.
The four at the back silently looked at Feng Bujue’s relentless, cruel, and highly-effective attacks. Three of them had their Terror Points fluctuating constantly because their minds were wondering, mainly thinking about whether there was a hidden meaning to the IGN ’Feng Bujue’.
After the monster’s skull was completely bashed in, Feng Bujue searched through the monster’s shirt pocket and found the Key of Wood. The attribute was similar to the Key of Fire.
“Current quest completed, main quest updated.” After collecting the key, there was a tick on the right side of the quest, and a new quest appeared. “Return to the Demonic Door to reactivate the seal.”
Feng Bujue turned around to announce, “We’re done here, let’s go.”
“Hmm… Brother Feng…” Long Aomin said, “how did you know the monster would be so… fragile?”
“I knew that once it stood up,” Feng Bujue replied. “When those arms showed up, they only confirmed my belief. This type of monster was obviously used to raise the players’ Terror Points. If the players were afraid of getting close due to fear, then the illusions would only get scarier. Even if it failed to force anyone offline, it would at least ruin our overall rating review.
“When it turned into the beautiful woman, it meant that it was running out of options and turned into something that might attract me to buy some time.”
He suddenly scratched his chin to think. “But wait a minute… how did the system know about my sexual orientation? What if I’m homosexual or bisexual? What would it change into then?”
“You used your ID to log into the forum, right?” Mr. Loneliest said. “Wasn’t there a question like that when we filled in the user information?”
“So, the system ’knew’ because the company has my data,” Feng Bujue mumbled to himself. “That could be it. Either way, let’s get moving.”
…
For the return journey, the group moved as fast as they could. All of them had a feeling that the scenario would not end just like that. Even if the final boss known as Sam Montier did not show up, there had to be a powerful last boss that they needed to face before the scenario ended.
It was impossible to reach the door before the descent of the next darkness, but they could at least try to defeat the boss before two darkness descents.
As they expected, on their way back to the plaza, darkness fell. This was the fourth time that this had happened since they entered the scenario. Counting the ten or so minutes before the first darkness, they had been inside the scenario for almost two hours.
When the darkness fell this time, they did not hear anything; there was no breathing, whispering, or cackling. Feng Bujue thought this was a bad omen. In this type of horror game, anything that broke the established routine meant that things were heading in a bad direction.
Three minutes after the darkness left, they reached the plaza. At this point, even Long Aomin was panting. After two hours of running, fighting, walking, and moving stuff, most of their Stamina Points were low.
Ms. Saddest and Mr. Loneliest had exhausted around four hundred Stamina Points each. They were respectively level six and seven. Counting the Stamina Points that were recovered through rest, they both had around two hundred Stamina Points. Long Aomin had exhausted the most. Just the Lightning Bash that he used when they encountered the monster baby had burned through three hundred Stamina Points. On top of that, he had been tanking when they fought the zombie, and the total exhaustion was over seven hundred Stamina Points. Actually, that was relatively considered low. Due to his inapparent attribute, the exhaustion to his Stamina Point when he was running was lower than others’, and it was the same for combat. The difference piled up, and combined with the recovery time, he had 289/1,000 Stamina Points left.
After comparing those three, the fact that Wang Tanzhi and Feng Bujue, two level five players who had joined the combat, still had less than one hundred Stamina Points left could be considered a miracle.
“The quest has been updated. We should be able to use the keys, right?” Wang Tanzhi asked between breaths.
Feng Bujue walked ahead of the group. Facing the door, he took out two keys and placed them on his palm. Several dozen seconds passed, but nothing happened.
“This isn’t right,” Long Aomin said after noticing this. “How come there’s still no reaction?”
“No… Something did happen.” Feng Bujue looked toward the horizon. “Look.”
The plaza was open, so they could look several hundred meters into the distance. Currently, from various corners of the cities, more than a thousand monsters had surged out from the hidden corners. They were shaped differently, but most could be split into two categories: the berserk, angry type and the cunning, hunter type.
These monsters moved slowly, but their appearance definitely caused the morale to drop. When that dissipated, in its place was a heightened sense of fear.
“How is this possible? What did we do wrong?” Mr. Loneliest started to panic, and his pitch naturally rose. “There’s no way for us to survive this.”
Feng Bujue was also surprised by this development. “Sam Montier is unable to approach these keys or the seals around the door. He can’t appear personally to deal with us. The demons refuse to get close to this place, but they’re not afraid of the keys. This means that they’re afraid of this door or rather… the realm that is behind this door. That is why there are no demons roaming this incredibly large plaza.
“Now that we’ve closed in on this place, they’ve been forced to do so. We should try our best to stick as close to the door as possible and see what happens next.”
“What if they don’t care about the Demonic Door and launch themselves at us?” Long Aomin asked.
“Then, we’ll retreat behind the door,” Feng Bujue answered.
“Brother Jue… that’s the demonic realm! What if there’re more demons behind the door?” Wang Tanzhi argued.
“That might not be it. I suspect it’s a space like a prison behind the door, and now that all the inmates have escaped, perhaps the space behind it is currently empty. Furthermore… does it make a difference where we die? In the end, we’ll just return to the log-in lobby.”
The group soon reached the door, and they stood with the Demonic Door behind them. Feng Bujue was still going through the scenario’s story in his mind. The thing that grabbed his attention was the talk of a ’cycle’ that the tree mentioned. What kind of cycle was happening inside this isolated city? Perhaps by answering this riddle, they would know the rhythm that Sam Montier had set up, his weakness, or the way to restore the seal.
Many clues floated around in his mind, but there was not much time left for Feng Bujue. He arranged the clues in his mind. “A pool isolated from the River of Time… Darkness that falls every half an hour… The disappearance of the whispering in the dark…”