Chapter 454: Blood-Painted Stage

After pulling back the distance, someone finally spoke with a trembling voice: "How... what happened?"

"That thing—how did it suddenly look over here?"

"What does this mean?"

"It wasn't looking at us—it was looking at him!"

The speaker raised his hand pointing at the bespectacled man, and the remaining few also looked over.

The bespectacled man still hadn't figured out the situation; seeing his companions standing far away, he was so scared tears were about to come out, and he hurriedly said:

"What are you doing walking off? Nothing happened! Why did you all leave! We agreed to stick together for warmth—we're a team! How could you do this?"

Hearing this, Cheng Shuili shook her head.

Only the bespectacled man would believe that.

If she remembered correctly, just now when this group came to question Qing Qing's a kiss, it was this guy who took the lead—typical of being pushed out as a pawn, yet he still thought he was the team's core, an idiot.

Cheng Shuili snorted coldly in her heart.

In the Instance, people who can't see the situation and rely too much on others often die the fastest and feel the most stifled.

She watched the developments coldly.

The bespectacled man was still desperately pleading, while the short-haired woman among the four, who seemed to be on his side, was the first to step forward and draw a line with him.

"No... no, bespectacled brother,"

Although she said that, the short-haired female player's voice carried an obvious detachment.

She didn't dare look at the bespectacled man's eyes, her gaze wandering to the floor: "We... we're not refusing to help you, but that thing seems to have fixed its gaze on you now! If we get close, we might get dragged in too! You... you'd better be careful..."

While saying that, she also stepped back half a step, completely putting over three meters between herself and the bespectacled man, almost retreating to the aisle beside a row of seats.

The other two male players didn't speak, but their body language said everything.

They closely followed the short-haired woman behind her, likewise keeping their distance, eyes flickering, avoiding the bespectacled man's desperate gaze.

The pleading on the bespectacled man's face froze instantly, replaced by an incredulous, utterly betrayed shock and anger.

"How... how could you do this?! We agreed! We agreed to survive together!!"

"Survive?" The last person of the five-member team, who hadn't finished speaking earlier, dropped all pretense: "Who doesn't want to survive? You're the one being targeted—who can blame you? Stay away from you, we... might still have a chance..."

He couldn't finish his words, because the theater's lights suddenly dimmed again.

Qing Qing's a kiss gripped the dagger in her hand the moment the lights dimmed, pressing her back tightly against the one-way glass, ready for battle at any moment.

Although everything in the darkness is unknown, Cheng Shuili and Qing Qing's a kiss both had a premonition.

Perhaps what happened last time in the darkness would happen again.

The silence lasted only a moment, then that familiar sweet-bloody smell spread again.

Immediately after, the bespectacled man's desperate, anguished scream rang out in the darkness, his voice sounding as if half of it had been muffled, becoming low and distorted:

"No!! Don't come over! Get out! Uh... cough cough..."

Then came the sound of a body being dragged, the thud of hitting a chair, and...

a sucking-like viscous sound.

This sound made everyone who heard it shiver.

Fortunately, the sound lasted only a few seconds, and all struggling and strange noises ceased.

The darkness remained thick, and dead silence once again ruled everything.

Time flowed slowly in the darkness, each second feeling stretched.

Finally, just like last time, the darkness began to recede.

The source of light was no longer the stage lights, but a pale-white pillar that first lit up from the center of the Blood Ring, like a tombstone, illuminating the surrounding Gray Puppets standing still.

Next, the light spread, illuminating more areas of the audience seats.

Qing Qing's a kiss's gaze first swept over the spot where the bespectacled man had just been.

That place was empty.

There was no bloodstain, no trace of struggle, and even the chair he had previously slumped in and messed up returned to its original state, as if no one had ever been there.

It was eerily clean.

And on the aisle not far from that spot, the four surviving players huddled together, backs against the seats, faces ashen as ghosts, bodies trembling like leaves in the wind.

Their shocked gazes fixed on the Blood Ring direction, they also nervously scanned the surroundings, as if fearing they might be next.

Qing Qing's a kiss understood clearly in her heart.

The bespectacled man, had been cleared away.

In that aftermath-like silence, the cold announcement sounded again:

"Thank you to this selfless actor for presenting a splendid opening performance for our great final act!"

The announcement carried a hint of undisguised pleasure.

Cheng Shuili understood.

The bespectacled man had become the final sacrifice before the opening of this final act.

The surviving players hated the announcement to the bone, but this hatred could not outweigh the fear of impending death; they couldn't even muster a shred of anger, only shrinking their heads, as if doing so would keep the next death from being theirs.

Although they were shrinking, their eyes occasionally flicked to the nearby Qing Qing's a kiss.

In their eyes was not pleading, but venomous resentment.

It was as if they were blaming Qing Qing's a kiss for coldly standing by.

Qing Qing's a kiss initially pretended not to notice, but after being glanced at repeatedly, she snorted coldly, brandished her dagger twice, and said: "Still looking? If you keep looking, I won't need the Instance to act—I'll send you straight to death!"

Her words carried a killing intent that made the four surviving players instantly shrink their heads, not daring to move at all.

It seemed they feared that these players, who had barely survived to the end, would die from infighting; the announcement, full of malice yet with a hint of urgency, rang out again in a strange tone:

"Now, the actors are all present, the stage is ready."

"The grand final act officially begins! The performance rules are as follows——"

The announcer's voice drew out its tone, each word like a cold nail hammered into the survivors' hearts, but the sound suddenly ceased.

Immediately afterward, all surviving players saw the rules appear before them.

There was no lengthy exposition, only one rule and one encouragement.

【The lights go out every ten minutes, each outage inevitably kills one person. Only one person can prevail in this act! After prevailing, the entire Instance ends!】

【My most selfless actor, please offer the most splendid finale for this grand final act!】

The scarlet text hovered like a brand before each survivor, lasting three seconds before slowly fading away.

Dead silence.

A dead silence heavier than any before.

Even Qing Qing's hand gripping the dagger, her knuckles whitening from the force, she almost instinctively turned her head to look at Cheng Shuili in the booth.