(2/3)
Changsheng Building
Chapter 224: He cheated
As the blood dripped down, an intangible, extremely cold presence suddenly erupted.
Mu Sen’s arm shriveled from his fingers to his forearm to his elbow. The bandages became loose, and the arm wrapped beneath no longer looked like it belonged to an adult but rather like the arm of a mummy.
His face, already pale, now turned ashen and lifeless, stiff and ghastly like that of a dead man.
His teammates were all secretly shocked by his appearance.
This… didn’t look like the typical way an anchor used their abilities.
Even the usually carefree and smiling Orange Candy showed a thoughtful expression, staring fixedly at the man with the eerie appearance in front of her.
Mu Sen lowered his hand, letting the long sleeves completely cover his arm. He kept his head down, his bloodshot eyes staring intently at the wooden plaque in his palm, a look of eerie madness in his eyes.
The wooden plaque’s function was not just to predict good or bad luck.
The more definitive the direction indicated by the plaques, the more irreversible the outcome would be. If the outcome was forcibly altered, the backlash would be stronger.
At its lightest, the wooden plaque would crack; at its worst, it would shatter completely.
You should know that he originally had twelve wooden plaques, but now only ten remain.
One of them had gradually cracked and shattered over the years from constant use, while another was sacrificed during an S-level mission. He had predicted his own certain death, so he painfully shattered the plaque’s eye to alter his fate and save himself.
Each missing plaque made divination more difficult, and the results were more easily altered. If the number fell below a certain threshold, the entire set would be rendered useless.
By then, it might be him who ends up dead.
Just now, Mu Sen had drawn two extremely ominous hexagrams for that Dark Fire team. But because of the variable in the plaque’s eye, the outcome was changed, which meant…
If the opponent indeed broke through, the wooden plaque serving as the eye would be utterly destroyed.
Sacrificing a plaque just for this?!
Absolutely not!!
Mu Sen stared intently at the wooden plaque in his hand. The cracks were slowly being mended by the dripping blood, forming a bizarre black-and-red pattern. His lips curled into a delighted and crazed smile.
So what if they broke the death trap through skill? Can they resist the predetermined fate?
He didn’t believe it. After paying such a great price, could he not force these people back onto their original paths?
.
Woosh.
In the sealed room with all doors and windows tightly shut, a silent, chilling wind arose, rushing straight towards the only light source in the shop!
The person holding the oil lamp sensed something amiss and tried to raise a hand to block the wind—
But he was already too late.
No, to be precise, whether early or late made no difference. Even if he had shielded the lamp in advance, the cold wind would still seep through his fingers.
The fragile, corpse-oil-soaked wick trembled slightly, and the faint flame reflected in Wen Jianyan’s light-colored eyes, illuminating his horrified gaze.
Nearby, An Xin seemed to sense something and turned slightly to look over—
And then…
In the next second, the light went out completely.
“——No!”
Wen Jianyan’s pupils suddenly contracted, and a hoarse scream burst from his throat.
At the moment the light disappeared, boundless darkness descended.
In the “Changsheng Building” instance, darkness meant death.
His eyes widened in panic, but the darkness was like a shroud tightly covering his eyes. Without light, vision was out of the question.
It seemed all his senses were sealed.
He couldn’t move, couldn’t hear, couldn’t speak.
Endless murmurs came from all directions, overlapping like whispers from ghosts, cold and malicious, yet also like complete silence.
He couldn’t feel anything, couldn’t know anything.
Something seemed to be approaching, yet it also seemed like nothing existed.
Cold, so cold.
Without the lamp’s protection, the chilling cold quickly seeped in, freezing his blood, making him instinctively shiver.
In the darkness, something was watching him.
Everything between them was removed and melted away. Be it the concrete and steel structure or his clothing, all defenses vanished. It was as if he stood naked, exposed, and vulnerable, only a step away from death, and that indistinct line could be crossed with the slightest move.
In this void beyond human comprehension, the only thing Wen Jianyan could feel was real, intense fear, so overwhelming that it almost drove him mad.
In the moment his mind went blank, Wen Jianyan instantly understood why those who were dragged into the darkness would let out such uncontrollable, piercing screams.
This place was absolutely certain death.
Something fell from between his stiff fingers.
It was an irregular, smooth, and hard fragment that slipped from Wen Jianyan’s limp fingers and floated gently to the ground.
The mirror shard hit the floor with a faint sound, but it was like a bell ringing, easily penetrating the surrounding silence and reaching Wen Jianyan’s ears—
“Ding.”
.
Watching the crack slowly close, Mu Sen’s lips gradually stretched into a grin, a touch of malicious joy appearing in his bloodshot eyes.
But then, without warning…
The mending process stopped.
In his palm, the small wooden plaque covered in blood and exuding a strange aura fell into a brief stillness. No matter how the blood squirmed, the crack did not close any further, as if forcibly halted by some eerie force.
“……”
Mu Sen’s smile froze. He stared hard at the shape of the crack, almost doubting his eyes.
Wha…what’s going on?
It stopped.
“Crack, crack…”
Unexpectedly, the sound of splintering wood echoed again.
“——!!!” Mu Sen’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. “No, no, no no no no—this is impossible, impossible!!!”
The deep crack spread once more, expanding at an unstoppable pace. In mere moments, spider-web-like cracks covered the entire plaque, and then…
“Crack.”
Under his nearly crazed gaze, the wooden plaque, unable to bear the strange force of fate any longer, shattered completely, splintering into pieces and turning to dust in an instant.
“……”
Mu Sen collapsed to the ground, staring fixedly at his empty palm, as if all his strength had been drained.
He seemed unable to accept this reality; his entire body was stiff and cold, frozen in place.
Orange Candy frowned and stepped forward: “Hey…hey!”
She waved her hand in front of Mu Sen’s eyes. “Snap out of it.”
Mu Sen remained blank and motionless.
“A prophecy gone wrong is just a prophecy gone wrong.” Orange Candy shrugged nonchalantly, rare in her attempt to comfort him. “We can’t do anything on the second floor now, but there’s still a chance on the third floor…”
“No.”
Mu Sen abruptly spoke, cutting her off.
Orange Candy paused and looked down at him: “?”
“The prophecy wasn’t wrong, and fate wasn’t wrong either.” Mu Sen slowly raised his head, his pale and stiff long face now twisted and hideous like a demon’s. His eyes were filled with extreme resentment and hatred as he slowly spat out bloody words: “They cheated.”
Absolutely.
That’s definitely what happened!
No one can escape the clutches of fate.
“He cheated!!!”
.
In the boundless dark space, a tall young man floated downward, eyes closed, as if a force were holding him, gently lowering him from above.
The shadow of death had not yet let him go.
Wen Jianyan’s face was pale, his eyelids half-closed, and his amber eyes were unfocused, as if still trapped in fear.
However, this darkness was different from the lethal and void darkness inside the “Changsheng Building.”
It was another, more familiar, and not dangerous presence—or perhaps it was only harmless because it was Wen Jianyan.
In a blur, Wen Jianyan seemed to return to the moment before entering the instance.
—The moment he made a deal with Wu Zhu and Nightmare.
As time passed and he went through more instances, Wen Jianyan gradually realized that the instance assignments in Nightmare’s livestream were not entirely random.
Apart from instances actively located through items, Nightmare tended to assign anchors to instances with “stronger connections” to the anchor.
Clearly, not every instance contained fragments of Wu Zhu. For instance, in Ping An Asylum, if he hadn’t accidentally brought a remnant of Wu Zhu’s soul into that instance, everything could have been very different.
The reason he entered the Ping An Asylum was mainly because he had previously entered the Fantasy Amusement Park, and the cores of these two instances were clearly closely related.
For this reason, as an anchor who had entered the Fukang Hospital instance, he was subsequently placed in the Antai Community, which had some spatial correlation with the hospital.
And it was because he had obtained the [Mr. Mirror] item in the first instance that Wen Jianyan was given priority in subsequent instance assignments that contained fragments of Wu Zhu.
Of course, this pattern was not a strict rule but rather a kind of implicit tendency in the assignment process.
However, this was already sufficient for Wen Jianyan.
Before entering the “Changsheng Building”, Wu Zhu had entered his dreams and given instructions to his temporary collaborator.
The instructions were simple: complete the next instance.
Upon receiving this directive, Wen Jianyan immediately understood that the next instance he entered would be anything but ordinary.
Whether in terms of difficulty or its relevance to Wu Zhu himself.
After that, soon enough, with his hints and tacit approval, the Nightmare livestream system contacted him, hoping to make a so-called deal with him to clear a bug—Wu Zhu.
For this, they offered Wen Jianyan generous terms.
Among them: absolute immortality in the next instance.
This made Wen Jianyan instantly understand why Nightmare contacted him after Wu Zhu. Clearly, unlike the ordinary human Wen Jianyan, these two entities were operating on the same informational level. They both knew exactly what was hidden in the next instance—so much so that both Nightmare and Wu Zhu needed their “ally” to obtain it.
Nightmare wanted it so badly that they were willing to open the door wide for Wen Jianyan, granting him terrifying power that no other anchor could get.
But Wen Jianyan refused.
This wasn’t because he wasn’t afraid of death or because he was so confident that he thought he could easily survive any instance. It was for a deeper, more obscure reason.
Firstly, if he agreed, Wen Jianyan would completely lose Wu Zhu’s trust and the possibility of continued cooperation, which was contrary to his original goal.
Secondly…
Wen Jianyan knew that while the next instance was deeply connected to Wu Zhu, its connection to Nightmare’s internal structure was not as strong.
However, to destroy Nightmare, he had to engage with its framework on a deeper level.
As an anchor who also made deals with Nightmare, Wen Jianyan knew that Oracle cheated.
Its long-standing dominance as the number one guild in the instances wasn’t just due to the monopoly of the “prophecy talent.” In other words, without cheating, Oracle couldn’t have maintained this monopoly.
There was some sort of deal hidden, some unspeakable purpose, and some deep reason unknown to any ordinary anchor.
So, he proposed another condition in exchange.
A deal more arrogant and ambitious than “not dying in one instance.”
An opportunity to delve deeper into Nightmare and uncover its secrets.
He wanted to lead his guild, gain Oracle’s cheating methods, and replace them, becoming Nightmare’s second puppet.
A more loyal dog.
A sharper knife.
—Until he decided to turn on his master.
In the shadows, a figure slowly emerged.
Wu Zhu lowered his head, looking at the human in front of him with cold, golden eyes.
This place was both inside and outside the instance, more akin to a forcibly created gap.
Here, Wen Jianyan’s disguise failed. Although his clothes remained the same, his limbs elongated, showing male characteristics and appearing tall and strong, and his features returned to their original clarity and handsomeness.
He raised his hand, supporting the other’s waist.
“Wake up.”
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