The Thousand-Faced Wraith laughed and said: "A damn great opportunity. Me... and you... if we fuse, we can create a world inside mirrors. Lock everyone into the mirror, and we can build a perfect world."
Rover frowned: "Not interested, not doing it, not cooperating."
"Then..." The Thousand-Faced Wraith swung its hand, and four shards of broken mirror flew around him. From those four shards, blood-red tentacles stretched out, slowly reaching toward him.
Rover gritted his teeth. His body had almost turned into glass, unable to feel anything, unable to move, only able to watch as those tentacles crept toward him like bloodthirsty leeches.
His head throbbed. Blood ran from his nose and ears as his body felt unbearably heavy, like a massive boulder was crushing him down.
"Hahahaha..." The Thousand-Faced Wraith laughed loudly. "Your body can't even bear the power of this ability. You... you're too damn useless."
Rover clenched his teeth and tried to use [Mirror] again, but it was pointless. His mental energy was nearly drained dry.
At that moment, he suddenly remembered something. He immediately opened the system interface, his eyes landing on the [Survival Guide] sitting neatly in his backpack.
At the very bottom of the [Survival Guide], a new line of text had appeared.
[Thousand-Faced Wraith: It cannot be killed, nor will it disappear. It exists alongside this world for almost eternity. The only way is to negotiate, or offer something that interests it.]
[Hint: The Thousand-Faced Wraith is a wandering spirit of this world, absorbing the deepest darkness in people's hearts to strengthen itself.]
'Absorbs the darkness in people's hearts to grow stronger. Maybe that thing can help me.' Rover thought.
In those final seconds, he quickly opened the interface, selected 'Wraith Pharmaceuticals', then chose to Upgrade.
[Ding! To Upgrade, 350 Omni Points are required, you...]
"Accept! Hurry up!"
[Ding! Upgrade successful, you have obtained [Wraith Pharmaceuticals] โ Level 1.]
"Continue upgrading!"
[Ding! To Upgrade, 700 Omni Points are required...]
"Accept!"
[Ding! Upgrade successful.]
His eyes saw those tentacles already plunging into his body, then trying to suck something out, making his mind start to fade into haze.
Rover hurriedly shouted: "Wait! I want to make a deal with you."
"Hm?!" The Thousand-Faced Wraith frowned and stepped out from the mirror in front of Rover. Wearing Rover's face, it said: "A deal? Rover, do you have something that interests me?"
Rover panted hard, then forced out a phrase: "Wraith Pharmaceuticals."
Hearing those words, the Thousand-Faced Wraith looked momentarily stunned, then laughed in crazed delight: "Hahahaha... you got lucky, Rover. But with just that, only you get out. The other two girls stay here."
Rover panted, not knowing how valuable [Wraith Pharmaceuticals] truly was, but the moment it heard the name and immediately let him go, he understood it mattered to this thing.
"But..." Rover forced his breathing steady, then said: "But what if I told you... the Wraith Pharmaceuticals in my hands are three times as effective as normal?"
The Thousand-Faced Wraith frowned. It stared at him, that face still Rover's, yet wrapped in a strange, maddening fog that was hard to describe.
After a while, it laughed and said: "Show me."
Rover let out a long breath. Now he was backed into a corner with no room to retreat. He could only gamble.
He used the system and took out [Wraith Pharmaceuticals].
The instant a vial of medicine radiating an eerie blue appeared, the Thousand-Faced Wraith snatched it at once, greed blazing across its face.
"Hahahaha... hahahaha..."๐ง๐๐๐๐๐ซ๐ท๐ค๐ฟ๐๐ก.๐๐ค๐ถ
It laughed, the laughter of hundreds of voices at once, but distorted into something grotesque and ear-piercing.
"Very good! With this, I can expand my range of movement, hahahaha..." the Thousand-Faced Wraith said.
Rover spoke up: "About your promise..."
The Thousand-Faced Wraith flicked its hand, and immediately...
Kleng!
The layer of glass encasing Rover's body shattered, and he immediately collapsed onto the floor.
The Thousand-Faced Wraith stepped up to him, wearing a greedy, crazed smile that made him shiver in fear.
"You... Uh!"
Before Rover could finish his sentence, a blood-red tentacle shot into his mouth. Then he felt something like roots spreading through his entire body.
"Hahahaha... you're worth investing in, Rover." The Thousand-Faced Wraith laughed madly.
Rover couldn't hear anything anymore. His body convulsed violently, blood-red roots slithering beneath his skin like snakes, invading every inch of him.
Blood poured from Rover's nose, mouth, ears, and eyes like tiny streams. His eyes rolled back until only a cloudy white remained, like egg whites.
Rover's limbs spasmed. His fingertips and toes burst apart, revealing small holes. Blood roots pushed out from those holes, then took root in the ground.
A moment later, Rover lay on the floor, no longer moving. His body seemed to turn into some bizarre plant, blood roots spreading from him across the corridor.
Those roots continuously drank up the blood on the floor and fed it back into his body. But Rover had already lost consciousness, lying still, his lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling.
Seeing this, the Thousand-Faced Wraith nodded in satisfaction. "Later... you'll have to thank me, hahahaha..."
....
"AGH!!!" Rover jolted awake with a scream, his body springing up from the bed like a coil.
He found himself lying on the bed. Beside him, Nanoe and Selina were still asleep. Of course, they were still dressed.
"Ha... ha... ha..." He panted, feeling sweat soaking his body. His heartbeat was so fast it felt like it might leap out of his chest, making it hard to breathe.
After a while, he calmed down and looked around, realizing it was still his room.
Nothing was different. Nothing was strange.
He clutched his head. A strange stream of information surfaced in his mind, like black-and-white images with no connection to each other, as if they were just random snapshots.
However, there was also quite a bit of information related to his ability, [Mirror].
Rover let out a long breath and sat on the bed, trying to steady his mind and emotions, feeling like everything he'd just gone through was nothing but a long dream.
Then he opened his personal status panel.
.....
[Name: Rover]
[Role: Owner 2705]
[Rank: 0]
[Attribute Points: Physique 54 | Spirit 89]
[Class: Omni โ Mechanic (Rank SSS)]
[Skills: Devour (S18) | Intuition (D11 โ Level 1) | Mirror (SS -1)]
[Tenants: Nanoe; Selina | 2/2]
....
Nothing was strange. However... the Thousand-Faced Wraith's last words left him feeling uneasy.
"Am I worth investing in?... And why did it do that to me?"
Rover remembered the horrific pain the Thousand-Faced Wraith had inflicted on him, but he could only shake his head. If he couldn't understand it, there was no point dwelling on it, because no matter how much he thought, there would be no answer.
He looked around, then at the system interface again, feeling like this world didn't quite feel real.
"Could it be... I'm still inside the Thousand-Faced Wraith's illusion?" Rover muttered.
[Ding! The Thousand-Faced Wraith has left. The first round has ended. Survivors remaining: 152. All surviving Survivors will be promoted to Rank 1 and receive a Rank 1 gift pack.]
[Announcement:
Rest time until Round 2 is 96 hours, starting from 00:00 tonight. After 24 hours, new facilities including: Flower Garden, Supermarket, and Cafeteria will be opened. After 48 hours, a supply package will be dropped at the Flower Garden. Anyone may compete for it. After 72 hours, a second batch of Survivors will be added. After 96 hours, the next round will begin.]
At that moment, a notification panel appeared in front of Rover, and his mood gradually steadied.
Rover took a deep breath and murmured, "Looks like... I'm back in reality."