I Think I Understand

Suddenly, JK, sitting on the ground with wounds all over his body, braced himself against a stone pillar and said:

"Short-Haired Woman, get up. We need to collect the ashes. We can't rest here!"

The short-haired woman didn't answer immediately. Blood loss had left her somewhat dazed. Finally, she took a deep breath, and her mind cleared a little. She asked JK:

"What's wrong here?"

JK said gravely:

"There's something very wrong with the funeral hall. You know my talent. But I'm afraid now. Something terrifying is happening here, something even my talent can't resist."

"Cough, cough. In that case, let's go!"

The short-haired woman struggled to her feet and looked at Xu Kai, only to find him still standing where he was.

Xu Kai was waiting for the game's voice, but after a long while, there was still no response. The task hadn't been completed. What he feared most had happened.

His task said to follow the players until the ceremony ended. The farewell ceremony had clearly ended, and the coffin had been cremated, yet the task still hadn't registered as complete.

There was only one possibility: the ceremony wasn't the farewell ceremony, but something else!

At that thought, Xu Kai's heart tightened. He reached out, and seeing how slowly JK and the short-haired woman were moving, he grabbed them both.

They fought their way out of the funeral hall. The moment they emerged, the entire hall began to rumble, stirring up long-accumulated dust into a great cloud of haze.

When Xu Kai saw the haze, his mind went blank for a moment.

By the time he came back to his senses, he was running even faster.

He hadn't just spaced out. He had died again.

The haze had the same properties as the Stone Statue Weird's power. Anyone who touched it would be petrified.

Damn it. He finally understood why the Stone Statue Weird's powers were so strong in the funeral hall, strong enough to control even the players' hunger.

His true body was in the funeral hall! He had been built into its roof! That was what Xu Kai had seen during this rollback!

That cleared up all his earlier confusion. Xu Kai had wondered why a Stone Statue Weird controlled a crematorium instance, and why his face was grayish blue. So this was why! He had been used as building stone in the funeral hall's roof!

No wonder the Stone Statue Weird was so powerful... Was this what a Weird who knew the cause of his death was like? Xu Kai recalled his earlier deaths. The Stone Statue Weird's Weird Energy was extraordinarily powerful; it could even petrify, crush, and cause hallucinations...

At that thought, Xu Kai ran even faster, dragging the two injured players along until they stumbled.

Xu Kai also thought of the ceremony mentioned in the task. It was very likely the ceremony to unseal the Stone Statue Weird's true body! Judging by how things stood, it probably wouldn't be long before that body emerged.

There was no need for Xu Kai to guess why he had gone to such lengths to break the seal with a ceremony. Nine times out of ten, it was to turn the entire instance into his Killing Zone!

Tsk!

Xu Kai clicked his tongue. Without explaining, he pulled JK and the short-haired woman along as he ran with all his might.

He wasn't doing it out of sympathy. He had to clear the task with at least one player still alive. Otherwise, if all the players died, the instance settlement would be quite slow. Last time, Xu Kai and the Stone Statue Weird had faced off outside the cremation workshop for nearly half an hour.

If everyone died this time, the Stone Statue Weird would turn the whole instance into a Killing Zone. Half an hour would be enough to trap Xu Kai in a death loop.

Xu Kai ran with all his strength. The workshop where the ashes were kept was right behind the cremation workshop, and they were very close now.

The funeral hall shook more and more violently. Dust poured from its roof like a thin mist, rolling toward Xu Kai and the others.

They couldn't touch that haze at all. Anyone who did would immediately turn to stone. Last time, Xu Kai had died from petrification.

Fortunately, the haze wasn't spreading quickly. Xu Kai and the others could still push forward, and they finally reached the ashes storage room.

The storage room door was locked. Xu Kai had brought the two players with him; they had lost too much blood and were somewhat dazed. Xu Kai paid no attention to that. He twisted the lock open with his bare hands, cutting his hand on a jagged edge so deeply that the bone showed, but he didn't make a sound.

The door was forced open. The room inside was square, and directly opposite the door was an opening: the outlet for the cremation workshop's equipment.

The ashes left after cremation were piled here.

Xu Kai took two boxes stored nearby and began filling them with ashes.

"M-Master Xu, are you a player who failed here? Have you been stuck here all this time, and that's why... why you're helping us?"

Seeing how practiced Xu Kai was, the short-haired woman could barely keep the questions off her face. She was pale, and in another ten minutes, she would die of blood loss.

"What exactly is your task? I might not be able to help you with what comes next."

Xu Kai didn't explain why he was so practiced. In his previous run of the instance, he had only known that Wang Hua wanted the ashes. He knew nothing about what came after, because Wang Hua hadn't lived that long. She had died outright.

"We have to bury the ashes and put up a gravestone."

Hearing her answer, Xu Kai kept a calm gaze as his mind raced. His hands didn't stop moving, and he quickly finished filling the boxes. He filled two, doing his best to control the order and distribute the ashes evenly. The first box should have contained most of Yellow-Haired Brother Dog, and the second most of the target coffin.

The haze had already spread to the wall. The cremation workshop's equipment had been petrified, and its clattering had fallen silent. The haze was even pouring into the ashes storage room through the equipment's outlet.

Seeing this, Xu Kai and the players hurried out of the storage room and ran for their lives.

JK couldn't hold on. This was his first instance, and his body hadn't been strengthened. He wasn't even as strong as Yellow Hair. After a few steps, he suddenly faltered and pitched forward onto one knee, about to collapse.

The short-haired woman looked back and tried to pull JK up, only to find that her own legs had no strength left. As soon as she turned around, she crumpled.

The haze was only a hundred meters away. Xu Kai didn't go to pull the players up; his own strength was badly depleted too.

They had just reached a pavilion. Xu Kai looked at the two urns. The boxes weren't large, so he tore apart a wooden bench in the pavilion to use as gravestones, then dug with all his might. By the time the haze was only ten meters away, Xu Kai had only just finished digging two holes.

He quickly put the ashes in and planted the wooden markers, but there was still no response.

The short-haired woman said to Master Xu in despair:

"Master Xu, stop struggling. We didn't take a close look at Building 26 before, so we have no idea who the deceased we delivered was. We can't put up the gravestone! I'm sorry, we lied to you. We had nothing to do with the deceased."

Xu Kai remained silent. He didn't give up. He unwrapped the bandaged wound on his hand and used the blood to write on the marker. He wrote "Yellow Hair," and as soon as he finished, his mind went blank again.

That was right, he had died again. He had finished writing the names on both markers, but there had still been no response from the task. In the end, they had been petrified by the haze and died.

After rolling back, Xu Kai quickly thought it over. It had to be because this wasn't his task, so he couldn't complete it.

But the two players were already at death's door and had no strength left.

Fortunately, he had rolled back to the moment JK fell.

This time, he didn't go any farther. He began digging right where JK had fallen.

Fortunately, the crematorium didn't cover a wide area, and very little of it was paved. The ground beside them was still bare earth. Xu Kai quickly dug a hole, but the haze was faster this time. He had only dug one hole when it was already just ten meters away.

With no other choice, Xu Kai buried both sets of ashes together and planted two wooden markers.

At that moment, the short-haired woman said the same despairing words as before. Xu Kai didn't respond. He simply reopened his wound and said to JK:

"Are you still conscious? Write. Write whatever I tell you."

"Hiss... okay..."

JK held on to consciousness and reached out with a trembling hand. He dabbed a little blood from Xu Kai, and it immediately burned, giving off a wisp of blue smoke.

But it was already difficult enough for JK to move his fingers consciously. He didn't notice the smoke, only turning his ear toward Xu Kai and trying his best to listen.

"On the first one, write 'Yellow-Haired Brother Dog.'"

JK did as he was told. This was a player, so it was easy.

For the second one, however, Xu Kai paused, then said with difficulty:

"On the second, write 'Evil,' as in good and evil."

JK froze for a moment, then did as he was told.

The instant he finished, JK and the short-haired woman both received a task completion message. The short-haired woman had watched everything, thinking all the while. Suddenly, her eyes lit up as she looked at Xu Kai.

It all makes sense now. Everything makes sense. If that's the case, then Master Xu's actions...

The short-haired woman finally understood something and said to Xu Kai:

"Master Xu, I finally know who you are. In my last instance, I met a 'person' like you too."

The short-haired woman put heavy emphasis on "person." She looked at Xu Kai not with wariness, but with sympathy.

"Heh. Did he live in the end?"

"He died. Without him, I died too."

"..."

"The next time we meet, we'll be enemies, won't we?"

The short-haired woman spoke with certainty. Without looking at Xu Kai, she walked through the door that had appeared behind her. It was the door that appeared after successfully clearing the instance, and the nighttime streets of the real world were visible through it. JK also forced himself to crawl inside.

The moment the two figures entered the door, the entire instance shuddered.

The players had cleared the instance, which meant its settlement would soon begin. Xu Kai's task to follow them was no longer important. Once the instance was settled, the Stone Statue Weird would be confined to the Killing Zone, unable to come out.

But at that very moment, Xu Kai heard the game's voice.

[Task complete. Reward: Gui Resistance increased by ten percent.]

The moment Xu Kai heard it, he shot away like an arrow!

The task completion wasn't the instance settlement. It meant the ceremony to break the seal had ended, and the Stone Statue Weird could move freely.

But no matter how quickly Xu Kai reacted, he still couldn't outrun the Stone Statue Weird.

The Stone Statue Weird charged straight out of the funeral hall and knocked Xu Kai down. Every bone in Xu Kai's body broke in an instant, and the Stone Statue Weird picked him up like a heap of mud.

But Xu Kai was smiling, mocking the Stone Statue Weird. This was a cowardly Weird, afraid of an "Evil" that surpassed him.

Without saying a word, the Stone Statue Weird immediately tightened his grip, only to discover that no matter how hard he squeezed, he couldn't crush Xu Kai. The instance's compulsory power had taken effect.

[Instance settlement beginning. Killing outside the Killing Zone is prohibited.]

The Stone Statue Weird reluctantly loosened his right hand. He stared coldly at Xu Kai, trying to burn his face deep into his memory, then backed away step by step, slowly retreating into the funeral hall.

"Heh, still putting on a tough act? Asshole, why aren't you doing anything now?"

Xu Kai laughed. Though he lay flat on the ground like a heap of mud, he was still smiling as he quietly watched the Stone Statue Weird. The game's announcement sounded in his ears.

[Players have cleared the instance. Beginning final instance evaluation.]

[Number 95201: completed all tasks assigned by the Weird and completed the Role-Playing Mission. Rewards: one portion of Source Weird Qi, one Temporary Ghost Advancement Card, and one hundred City Coins.]

[Return to the City?]

Return to the City? The Stone Statue Weird hated Xu Kai so much that he had probably already prepared a grand feast in the City, just waiting for Xu Kai to come over so he could mince him up and share the feast with the Weird Duke.

Xu Kai selected no without hesitation. Afterward, his consciousness sank into the game interface, where he found the three portions of Source Weird Qi in his inventory. A game window popped up.

[Combine into a Ghost Entry Ticket?]

[Note: the Ghost Entry Ticket grants entry to the exclusive instance 'Battle of All Evils.' The instance will be hosted by a Rule Ghost and is intended to cultivate outstanding instance bosses.]

After reading the window, Xu Kai understood. The Weird Duke and the Stone Statue Weird had been right: three portions of Source Weird Qi could indeed allow "Evil" to advance and become a Weird.

While Xu Kai was thinking, the instance began to change again.

A gentle force swept through the entire instance, and everything began to return to its original state.

The shattered funeral hall was being restored, and Xu Kai's broken body was slowly returning to normal as well.

Unfortunately, the dead wouldn't be restored. Xu Kai had learned that during the previous instance settlement.

After feeling much more at ease in his body, Xu Kai fixed his eyes on the words "Battle of All Evils." He stared at them for a long time, then smiled.

He finally selected yes for the three portions of Source Weird Qi.