On the Brink of Death
After putting away the playing cards, he looked up at an open window upstairs and met the gazes of the people secretly watching him.
They were beyond the range of his weird object's influence, so they should have seen everything.
For some reason, the dozen or so people all guiltily averted their eyes.
"So that's another way to get playing cards. You just have to kill a weird," someone muttered.
"...You make it sound like weirds are easy to kill."
"We can't just sit here and wait to die. We'll all die when the countdown ends!"
"You all have weird objects, right? Should we join forces and give it a try?"
"Obviously. Who'd dare come in without a weird object? Better to fight than wait to die!"
None of those who had dared enter this instance lacked courage. Now that they knew how to obtain the items, they all began thinking about fighting back.
One person might not be able to kill a weird, but surely a whole group could?
An Ying didn't know what they were thinking. He followed the direction the woman had gone, and before long, he heard her scream.
"Boom!"
The weird sent the woman flying. She spat out a mouthful of blood and couldn't get back up.
By the time An Ying arrived, the claw hammer had already struck the woman's head and pinned it to the wall. She was as dead as could be, yet, strangely, no blood had splattered. The hammer had absorbed it all.
He stared at the hammer, recalling the bleeding wound on the woman's back when he had rushed over, and understood the weird's rule. Blood was the rule it used to locate its target.
After dealing with the weird, An Ying was too tired to lift his arms. The massive drain on his energy and stamina had left him exhausted, so he could only rest where he was.
This weird was stronger than the others, and its card was also the highest he had obtained so far: the ten of diamonds.
He now had four playing cards, but he wasn't satisfied with their values.
The name of the game, High Card, was self-explanatory. He wasn't like Qin Rang, who could use his wits to win even with low cards. He preferred a crushing victory that was guaranteed.
So he needed more cards with higher values.
An Ying cut the still-living, shriveled weird object off the woman's leg, opened his backpack, took a sip of water, and closed his eyes to rest.
Before resting, he checked his watch. The instance time was 4:03.
He didn't know how long he had slept before he jolted. A heavy, icy-cold presence on his shoulder assailed his nose with the smell of blood, and the pain of something piercing his abdomen roused him. His eyes flew open in shock, and he saw two lines of bloody text that had appeared before him at some unknown point.
[You have violated a rule!!!] [You have violated a rule!!!]
A tearing pain came from every part of his body, and torrents of blood had soaked his clothes. An Ying had no time to examine the heavy weight on his neck, his shoulder, which had been gnawed down to the ghastly white bone, or the familiar ghost hand in his abdomen. Trembling, he took out a glowing green leaf and crushed it.
Weird object: Heart of Rules. Blocks one lethal rule.
Under the green light, the weird on his shoulder began to dissipate, but extremely slowly. It hadn't been completely suppressed.
What's going on?
An Ying was deathly pale with pain. The Heart of Rules only lasted ten seconds. If the weird hadn't dissipated by then, he would still be torn apart by the weird on his shoulder and the ghost hands on his thigh and in his abdomen.
What's going on? He clearly hadn't done anything. How had he received two rule notifications? And the Heart of Rules hadn't taken full effect, which meant he was still violating a rule!
No, that's not it.
An Ying sprang to his feet and, ignoring the pain, struggled to move his arms. The Heart of Rules' green light flared, instantly dispelling both weirds.
The weight on his body suddenly vanished. An Ying deftly unzipped his backpack, pulled out first-aid supplies, and treated his wounds.
He had been careless. He hadn't expected to draw two weirds at once.
As he treated his wounds and stopped the bleeding, An Ying thought back over exactly how he had violated the rules.
The bloody text had appeared twice. He might have triggered two rules, or he might have triggered the same rule twice.
He was familiar with both weirds. The one on his shoulder was the weird that had appeared when the lights went out on the stairs earlier, while he had seen the ghost hand on the first dead person they had encountered upon entering the instance.
But that was a rule of Gambling House · Spring. He hadn't expected it to still apply here!
That's right, this place is also part of Gambling House · Spring. So that's how it is...
An Ying had long suspected something about the weird on his shoulder. Back on the stairs, he had been the only one who hadn't triggered the rule, and the only difference between him and his teammates was that he had left for a while.
His teammates had been resting during that short time, and he had just been resting too. So the real rule wasn't that they couldn't stay on the stairs for more than five minutes, but that they could never rest for more than five minutes!
The damned rule was playing word games again. Although it was true that they couldn't linger on the long staircase for more than five minutes, it hadn't told them the whole rule!
An Ying checked the time. Only eleven minutes had passed, so the actual rule governing this weird wasn't the lights going out or the stairs, but resting for more than five minutes!
It was five minutes rather than ten because he had rested for ten minutes, triggering the rule again during the second five minutes. The doubled rule had added the ghost hand to the punishment. It was the ghost hand's pain that had woken him and saved his life. Otherwise, he feared he would really have been devoured completely while paralyzed by the weird on his shoulder.
Five minutes...
An Ying finished bandaging his wounds and gasped for breath, his face pale. He couldn't help wanting to curse.
The difficulty of this instance was absurd. It didn't even give them time to rest. People were bound to get tired, and without rest, they would only grow weaker and weaker. At this rate, sooner or later, the whole team would be wiped out.
For some reason, at that moment, he suddenly recalled what the mysterious Moonlit Night had said to him.
"My colleague saw your future. Without my intervention, you'll die a horrible death."
Will I die?
An Ying wasn't afraid of death, but that didn't mean he wanted to die.
That guy had said he would protect him, but there was still no sign of him.
He had lost too much blood from his wounds. An Ying's vision alternated between black and white, and he could barely breathe.
The last time he had been in such a sorry state was before he met Qin Rang and the others, when he had fought alone against several traitors who only dared attack their own people.
The medicine he had brought could heal him quickly, but it couldn't replenish the blood and vitality he had lost. He had to rest.
An Ying rested for another hour or so. During that time, he set countless alarms. Every four minutes, he got up and stood for a while, then waited a bit before sitting down to continue resting. He recovered a little strength and energy, but all the disruption gave him a headache.
Woken by the alarm once again, An Ying rubbed his temples and got up. His somewhat sleepy gaze sharpened, and he turned to look outside the door.
A cold wind carrying a weird's energy blew through the gap. It was the familiar energy signature of the Toddler Weird.
An Ying gripped the bamboo umbrella with his still fairly nimble left hand. His energy formed threads and drove the umbrella's ribs forward!
"Whoosh!"
The air seemed to be sliced open by a sharp blade, and a piercing sound cut through it. Toddler Weirds shattered one after another, then reformed. By the time they had completely vanished, more than ten minutes had passed.
Pale-faced, An Ying braced himself against the wall. After a brief rest, he looked at the spade card the weird had dropped when it died.
This card...
He bent down to pick it up, but for some reason, a voice in his heart resisted. His fingertips paused in midair, and he hesitated for a moment.
It was a rare high card: the nine of spades.
An Ying hesitated for an instant, then tentatively reached for the card again. With a value this high, he wanted to give it a try even if it was dangerous.
He couldn't bring himself to give up the card just like that.
"Sometimes, knowing when to be satisfied is also a smart choice."
The familiar voice came from above his head. An Ying instantly withdrew his hand and stood up, forcibly gathering his energy as he pointed the bamboo umbrella straight ahead.