Chapter 16 The Infinite Boss Invites Players to "Eat Melon" 16. Players...
Tieshan may appear tall and imposing, but when he actually moves, he is agile and silent.
Like a gecko or a hawk, he leaped from the ground, nimbly crossing the first and second floors of Building 13, and landed directly on the exterior wall of the third floor.
Normally, Tieshan's jump would have landed him at least on the fifth or sixth floor, otherwise it would have been a disservice to his special ability. But even in his anxiety, he knew this was no ordinary place. Was he afraid of being targeted by something supernatural if he dared to jump so high in the Morning Dusk Apartments? Caution is an essential quality for an S-class player.
Tieshan clung to the rainwater pipe, cautiously climbing upwards.
Apart from the bedroom windowsill and the drainpipe not far from it, there was nothing else on this outer wall to climb. No matter how powerful Tieshan is, if he can't fly, he needs a foothold.
He chose to leverage the rainwater pipe.
Following the drainpipe, Tieshan carefully and quickly climbed over the third floor without incident and headed towards the fourth floor.
As soon as Tieshan entered the fourth floor, he felt an invisible pressure twice as strong as that on the third floor, which abruptly slowed his upward leap, as if he were being held down by a stronger gravity.
Although Tieshan had anticipated this, he still dared not be careless. He glanced down at the wristwatch he had purchased from the game points shop, a watch that could monitor his own pollution levels. Sure enough, the watch showed that his pollution was slowly increasing, moving from light to moderate pollution.
He gritted his teeth, took out a vial of expensive decontamination medicine, poured it into his mouth, and continued upwards.
I had only climbed a few steps when suddenly, the light in the fourth-floor bedroom came on.
Tieshan's muscles tensed instantly, his pupils contracted, and he stared intently at the bedroom on the fourth floor.
Meanwhile, his extensive dungeon experience allowed him to quickly retrieve the strange object, ready to face danger or escape by jumping off the building at any moment.
But nothing happened.
In the dim light, in the bedroom on the fourth floor, which was less than a meter away from Tieshan, there were no strange noises or eerie bursts out of the window.
A heavy beige curtain hung low, creating a hazy, quiet, and peaceful atmosphere.
If this were an ordinary neighborhood on Jinshui Star, Tieshan wouldn't even give such a common sight a second glance. But this is Chenhun Apartment, a dangerous instance that, according to the friend Tieshan rescued, has claimed four-fifths of A-level and S-level players, so no amount of caution is excessive.
Tieshan remained highly vigilant, facing off against the lit window.
In the Dawn and Dusk Apartments, doors and windows are extremely important. As long as they are closed, it means that it is temporarily safe and that the eerie or the Boss has not yet become monstrous and launched an attack.
During the standoff, Tieshan faintly heard a very low, panting sound coming from inside the window, suppressed and rapid, as if some indescribable, terrifying monster was lurking within.
Cold sweat beaded on his forehead.
He remembered that this was the floor his friends called "Hellhound's House," where an S-rank player had once collapsed.
Fortunately, the window in front of him remained tightly closed, showing no sign of opening.
Tieshan waited a few more seconds, and seeing that there was no significant change in the lights or the breathing inside, he knew that he had probably passed the test. He didn't dare to linger any longer and quickly continued upwards.
The very next second after he left the window sill, the door to the master bedroom on the fourth floor was pushed open.
An old man walked in, bent down, pinched, and pulled out a dog's ear.
Afraid of disturbing the neighbors, he turned off the light, dragged the husky outside, and muttered angrily, "How many times have I told you, you stinky little thing? Don't play with the lights on in the middle of the night! I beat you up in my room, so you come to play in this room, huh? Let me tell you, your dad isn't home right now. If you dare to cause trouble again, Grandpa will take away your snacks!"
The husky stared with its wise blue eyes, glanced at the windowsill, and then whimpered without resistance as it was dragged away.
In the darkness, a huge, eerie shadow seemed to flash past beneath the husky.
Tieshan was unaware of what had happened on the fourth floor, and in order not to anger the person on the fourth floor, he dared not look down.
In a few quick climbs, he had already reached the fifth floor.
The fifth floor was dark, but a sound could be heard coming from it. It was indistinct and unclear, but all that could be heard was that a woman was singing, and the melody was mournful and desolate.
Having gained experience, Tieshan dared not make any unnecessary movements, stopping to slow down or look at his watch, keeping his eyes down and focusing on his inner thoughts as he went straight up.
As Tieshan passed by the window, the singing on the fifth floor stopped, and the window shook slightly, but it still didn't open.
Tieshan's heart was racing, but he didn't stop moving.
"Midnight Girl's" territory has seen three A-level players fall, so she shouldn't be underestimated.
Tieshan took out a strange object to block out sound, and in a few seconds, he passed the fifth floor.
In the dark bedroom, the woman, who was used to listening to meditation audio or soft songs when she couldn't sleep, turned over, groggily reached for the headboard, and turned the player back on after it stopped playing.
As she turned over, the woman scratched her head in frustration, clumps of hair falling out and landing on the floor, wriggling like slender snakes in the shadows where no one could see them.
"It's so noisy in the middle of the night."
The woman muttered.
Tieshan has reached the sixth floor.
An illegal extension had been made to the sixth-floor windowsill, creating a protruding, stark wall piled high with numerous iron cages of various sizes. The cages were rusty and filthy, empty inside, but a strong stench of decay and fresh blood wafted in with the night wind, making Tieshan want to vomit.
Tieshan didn't want to think too much about what had been in that cage. He only knew that his friend had referred to this floor as "human sacrifice" in the documents, and he knew that there was definitely no pleasant story inside.
He held a strange object that could sense things, trying to suppress the influence of the scent on himself, and carefully climbed over the windowsill.
The windows on the sixth floor shook even more violently, but they still didn't open.
Tieshan successfully made it to the seventh floor.
The seventh floor was quiet and there was no smell. There was just an extra clothesline hanging out to dry, with a row of clothes on it.
Tieshan's gaze swept over them. At first glance, they all looked like loungewear, but upon closer inspection, they all transformed into funeral shrouds, swaying eerily in the dim light of the streetlights.
Tieshan's back was instantly soaked with sweat.
He pulled his gaze back, not daring to look any longer, and was about to climb up, but as soon as he moved, his feet felt heavy.
He looked down sharply and saw that his right leg had somehow slipped into the leg of the trousers of the burial shroud closest to him.
At the same time, a slight creaking sound came from the window next to it.
It opened a crack.
A hoarse cough was heard.
Tieshan froze, his heart leaping into his throat.
In that critical moment, despite his fear, he reacted swiftly, pulling out a strange object that could temporarily distract the eerie creature. At the same time, he controlled his right leg, shrinking it instantly and freeing it from his trouser leg.
With the crisis resolved, Tieshan immediately darted upwards.
At this moment of genuine danger, Tieshan wavered for a fleeting instant, hesitating whether to leave immediately and stop climbing. But there were thirteen floors in total, and he had already reached the seventh. Giving up now would be unacceptable to Ji Chengchuan, and he himself was unwilling to do so. Besides, the danger wasn't insurmountable, and he hadn't yet used his trump cards.
"Luckily, this is on the outer wall. If we were facing those monsters inside the building, we probably wouldn't even know how we died... Let's be careful. We're almost there. There's no dungeon without risk..."
Tieshan secretly calmed himself down.
On the eighth floor, Tieshan had just arrived when he saw a large crack opened in the dark window. A corner of the curtain peeked out from the crack, making a strange rustling sound in the wind.
Attracted by the sound, Tieshan looked closely and discovered that it was not a curtain, or rather, not a normal curtain, but a curtain made of countless talisman paper stuck together.
The talisman paper seemed to have been soaked by the night rain, the yellow paper seeping through, and the red cinnabar on it was mottled, like a large mass of blood slowly seeping out.
Upon seeing this, all the talismans immediately flew out like sparrows, wrapping around Tieshan.
Having no other choice, Tieshan threw the strange object meant to distract him inside, and taking advantage of the moment the talisman paused, he tore off the rest of his skin and flesh and rushed out at full speed.
On the ninth floor, a window was a quarter open, revealing a vortex of darkness inside, where nothing could be seen. But the outer wall that Tieshan was clinging to suddenly softened and became slippery, its texture not like a wall, but more like some kind of flesh and blood covered in mucus.
Flesh and blood writhed, clinging to Tieshan's body, sucking and swallowing it inward.
Caught off guard, Tieshan managed to escape only after all the strange creatures appeared.
On the tenth floor, the window was half open, and the open windowsill was covered with Nuo masks. As soon as Tieshan passed by, all the Nuo masks suddenly grew eyeballs and looked at him.
Almost simultaneously, countless eyeballs began to appear on Tieshan's body.
This time, he revealed his trump card.
On the eleventh floor, the window was half-open, and two paper figures with red lips and white teeth stood guard at the window, their empty eyes staring at Tieshan. At a certain moment, Tieshan's perspective changed; he seemed to become a paper figure, watching himself outside the window as he continued to climb upwards.
Left with no other choice, Tieshan had to reveal all his cards.
He transformed into a blood gourd, crawling step by step.
One more floor... one more floor, and that's the thirteenth floor, Lu Yu's bedroom.
He clung to this string with unwavering determination, as if there was no way out.
On the twelfth floor, the lights were on, the windows were wide open, the curtains were not drawn, the windowsill was clean, and there was nothing messy. The bedroom, which could be seen at a glance, was also very normal, just like any ordinary bedroom that Tieshan had ever seen: a bed, a wardrobe, and a set of tables and chairs.
There was no one in bed, the wardrobe was open but empty, and there were no electronic devices or decorations on the table.
"The layout is a bit like my room back home."
A thought suddenly flashed through Tieshan's mind.
The next moment, for some unknown reason, he inexplicably appeared in the bedroom, sitting at the table, holding a mouse in one hand and typing on the keyboard with the other, playing a game.
He paused for a moment, but instead of panicking or struggling, he slowly looked up and glanced at the time displayed in the lower right corner of the computer screen.
"It's almost four o'clock, I should go to sleep. If my mom finds out I stayed up all night again, she'll kill me..."
He muttered to himself, his blank eyes gradually regaining their luster, and his appearance rapidly changed, transforming him into his teenage self.
He turned off his computer, pulled a new set of pajamas from the closet, put it on, then turned off the lights, lay down on the bed, pulled the covers over himself, and closed his eyes to sleep.
Everywhere, the S-level players who were vaguely monitoring Tieshan watched this scene with expressions of shock and disbelief, and a chill ran down their spines.
"Has even his perception been altered?" Inside the van outside the Morning Dusk Apartment complex, Liu Xian was sweating profusely, his teeth chattering. "Is this...is this something a normal supernatural being could do?"
Old Bai wiped his face and said, "The twelfth floor of the Dawn and Dusk Apartments is a bit scary. Even an average S-level player, or a team without an S-level squad, wouldn't dare to take it on one-on-one..."
Jiang Yan seemed to have seen something and shook her head, saying, "The twelfth floor is indeed terrifying, but the fact that Tieshan fell into the twelfth floor so easily is not just a problem of the twelfth floor."
"He climbed up floor by floor, and by the time he reached the twelfth floor, the pollution was already close to severe. Do you remember? Tieshan looked at the pollution monitoring wristband once when he was on the third floor, but later, even when he had the opportunity and the need, he never looked at it again."
"His perception was affected from the very beginning. This is the pollution emanating from every floor, and the overall impact of the Morning and Evening Apartments."
"This kind of cognitive thing, no matter how much preparation you do, you can still get stuck in it and find it hard to break free. It's even hard to realize that you have a problem. Otherwise, Tieshan should have given up climbing and left by the eleventh floor at the latest."
In the far shadows, the Dream Catcher gave the same answer to his teammates.
“But Captain,” Sleepyhead frowned, “a player corrupted to the extent that Iron Mountain should have collapsed and died, but look at Iron Mountain now, he shows no signs of collapse, does he? Could it be that he is as gifted as Pei Yanzhi? Or has he become corrupted?”
“Players cannot become monsters,” the Dreamcatcher said.
This was explicitly stated by Smile Game.
“He must have been ‘captured’ by the Dawn and Dusk Apartments,” the Dream Catcher said.
"capture?"
In another nearby residential area, Mai Dadan, now human again, was discussing with Lin Xiaoman: "I've never seen him before, is he still alive?"
Lin Xiaoman shook her head: "I've only heard about it, never seen it. It's definitely not alive now..."
Mai Dadan sighed, "This is too difficult! Tieshan is considered a top 50 player on the leaderboard, but after all that effort, he couldn't even reach Lu Yu's window, and he even got hurt..."
At this moment, there are probably only two groups of people who aren't making wild guesses about Tieshan's current state. One is Daohuang, who suffered a setback at the start and knows he probably has no chance, so he's preparing to give up. The other is Pei Yanzhi, who already knows that Lu Yu has the ability to purify pollution and can passively suppress and purify pollution that has come into contact with him.
As for Ji Chengchuan, he looked angry and worried, saying he was going to save Tieshan, but he was stopped by other admirers and is currently entangled with them.
At this moment, Lao Bai suddenly said, "No, Captain, this isn't over yet!"
As soon as he finished speaking, the other teams also noticed the changes in their surveillance footage.
On the twelfth floor, the once empty bedroom was now fully occupied. Young Tieshan slept peacefully inside, and the open window gradually closed.
However, just as the last crack in the window was about to close and disappear, all the windows on the floors below the twelfth floor suddenly opened with a series of loud bangs.
The pollution, so dense it was almost tangible, no longer held back. It was released directly, surging out from the eleventh floor and rushing towards the twelfth floor, like an avalanche or a tsunami.
Contamination differs from the supernatural in that it is mostly concealed. In its normally concealed state, it has no physical form and does not produce any noticeable sensations for those who come into contact with it. Therefore, when a player is contaminated, it usually happens silently, without many warning signs.
However, the higher the player's level, the less easily they are corrupted. Corruption requires time and direct contact, and high-level players are cautious enough to have many monitoring and defense mechanisms in place.
If S-level players are really so easily corrupted, then no one would dare to approach Pei Yanzhi, who they suspect is heavily corrupted. Not to mention teammates or guilds, he probably wouldn't even have any acquaintances; he'd be killed the moment he stepped outside.
Of course, this is contamination in the convergent state; the release state is a different story.
At least for now, given the wave of pollution erupting at the Morning and Evening Apartments, few of the S-class players present dared to say they could withstand it for even two seconds.
The players stared in horror at the scene they had witnessed, their eyes wide with shock.
"The pollution at the Morning and Evening Apartments is so severe! No one would know unless it was released. Luckily, we didn't go in rashly..." someone said, still feeling lingering fear.
"I've never seen so much pollution since I became an S-rank player. Is this pollution only in an S-rank dungeon?" someone exclaimed.
"What about Tieshan? He's going to die!" Ji Chengchuan was still struggling. "Let me go! Don't stop me from saving him!"
As for Pei Yanzhi, he had already made his move.
He sensed the changes in the Morning and Evening Apartments with the spatial power he left behind. Thinking of Lu Yu, his feet moved before his thoughts, and he stepped out, traversing space as if shrinking the earth to an inch, and stepped out of the Happiness Community.
It seems a bit ridiculous that an S-level player like him would worry about Lu Yu, who possesses purification abilities and is the final SSS-level boss of the entire Blue Star world.
But as ridiculous as it may seem, Pei Yanzhi did not stop.
However, just as he was about to arrive at Building 13, the entire Morning and Evening Apartments suddenly went silent, from the sky to the ground.
"System, didn't you say players were coming?"
Almost simultaneously, on the thirteenth floor of building thirteen, Lu Yu, with a small speaker around his neck and a kitchen knife in his hand, appeared on the balcony: "Where are the players? Where are they?"
A note from the author:
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