Chapter 15: Accident

Floating above the altar was a fist-sized eye, slender and slightly curved, nine-tenths similar to the mark on the Traveler's Talisman.

Just one glance was enough to confirm it was Lyman's eye.

Cursed Gold…

It should be called Cursed Eye.

Lyman's Eye on the altar also spotted Wu Chang; its pupil emitted unmasked malice, transmitting a signal through gaze alone, without a single sound.

What are you staring at? Wu Chang remained unfazed by the provocation; he stepped up to the altar, stared at Lyman's Eye, and excitedly rubbed his hands together.

Old man, no—respectful Elder Anderson, Captain of the Knight Order, you've just dropped a massive haul of coins.

Lyman's Eye sensed Wu Chang's intent; purple light flickered in its pupil. The next instant, Wu Chang felt an inexplicable chill, his head spun, and he stepped back half a pace.

He looked up at Lyman's Eye and saw that the massive pupil was filled with confusion and bewilderment.

It seemed unable to understand why this insignificant pest possessed such strong willpower, able to resist its attack.

Wu Chang shook his head and continued approaching Lyman's Eye.

With every step closer, the madness and malice within Lyman's Eye deepened, and it unleashed a stronger assault each time.

From the altar's edge to near Lyman's Eye, he took exactly ten steps.

The force of Lyman's Eye's attacks had escalated from merely inducing coldness to delivering a brutal punch straight to his skull.

Two meters away from Lyman's Eye—if this continued, even his thirty-plus willpower wouldn't hold.

Lyman's Eye sensed Wu Chang nearing his limit; it assumed the posture of a victor, its "What are you staring at?" gaze flooding Wu Chang like a virus-infected pop-up, relentless and unhinged.

Wu Chang felt a warm stream gushing from his nasal cavity; he wiped it with the back of his hand—it was blood.

He casually smeared the blood on his clothes, grinned at Lyman's Eye, revealing a row of even white teeth.

"You think you can beat the Resurrection Match before that one? You've never taken an elbow, have you?"

Instantly, under Lyman's Eye's terrified gaze, Wu Chang crossed the two-meter gap, his elbow slicing like a blade, slamming hard into the center of the pupil.

"Man!"

Blindness, dizziness, bleeding, weakness, poisoning—status effects flashed in rapid succession, making Lyman's Eye resemble a corneal infection: its pupil swelled red, brimming with blood vessels, tears streaming uncontrollably.

"What are you staring at?" Wu Chang, now in control, spat out the standard reply he'd held back.

Wu Chang's Insight value was too high; the negative status effects lasted a full two minutes before beginning to fade.

After taking the elbow, Lyman's Eye's malice receded, its gaze instantly clearing.

Wu Chang thought it had surrendered and reached forward—Lyman's Eye immediately resumed its attack posture.

He withdrew his hand and raised his elbow; Lyman's Eye's gaze cleared again.

This cycle repeated two or three times; Wu Chang frowned, drew a Demonic Crossbow Arrow with his left hand, assumed the Mamba Iron Elbow stance with his right, and growled: "Don't refuse the wine and drink the cephalosporin."

After a moment, Lyman's Eye seemed to accept its fate, ceased resistance, and closed its eyes.

As Wu Chang took Lyman's Eye, the Moonlight Sanatorium—and indeed the entire Bai Shi Town—began to shake violently.

The violent earthquake lasted ten minutes; during which, buildings collapsed, ground fissures opened, and the town descended into chaos.

Believers of the Sect of Serenity gathered on open ground, praying for their Lord's salvation—but the sturdy stone statues shattered before their eyes.

It looked exactly like the end of the world.

The clouds obscuring the moonlight above Bai Shi Town had, unnoticed, begun to disperse.

Dawn was coming.

The Moonlight Sanatorium was extraordinarily perilous; one misstep, and eternal ruin.

Yet among players obsessed with this dungeon, Wu Chang, inside the dungeon, was among the most relaxed.

If anyone bore the greatest pressure, it was undoubtedly Gao from the Red Temple.

As the stopwatch's digits changed, the Moonlight Sanatorium dungeon's timer reached two hours and thirty minutes.

For Gao, responsible for Haiwang City, these two hours felt like two centuries.

His gaze never wavered; he dared not blink, fearing that if he did, the dungeon's portal would shatter and the Moonlight Sanatorium would spiral completely out of control.

Not only did he dare not look away—even breathing and speaking, he minimized all sound, terrified that any noise might startle the rookie inside the dungeon and hasten the disaster.

"Gao, how's it going?" Lei Huo, unlike Gao, wasn't so cautious; upon entering the temple, he bellowed at the top of his lungs.

"Situation is temporarily stable. According to big data analysis, our new player has a 65% chance of lasting four hours."

Gao rubbed his face, forcing himself to relax; even as a veteran, he couldn't endure this much mental strain—he needed to clear his head.

"What about outside?" Lei Huo: "Defense and evacuation in Zone One are nearly complete; evacuation and sheltering in Zones Two and Three are proceeding orderly. If this unlucky new player really lasts four hours, we might even evacuate most of Zone Three."

"At that point, we can confidently reduce casualties to half—or even a fifth—of the Sakura Island incident. But…"

Here, Lei Huo paused.

"Trouble?" Gao asked, frowning.

Lei Huo spat on the ground, sneering: "Some bastards don't want us to get through this crisis easily—the hidden rats can't hold back any longer."

"The rumor-mongers have all been traced along the network lines; those infiltrators trying to sabotage the shelters have been contained and are awaiting interrogation."

As the number of Deep Game players grew, all veterans could feel that their real world was undergoing a massive transformation.

Especially over the past two years, bizarre events had erupted worldwide, one after another—century-level disasters and major accidents, and dungeon uncontrollability had become increasingly frequent.

Though nations had held over a hundred meetings and endlessly preached "community of shared destiny for humanity," when any country actually faced trouble, the first reaction of other allies was never to extend a hand.

Treating the unfortunate ones as lab rats, letting problems fester to gather sufficient data, better served others' interests.

If the problem wasn't big enough, some allies wouldn't mind helping make it bigger.

Even without allies, some local factions would act themselves.

The recent Sakura Island B-rank dungeon uncontrollability was initially manageable; its escalation to over thirty thousand dead and missing was no accident—Bai Ta and Sakura Island's local forces had contributed significantly.

Gao rubbed his forehead; he simply had no energy to deal with those rats.

"They're all cannon fodder—what can you extract from interrogating them? After interrogation, recyclable trash gets sent into high-difficulty dungeons as scouts; non-recyclable? Just kill them."

Lei Huo sat down beside Old Gao and said irritably, "When we sealed off the dungeon entrance earlier, it already drew the attention of other factions. Combined with our moves in Wanghai City, plenty of people outside have already guessed something happened inside the dungeon."

"Some busybody bastard used Abyss authority and found that our dungeon's passage hadn't opened, then deduced that the players currently inside the dungeon entered through the trial passage."

Old Gao increased the kneading pressure and asked, "And then?"

Lei Huo: "And then we became the funniest joke inside the Abyss Game this year — or even these past few years."

"Every player in the Wasteland Realm is watching us. On the forums, the Moonlight Sanatorium dungeon topic has already shot to number one on the trending list; the other nine on the dungeon popularity chart combined can't hold a candle to it."

"The Bureau's under a lot of pressure right now. The moment our new friend can't hold on anymore, that pressure comes crashing down on us."

Old Gao was speechless for a moment, then slowly squeezed out a "Fuck!"

Hearing Leng Shan, who had listened to their entire conversation, cut in: "No need to be that pessimistic. I have a hunch — the guy inside the dungeon might actually come out alive."

Lei Huo curled his lip. "Then you're way too optimistic."

Leng Shan asked, "A new player, with an about-to-spiral-out-of-control B-rank dungeon as their trial dungeon — don't you think that's too abnormal? At least in my memory, I don't recall ever hearing of this kind of matching."

Lei Huo immediately replied, "Blind guess is that Bai Ta and Yingdao are up to something. They got a taste of sweetness recently, and rumor has it they've already started reaching out to those players who worship evil gods, trying to deliberately make dungeons lose control."

Leng Shan hesitated for a moment, but still said, "I trust my gut more. There's something off about the guy inside the dungeon. If he can come out alive, he might not destabilize the dungeon — he might even bring back a lot of intel."

Old Gao exhaled a breath of stale air. "Forget bringing intel back — if he can hold out for four hours, I'll burn incense and thank the heavens. If he can hold out for eight hours, then he's accumulated boundless merit, and I'll personally build him a temple and cast a golden statue myself."

Lei Huo asked, "And what if he comes out alive?"

"Then I'll eat this teleportation gate—"

Old Gao hadn't finished his sentence when, on the monitoring instrument, the pollution level of the Moonlight Sanatorium plummeted, shifting in the blink of an eye from on the brink of losing control to mildly dangerous.

If the pollution level drops just a bit more, it'll be close to the safe line.

Lei Huo rubbed his eyes in disbelief and shouted, "Holy shit, what's going on? Is the instrument broken?"

Leng Shan maintained his "absolutely calm" state — shocked, but not to the point of losing composure — and quickly began analyzing.

"A drop in pollution level this large means the player inside the dungeon completed at least one main quest and hit some important plot node. If they clear the dungeon alive while maintaining this state, the completion rate won't be below 75%."

"You mean that new player is about to break the deadlock?" The happiness came so suddenly that Old Gao's brain temporarily crashed.

He could no longer tell which surprised him more — Wanghai City turning from danger to safety, or a new player breaking the deadlock on a B-rank dungeon about to lose control.

"If nothing unexpected happens, yes."

Old Gao asked instinctively, "And if something unexpected happens?"

Before Leng Shan could answer, the pollution level on the instrument, which had been approaching the safe range, suddenly spiked and surged violently toward the loss-of-control line.

Lei Huo stared blankly at the screen, then turned and slapped Old Gao.

"I don't know what happens if the dungeon hits a snag, but I do know that if you don't shut your jinx mouth, you'll be the one hitting a snag real soon."

(End of chapter)