Chapter 263

Chapter 263: Chapter 260: "Stir, stir, mix."

"Then add four screws without heads."

"But something doesn’t seem right."

"The witch knows, the heart is a troublesome ingredient..."

A transparent blue whale slowly passed before Su Ming’an’s eyes.

Fine white sand slipped from the sky, and he heard Dong Xue’s deep singing accompanying him as he fell.

Flames flickered outside his closed eyelids, light and shadow beginning to intermingle in his eyes.

He felt as if he were gradually sinking into the dry hay on the ground, the ground beginning to soften, sinking down like he was in a soft bed.

Darkness took over his vision.

In the misty haze, he heard the crisp sound of liquid hitting the ground.

"Drip-drop."

"Drip-drop."

He suddenly opened his eyes.

The blood-red sunset shimmered before his eyes, the thin sword on the ground giving off a glaring gleam.

He saw a basement.

Stretching out his hands, he saw his own transparent hands... and his entire self completely transparent.

The basement was dim and somber, with dark blood flooding his vision, spreading on the ground into an expansive lake.

He saw a young girl.

The girl, wearing a cat-ear hat, lay in the black tainted blood. When he looked over, he saw a fine trace of blood on her neck.

Blood-red sunset light slowly streamed through the cracks, shining on the ice-white thin sword lying on the ground—the beautiful blade like a perennially unmelting chunk of ice.

He tried to move but was frozen in place.

"Gurgle..."

A faint sound.

The girl’s neck could no longer support the weight, and her head suddenly fell to the ground.

It rolled to his feet.

His gaze froze.

"La-la-la... la-la-la..."

A girl in a red dress, humming a light tune, appeared in his view. She carried a basket filled with mushrooms, moving lively, almost dancing in circles around the dim basement.

Her steps were cheerful, as if celebrating something.

Su Ming’an lifted his head.

Sure enough, he saw himself leaning against the corner, bathing in the viscous blood-light of the sunset.

That version of him was covered in mushrooms sprouting from every corner of his body, even the crevices between his fingernails hosting tiny golden needle mushrooms.

And on his temple, there was a slender sword mark.

He could even see the transparent bullets on himself:

Su Ming’an’s gaze shifted.

He looked at his unconscious self, saw the barrage of messages swiftly streaming past his eyes, and then watched as the transparent studio slowly closed following his death.

He looked at the blood-stained ground, at Yuanyuan’s decapitated head, and suddenly began to tremble.

"...What am I dreaming about?" he murmured, "Am I too tired?"

When there is a mismatch between mental and physical exhaustion, one tends to have strange or overly realistic dreams.

He had now directly experienced this.

He quickly tried to control his emotions, wanting to immediately break free, but he felt as though he was bound and could not escape.

The scene before his eyes twisted and blurred. He struggled to move his body but felt as if he had lost control of it.

The next moment, he saw a black-and-white chessboard surrounded by a blue-purple galaxy.

He instantly wanted to close his eyes.

"Bang—!"

Red and blue light waves exploded beside him; he gasped for air, smelling the pervasive scent of gunpowder.

A strange oppressive feeling, almost suffocating, rose in his heart; he controlled his eyelids to shut, but the images still emerged before his eyes.

The girl with black hair and red armor, standing sword in hand before "him."

"Everyone is watching you..." she said softly, "Give your orders."

Then, Su Ming’an saw himself, dressed in a royal velvet robe, standing still and unhesitatingly raising an arm.

A flash of blood appeared, and he saw the red king fall.

The black-haired girl stared in bewildered confusion as the allied king suddenly collapsed.

Her figure began to blur and fade.

With the king’s death, all allied chess pieces perished, including the queen.

The thin sword fell to the ground.

Tears filled her eyes; she did not understand why the allied king had chosen suicide.

The galaxy in the sky sparkled, and a loud laugh came from the other side.

"—You see, I told you, a student is just a student. They can’t handle even this level of pressure. After all, those who stand at the top are always the same few people..."

Su Ming’an’s whole body began to tremble.

Watching the upside-down world before him, the gradually blurring figure of the red queen.

"...Enough."

He said to himself:

"Stop torturing yourself."

The more he found himself in such moments, the more he needed to stay calm.

He could not let himself break down over an inexplicable vivid dream.

He knew that the appearance of such a dream was because he was too afraid of this situation occurring in reality—he was afraid of it happening.

Just like someone who watches a horror movie during the day might dream of being chased by ghosts at night.

What one ponders by day, one dreams of by night.

Although he could maintain absolute calm in his actions, the emotions of his sensibilities could not be suppressed by his actions.

They always surged wildly like the tide, slipping through the fingers, unstoppable.

...That’s why he dreamt of the very thing he feared the most.

He dreamt of those nightmarish scenes that lingered in his memory.

The scene shifted, the vision blurred, and the next moment, he gradually saw a floating city surrounded by ice-white mechanics...

"—Big brother!"

He suddenly heard a call.

It sounded as though it came from a distant horizon.

He suddenly felt much better.

...After all, the dreams he was having now were of things that couldn’t be detected. And the reality he was currently in—the attack on the instance was already in its final stages.

Mizushima Haru had died, and he was left with the last clue...

This toughest and most sinister world since the game began was finally coming to an end...

"Big brother! Big brother! Wake up, big brother—!"

The voice by his ear was still unceasing.

At first, Su Ming’an thought that Mo Yan’s call was the holy sound that saved him from his nightmare, but soon he found the voice to become irritating.

Mo Yan seemed to be yelling into his ear, the voice loud and piercing, roaring incessantly like a machine gun.

"Big brother—big brother—stop sleeping—!!!"

Like being abruptly hauled up from the deep sea, he rapidly broke free from the barrier that kept him from waking and opened his eyes.

A steady white light slowly pierced into his eyes.

The suddenly bright glaring white light blurred his vision momentarily.

...Wait, white light?

Su Ming’an clearly remembered falling asleep in a cave with a fire, so why was there a steady white light...

He suddenly sat up, feeling his entire chest churning, fluffy objects floating in the air, which made him cough out violently.

The violent coughing fogged his vision with a mist of water, he quickly scanned his surroundings with his eyes wide open and saw everything in shades of gray and white.

He fell silent.

Mo Yan was standing by his bed, with the wooden door wide open behind him.

Behind the wooden door was a long, pitch-black corridor.

The blood-stained notebook lay quietly on the desk, with a round light in the distance approaching.

Su Ming’an looked somewhat stunned.

"Big brother, big brother, why did the instance reset again, damn it, big brother, what did you and Dong Xue do in the cave, how come she died again..."

Mo Yan scratched his head, his expression a mix of exhaustion and despair, and his hair was also very tousled, looking like he had just climbed out of bed as well.

...How did Dong Xue die?

Su Ming’an immediately thought about going back to the saved file.

But first, he needed to figure out the cause of Dong Xue’s death.

He distinctly remembered falling asleep to the sound of Dong Xue’s singing, and there were just the two of them in the cave, it couldn’t possibly be that the cave suddenly collapsed... and if there were an external enemy, Mo Yan, who was guarding the entrance, would have noticed...

Su Ming’an felt a headache coming on, but soon he heard a series of footsteps.

Lively, swift, as if something was rapidly charging their way.

Then, he saw the girl with a ferocious face.

Her blue and white hospital gown under the round light gave off a dull yellow glow, her black hair, wet with sweat, connected like spider silk.

She stretched out her hand, her feet rooted to the ground like wooden stakes, her bloodshot eyes bulging out like fish.

"—Die! Just die—!"

A blood-red glow flickered on her hands.

Su Ming’an’s breath caught.

A dreadful premonition crazily climbed up his mind, amid Mizushima Haru’s frenzied howls, he suddenly realized something.

It was a rule written clearly on the system interface at the beginning—

...That Mizushima Haru.

Her current status was,

NPC.

Su Ming’an watched her, watched the blood explode from her palm, heard an explosion coming from some room, and saw the crimson light bursting.

He seemed to hear a crisp sound, the shattering of a ruby.

Listening to this crisp sound, he suddenly understood—

This was a "Dead Loop".

...If he didn’t kill Mizushima Haru immediately with each instance reset, then Dong Xue would just keep dying endlessly.

Because that blood-red pendant, capable of snatching her life at any moment, was always held in Mizushima Haru’s hand.

His head spun around.

The instance reset once again.

He immediately summoned a clone, attempting to strangle Mizushima Haru at the earliest opportunity.

Unexpectedly, during the summoning, he suddenly heard the notification "Five Occupation Points Deducted."

His mind went blank for a moment.

...Occupation Points are only deducted when reviving a clone.

Even if the instance resets, the state of being alive is preserved with the clone. It only requires Occupation Points to revive if the clone truly dies.

But it seemed impossible that the clone could die... If the clone had died, he would definitely have noticed.

So, who actually died before the reset...

Suddenly, Su Ming’an came to his senses.

A chill slowly climbed up his back.

He stood in place, drenched in cold sweat, his hands trembling.

As expected, the summoned clone, standing still, glanced at him.

"You died." said the clone.

Su Ming’an closed his eyes:

"In the cave?"

"Yes," the clone said, "Dong Xue’s pendant exploded abruptly, and you died alongside her."

...Su Ming’an realized then.

That’s why the instance had reset.

"Dong Xue’s pendant exploded..." he murmured.

The clone stood still, motionless.

"Dong Xue’s pendant exploded..." Su Ming’an’s hands shook.

It was like being slowly surrounded by an illusionary sea water; he began to struggle to breathe.

The grayish expanse in front of him began to spin, and he felt a sticky sensation on his back.

...It had been a long time since he last panicked like this.

Because he was gradually realizing his predicament.

A situation he was gradually becoming unable to escape from.

"Dead Loop."

Before the instance reset, Mizushima Haru had clearly already died.

Yet, Dong Xue’s pendant was still...

If he didn’t kill Mizushima Haru, the pendant could explode at any moment; even if she was killed, the pendant was still set to explode on a timer... forcibly removing the pendant would cause it to explode instantly...

No matter what, he couldn’t save Dong Xue.

He should have considered this.

Mizushima Haru, with a calculated plan, had stayed here for so long, she must have also considered the possibility of being killed or discovered abruptly.

If the pendant had a timing function, setting it to explode at certain points during the instance was something she could have done.

...With this, she had the power to keep resetting the instance until the fifteenth day... until his complete failure.

He had previously thought that an instance originally lasting only five days couldn’t possibly drag on to the fifteenth day; he believed the failure mechanism was utterly useless.

But unexpectedly... it might very well become a major failure mechanism that dragged him to his demise here.

Malice.

Su Ming’an just stood there, facing the gray walls, feeling immense malice coming from all directions of this world.

Previously encountering Shen Xue being targeted, he felt it wouldn’t hinder him; facing Wang Xingkong who specifically went after him, he also felt it was an easily solvable mechanism. Fourth World, becoming a resident; Fifth World, becoming Qin Wang... he always thought these massively malicious settings were sources of his strength, challenges provided for his opportunities.

But now... the malice had started to hinder his steps, like hands stretching out of a mire to drag him down.

Mizushima Haru, she,

—why was she going to such lengths.

The clone looked at him faintly.

A white light fell upon him, and the clone sighed.

"...How about we just call it quits?" The clone turned his head away.