Chapter 217 - -

Chapter 217: Chapter 214 - "Why Face Reality?Brushstrokes of various colors sprawled across the wall, like flowing fire.

Approaching, Su Ming’an found himself in a room lit by a faint glow, where dark red inscriptions were stamped on the walls, reminiscent of the goals students set for themselves during coming-of-age ceremonies, written on large posters.

"What, what is this, big brother? Why would there be such things in the instance..." Mo Yan peeked from behind, looking as if he’d never seen such a wall before.

Su Ming’an placed his hand on the wall, but nothing happened, nor were there any clues. It seemed to be just an extremely ordinary wall.

He looked to the side and saw no other doors, as if the path of the corridor had come to an end right there.

"This instance is really small," Mo Yan said. "It’s only been a moment since we left the door. We’ve already reached the end. I don’t think it should be just two corridors big..."

"Of course not," Su Ming’an withdrew his hand. "It’s possible that the range of movement is limited at night—or perhaps, within those doors along the corridor that we’ve ignored, there are other pathways. And we haven’t checked each one by one."

"Then, then big brother shall we go back and check...?"

Mo Yan turned his head, contemplating returning, but then he suddenly spotted an extremely bright spot of light in his field of vision.

He activated his night vision, and everything he saw had a faint glow, but that spot of light was like a spark in the darkness, overly conspicuous.

It took him a moment to finally recognize what it was.

Cold sweat instantly climbed up his spine; his entire body began to tremble, and he instinctively thought to retreat, "Big, big brother, that, that ghostly thing seems to have come back!"

...There were no cabinets here!

Previously in the second-floor corridor, he had felt fearless because there were cabinets to hide in, but now as they had ventured deeper to this wall, without a single cabinet around, there was nowhere to run!

In his panic, he glanced sideways, intending to warn big brother, but saw that big brother had already drawn his weapon.

It was a long sword, its blade as reflective as a mirror, and as he looked over, a sudden layer of black light clung to the blade.

That expanse of darkness seemed to emanate a sense of danger.

Big brother appeared calm, gripping the hilt with both hands, sword raised high, the black light also flowing faintly with his movements, as if alive.

"Big, big brother, are you planning to... fight that thing head on?"

Mo Yan was startled.

He knew that big brother was likely a powerful figure, but to fight that thing, which felt so off... This surely wasn’t the right way to deal with it, right?

He had only glimpsed that wisp of light from a close distance on the second floor, and his san value started to fluctuate wildly, as if gone mad.

"You wait here," Su Ming’an had already switched to Bright State, the Sword of Yarman coated with elimination had a 90-second stay duration, enough for him to end a battle.

He could have chosen not to fight; with spatial displacement, escaping wouldn’t have been a problem. Although the likelihood of Mo Yan behind him being able to escape was slim, he didn’t feel any guilt.

In many horror games, "ghosts" cannot be killed. When players face them, they only have the options to hide or flee, never to turn around and counterattack.

However, choosing to fight isn’t necessarily out of the question.

Some things can only be known through trying. Even knowing the imminent danger, the upper limit might not be completely locked... What if the adversary could be vanquished?

Su Ming’an charged out.

"Big, big brother, why does your weapon look so much like the Sword of Yarman..."

A doubtful voice came from behind.

Su Ming’an didn’t pay attention to it.

Now, in his field of vision, there was only that patch of light, which seemed slightly scorching at the moment.

The light seemed to have noticed him too, the tiny point gradually enlarging as they approached each other.

And just as Su Ming’an’s gaze fixed on the light for an instant, the orange value on the top-left corner of his vision began to fluctuate violently.

It dropped from 70 to 65 in an instant, and then shot back up; the value was wildly unstable, leaping back and forth.

Suddenly, he heard a faint whisper in his ear, as if someone was close, breathing softly to him in a gentle, androgynous voice.

His hand shot up in an instant, the sword raised high, slicing through a jet-black streak of light.

The next moment, the space around him rippled.

His position shifted in a blink, and he appeared behind that spot of light.

Even though darkness engulfed everything, making it impossible to see one’s own fingers, the area surrounding the light was bright, and he could see the floor gradually illuminated by the light... and the empty space around it.

Originally, he thought that the light was controlled by something or that there was something carrying the light. That thing would be his target of attack.

But now, upon closer inspection, there was nothing; he couldn’t even find a target to attack.

The patch of light seemed to float in the air on its own, like a firefly, with no one controlling it.

With the arrow notched, he had to release it.

Even though he couldn’t find a specific target, Su Ming’an still swung his sword—toward that extremely bright light.

As the sword’s blade swept through the air, it met no resistance when it passed through the light, and he saw the promptflashing before him, and he relaxed.

...As long as there’s a health bar, that’s good.

That meant the opponent was "something that can be attacked."

The pitch-black darkness collided with the light as if slicing through jelly, cutting violently through the light, and he saw the bisected radiance scatter before him. Then, he heard a very clear system prompt:

The glow completely enveloped him.

As the last bit of shadow on his body disappeared, he heard an indistinct whisper.

The words were unclear, the sentences indistinct, the meaning unknown, but as he raised his head to look at the gradually extinguishing light, he saw at the end of the hallway, a figure in blood-red that clashed with the darkness.

A dance dress, blood-red, emitting a faint glow. Standing there, it looked like flowing blood.

A long shadow stretched out behind "her," twisting eerily, already engulfing the walls on both sides.

He heard the voice again.

Su Ming’an looked at the blood-red figure.

He heard voices filled with sorrow, like accusations, like sighs, as if they were complaining about him, yet also as if they envied him.

He heard the system prompt:

The next moment, the light intensified.

Clutching his sword, he saw his sanity value, which had dropped to 50, suddenly recover to 70.

He opened his eyes.

He sat up abruptly, reaching out a hand.

Blinding white light pierced into his eyes, the brightness so intense that the pain brought tears to the corners of his eyes.

Through the darkened edges of his vision, he saw that the Sword of Yarman, which had been in his hand, was gone, and instead he saw a pair of hands covered with scars.

There were dense needle marks on the back of his hands.

The blue and white hospital gown hung loosely on his body, and there was a continuous pain in his thigh.

...Was it a reset again?

He looked up, the clock on the wall pointed to one o’clock, the wooden door was shut, and there was an unopened notebook on the table.

...Although he didn’t know what was going on.

But this time, the death had no side effects, no pain at all, as if he had reset in the blink of an eye.

Instant Death Resistance had clearly worked... even the prompt announcing that the enemy was killed had sounded, and yet, he still died.

He died without even knowing the cause of his death.

Su Ming’an frowned but still got up from his bed.

...This playthrough had to be quick and decisive.

He crossed his legs, reached for the table, and then swiftly moved his entire body onto it.

The room was so small that he could get on the table without getting out of bed.

Without touching the floor or making any noise, he sat on top of the table and flipped open the notebook.

The same familiar title page and the same familiar text.

Only, after closing the notebook, nothing happened.

...There was no prompt indicating that clues had been added to the clue panel, not even a reconnaissance prompt.

He seemed to think of something.

He lifted his eyelids and his gaze moved to the san value in the upper left corner.

points.

His hand trembled slightly.

He thought of a possibility.

Immediately, he shifted his gaze to the barrage of comments in the upper right corner.

Su Ming’an steadied his trembling hand, placed the notebook down slowly, and maintained calmness in his mood.

...It turned out he hadn’t died before.

This time, it wasn’t him who rewound time.

Instead, the entire instance had reset.

This might well be the unique condition of this instance; when players triggered a certain mechanism, the whole instance would completely rewind, instantly bringing all players back to the initial moment.

However, time was flowing normally. Clues that had been acquired would not be triggered again.

To confirm this, he opened the clue panel.

As expected, the four clues he had previously obtained were sitting quietly inside.

If it had been a death rewind, there would be none there.

The system time showed November 30 at 2:15 a.m.

Although players were transported at noon on November 29, there would be a discrepancy between the start time of the instance and the transportation time. The official start time of this instance was 1 a.m. on November 30, the first time he had opened his eyes.

Now, with more than an hour having passed in the system time, it was confirmed that the reset of this instance was due to a game mechanic issue and not a reset of the entire world’s timeline.

...Fortunately, he had discovered it early.

If he hadn’t realized that this was an instance mechanic rather than a reset due to his own death, and had encountered Mo Yan again, he might have been exposed.

He opened his temporary prop panel.

While the clues were still there, the temporary props had indeed been reset to square one. He dragged the notebook into it, then opened the wardrobe and dragged the white lab coat into it before suddenly hearing a knock at the door.

Urgent, rapid, like a drumbeat. The person outside the door seemed to be in a hurry.

As expected, the voice of the person outside followed:

"Big brother, big brother... hurry up and open the door..."

"Click."

As Su Ming’an opened the door, he saw Mo Yan scurry in, the floorboard underfoot producing an extremely grating noise.

"Big brother, what on earth did you do to cause the entire instance to reset... But this is also strange, I didn’t expect there to be such a mechanism that starts everything over once triggered..." Mo Yan rattled on like a string of spilling beans, when suddenly, he froze.

"That light, could it be that it’s not dead yet..."

Su Ming’an lifted his eyelids.

Outside the door, at the far end of the corridor, a wobbling light slowly appeared, unhurried, just as before.

He quickly shut the door.

"Big brother, what in the world is that, it’s so scary..." Mo Yan said from behind him.

"Don’t talk." Su Ming’an immediately silenced him and pressed down on his shoulder, keeping him from moving around.

From the hint, it could be deduced that this type of entity was particularly sensitive to sounds, whether it was the human voice or the creaking of the floor.

Mo Yan seemed to realize this point as well and nodded vigorously to indicate his understanding.

And just at that moment, the system notification appeared on the interface, as if it had been delayed:

The implication of this system notification was that one must not allow the instance to restart too many times, at least not so much that the total passing time exceeds fifteen days.

However, there shouldn’t be a problem. The recent restart only let an additional hour pass by.

Suddenly, Su Ming’an remembered the target of his Ruler’s Quest, "Yang Xia". He needed to ensure the safety of this NPC named "Yang Xia".

"Yang Xia", "Dong Xue".

...Perhaps there was some connection between these two NPCs.

Ruler’s Quests generally overlapped with the truest ending needed for a Perfect Pass, and the NPCs involved were always the most crucial characters in the complete instance storyline.

Moli from the Fourth World, Hui Shuhang from the Fifth World.

If the task in the Fourth World wasn’t "expose the sins of Moli", he might not have approached that inconspicuous girl. If the Fifth World’s task wasn’t to protect Hui Shuhang, maybe he would have accepted the HE ending far away from the central square and wouldn’t have chosen to return for the adult ceremony, later uncovering the true face hidden beneath the sacrifices.

The Ruler’s Quest served as a guiding tool, compelling him to complete the toughest and most authentic endings, pushing him to find the hidden routes buried deep in the instance’s plot.

Perhaps, it was the same with this Yang Xia.

As he pondered, Mo Yan suddenly poked him.

"Big brother." Mo Yan glanced outside, "Do you hear that, is there noise coming from outside?"

Su Ming’an suddenly took notice.

What was originally a quiet outside was now intermittently disturbed by footsteps and the sound of fighting.

"Could it be... someone is fighting with that light?" Mo Yan asked in a hushed voice.

Without the slightest hesitation, Su Ming’an opened the door.

"Big brother, you’re too rash, why did you suddenly open the door..."

Su Ming’an paid no attention to Mo Yan and looked outside.

Outside the door, the light was very close to them.

And opposite the light stood a girl with loose black hair.

The door behind her was already open, and she was clad in a hospital gown, clearly one of the twenty players.

On her hand shone a blood-colored glow, like a brand seared into her flesh.