Chapter 110 The Old Campus Even if it flies high, there's a time when it flies straight towards...
The film exploded like black fireworks, converging on Xue Chao from all directions. At the same time, the glass behind him shattered, and a gust of wind attacked from both sides!
He immediately ducked, and a pale, claw-like hand, with bulging blue-purple veins, swept across his shoulder and slanted downwards. He fell sideways, and when he turned around, he saw Jiang Ming rushing in expressionlessly, heading straight for the boss's heart.
Don't you know to avoid killing this living person when you're fighting the boss?!
The film, stained with her tears, had become tentacles she could command at will, effortlessly deflecting Jiang Ming's attack, swirling and unfolding to envelop him, before its tip stabbed back.
Jiang Ming didn't pause for a moment, and was instantly engulfed by the black fireworks, followed by the hissing sound of flesh being pierced. The "fireworks" rang out, but the ghostly claw suddenly pierced through the film. She immediately dodged, but was still choked by the neck.
“…Oops, it went off course.” Jiang Ming said coldly, annoyed.
Her Polaroid head was broken off and smashed to the ground, slowing her transformation by 5%. She paused noticeably for a second, and Jiang Ming's hand instantly moved down toward her heart, only to have the fat meat that was within his grasp suddenly fly away.
He parted the gap and looked out with bloodshot eyes. Several rolls of film were wrapped around her waist. She was pulled to the back row. The film rolls stretched out a long tail in Xue Chao's hand.
Jiang Ming's sinister eyes flashed with a hint of a smile that didn't reach his eyes. He thought Xue Chao was throwing a tantrum at a crucial moment, but it didn't matter. He was completely focused on the unformed boss and would kill anyone who stood in his way.
The film entangled him, and a jumble of memories crashed into his mind, but his mind was a frozen coffin; crashing in meant burial, for the dead have no emotions.
But when Jiang Ming saw Xue Chao instantly produce a tattered sunflower and throw it into her hand, her eyes suddenly shifted to the side, meeting Xue Chao's equally cold gaze.
The sunflowers blended into the film, and all the memories related to the "protagonist of Unit One" transformed "Jiang Ming" back into "Xia Caizhe".
[Beep beep... Error #567*%&*Y* detected T*T&Y*]
Unauthorized entry detected...
[Host... (x)]
Player... (x)
Unauthorized intrusion...immediate elimination
[...]
【%*U*执*（&HI%$%）】
Execution failed.
Execution failed.
[...]
[Immediate Deportation]
[Being deported...]
...Jiang Ming made a mistake. He thought that with interests at stake, no matter how much filth they had, they would temporarily unite against a common enemy when it came to killing the boss. Little did he know that he was the one who was "outsider".
They're willing to team up with an unformed boss who's willing to fight to the death to get rid of him... Hahaha, good, the fact that this indifferent person can be so disgusted with him shows how important he is.
A faint blue light shone through the gaps in the film, and Jiang Ming's figure became blurry. However, Xue Chao knew him too well and immediately abandoned the boss and ran away.
He only wanted to get rid of the most annoying one first, but once Jiang Ming, this common threat, was gone, his alliance with the boss would break down. He couldn't wait for Jiang Ming to trade one for one so he could reap the benefits.
But Jiang Ming also gave him a surprise. The pile of film flashed into a black phantom, trailing a blue tail light. The most eye-catching thing was the blood-dripping red eyes of the ghost. He bypassed the boss he was so eager to kill and delivered the final blow into his chest. Xue Chao dodged at the last second, avoiding his heart.
...What the hell? That's fast! Are you using a speed hack?!
As he neared disappearance, Jiang Ming became more and more himself. The film suddenly felt afraid, and as it peeled back the surface, he emerged like a blood-red lotus from the water, revealing a rare, normal smile: "You're so heartless."
Then it suddenly scattered into fragments of light.
What a bastard who bites back! Xue Chao wanted to spit on him, but he was bleeding too much, and his healing ability was working at breakneck speed to catch up with the wound.
However, he could not wait patiently for his wound to heal. One jackal left, but another tiger and leopard appeared. The film, no longer fearless, instantly and powerfully engulfed him. It used the same trick again, turning the gun around like a sea anemone thrusting out, a bundle of tentacles poured into the wound, then turned it away, and the wound split open in all directions!
Xue Chao spat a mouthful of blood onto the film. There was no second time. His head blurred into a shadow, and the next second it transformed into a butterfly. He collapsed to the ground, motionless.
The headless girl stood quietly in the classroom filled with bones, which were also stained black and red. The head of the camera fell at her feet, making a series of clicking sounds like a string of laughter.
The butterfly connected to Xue Chao's body suddenly moved, slowly flapping its wings. With a "rip," it tore away from her flesh and flew leisurely towards her, its tail dripping with his blood.
She instinctively reached out, but the butterfly, drawn by the scent of blood, landed on her severed neck.
The whole world fell silent, like the sound of an earth falling into hell. Then, all the butterfly bones were drawn into film and flowed into the broken end of her neck from all directions.
Finally, there was the sweeping exposure.
[Ding dong! Hidden BOSS battle has been triggered!]
[Dungeon Boss: Helena]
[Defeat the BOSS to win the hidden BOSS battle! Clear the dungeon!]
Let your passion and youthful vigor flow, and slay the gods of war!
Ever since Xue Chao and Jiang Ming jumped into the cocoon, Deng Dayun scrambled to hide in another teaching building. After his transformation, the short journey was more arduous than the Journey to the West. The corridor was filled with flowers, ball pits, and strange balloons. A sunflower-headed child reached out and tugged at his trouser leg from the dirt. There was endless piano music... and a classroom with mirrors on all six sides, with eyeless and mouthless masks crowding the mirrors. Looking at it for even a moment could trigger his illness.
He finally found a classroom, not because it wasn't haunted, but because he was desperate and used his strength to pull out the syringe from the nurse's head and stick it into her body. Thank goodness, she quieted down.
He hugged himself tightly, hid in a corner, and buried his face in his knees.
When it quieted down, it was terrifying in a different way. There was chaos and all sorts of noise outside. He found a safe place, but what use was safety when the world was about to be destroyed?
Having failed in the main quest, he could only pin his hopes on the hidden boss battle. However, he heard a terrifying cracking sound, exceptionally clear, as if it enveloped the world. Then, a slight sound from within caused an echo to resonate throughout the world—a butterfly was breaking free from its cocoon.
He scrambled to his feet, stumbling and grabbing the windowsill. Outside, a giant morpho butterfly, nearly half the height of the adjacent teaching building, flew out, followed by the deafening roar of the entire building collapsing.
The metallic blue wings unfolded, their edges adorned with film-like patterns—a black stripe narrowing into white frames, like a dream that had flown from the depths of time.
But with a flap of its wings, the hideousness beneath the dreamlike appearance is revealed: bony spikes protrude from its brown back, forming circles like a shark's jaws, fragments of human bones.
Irregular fleshy bulges protrude from the "gum," resembling various organ shapes, with several pairs of eye spots sandwiched in the middle. They are all living human eyes, darting around. The largest pair of brownish-red eye spots stares intently at the overflowing red roses on the playground, with a terrifyingly greedy gaze.
Countless rolls of film surround the Morpho butterfly, like a planet with hundreds of black and white planetary rings, crisscrossing each other; it itself is a moving galaxy.
Each frame of the film reel contains an image. As it rolls, if you stand still and watch it, it's like a series of images progressing and unfolding a story.
"【Deng Dayun】Holy crap, good..."
"【Deng Dayun】The boss in your game...does indeed look like a boss..."
"[Deng Dayun] How to put it, he's both ugly and beautiful."
"[Deng Dayun] I can't even define His beauty or ugliness; no matter how you look at it, the word 'horrifying' comes to mind..."
"【Deng Dayun】My heart is dead, the boss is flying around, the campus is mutating, the dream is gradually collapsing, I'm really dead... Alright, let's have a doomsday carnival!"
"【Deng Dayun】didn't he bring this on himself... Jiang Ming was able to replace a player, typical big shot tactics, but he insisted on jumping into the fire and fighting alone. When they should have united against a common enemy, he insisted on settling personal scores and seeking momentary pleasure. Didn't he deserve to die?"
"【Deng Dayun】Agreed. He acts without considering the consequences... He seems very calm, but he could calmly go crazy at any moment... Who would willingly jump into the boss's cocoon?"
"【Deng Dayun】took first place once, and now he really thinks he's a big shot!"
"【Deng Dayun】is already fourth on the overall list. This book is almost finished, and it won't fall out of the top ten. Let's just consider it a glorious funeral, haha."
"[Deng Dayun]...Stop bragging. The big shots are all preparing for the guild competition. Your brother is just lucky. If he really ran into a pro, he'd be buried in a straw mat."
"[Deng Dayun] laughed. Even if someone is dead, there's no need to trample on them like this. I wonder who tricked the seventh brother and fooled that person. The fifth brother's room is just down below. This room is almost empty. Why hasn't it been overtaken?"
"【Deng Dayun】Old Ten also died in the dungeon. Although it wasn't Xue Chao who did it, the amusement park had to break its defenses, haha. They filled up a bunch of members to support Old Ten, but he 'died' the whole way in the four-star dungeon."
The number of people in the dungeon was already small. Some of the interesting people left or died. The popularity that had soared because of the alternative solution to the boss's creation cooled down a bit, but most people didn't leave. Anyway, the boss would soon kill the remaining players. Even if they didn't find it or were too lazy to kill it, the dream was already collapsing.
It's almost over, so why not watch the ending before you leave?
I enjoyed watching the boss from the camera angle, although after the initial shock, it got a bit boring after a while. But the comment section was busy with its own things—about Sheng Hong, Pu Fengchun, Jiang Ming, and Xue Chao, especially the latter two, who were arguing so loudly they could fill the screen.
Deng Dayun's seemingly transformative determination and wickedness were preparations for human beings, but when they went too far beyond the scope of "humanity," he was brought back to his original form.
When such a terrifying thing descended, he should have already burrowed underground, but the impact was too strong, and he forgot to dodge, so he could only stare at it in fear.
He realized he was in a state similar to sleep paralysis, so he forced his gaze away from His wings and followed the film reel, as if to smooth out his overloaded brain.
It was difficult because butterflies were flying all over campus and the film was like a tangled ball of yarn, but precisely because it was like a tangled ball of yarn, it could always be untangled without any abrupt breaks.
Just as two drops of bloody tears were about to well up in his eyes, he actually traced the source... not the end, but the origin!
There was also a torso sandwiched between the wings!
Compared to its wide and long, swollen wings, its body was so small that it was almost invisible... about the size of a person.
The morpho butterfly flies everywhere without a route. Every time it flaps its wings, it stirs up a small tornado, making the sunflowers and red roses on the ground howl.
Sometimes it landed on the bone tree, sometimes on the ruins of the teaching building, and then there was another cataclysmic event. But most of the time it was in the air, never landing, flying freely.
However, it is too big, so the campus becomes small, and freedom has its limits.
Even when flying high, sometimes heading straight for the moon, it feels like it's hovering.
The organs of the wing-like body throbbed. As He passed the only remaining teaching building, Deng Dayun hid in the sanitary cabinet, peeking through a tiny crack.
He saw clearly that the torso was that of a headless girl, and the film reel extended from her cavity like the long antennae of a butterfly's head.
With a flap of his wings, he immediately closed the door, afraid that Eyespot would see him.
The butterfly flew away, but he still dared not open the door, fearing it might be a trap. As soon as he opened the door, the butterfly instantly flew back to the window.
Every second felt like an eternity; Deng Dayun felt like he was about to faint inside the closet.
The cabinet door was suddenly opened, and he trembled from head to toe. Upon closer inspection, he saw Fang Tailai.
"Phew, you're still alive." Fang Tailai was covered in sweat. She used to be a fungus that grew on the bed, but since she got involved in the game, each dungeon run was like a year's worth of exercise for her. She collapsed, her movements much more "standard" than Deng Dayun's. "...Just bear with it a little longer, surviving is victory."
Main quest failed, boss fight unwinnable... and the Butterfly's head is nowhere to be found. Should I just wait and die?
Deng Dayun lowered his head and remained silent, not wanting to waste any energy on his impending death, and offered a ridiculous self-comforting remark.
He had a crazy idea and reached for the knife in his sleeve... Rather than living in fear and waiting to be eaten by that monster, he didn't want to wait any longer!
"...Even if you commit suicide, your corpse will be assimilated and unable to leave the instance. Whether you're alive, dead, or half-dead, you've become part of the instance, and then you just wait to be used as material by the instance." Fang Tailai pointed to his eyes, implying Sheng Hong's fate, and said weakly, "You're a veteran player... Death is hardly a relief."
She struggled to her feet but failed. Then she opened her eyes and looked at Deng Dayun, who was radiating death, and finally remembered the huge information gap between them: "Damn it, Xue Chao is not dead!"
Deng Dayun didn't react, thinking she was talking nonsense again.
However, because of this sentence, the comments section finally revealed questions that had been drowning out the argument:
"【Deng Dayun】Xue Chao didn't have a camera position, and after Xia Caizhe walked the death line, Jiang Ming's camera position was taken back. How did you guys even see what happened inside the cocoon?! Ahhh, stop arguing!"
"【Deng Dayun】watched it from Fang Tailai's camera position... Damn, wait, when did Fang Tailai go in?"
"【Deng Dayun】Hiss..."
"Hey, you guys at the next camera, tell us!"
"【Fang Tailai】didn't go in? How is that possible? She's already entered the dream world inside the cocoon! The campus there was intact at first!"
"【Fang Tailai】I've been filming from this angle the whole time. Those two lunatics jumped into the cocoon, then she went to the rooftop, then jumped off, then reappeared on the rooftop, wandering around the campus. Suddenly the camera went black, and when it came back on, it showed Jiang Ming, Xue Chao, and the boss—the three con artists—frauding each other..."
"【Fang Tailai】Yes, the ending is that Jiang Ming is driven away and Xue Chao is killed."
Where is the boss, Fang Tailai?
"【Fang Tailai】...I don't know. As soon as Xue Chao died, Fang Tailai's camera went dark. The next time it lit up was when she hid in this teaching building..."
"【Fang Tailai】Xue Chao died and then the camera went black. Whose camera was that?"
"【Deng Dayun】Damn... Didn't you guys find it strange when you watched it? It was all broken!"
"【Fang Tailai】Didn't she return to the rooftop because the dream within her cocoon was looping?"
"【Fang Tailai】I thought Fang Tailai had found a secret passage or used a prop to hide in some secret spot in the classroom to spy on them and gather information... Now that I think about it, with one shrewd person, one cunning ghost, and one real ghost about to appear, how could he not have noticed..."
"【Fang Tailai】weakly raised his hand...I was there the whole time, I can vouch for it, I didn't see how she got into the cocoon at all..."
Deng Dayun realized she was serious and, trembling, asked the question that everyone was thinking: "...How did you know?"
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