Chapter 7: Great, I

The fourth death rule.

These few characters struck the crowd like stones, making them feel as if the air around them had solidified, their breathing growing difficult.

Why is there a fourth death rule!?

Didn’t the quest say to find only three!?

“Why are all of you only seeing the words ‘main quest,’ and not noticing its prefix?” Wu Wang smiled brightly.

【Personal Main Quest: Find three death rules within the allotted time】

The prefix is—Personal!

The man with glasses suddenly turned pale.

Even his realization that his own voice in the dark had caused fear vanished, leaving only anger and hatred toward Wu Wang.

“Ah yes, yes, that’s the look—regret, anger, even hatred, like I killed you all, completely forgetting that entering this classroom was your own choice.”

“Those who kill shall be killed in turn.”

Wu Wang sneered.

A bunch of ruthless murderers expecting me to feel pity?

He had noticed this textual trap from the start.

The word “Personal” means the quest requires you to stand alone at the microphone and state three death rules, then directly accuse the 【Ghost】.

So he had been guiding others to listen to him recite the death rules, making them believe merely finding them was enough.

Thus, only he fulfilled the Personal Main Quest.

Logically, this Fuben only allows the 【Accuser】 to survive.

But Wu Wang also deduced that the 【Ghost】 must hide within shadows.

With fifty shadows during daylight, and no way to determine its movement in such a short time, it was impossible to find the 【Ghost】.

Only in darkness, when the 【Ghost】 was forced into the single shadow—the 【Accuser】’s own shadow—could it be caught.

Yet ironically—

The 【Accuser】 would be erased along with it.

In other words, the sole Tongguan condition was actually a dead end.

This damn Fuben never intended for anyone to survive!

“Thank you all for using your lives to put on such a fine show. Now then, farewell, and may your journey to death be pleasant.”

Wu Wang smiled as he stepped his right toe beside his left, rotated his right hand twice, placed it against his chest, and leaned forward thirty degrees in a perfect bow.

Like an elegant gentleman taking his final bow before an audience.

As his farewell ritual began, the shadow beneath his feet let out a piercing scream.

The 【Ghost】 was caught.

The murderers below lost all light in their eyes, one after another collapsing lifelessly like broken puppets.

Death came so abruptly.

The man with glasses wanted to say something, but the next second he too fell silently dead.

Wu Wang met the Tongguan condition.

The losers were being purged by the Fuben .

Meanwhile, in the real world—

The livestream chat had exploded, flooded with question marks.

“This is a newbie? I’m eating my words!”

“Which Dalao got a hidden item and snuck into the tutorial?”

“How the hell did he bypass the death rules?”

“Ask me? Better ask God—I can get you to meet Him.”

Whether seasoned players of the Spiritual Disaster Game or hidden Dalao observing secretly—

All were stunned by everything inside the Fuben .

From start to finish, every murderer had been toyed with by this newbie.

Such strategic mastery and utter disregard for Fuben rules—no wonder some suspected this was a Dalao in disguise, sneaking into the tutorial.

“Wait! Look at his feet!”

Suddenly, someone noticed Wu Wang, the supposed sole victor, had suddenly sat on the floor.

Half his legs had vanished.

Even the Tongguan er was being purged!

This had never happened in the Spiritual Disaster Game before!

Click—

【Livestream Ended】

【Final beta tester account has been issued】

【All players, please look forward to the game’s public release】

Before more people could notice the anomaly, the livestream was shut down by the game system.

Now the players were even more restless.

They fiercely debated what had happened in the final scene.

Unfortunately, they could no longer observe the Spiritual Disaster Game through livestream.

After all, the system had originally warned this was the final pre-registration Fuben .

The app only livestreamed newbie Fuben —meaning no more Fuben livestreams would ever occur.

But as one of the few who knew the truth, the strange woman in the seaside villa smiled faintly.

She knew the sacrifice was complete.

“With this, I now have the right to contest for administrator privileges.”

With visions of a bright future, the strange woman took out a spirit tablet, bit her fingertip, let her blood drip, and wrote her name upon it.

She was now going to control Li Guoqiang’s corpse to retrieve the 【Object of Descent】.

It was an artifact tainted with the aura of an unspeakable entity—the key to unlocking the true face of the Spiritual Disaster Game.

According to the strange woman’s investigation—

Its form should be a piece of clothing.

————

Inside the Fuben classroom.

Only half a skull remained on the podium.

The next second, the cut at its neck began to writhe wildly.

Bone, flesh, nervous system, skin, even hair grew at a frenzied pace within a single second.

In an instant, Wu Wang reappeared.

Slowly opening his dead-fish eyes, he sighed: “Of course I wouldn’t die so easily. What a pity.”

Boom!

Before he finished speaking—

A thunderous crash shattered the classroom’s silence.

Followed by earthquake-like shaking—the entire building… no! The whole Fuben —screamed with a piercing, shattering crack as if about to break apart.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

All stage lights burst one after another; the once-new seats began rusting, the wooden floor groaned under rot and unbearable weight.

The classroom, which should have plunged back into darkness, turned a dim, bloody red.

For hovering in the sky, inexplicably, was a strange crimson sun, casting its glow.

Shhh—

A corpse, defying gravity, shot upward like a missile toward the crimson sun.

Then all the corpses levitated.

They slammed into the sun like moths drawn to flame.

During flight, their bodies twisted and rotted grotesquely; a few even sprouted countless eyes, gills, scales, and tentacles—organs never belonging to humans.

In an instant, only Wu Wang remained.

Before he could even process what was happening, the system’s cold mechanical voice echoed through the classroom—

【 Fuben 1008611 is being contaminated by %&*#】

【Intercept! Intercept failed!】

【Data anomaly! Forcibly logging out players!】

【Logout failed!】

“Dude, is this game’s optimization this bad? Even the tutorial’s got bugs?” Wu Wang complained helplessly: “And logout failed? Are you Makoto Kyouya?!”

Though he didn’t understand what was happening, it was clear this wasn’t normal gameplay.

Hum—

A strange roar exploded inside Wu Wang’s skull.

Instantly, his eyes filled with blood, his ears flooded with distant, near, incomprehensible whispers—like a chaotic musical score playing, shattering his thoughts.

He felt his mind gradually crumbling.

In a daze, he seemed to see his feet fusing together into some creature’s webbed limbs, his skin sprouting coarse brown fur, his fingers twisting into uncontrollable, writhing tentacles.

“Now I don’t even need makeup to turn into an NPC in a secret room…”

Before he could finish his mental rant, Wu Wang saw the one scene he could never forget—

The red sun blinked.

Plop!

His body, now a bloody, unrecognizable monster, exploded outward as if unable to contain some immense force.

Along with it, a spirit tablet that had just surfaced from within Wu Wang’s body also shattered.

The wooden spirit tablet rotted instantly into dust.

But the next second, the scattered flesh and bone fragments writhed and reattached themselves.

Wu Wang revived in his normal human form!

His eyes burned with mad exhilaration, his health fully restored.

He noticed nothing of the tablet’s appearance or its decay.

His entire focus was on the sky.

“That’s it! That’s the one! It might actually kill me—for real!”

Thinking this, Wu Wang strained to lift his head and tried again to lock eyes with the red sun.

Just as their gazes were about to meet—

A system prompt appeared at the worst possible moment.

【Core data of Fuben 1008611 corrupted】

【Destroying Fuben content】

【Player forcibly logged out successfully】

【Compensation reward distributed】

【Hidden condition met—reward claimed】

The moment the voice sounded, Wu Wang found himself back in darkness.

It resembled the endless falling void he’d entered earlier.

But now, he could move freely.

Before he could take a step to investigate, a faintly glowing message floated before him—

【Welcome to Spirit Catastrophe Game】

【Player #9527 registered successfully】

【Please enter your nickname】

Seeing a human-like keyboard panel appear before him, Wu Wang instinctively prepared to type his ID.

But as he raised his right hand, he noticed something strange.

A simple red vertical pupil, drawn like a crude sketch, had inexplicably appeared on the inside of his wrist.

Staring at it made him hear again the eerie, indistinct whispers beside his ear; his thoughts grew sluggish, and his San value plummeted wildly.

He didn’t need to think to know where this mark came from.

Wu Wang immediately turned his head away.

Yet his mind churned with turmoil.

“Damn! Why the hell am I getting a quarantine tag? Did that voyeuristic creep Cen Zong target me?”

The red thing in the sky wasn’t a sun at all.

It was a colossal eye, as vast as a blazing sun!

A being that could destroy a Fuben with just a glance—calling it a Xieshen wasn’t an exaggeration.

And it was as unfathomable and unseeable as Cthulhu.

To avoid losing mental clarity and entering a random nickname because of the red pupil,

Wu Wang lowered his right hand and raised his left.

He typed a line of text with practiced ease.

【Qing Wo Gang Men Hui Shang Ying (nickname available)】

He didn’t click confirm immediately.

Instead, he deleted it and typed a new one.

【Zhang Wei (nickname available)】

【Bie Ai ↑ Ao ↓ Mei Jie Guo (nickname available)】

【3.1415926 (nickname available)】

…………

In this dark space, Wu Wang spent roughly half an hour testing countless nicknames.

Some were vile and crude, some clichéd, some touched on religious beliefs, some even matched the names of historical figures.

Yet every single one showed “nickname available.”

“Interesting. This game has no connection to nations, religions, or anything like that. Alien tech? Or a main god space from a novel?”

Wu Wang wasn’t just being perverse.

He wanted to test the game’s limits—see if there were any forbidden words, because anything designed by humans must have some Dixian or taboo.

But clearly, there weren’t any.

He could even name himself after certain bodily organs and it still passed!

This thing was utterly unrestricted!

He thought again, deeply and carefully.

Finally, with utmost seriousness, he typed the player ID that would accompany him for life—this couldn’t be taken lightly.

【Confirm nickname as—Wei Wang Ren】

【Confirm】

【Wei Wang Ren #9527 registered successfully】

【Unlocking personal information panel…】