Chapter 3: A Slanted Body Fears No Straight Shadow!

At the same time.

On the homepage of an app called "Spirit Calamity Game," a certain live stream was being recommended in a scrolling banner.

【Final Closed Beta Qualifiers Released!】

【Unprecedented! Pre-registration Dungeon: Nightmare Difficulty! A Certain-Death Situation!】

The sensational title attracted people who owned the software, causing them to flood into the live stream.

They were all Spirit Calamity players.

They were entities chosen by the Spirit Calamity Game to enter so-called dungeons and gain supernatural power, yet they were also desperate men and women struggling on the razor's edge of life and death.

After all, if one died in a dungeon, only a corpse would be transported back to reality when the game ended.

"Is that for real? Can a pre-registration dungeon have Nightmare difficulty? Isn't that just sending people to die?"

"I bet one hundred Calamity Coins that the newbies will be wiped out within two hours. Anyone want to place a bet?"

"Who are you looking down on? I bet one hour!"

Many people in the live stream's chat section expressed surprise at this pre-registration dungeon, which had absolutely no balance.

Because normally, pre-registration dungeons used to grant player qualifications had obvious hints for survival, belonging to the category of "something that can definitely be done if one tries their hardest."

Everyone jokingly called them the Xinshou Sect.

Dungeon difficulties were divided into Easy, Medium, Hard, and Nightmare.

The Xinshou Sect was merely an Easy-level dungeon.

And a Nightmare-level dungeon was an existence with a completion rate of less than 1% throughout the entire Endgame.

Sending newbies to experience a Nightmare dungeon...

As the chat section said—this was sending people to die!

For instance, right now, seeing a newbie die immediately after waking up in the live stream, people were already burning incense for them and opening betting markets.

Yet, a small minority still noticed something amiss.

"The Spirit Calamity Game is, in a sense, a very fair existence; it would absolutely never produce a truly certain-death dungeon."

"That is to say, if it is just using fifty human lives to entertain everyone, it indicates that the balance of the Spirit Calamity Game has a problem!"

"If this is the final distribution of closed beta qualifiers, will there be an open beta for the game?"

"Before the open beta, we must excavate the essence of the Endgame as much as possible! This live stream might be a good opportunity!"

The live stream did not lack certain powerful players.

But even these big shots did not think a Nightmare-level dungeon could be normally cleared by newbies.

They wanted to find potential problems existing within the Endgame itself from this final live stream.

As for the newbies...

No one would care about the life or death of a scout.

However, among the big shots, there was one strange person.

The focus of her attention was, on the contrary, the newbies!

To be precise...

She hoped the newbies would all die in the dungeon.

This strange woman lay on a hammock in a seaside villa, drinking expensive red wine while watching the live stream and sending messages to a certain encrypted chat app—

"The ritual was successful. The special spirit tablet is being carried by Li Guoqiang, a detective captain from Mingyang City."

"Rest assured. After spending such a huge price to deceive the administrators and modify the dungeon difficulty, no one can possibly survive; this dungeon has no true completion conditions."

"After the newbies are all sacrificed, I will use the special spirit tablet to control Li Guoqiang's corpse and bring the 【Descended Entity】 back to reality."

"May the calamity endure forever."

————

Inside the pre-registration dungeon.

No one knew this was a certain-death sacrifice.

Their current focus was still on the dead bodies.

"Who will go take a look... how did he die?"

These wary fellows couldn't help but speak up, trying to huddle together for warmth.

In reality, they were all criminals who treated human life like grass; in the eyes of normal people, each of them was so dangerous that one wished to stay far away.

But here, facing supernatural ghostly situations, and knowing that true fierce ghosts lurked around them...

everyone had become the weakest prey.

The weapons at their waists or the dangerous drugs in their pockets could no longer bring them a sense of security at all.

Those clutching small knives even felt that the sharp tools in their hands were becoming colder and colder, just like their moods.

They all felt chillingly bone-piercing.

"What stupid words are you saying? Why don't you go look? You want us to rush up and die, is that it?" someone spoke up, cursing and refuting the previous suggestion.

Most people maintained the same attitude.

Yes! Who knows if checking the corpse will cause that ghost to fixate on oneself?

Except for the woman whose legs went weak and collapsed on the spot, everyone else involuntarily retreated a certain distance.

The situation froze once again.

Among the crowd, only Wu Wang's attention was not on the corpses; instead, it was on the woman collapsed on the ground.

To be precise, it was on her shadow.

He didn't know if his eyes were deceiving him.

Wu Wang seemed to see the woman's shadow trembling?

Could it be that Purple Mood is leaking electricity?

"Thump!"

Another deafening boom echoed.

This time, it wasn't someone collapsing, but the sound of nearly every light in the classroom going out.

Only a single large lamp remained, illuminating the podium; the standing microphone instantly became the focal point of the entire hall.

Strangely, the light seemed to defy the laws of physics, refusing to scatter or spill; aside from the podium where the microphone stood, even the closest surrounding spots remained pitch black, so dark one couldn't see a finger held before their eyes.

Rustle-rustle-rustle—

In the darkness, the sound of clothes rubbing and footsteps began to emerge; at first only occasional shuffles, but gradually, most people in the classroom started moving on their own.

Phototaxis isn't a trait possessed only by moths.

Humans are the same.

In an unknown environment, no one wants to stay in a place where you can't see a finger held before your eyes; in such a situation, even if danger approached, they wouldn't be able to detect it.

The area of the podium was large enough for ten people to stand on; even if something charged out from the darkness, there would be enough time to react.

Undoubtedly, it could be counted as a safe zone.

"Bastard! Get the hell out of my way!"

The first angry curse came from the darkness.

Splat—

Accompanied by the faint sound of a sharp blade entering flesh, nearby people immediately felt a few drops of warm liquid splashing onto their faces.

Everyone present understood what that was, or rather, understood what it meant.

Someone had started fighting over the position near the light source!

As unscrupulous murderers, when the scent of blood spread through the air, the eyes of those in the darkness were also smeared with a trace of madness.

Yes, positions aren't given to whoever arrives first!

Only the living have the right to stand in the safe zone!

"Want to trip me? Then don't bother keeping that leg!"

"You damn dog, you're blocking the way!"

"Ah! My hand! Who cut it off!?"

In the darkness, sounds of fighting and screams rose and fell in succession.

Various sounds were amplified and echoed back through the microphone, making people's scalps prickle with fear.

The classroom instantly turned into a bloody purgatory; everyone's mind was fixed on only one thought: carve a bloody path to survival.

Thump—thump—thump—

However, before anyone could run under the light, the thumping sounds appeared again, sounding exactly like the noise of someone hitting the ground when the first death occurred.

The key point was that there were far too many sounds of people falling!

Far exceeding the number of people killed!

One after another, people fell to the ground, unable to rise again; there was absolutely no struggle or agonized wailing, clearly indicating they hadn't died from fatal wounds sustained in combat.

Even those who had already lost limbs and were screaming in agony fell silent.

The entire classroom instantly fell into a deathly silence, as if someone had pressed the mute button.

"Gulp..."

Everyone nervously swallowed their saliva.

Almost simultaneously, everyone stopped moving.

Now, even the most frantic among them sensed something was wrong.

Another death rule had been triggered!

And at least twenty-some people had died!

About ten seconds passed.

No one dared make a single move, fearing they too might die inexplicably.

The classroom seemed to return to the silence of the beginning, when everyone had fallen into a state of sleep.

Only the occasional sound of breathing, tense to the extreme, revealed that others still existed in the darkness.

"Sing a mountain song, hey-hey-hey-hey~"

"Sing here~ come~ and answer there~"

At a moment when heartbeats were soaring, as if about to jump out of their throats, the abrupt singing made everyone suddenly feel a sharp pain in their groin.

The key was that the singing was so off-key it sounded like demonic music piercing the ears.

Even though nothing could be seen clearly in the darkness, everyone involuntarily turned their gaze toward the source of the sound.

Tap-tap—tap-tap—

Rhythmic tap-dancing footsteps rose from where the singing came, moving forward at a notably rhythmic pace.

They were singing and dancing too!?

What the hell is this thing?

Everyone's brains froze; only one thought echoed in their minds—doesn't this person fear death?

"Not just one sound, here comes the brother!"

As soon as the words fell, they noticed the person had already reached the podium.

As that handsome face with dead-fish eyes appeared under the only light source in the hall, many who had previously spoken with Wu Wang felt even more pain in their groins.

Why is it him again!

"Buzz—"

Wu Wang patted the microphone with his hand; the piercing sound of electric current made everyone cover their ears and frown.

After confirming the microphone worked normally, Wu Wang, wearing a standard fake smile like a hotel waiter, shyly said: "Thank you all for your kindness in letting me speak; it's quite embarrassing, so I'll briefly make three points."

Who the hell gave you kindness to let you speak!

Didn't you just jump up there on your own?

And what are you shy about!

It's hard again.

Now everyone's fists are hard.

"First, I am not an expert in dealing with ghosts. Second, I believe everyone wants to know how to break the three death rules, so the third point is very important."

"Third, as I said in my first point, I am not an expert in dealing with ghosts, so I don't know either."

Watching the teenager speak nonsense literature seriously while continuing to tap-dance in place under his feet and using the lights to make animal shadow puppets with his hands.

His hands, feet, and mouth coordinated with not the slightest conflict.

For a moment, he didn't know whether to say the boy was talented or just wanted to rush up and stab him twice.

But since the death rules had just triggered, causing more than ten lives to vanish like that.

Do less, make fewer mistakes; do nothing, make no mistakes.

At this critical juncture, the murderers still felt it was best to be cautious and dared not act rashly.

They could only let Wu Wang go crazy in front of the microphone.

Besides, they also wanted to observe whether the death rules would appear on this show-off.

"Namo Amitabha, Fusheng Wuliang Tianzun, Amen, Allahu Akbar!"

"Light~ Phoenix flying against the wind~ Light!"

Wu Wang continued to speak nonsense and sing songs.

Boom!

As he happened to sing the word "light," the spotlight above suddenly blazed, illuminating the classroom like daylight.

All the filth that had occurred in the darkness was exposed under everyone's eyes.

A large amount of blood stained the pristine floor like an abstract painter creating freely with red paint; the viscous sensation flowing slowly down the steps resembled the bright red dripping from the white sheet on the bathtub in The Death of Marat, while the bodies lying haphazardly like abrupt embellishments on a canvas appeared abnormally glaring.

Some showed the location of fatal wounds, clearly dying in combat.

Others, like the first corpse, lay on the ground with expressions of terror, showing no visible injuries.

The dark environment just now lasted for ten minutes.

The classroom that originally held fifty people now had only twenty-something left.

The frequency of death was exaggerated to the point of being unsettling.

But everyone's gaze lingered on the corpses for only a moment; most cast looks full of killing intent toward Wu Wang.

"You, what did you discover?"

A burly man closest to the podium walked up with a forceful tone.

Two people with twisted necks, strangled to death, lay at his feet; these were the burly man's masterpieces in the darkness.

He also voiced the doubt in most people's hearts.

Why didn't the teenager's abstract behavior, acting like he was going crazy, trigger any death rules?

Unless he had already discovered something to avoid them!

Watching the burly man, who was a head taller than him with muscles bulging like a small hill and quite oppressive, approach his side.

Wu Wang remained unmoved, only smiling and saying:

"I don't really like your tone; the dogs that like to bark wildly downstairs in the residential complex, I helped them all get neutered on New Year's Eve; I suggest you pay attention to your manners."

"Tch, trash! You'll be quiet in a moment!"

The burly man disdainfully reached out his hand, trying to choke Wu Wang's neck to force him into submission.

His huge palm almost covered the teenager's entire face.

So that Wu Wang's expression, which was gradually turning cold beneath the shadow, was completely invisible.

Thud!

The dull sound of falling echoed through the classroom.

Everyone outside the podium showed expressions of disbelief.

An unexpected situation occurred!

They saw the burly man lying on the ground with his eyes rolling back, twitching involuntarily.

The temple area was sunken in a section, obviously having been struck heavily by something.

"W-what happened?"

"One punch! He knocked out such a strong man with just one punch!"

Before everyone could recover their senses, they saw Wu Wang pull the microphone from its stand and smash it hard onto the sunken temple of the burly man, repeatedly raising his arm and smashing down with a blank expression as if pounding rice cakes.

Squish squish—

Blood splattered, red and white mixed together.

Now everyone's attention finally broke away from the teenager's abstract behavior just now.

They began to notice his own abnormalities.

His bare upper body revealed muscles tightening at the moment of the punch, sharp and distinct like a sculpture; muscle lines that had not undergone thousands of temperings would not be so beautiful.

The textbook-like force application technique when punching brought power to its extreme, making people's hearts tremble involuntarily.

Plus the cold-bloodedness when taking lives.

Undoubtedly, this teenager was of the same kind as them.

No! He is more dangerous than the vast majority of murderers!

Because Wu Wang's appearance and behavior are simply too deceptive!

"A slanted body fears not a straight shadow; I never claimed to be a good person." Finally, a voice other than a headshot came from the podium.

Having spoken, Wu Wang plugged the microphone back into its stand.

He then sat down right there on the podium, squinting his eyes while continuing to observe the crowd with a smile.

These people were not entirely wrong in their guess.

He had indeed already guessed part of the Death Rules.

He had even personally tested it.

It's just that the remaining parts need to be tested a few more times to be confirmed.

As for the test subjects...

We're all brothers here; I believe no one present would refuse...