Chapter 172 Ghost Tenant Training Successfully Completed, a Series of Supernatural Instances, Soon to be Obtained...
When darkness completely enveloped Linjiang City, the players hidden in the city immediately sensed something was wrong.
"There seems to be something strange outside, come and take a look." A player with a hideous scar on his face gestured for his companion to stop fighting and pointed out the window.
The two escaped the Bureau of Surveillance's manhunt and used their skills to randomly teleport to the home of an ordinary citizen. Because the teleportation skill was still on cooldown and they were afraid of attracting the Bureau of Surveillance's pursuit again, they did not kill the family, but only knocked them unconscious and tied them up.
Scarface's companion was a gaunt, skeletal man. Hearing Scarface's call, he casually tossed aside the already bound citizen he was holding and went to the window.
Upon seeing the scene outside, the skeleton man was immediately horrified: "Holy crap! A supernatural dungeon?!"
The scarred man frowned: "I knew something was off. A supernatural instance has actually appeared? But this is supposed to be a relaxing, stress-relieving game. Is the main god trying to trick us?"
In the God's Space, the dungeon rules describe it as an ordinary world where each player can obtain an A-level dungeon clear record by killing five thousand civilians in the city center.
They fought tooth and nail to get a spot in this entertainment room... but in the end, the entertainment room turned into a supernatural room. The God really tricked people into coming here to kill them.
"I just used my observation skill, and there's more than one supernatural instance outside. Let's stop the quest and get back to the Main God Space quickly." The skeleton man's tone was anxious. After a pause, his expression suddenly turned extremely terrified. "Damn it, I can't contact the points system! I can't exit this world and return to the Main God Space! Quickly check if your points system is responding?"
The scarred man was taken aback, and quickly began to call out the points system as well.
After calling out several times without response, the scar on his face contorted in pain: "Damn it, no response on my end either! What's going on? Have we entered a supernatural instance? Where are the instance prompts? There can't be any prompts at all, can there?"
"The points system's storage space is also unusable, and we can't retrieve any items. But thankfully, the skills are still usable." The skeleton man waved his hand, and a radar phantom appeared out of thin air in his hand. "Come with me to find other players. With other players helping to share the monster attacks, the survival rate is higher."
The players sent here by the God of War are the most ruthless and ruthless in the God of War's space, willing to do anything to survive. They are basically the purest egoists, killing as easily as breathing. In the years they have spent clearing supernatural dungeons, they have abandoned all humanity and basic morality. To save their own lives, they would abandon not only teammates, but also family and lovers.
The scarred man sighed. "My storage space is malfunctioning too." However, neither of them were item-dependent players, so they didn't need to worry too much. "I remember there were six players who came in this time. How far are those four from here?"
The skeleton man glanced at the radar phantom in his hand. "Not far, just in the building next door." With that, he opened the front door.
The moment the door opened, a cheerful music box melody suddenly came from outside, and the two people who were about to leave froze at the same time.
The ordinary apartment building corridor outside the door has somehow been transformed into a spacious theater. More than thirty floor-length mirrors form the stage curtain, and on the decaying wooden stage, a small music box featuring a spinning ballerina is slowly turning.
The two quickly retreated back into the house, only to find that the living room behind them had disappeared and been replaced by an identical empty and abandoned theater.
Looking at the bizarre scene before him, the skeleton man muttered in disbelief, "How could a supernatural dungeon spread into buildings so quickly... I checked with my observation skill; the residential buildings in this world are clearly designed to protect against supernatural forces. We're currently inside a residential building; there should at least be a minute or two of buffer time..."
While the two stood frozen in place, the scene changed again, with two abandoned theaters rapidly approaching each other.
It was the scarred man who reacted quickly, carrying the skeleton man and jumping up, thus avoiding being crushed by the two rapidly converging semi-circular stages.
Two semi-circular wooden stages converged to form a circular stage, which was surrounded by floor-to-ceiling mirrors that stretched from the sides to the ceiling, leaving no room for escape—it was as if the place had become a giant, enclosed music box, and the people standing on the stage were ballet dancers spinning inside that music box.
Strangely, however, the mirrors around them and on the ceiling did not reflect their shadows.
Looking at the bizarre scene before him, the scarred man said in a low voice, "My teleportation skill only has a few minutes left on cooldown. Don't make any rash moves. Just hold on until this period is over."
The skeleton man finally came to his senses and responded.
Because the Skeleton Man's skill development path is towards reconnaissance and detection, he spends his time observing the dungeon's internal environment to gather intelligence and clues.
Furthermore, if Scarface's teleportation skill failed, they would still need to find a way to survive in the dungeon, so the skeleton man habitually used his observation skill to look around.
As the skill took effect, the mirror began to change.
The silhouette of a slender dancer in a ballet tutu appeared in all the mirrors.
The ballerina turned her back to them, stood on her tiptoes, and began to spin and jump.
As she moved, drops of blood began to seep from her toes. The blood, like a rapidly decaying rose, withered from its initial scarlet red to a dark brown, completely staining her white satin shoes black.
Suddenly, the skeleton man's pupils shrank dramatically.
He slowly lowered his head and saw that he had somehow acquired a pair of blood-stained red dancing shoes.
"Don't look at the mirror!" The skeleton man had just warned when his feet began to jump uncontrollably in sync with the dancer's movements in the mirror.
The ballerina in the mirror moved with increasing amplitude, finally freezing in a curtain call pose—her head tilted back at an angle completely contrary to human anatomy, the back of her head completely pressed against her back, her black hair falling down, revealing a pale, doll-like, eerie face.
Seeing that the skeleton man's neck was also tilting backward uncontrollably, the scarred man summoned a large cleaver that was radiating a cold light and chopped off the skeleton man's feet without hesitation.
The skeleton man gritted his teeth, suppressing a scream, the cold sweat instantly soaking his clothes. He endured the pain of having his foot chopped, fearing that a scream would trigger some other vengeful ghost's killing intent.
As the feet clad in ballet shoes were severed, the skeleton man's body broke free from the ballerina's control. He leaned against the scarred man, head bowed, no longer looking at the mirror.
However, to their surprise, this act of chopping off the leg enraged the ballerina in the mirror.
The music box's melody suddenly became extremely jarring, like the sound of sharp fingernails scratching a blackboard.
The ballerina's image in the mirror also changed. With her broken cervical vertebra as the axis, her head and limbs were like toys being twisted by an invisible hand—her limbs flipped rapidly, her body contorted and deformed, turning into a humanoid spider with inverted joints, lying on the ground. Then, a crack appeared in her spine, and eight puppet-like limbs emerged from the spinal fissure.
The taut toes, sharp as knives, chipped spiderweb-like cracks into the mirror's surface. In the instant the mirror shattered completely, all the ballet dancers in the mirror moved their twelve limbs in perfect unison, leaping out of the mirror.
Just at this critical moment, the scarred man's teleportation skill was off cooldown, and he teleported directly to the location of the other players while carrying the skeleton man who had lost both legs.
Fortunately, the teleportation skill worked.
Unfortunately, they failed to reunite with the other players and instead entered another supernatural instance.
This dungeon isn't as gentle as the ballerina; it's all about killing blows from the moment you meet her.
Before the two could even see their surroundings clearly, they only felt a flash of blood and several sharp blades made of flesh and blood fly towards them.
Without a second thought, the scarred man shielded the skeleton man in front of him, thus securing a sliver of hope for his own survival.
The reason he teleported with the incapacitated skeleton man was to provide himself with a human shield. Therefore, the scarred man had no qualms about using him as a shield.
The skeleton man only had time to utter one curse word before he was strung up like a candied hawthorn and hung in mid-air.
With the skeleton man's life as a buffer, the scarred man forcibly used the teleportation skill again.
As his figure vanished, a ghostly figure wearing a white coat with its belly ripped open appeared where he had just been.
Seeing the scarred man disappear, the ghostly figure then looked towards the location of the skeleton man.
Tentacles woven from flesh and blood spread from its empty abdominal cavity, dragging the skeleton man into the bloody shadow beneath its feet.
This forced teleportation ruined one of the scarred man's legs; his right leg below the knee was twisted into a pretzel shape.
He endured the pain, using the knife to support his body and stand firm, surveying his surroundings.
What's terrifying is that even though the teleportation distance spanned half a city, he was still in a supernatural instance, albeit one with a different ghost.
He was now standing in a narrow alley. Unlike the outside world, which was shrouded in blood shadows, the buildings in this alley had been completely mutated. The concrete walls had turned into flesh and blood, and the ground had also mutated into countless chunks of flesh. He could even feel the blood vessels pulsating in sync with the beat of an unknown heart on the soles of his shoes.
The air was thick with the stench of blood, and the faint sound of a baby crying could be heard.
The scarred man felt as if he were inside the abdomen of a giant... no, to be precise, as if he were in the uterus.
This is the third one, right...? How many dungeons are there in this world? It's like a nested doll; you leave one only to face another. Could this be the legendary S-rank dungeon??
This feeling of having absolutely no way out is utterly despairing.
No wonder there have never been any S-level players in the God's Space; it would be a miracle if anyone could clear it.
As the cries of the surrounding babies grew louder, countless human faces emerged from the bloody walls on both sides.
The scarred man noticed that most of these faces looked like babies, and he also recognized that among the few adult faces, three were the players who had come with him.
Three people have already died here?
Seeing this, the scarred man dared not linger any longer and activated his teleportation skill, risking losing another hand.
But to his surprise, as soon as the skill took effect, his arm was suddenly grabbed.
The scarred man turned his head and glared angrily at the figure that had appeared out of thin air. The two of them were teleported to the edge of the city.
—In that uterine flesh and blood dungeon just now, one player actually remained invisible the whole time, only revealing himself when the scarred man was about to teleport.
This time, because he was teleporting with someone, the scarred man paid the price of losing a leg and an arm.
He completely lost the ability to move and collapsed heavily to the ground.
The bespectacled man who came with him chuckled and kicked the scarred man, saying gleefully, "Hey Scarface, thanks. If you hadn't suddenly appeared, I wouldn't know how I would have escaped that bloody dungeon."
They are now in an abandoned villa in the suburbs, and the sunlight is shining through the house, no longer in darkness. It is obvious that they have escaped those serial paranormal instances.
Since that's the case, there's no need for teleportation skills, and there's no need to team up with the scarred man.
The bespectacled man smiled and said, "Since you gave me a ride, I won't kill you. I hope to see you again in the God Realm in the future."
The scarred man was furious, gritting his teeth as he said, "Damn four-eyed bastard! You just wait, don't let me run into you in the next dungeon!"
Hearing his threats, the bespectacled man's expression darkened. He stared at the scarred man lying on the ground for a while and said coldly, "Tsk, we still have to nip it in the bud. Otherwise, we'll have to worry about you retaliating in the future, which will be very troublesome."
As soon as he finished speaking, a chain appeared out of thin air in his hand.
The bespectacled man twisted his wrist, swinging the chain in his hand as he said, "You just helped me, I'll give you a quick death."
The chain in his hand spun faster and faster, and soon turned into a white circular phantom.
Just as the bespectacled man was about to sever the scarred man's head, his body suddenly froze.
Behind him, a bizarrely shaped ghostly figure appeared out of nowhere.
The ghostly image was a giant human centipede made up of dozens of mummies connected together.
These emaciated, mummified corpses lay prostrate on the ground, stretching like chains from the villa window all the way to behind the bespectacled man.
The first mummified corpse was perched on the bespectacled man's shoulder.
The bespectacled man's eyes widened in terror, but he was unable to move. His body withered away at an alarming rate, his life force drained instantly, until he was completely assimilated by the ghostly figure, becoming a new desiccated corpse.
The bespectacled man, now a mummified corpse, slowly lay down, becoming the foremost mummified corpse and part of the human centipede.
The scarred man, who was lying on the ground, witnessed this scene and was so frightened that he didn't dare to breathe.
—This abandoned villa is actually a paranormal instance?!
What's going on in this world?! Where did all these ghosts come from? Is this some kind of world where humans and ghosts coexist? No, it's not that humans and ghosts coexist; it's that a large number of ghosts are mixed with a small number of humans.
This is a supernatural scenario, how do the people living in this world survive?
The scarred man was on the verge of a breakdown.
However, as a player who has completed many supernatural dungeons, even if you are terrified, your brain will reflexively analyze the conditions under which the ghosts in the dungeon kill you and look for a way to survive.
When he and the bespectacled man first arrived at the abandoned villa, nothing happened. The real strange thing happened when the bespectacled man took out a chain and started turning it.
Recalling the chain that left afterimages, the scarred man guessed that the rule of this dungeon was that the faster you acted, the faster you would die.
Losing both legs and an arm made him unable to move easily, but ironically, it was a blessing in disguise, allowing him to escape a terrible ordeal.
With that thought in mind, the scarred man endured the pain and tried to wriggle his body, slowly crawling forward.
After wriggling a few times, he immediately stopped and observed his surroundings.
The centipede-like ghost never appeared, so it seems his guess was correct.
The scarred man took a few deep breaths and looked at the half-closed door of the villa.
He has to leave this villa!
If he's not mistaken, this villa is on the edge of this series of supernatural events.
The darkness appeared suddenly, and everywhere under the night sky was a supernatural dungeon. However, sunlight shone outside this villa, so leaving the villa would likely allow one to escape this torturous, large-scale, interconnected dungeon.
The scarred man struggled to move, his twisted limbs bleeding profusely, leaving a long trail of blood on the ground.
Even so, he did not give up.
After climbing and stopping intermittently, the scarred man finally reached the villa's entrance.
We've arrived! The exit is right in front of us!
The scarred man gritted his teeth, forced himself to sit up on one side, and pushed open the door.
He was stunned when he saw the scene outside the door.
Outside the door was a spacious, abandoned theater, with countless floor-to-ceiling mirrors forming a stage curtain. On the decaying wooden stage, a music box slowly turned, playing cheerful dance music.
As the stage drew closer, the scarred man lying on the ground finally saw the ballerina's reflection in the mirror.
As the ballerina in the mirror continued to spin and leap, the scarred man's body also began to move uncontrollably.
Even though his legs were twisted into a pretzel shape, even though his bones were broken and pierced his flesh, he still stood up unsteadily... A pair of blood-stained ballet shoes appeared at his feet, and his body began to spin along with the dancer in the mirror.
The scarred man was utterly desperate.
His teleportation skill requires him to bend his finger when using it, but now his body is completely out of control, making it impossible for him to use the teleportation skill.
There is no way out, no hope, only endless death and reincarnation...
This world is not some supernatural instance; it is hell itself... an endless purgatory of despair.
*
"The last one is also taken care of." Zhou Fangdong clapped his hands, dispelling all the ghostly domains that had enveloped the city.
I never expected these players to be so bad. Before the countdown for training the ghost tenants had even ended, all those players were gone.
Although the ghost realm appeared for a very short time this time, and the citizens should already be used to it after their experience with the last realm, Zhou Fangdong still called the director of the Supervision Bureau to ask him to hold a press conference to explain the situation in order to prevent any misunderstandings.
It wasn't easy for him to build up his reputation, and he couldn't afford to let his reputation at Liwan Apartments drop any further.
After calling the bureau chief, Zhou Fangdong still felt uneasy, so he called Bai Mingdan and asked him to contact the supervisory bureau to find out what had just happened and write a press release.
After hanging up the phone, Zhou Fangdong decided to go all the way and sent Miao Zheng a message, asking her to start a live stream as well.
This incident should boost the reputation of Liwan Apartments.
Doing good deeds anonymously is like wearing fine clothes in the dark.
The destruction those players caused in the city was obvious to all, and now that the ghost of Liwan Apartments has dealt with those players, we must take this opportunity to promote Liwan Apartments and gain some reputation.
Even if growth doesn't occur, there's still Liwan Hospital.
Zhou Fangdong checked the condition of Liwan Hospital.
The hospital wards are full now, and most of the injured patients were caused by those players this morning.
Although it may sound a bit unethical to say this, the more patients a hospital has, the more prestige it gains.
These patients were mostly suffering from external injuries. The hospital pharmacy already had medicines that could quickly stop bleeding and dispel supernatural forces, but in order to gain reputation as soon as possible, Zhou Fangdong bought a batch of life-saving medicines that could quickly heal from the system store and put them on the shelves of the hospital pharmacy.
Another big wave of reputation will be coming in tomorrow; hopefully, it will bring the apartment's reputation to a positive number.
Just then, the sound of shattering glass suddenly appeared.
Zhou Fangdong looked in the direction of the sound and saw that the two Taoist priests had finished their training and were walking out of the training glass jar.
At the same time, a system notification sound also rang out:
[The ghost tenants have completed their training! Both ghost tenants have successfully learned new skills! Because the two tenants have great chemistry, they have even created an exciting combo attack. Please check it out, host!]
[Note: All glass jars in the training center are single-use items. If all remaining glass jars are broken, they must be repaired before training can begin on the haunted tenants.]
Repairing the glass jar requires 100 reputation points or 10,000 ghost coins.
Zhou Fangdong looked at the two broken glass jars, then at the bright red liquid that had overflowed from the jars and flowed to his feet, and his brows suddenly furrowed.
He didn't examine the skills the two Taoist priests had taught him, but instead looked at the broken glass jar in the middle.
The glass jar in the very center was already broken when he first unlocked the hidden room on the third floor.
Zhou Fangdong's expression grew increasingly serious.
So, which ghost tenant first used this hidden room to train skills?
Training costs 50 reputation points, and repairing a glass jar costs 100 reputation points, which adds up to 150 reputation points, roughly equivalent to 100 million.
Damn it, he has to find out who used this training glass jar.
Once you've used the apartment's resources, you can't just sit idle; you all have to come back and work for him... He, the landlord, is working diligently, and he absolutely won't allow skilled tenants to slack off outside.
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