Chapter 247: Humility and Caution are Friends of Life

After finishing contact with the M. E. G. organization, Mr. X began to lead the team to set off.

In this Backrooms, every level was like an independent prison cell. There were only a few channels that could be explored between the cells, and some channels were one-way.

At the same time, because the space between levels was very unstable, theoretically, there was a non-zero probability of entering any level by any means.

However, if one wanted to rely purely on luck to hit such a probability, one would at least have to be a "European Emperor" (lucky person), and it had to be the kind who could get a hit on a single draw consecutively.

Therefore, the current path to a certain level generally required passing through multiple levels, and only after wandering around could one enter the destination.

The boiler room on Level 5, where the equipment was steaming, provided heating and hot water for this hotel. Walking down the road in the middle of the boiler room, one might enter another level in the sweltering air.

On the way forward, the two chatted all the way.

From the conversation, Frank was able to learn some simple common sense about the world.

The development trajectory of this world was very similar to Earth, at least according to Mr. X's description. The only difference might be the existence of ghosts in the front yard.

"I was nocliped into the Backrooms when I heard a strange sound and got stuck in a 'ghost hitting wall' (loop) and couldn't get out. At that time, I met the Home Hotel team collecting supplies on Level 1. After accepting their help, I slowly joined them."

Mr. X walked in front of the team, his tone as calm as a friend chatting while eating. This was because the armor on his body brought him a strong sense of security. Many entities encountered just now could not break through the defense at all.

And Frank specifically let him test the armor's weapons, which were quite powerful. Ordinary entities could be completely solved with just one hit.

"Noclipping... what exactly does it feel like?" Frank asked. He entered through the teleportation array of the Masters of the Mystic Arts, so he hadn't truly nocliped once.

"... I don't know how to describe it either. In short, when that time comes, you will understand that you have nocliped." Mr. X said and suddenly gestured excitedly to Frank, "It's starting!"

Frank frowned. He felt a traction of rules, the intensity of which was not too high. If he wanted to break free, he could break free.

But given that this was highly likely the "noclipping" Mr. X spoke of, Frank did not disconnect the rule line.

Under the traction of the rule line, Frank trance-like entered a narrow and dark space. This seemed to be the gap between two levels. Here, Frank felt a soul-stirring fear.

He snapped his right hand, and Holy Light concentrated and erupted from his fingertips, illuminating the space around Frank.

At this moment, Frank stopped in astonishment, not daring to move.

In front of him was a part of a huge spider web, completely unable to see the end. However, peeking through the tube, Frank could also roughly guess how huge it would be if there were really "spiders" here.

The end of each spider silk was connected to a space, which was the level. And on the spider silk, a dark power was constantly surging, gathering, wrapping, and generating some kind of evil thing.

When this kind of thing was about to appear, the spider web began to vibrate. The rule lines where chaos and order were intertwined directly defeated that thing.

They seemed to be in a hostile relationship, or rather, the dark power seemed to be trying to erode and parasitize this huge spider web, while the spider web itself was struggling to fight back and resist.

When the two sides were competing, Frank felt that the rule line pulling him became more and more forceful, wanting to take him into another level.

Before leaving, Frank pointed his finger at a dark generation point on another spider silk.

Holy Light Baptism!

The dazzling Holy Light smashed directly onto the dark generation point like a star-destroying cannon. After reaching level 21, all the skills taught by Lucian were no longer so rigid, and Frank could already use them flexibly.

Under the Holy Light strike, the darkness faded rapidly. However, the spider web power caused by the darkness did not dissipate nor continue to move forward. After the target disappeared, it directly locked onto Frank's position and began to change rapidly.

A bit of madness, a bit of disorder, a bit of slaughter. Soon, a thin, tall, faceless man waved his limbs as thin as bamboo poles and rushed toward Frank. When charging, the faceless man lowered his head and hid his face, as if he was shy?!

Frank relaxed his control over his body and let the rule line take him into the next level.

After entering, Frank immediately urged the Holy Light in his body to wash away the implanted mark.

Perhaps the energy used by this mark was too high-level. After consuming a large amount of energy, Frank still failed to remove it. The most stubborn part of the mark was still emitting information.

There was no way, Frank could only surround the mark with Holy Light, blocking the spread of information. However, this was treating the symptoms but not the root cause. When the closed information accumulated to a certain extent, it had to be released once, otherwise, the involved Holy Light would become more and more.

"Phew, we should have arrived safely. No abnormalities appeared." Mr. X observed the surrounding environment and said.

"How do we go next?" Frank kept everything he just saw in his heart, not intending to say it out.

"First pass through a channel to Level 7, then find a poster and landmark to go to Level 11, and finally noclipping out in a house on Level 11 will most likely reach Level 1." Mr. X said after glancing at his memo.

"How was this road designed?" Frank continued to ask.

"Try it again and again, and then combine the results." Mr. X explained.

Frank nodded. He understood. The roads in the hands of these M. E. G. people were just products of simple experience summary. They didn't understand the principles behind them.

Simply put, they knew that it was so, but didn't know why it was so.

This was also normal. As the largest group in the Backrooms, M. E. G. only had hundreds or thousands of people. This number, let alone exploring the truth, was enough to exhaust all their efforts just to ensure stable survival.

"Let's go, hurry to Level 1." Frank urged.

Next, when "noclipping in" and "noclipping out," Frank paid special attention to the faceless man who marked him, but he didn't see its appearance among the endless spider webs. It seemed to have disappeared.

After a while, Frank finally arrived at Level 1. This was a place similar to a huge warehouse. The repetitive architecture made it look very monotonous.

Listening quietly to the surrounding sounds, one could hear people talking not far away.

Mr. X looked at the surrounding environment and the various graffiti on the walls, and then compared them with some photos on the map. He was trying to locate their current position.

A major difficulty in surviving in the Backrooms was that when switching levels, one didn't always appear in a fixed place, which could cause wanderers to get lost in any level.

"There is a sound ahead, let's go over and ask." Frank reminded.

"Ah, okay." Mr. X put away the map on the display screen, although he still didn't hear anything with the help of the armor.

Walking forward for a dozen corners, at least one or two kilometers later, Mr. X finally heard the human voice Frank mentioned. It was a prompt recorded by a loudspeaker.

【Ahead is Level 1.1, Endless Corridor, please note to all wanderers, as exploration deepens, the danger level here will continue to rise...】

Now Mr. X understood where they were. "We went the wrong way. M. E. G.'s headquarters is in the opposite direction of the Endless Corridor. But now we can send them a message directly and let them come to pick us up."

Frank looked at the entrance of the Endless Corridor in the distance. He could feel that an extremely fierce battle seemed to have broken out here, the kind involving the rule level.

"What is Level 1.1?" Frank asked.

"It refers to secret levels, sub-levels. Every large level may have sub-levels. The internal environment is significantly different from the large level, so it is named a sub-level."

Mr. X was a very qualified guide. After all, when he was on Level 5 - Terror Hotel, he often had to interpret some conventional terms for new wanderers.

"The Endless Corridor is divided into several areas. The deeper you go, the more unstable the space, and the higher the number and danger level of entities."

"After going deep for about two kilometers, you reach an area that is completely impossible to explore. Wanderers who survived by luck reported that it is a distorted space where everything can be deformed."

"For example, M. E. G.'s database has records that a survivor had a black hole with a diameter of about 15 centimeters on his chest. His hand could reach out directly from there. The bones and internal organs that should have been there were all gone, but the survivor himself had no abnormal reaction."

Mr. X saw that Frank seemed very concerned about that side and took the initiative to introduce it. "In addition, it is said that that area is particularly easy to noclipping out, and the location of noclipping out is completely random."

Frank thought for a while and turned to look at Mr. X. "You contact the people at M. E. G., I'll go in and see. If I haven't come out after a day, you don't have to wait for me."

Doing this was because when Frank's brain was associating and matching, it pulled out the video that Wang showed him.

The place where Connors carried Johnson away in the video at that time seemed to be here.

Moving forward along the Endless Corridor, Frank soon reached the area that Mr. X called impossible to explore, also known by M. E. G. as the area where life is extinct.

Stopping at the dividing line between the two areas, Frank stretched out his finger across the dividing line, sensing the space ahead carefully.

"Darkness... active energy... overlapping space... smell of fire... smell of hellfire!"

Frank opened his eyes suddenly. From here, he detected fluctuations similar to when Constantine used magic. That was the smell of sulfur in Mephisto's hell.

During the time Frank was sensing, the area where life was extinct expanded slightly outward by one micrometer.

Frank's body trembled slightly, and a Holy Light afterimage clone walked out of his body and went straight into the area ahead.

This was a capability extended from the Relentless Pursuit skill. After Relentless Pursuit, Frank could leave an afterimage clone that had a certain attack capability and could be controlled. The duration of the clone was determined by the residual Holy Light.

After entering the area in front, Frank immediately felt his clone being pulled crazily.

This area was quite "hospitable." It wanted to stuff everything into the clone, including the clone's own body, such as tearing off a leg and stuffing it into the clone's mouth.

At the same time, Frank also felt a huge gravitational force, pulling him to move toward the center of the area. According to normal physical rules, there should be an object with very huge mass there.

Before Frank tried to sense what was there, the faceless man suddenly jumped out from the darkness nearby.

Waving his hands crazily, he tore the clone into pieces, and then it was teleported to an unknown level by the extremely unstable space in this area.

Frank outside the area wiped the sweat from his forehead. The sudden attack by the faceless man just now gave Frank a lesson.

The information fed back by the clone showed that while the faceless man's body was as soft as human skin, it had unimaginable toughness and magic resistance. The Holy Light hit it and slid away directly.

At the same time, the faceless man's strength and speed were exaggerated. The only weakness was that the attack method was not good, purely melee, and there was no move to speak of when attacking.

Frank estimated the opponent's challenge level in his heart, at least 15-17. Counting the fearlessness of death, the suggested challenge level was estimated to be at least 18. If there was a certain immortality, this suggested challenge level could go up.

What kind of concept is this? It means that Frank, who had not realized his own Holy Light seed, would die if he came here!

The Black Sky summoned by the Hand was just a dish in front of the faceless man.

This experience made Frank, whose strength had greatly increased, wake up from his false expansion. Let alone level 21, even at level 41, there were still dangers in this universe.

Given this, Frank didn't intend to go deeper. He knew almost everything he should know.

Johnson and others should have had a fierce conflict with the enemy here. In the end, Johnson won miserably and was carried away by his companions in a coma.

And the traces left by their battle and the magic used in the battle completely destroyed the space here, making it a place completely unsuitable for survival.

Frank could roughly imagine that if observed from the gap between levels, this place would be very obvious on Level 1 because it was leaking.

It was precisely because it was leaking here that any individual entering here would leave Level 1 through the gap, which was "noclipping out."

As for which level they finally appeared in, it depended on which spider silk they hit after leaking out, and which level they were taken to.

This was not a normally formed channel, so it was naturally full of randomness and uncertainty. ===== CHAPTER 248 =====