To be honest, although he had deeply experienced the deceptive methods used by the supernatural to induce players into slaughter several times, Gao Hai still felt from the bottom of his heart that this kind of trickery was absolutely disgusting.
Bam—
The pitch-black umbrella snapped open.
Relying on reaction speed and explosive power that surpassed human limits, Gao Hai dodged and concealed his presence before those things could open the door and reach out.
"Eh, eh, eh?!"
The pitch-black umbrella "gifted" by the [Female Face Gang] not only helped Gao Hai turn invisible before supernatural entities, but its effect was even stronger against ordinary humans. Therefore, Chika Fujiwara, who had been keeping her eyes on Gao Hai, immediately noticed he was gone and couldn't help but let out a cry of surprise.
Of course, the young girl's exclamation vanished immediately after, because Gao Hai had already rushed in front of her with the umbrella, pulled her underneath it, and somewhat roughly held Chika in his arms, causing her breath to hitch.
"Don't move. This umbrella has a limited range. Once your body moves outside of it, you'll likely be seen by those things."
Before Chika could struggle, Gao Hai warned her with a solemn tone. This made the flushing Chika stop her movements involuntarily, allowing herself to be obediently held in Gao Hai's arms with one hand, manipulated at his will like a large doll.
Heartbeat accelerating.
Even knowing the current situation was extremely dangerous, Chika Fujiwara in this moment couldn't prevent her heart from beating faster.
However, Gao Hai paid no attention to such things, as he had already seen the large doors of the Training Area slowly opening. He saw people dressed in firefighter or rescue uniforms walking out one by one, expressionless, eyes glazed over, stepping into the corridor just like that, advancing towards the front of the hallway, towards the approaching tourists.
Seeing Gao Hai and Chika Fujiwara vanish instantly, Lixer's brow twitched slightly. Then, without hesitation, he took off his backpack, pulled out a security guard uniform, and threw it to Susan on the other side.
"Put it on directly, move fast."
Saying this, Lixer took out a second security uniform and quickly put it on himself. The two then vanished directly from the corridor.
Did they put on the security uniforms?
It seems this veteran player named Lixer is quite decisive. Although the world on the security uniform side leads directly to the exit, the hidden danger is extremely high. To be honest, Gao Hai wasn't very optimistic about these two players.
It's a bit of a pity he didn't get more intelligence out of that Susan.
Before the instance was fixed, the game hints mentioned that the [Actors for the Curtain Call] had not yet all arrived. Since then, Gao Hai began to suspect whether there existed someone associated with the Red Nut Gray Hole instance who had not died inside it, and who had successfully evaded the tracking of the horror story's power by some method.
Someone directly connected to this instance, significantly related to the core of the instance, who continued to live somewhere in the world after the horror story was formed. It was precisely because of that person's absence that the Red Nut Gray Hole instance remained in an unfixed state, preventing all secrets from being revealed and keeping the Core Obsession in a dormant state.
And now, after Gao Hai's group participated in this instance, that person who should have appeared here, that actor involved in the [Curtain Call], had also entered the instance.
It might even be one of the players.
Gao Hai believed this conjecture was very close to the truth, which was why the words of that player named Susan earlier made him very concerned. It was just a pity that the moment just now was too urgent, and his umbrella couldn't guarantee remaining undetected while sheltering three people.
However, there should be other ways.
Gao Hai thought of the blood key he got from Lao Guo.
In the first loop, because he was exploring intelligence completely in the dark and most scenes he experienced were caves, Gao Hai never found a place where that blood key could function. But now, assuming he already knew a lot of intelligence in the second loop, this key might play an unexpected role. For example, connecting a certain door to the sentry box door in the security world, or directly connecting to a door in the research base... Well, that won't work. At least Gao Hai couldn't do that; it would only cause the ghost thing watching him to go berserk ahead of time, leading to a happy party wipe for everyone and the start of the next round.
If there was a way to mask the gaze of the Core Obsession... No, forget that, I definitely can't afford the price of such a wish.
Amidst his thoughts, Gao Hai had already stood against the wall, his body pressed tightly against it.
And seeing those rescue team members approaching step by step, Chika Fujiwara couldn't help but press even closer to Gao Hai, almost sinking her entire body into his.
Though even if she didn't do that, there wouldn't be much difference. After all, at this moment, Chika, who was less than one meter fifty in height, had already been lifted up by Gao Hai with one hand, her feet off the ground. For Gao Hai's current physical constitution, lifting Chika with one hand was an effortless task, so much so that he himself didn't notice Chika's posture at this time.
Drip-drop—
From far away, it seemed the sound of dripping water was heard again.
This time Gao Hai noticed the strange sound, but the approaching anomalies forced him to focus his attention on the present, unable to pay attention to that sound.
[Hoo...]
He could hear the breathing of those things.
Expressionless people passed by, bringing waves of chill.
Gao Hai held Chika, carefully navigating through these things without touching any of them.
The tourists behind were still advancing step by step amidst laughter.
And the rescuers walking at the very front had already made contact with those tourists.
Drip-drop— Drip-drop—
The sound of dripping water became clear.
[Hoo...]
The sound of breathing also became heavier at this moment.
Gao Hai turned his head back and saw the bloated rescuers.
Their whole bodies were wrapped in rescue suits, swelling up as if inflated, presenting a deformed appearance.
Water droplets constantly dripped from these rescuers, the water flow spreading continuously across the entire corridor, while the tourists had already vanished; there were no tourists anymore. There were only clothes floating on the water surface, only those corpses floating in the water.
No, that's not right...
There are no corpses, no...
Gao Hai slowly retreated backwards, distancing himself from this corridor that was becoming increasingly weird.
The walls were becoming more and more like the rough rock structure of a cave.
The lighting grew dimmer, as if the light was about to disappear completely from here.
Those swollen firefighters and rescuers were walking step by step into the water, slowly disappearing from Gao Hai's line of sight just like that.
He turned his head and looked to his side.
The tiled walls and the rocky cave structure were interlacing with each other, the latter about to completely replace the former.
Before the tiled wall completely disappeared, Gao Hai saw a line of handwriting left on it, as if someone had a whim, picked up a pen, and wrote it there.
The content of that line was:
[What have we done?]
The next moment, Gao Hai had stepped into the Training Area. He tilted his head, bit the handle of the umbrella with his mouth to maintain balance, then reached out to grab the door handle, slowly closing the door.
The corridor behind the door had vanished, leaving only a water-covered cave.
And those people in rescue suits floating in the cave, floating in the current that submerged the cave.
[What have we done?]
As if he could hear someone sighing in his ear.
That's right, all of this shouldn't have happened.
These good lads shouldn't have passed away silently like this.
Those innocent people who just wanted to visit here shouldn't have just disappeared.
It shouldn't be like this; such things shouldn't have happened.
What have we done?
What on earth have we done?
What is the point of continuing like this?
Click—
With the soft sound of the door lock, Gao Hai closed and locked the door.
Turning his head again, before his eyes was the empty Training Area. He could see sunlight penetrating through the windows installed on the roof, illuminating the various equipment in this huge Training Area, revealing a trace of quiet beauty as if nothing had happened yet.
Letting go, Gao Hai put Chika down and put away the umbrella.
Chika Fujiwara stepped back slightly and let out a long breath. It was unknown whether her relieved posture was due to the anomalies encountered just now or some other reason.
Meanwhile, Gao Hai had already stored the umbrella, which had started seeping blood and showed obvious signs of losing control, into the space of his watch. Then he quickly scanned the entire Training Area, moved his hands and feet slightly, and prepared for action.
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