Chapter 7: Great, I've been targeted by an Evil God

The Fourth Death Rule.

These words struck everyone’s hearts like heavy stones, making the surrounding air feel as if it had solidified, turning every breath into a struggle.

Why was there a fourth death rule!

Didn't the mission say to find three!?

"Why is it that everyone only sees the words 'Main Mission' but fails to notice its prefix?" Wu Wang smiled brightly.

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

The prefix is—Personal!

The bespectacled man’s expression changed drastically.

Even the fear he felt from having made a sound in the darkness earlier vanished, replaced entirely by anger and resentment toward Wu Wang.

"Yeah, that’s it, that’s the look. Regret, anger, even hatred—as if I were the one who killed you, completely forgetting that entering this classroom was a path you chose yourselves."

"Those who kill shall be killed in turn."

Wu Wang said with a mocking sneer.

Did a group of heinous murderers really expect him to show compassion?

He had noticed this linguistic trap from the very beginning.

The word "personal" meant the mission required one to stand alone in front of the microphone, state the three death rules, and then perform the [Accusation] against the [Ghost].

That was why he had been inducing the others to listen to him recite the death rules, leading them to mistakenly believe that simply finding them was enough.

In this way, only he would satisfy the personal main mission.

Logically, this instance could only be cleared by one person: the [Accuser].

But Wu Wang had also deduced that the [Ghost] must be hiding in a shadow.

There were fifty shadows during the day; it was impossible to identify the [Ghost] without knowing its movement pattern in such a short time.

Only in the dead of night, by forcing the [Ghost] to hide in the only available shadow—the [Accuser]'s shadow—could it be caught.

But the irony was—

The [Accuser] would be erased along with it.

In other words, the only condition for clearing the level was actually a dead end.

This damn instance never intended for anyone to leave alive!

"I also thank you all for playing such a good show with your lives. Now then, farewell, everyone. Have a pleasant journey to your deaths."

Wu Wang smiled, tapped the tip of his right foot against his left, rotated his right hand twice, placed it against his chest, and leaned forward thirty degrees to perform a standard hand-over-fist salute.

It was as if an elegant gentleman were taking his final bow before the audience.

As his closing ceremony began, the shadow beneath his feet let out a piercing wail.

The [Ghost] had been caught.

The murderers below lost the light in their eyes one by one, collapsing to the ground like boneless husks, devoid of life.

Death arrived so abruptly.

The bespectacled man wanted to say something, but in the next second, he too fell silently and died.

Wu Wang had satisfied the clearance conditions.

The losers were being liquidated by the instance.

Meanwhile, in the real world—

The live stream chat was in an uproar, the screen flooded with question marks.

"If this guy is a newbie, I’ll eat my own hat!"

"Which big shot used a hidden item to sneak into the newbie tutorial?"

"So how exactly did he ignore the death rules?"

"Don't ask me, go ask God. I can arrange for you to meet Him."

Whether they were veteran players of the Spirit Disaster Game or the big shots watching from the shadows, everyone was shocked by what was happening inside the instance.

From start to finish, all the murderers had been played like puppets by this newcomer.

Such calculated maneuvering and his attitude of contempt toward the instance rules made it no wonder that some suspected a veteran had donned a disguise to enter the newbie tutorial.

"Wait! Look at his feet!"

Suddenly, someone noticed that Wu Wang, who should have been the sole victor, was suddenly sitting on the ground.

His legs had already disappeared halfway.

The person who cleared the level was also being liquidated!

This was a situation that had never occurred in the Spirit Disaster Game!

*Click—*

【Live stream ended】

【The final closed-beta player accounts have been issued】

【Please look forward to the game's official launch】

Before more people could discover the anomaly, the live stream was shut down by the game system.

Now, the players were even more restless.

They argued fiercely about what had happened in the final scene.

Regrettably, they had no way to observe the Spirit Disaster Game through the live stream anymore.

After all, the system had indicated from the start that this was the final pre-registration instance.

The app would only stream newbie instances, meaning there would be no more instance live streams from now on.

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

She knew the sacrifice had been completed.

"With this, I have the qualifications to compete for administrator privileges."

Filled with a bright vision of the future, the strange woman took out a spirit tablet, bit her fingertip, let the blood flow, and wrote her name upon it.

She was now going to manipulate Li Guoqiang’s corpse to retrieve the [Object of Advent].

It was an item stained with the aura of an unspeakable existence, and the stepping stone to revealing the true face of the Spirit Disaster Game.

According to the strange woman’s investigation.

Its form should be a piece of clothing.

————

Inside the instance classroom.

Only half a head remained on the podium.

In the next second, the severed neck of the skull began to squirm frantically.

Bone, flesh, nervous system, skin, and even hair grew wildly in the span of a single second.

In an instant, Wu Wang reappeared.

He slowly opened his dead-fish eyes and sighed: "As expected, it’s not that easy to die. A pity."

*BOOM!*

Before the words could fade.

A loud noise shattered the deathly silence of the classroom.

What followed was an earthquake-like tremor; the entire building... no! The entire instance was wailing, emitting a piercing, cracking sound as if it were about to shatter.

*Bang! Bang! Bang!*

All the stage lights shattered one after another, the brand-new seats began to rust, and the wooden floorboards groaned with the rot of being unable to bear the weight.

The classroom, which should have plunged back into darkness, turned a dim, blood-red color.

Because a bizarre red sun had inexplicably appeared in the sky, illuminating it.

*Whoosh—*

A corpse defied gravity, flying toward the red sun like a missile.

Immediately after, all the corpses began to float.

Like moths to a flame, they slammed violently into the red sun.

During their flight, the corpses continuously underwent twisted and rotten mutations; some even grew countless eyes, fish gills, scales, and even tentacles—organs that did not belong to humans.

In the blink of an eye, only Wu Wang remained.

Before he could even think about what was happening, the system’s cold, mechanical voice began to echo through the classroom—

【Instance 1008611 is being polluted by %&*#】

【Intercepting! Interception failed!】

【Data anomaly! Forcing player logout!】

【Logout failed!】

"Come on, man, is this game's optimization really this bad? Even the newbie tutorial has bugs?" Wu Wang complained helplessly: "And logout failed! What are you, Kayaba Akihiko?"

Although he didn't know what was happening, it was clearly not a normal game process.

*Hum—*

A bizarre roar exploded inside Wu Wang’s skull.

In an instant, his eyes became bloodshot, and gibberish he couldn't understand echoed in his ears, growing louder and softer, like a chaotic musical score playing that dealt a massive blow to his consciousness.

He could feel his mind gradually collapsing.

In a trance, he seemed to see his feet beginning to fuse together into the webbed feet of some animal, brown, coarse hair growing from his skin, and his fingers turning into twisted tentacles that danced uncontrollably.

"Well, at least I won't need makeup to play an NPC in a haunted house now..."

Before his remaining consciousness could finish the thought, Wu Wang saw a scene he would never forget—

The red sun, blinked.

*Splat!*

The monster body, turned into a mass of bloody flesh, exploded as if it couldn't withstand a certain power.

Exploding along with it was a spirit tablet that had just happened to emerge from Wu Wang’s body.

The wooden spirit tablet rotted directly into dust.

But in the next second, the pieces of flesh all over the ground squirmed and stuck back together.

Wu Wang was resurrected in his normal human form!

Restored to a healthy state, his eyes held a frantic excitement.

He hadn't noticed the appearance, rotting, and shattering of the spirit tablet at all.

His attention was entirely on the sky.

"That’s the flavor! This is it! Maybe He can actually kill me in the true sense!"

Thinking of this, Wu Wang struggled to lift his head, attempting to meet the gaze of the red sun once more.

But just as their gazes were about to meet.

The system prompt appeared at an inopportune moment.

【Instance 1008611 core data corrupted】

【Destroying instance content】

【Player forced logout successful】

【Compensation reward issued】

【Hidden condition met, please collect your reward】

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

This place was very similar to the dark space he had been falling through when he first arrived.

The difference was that he could move freely now.

Before he could take a step to investigate, a glowing information prompt appeared before his eyes—

【Welcome to the Spirit Disaster Game】

【Player #9527 successfully registered】

【Please enter your nickname】

Looking at the user-friendly keyboard panel that had appeared, Wu Wang subconsciously prepared to enter an ID.

But unexpectedly, when he raised his right hand, he discovered an anomaly.

On the inside of his wrist, a red, vertical pupil resembling a simple sketch had appeared out of nowhere.

Staring directly at it made him feel the bizarre, blurred gibberish appearing in his ears again; his brain’s thinking became sluggish, and his Sanity value began to plummet wildly.

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

Wu Wang immediately turned his head away.

But a wave of turmoil surged in his heart.

"Damn! Why did you have to put a quarantine tag on me! Did that voyeuristic, bottom-tier Cthulhu-thing set its sights on me?"

That thing in the sky earlier wasn't a red sun at all.

It was an eye as huge as a scorching sun!

Calling It an Outer God wouldn't be an exaggeration, considering Its existence alone caused the instance to collapse and break.

Moreover, that thing was indescribable and impossible to look at directly, just like Cthulhu.

To avoid taking a random player nickname due to his brain being muddled by looking at the red vertical pupil, Wu Wang lowered his right hand and raised his left.

He skillfully typed out a row of text.

【GreenMySteelDoorWillBeOnShadow (Nickname available)】

He didn't click confirm immediately.

Instead, he deleted it and continued to enter new content.

【Zhang Wei (Nickname available)】

【Don't↑Love↓Me↑No↑Result (Nickname available)】

【3.1415926 (Nickname available)】

…………

In this dark space, Wu Wang spent about half an hour trying all sorts of nicknames.

Some were foul and vulgar, some were cliché, some involved religious beliefs, and some were even the same as the names of great historical figures.

But no matter what, it always showed "Nickname available."

"Interesting. It seems this game has no connection to countries, religions, or anything of the sort. Alien technology? Or the 'Main God Space' from novels?"

Wu Wang wasn't being perverse.

He wanted to see where the game's limitations were, whether there were any forbidden words, because anything designed by humans must have some bottom line or content that cannot be mentioned.

But clearly, it didn't.

He could even name his nickname after certain physiological organs and it would still pass!

This thing was completely devoid of taboos!

After further careful consideration.

Finally, with extreme seriousness, he typed the player ID that would follow him for the rest of his life on the panel; this was not something to be taken lightly.

【Confirm nickname as — The Survivor】

【Confirm】

【The Survivor #9527 successfully registered】

【Unlocking personal information panel...】

(End of chapter)