In the darkness, Wu An curled up in a ball, shivering under the covers.

She was so scared that she couldn't sleep, but she was also extremely tired, so she had a few short nightmares in a daze.

In her dream, she was fleeing in the darkness, with the heavy breathing of an unknown creature behind her.

The creature must have been furry, because in the dream, after Wu An was pinned down by the creature's claw, she felt the soft touch of fur on her neck, which made her tremble.

Wu An woke up from his dream and immediately realized that the battle royale he had just experienced was just a dream, and the feeling of the downy hair on his neck was just the coral fleece pillowcase he had brought from home.

But then she remembered that her current situation was no better than the battle royale in her dream, and the heavy breathing she heard in the dream was the sound of her breathing under the covers.

Ruan Chen, who was on the upper bunk, seemed to be sleeping soundly, without making a sound.

This silence made Wu An even more frightened.

She wanted to ask if Ruan Chen was still there, but she was afraid that her voice would attract the creature that had just killed two people, and she was afraid that she would become the third victim.

Ruan Chen rolled over.

Wu An finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Strangely enough, Wu An has always considered herself very strong. She was able to stand out in their province and become a unique individual. Her presence at this summer camp has directly proven her strength in both academics and mental fortitude.

But she had never encountered such a situation before; she had never faced life and death directly.

Besides, she can't even see what that deadly thing is right now.

So Ruan Chen, whom she initially disregarded, became her source of emotional support at this moment, because Ruan Chen was so calm and composed, his unwavering and steadfast demeanor stemming from his very being.

After a long silence, Wu An finally couldn't hold back any longer and called out in a breathy voice, "Ruan Chen."

"Mmm." Ruan Chen actually heard her and answered her softly.

"Do you think this might be a mock exam arranged for us by the professors here? It's all fake," Wu An whispered, expressing his suspicion. "Those voices might actually be recordings."

Ruan Chen gave a lukewarm "hmm" and said, "Maybe. You should go to sleep. We'll know what happened when it's light tomorrow."

Wu An felt he was being given the runaround.

However, after expressing his conjecture and receiving a response from Ruan Chen, Wu An felt a little relieved, and drowsiness gradually crept in.

However, she still couldn't fall asleep.

Because there were noisy footsteps coming from outside.

Wu An suddenly opened her eyes wide in the darkness, biting the corner of the blanket tightly to keep herself from screaming. She didn't know how to describe the sound—the reason she felt the footsteps were noisy was not because there were many people passing by outside, but because she could sense that there was only one person outside, but the footsteps sounded like several pairs of feet walking at the same time in a somewhat uncoordinated manner.

It's like a person who has grown many legs.

The footsteps grew closer.

Wu An heard the details in the footsteps clearly.

The footsteps were wet, like bare feet stepping on tiles, but the sound of lifting the feet wasn't crisp, reminding Wu An of an octopus's tentacles.

She felt her heart was about to explode. What kind of eerie creature was outside?

They lived on the top floor of the Martial Arts Research Institute's apartment building, below which were the institute's students and faculty. Only the summer camp members were assigned to the sixth floor.

There were nine people in total: four girls and five boys. Ruan Chen and Wu An shared a room, the other two girls shared a room, and the remaining five boys were assigned to three separate rooms.

Actually, saying there are three dorm rooms isn't accurate, because Wei Feng first relied on Tai'a's approval to demand a single room. That night, Ruan Chen saw him follow Professor Wei to the staff dormitory area, where the accommodation was better. Wei Feng probably wasn't coming back.

To separate the boys and girls, Ruan Chen and the other three girls lived on the far east side of the corridor, while the remaining boys lived on the far west side.

Wu An and Ruan Chen's phones simultaneously received Bluetooth connection requests.

Bluetooth connections have a distance limit of about ten meters, which means it can only reach the two girls in the next dorm room.

It seems they also noticed something was wrong, realizing that their phones had no signal, and sent Bluetooth invitations to Ruan Chen and the others.

Wu An's voice was still breathless, but he was very surprised. "Ruan Chen, look at your phone!"

Ruan Chen gave a low "hmm" to indicate that she understood.

Wu An excitedly clicked the button to accept the invitation, but her palms had been sweating too much earlier, and in her excitement, she gripped the phone so tightly that it flew out of her hand, arcing through the air before crashing heavily to the ground with a crisp "thud".

The sound was like a thunderclap in the dead of night.

Wu An instinctively reached out of bed to grab her phone—it had fallen not far from her. Two steps away, she lay on the floor, its screen emitting a faint blue glow in the darkness, the characters indicating she had accepted the invitation still flashing.

Ruan Chen wanted to stop her, but fortunately, she swallowed the words the moment they were about to escape her throat. Ruan Chen got up quickly and lightly, hooked her toes on the edge of the bed, and leaned out most of her body. Just as Wu An got out of bed, she grabbed her collar with all her might!

At the same time, several eerie tentacles shattered the glass window, tore the curtains apart in an instant, and accurately grabbed the phone lying on the ground!

The creature moved very quickly; its tentacles seemed to have suction cups, and in the blink of an eye, the phone disappeared!

Ruan Chen had already pushed Wu An back down, and she herself fell onto Wu An's bed. Fortunately, her movements were light enough, the bedding was soft enough, and the bed in the Martial Arts Research Institute dormitory was of good quality. Her movements were completed the instant the tentacle broke the glass, and the sound of the glass shattering covered the small noises between her and Wu An.

The creature didn't hear.

Wu An's mind went blank. She just stared blankly out the broken window at the figure that resembled an evil god—a humanoid standing with its skin exposed and covered in countless sores and pustules. From those pustules, fleshy buds emerged and swayed in the night wind. Upon closer inspection, they were clearly tentacles!

The person's face was also so ulcerated that the eyes were no longer visible, and there were empty holes in the ears. It mechanically lowered its head, its tentacles clumsily fiddling with the phone, and it squeezed out a muffled chuckle from its throat.

Wu An was even more alarmed; it was actually a woman's voice!

But she was blind, and after fiddling with the phone for a while, she got annoyed and threw it away. Then her tentacles reached in through the window again, as if she wanted to squeeze into Ruan Chen's room through the window!