"You have gained 70 fear points!"
Seeing the system notification, Shen Hao finally smiled. The instance had been underway for so long, and he had finally gained something.
These people were all veteran players, unlike newbies who could be frightened by just about anything.
Unless they were in a truly desperate situation, they wouldn't feel fear.
But now, they were starting to feel afraid.
Fear was like a seed. Once planted, it would take root and sprout, eventually growing into a towering tree.
"Welcome to Haunted Town. Now you'll experience the true horror of this instance!"
Watching the four figures, Shen Hao spoke to himself.
As long as he forced them here, he wouldn't need to do anything else. He had already won this hunt.
"So it really is a hidden map!" Zhang Zhiqiang couldn't help shouting. "Fuck! What do we do? Are we going to die here?"
"I don't know. How did we end up here? Have the rules of the instance changed?" Cheng Xu's face was also full of shock.
Zhang Zhiqiang looked at Cheng Xu and cursed, "Fuck, this is all your fault! If it weren't for you, how could we have ended up here?"
Cheng Xu shouted back, "I only proposed the plan. You all agreed to it, so how can you blame me now?"
Zhao Yuqing looked at Zhang Zhiqiang and said sarcastically, "Weren't you yelling about wanting to enter the hidden map at the start? Now you've got your wish. Shouldn't you be happy?"
"You fucking bitch! You've been targeting me since we got here. If you'd burned that doll, would we be in this situation?"
The three of them started arguing, and it even looked like they might come to blows.
Jiang Yue hurriedly tried to stop them. "Stop arguing! Do you all have a death wish?"
Jiang Yue's words brought everyone back to reality. They were in a very dangerous situation, and if they kept arguing like this, none of them would survive.
"I heard there are two worlds in this instance. One is where we were before, and the other is where we are now."
Jiang Yue continued, "This is also where the instance's hidden quest is. Although no one has ever completed the hidden quest here, now that we're in, we have to complete it no matter what.
"It's dangerous, and we could all die, but we don't have any other choice now."
"That's all we can do," Cheng Xu said. "Just because no one has completed this quest doesn't mean we can't. Every instance can be beaten."
Zhang Zhiqiang said, "Easy for you to say. How could it be that simple?"
"If you don't want to help, you can stay here and wait to die."
"Fuck," Zhang Zhiqiang cursed, but said nothing more. Things had already come to this, and there was no point complaining.
Cheng Xu offered further encouragement. "We've all been through so many instances and faced every kind of danger. We might still make it through this one too."
The four looked at the deserted street. None of them felt confident, but now they had no choice but to face it all.
There were no guides they could refer to now. They could only rely on themselves for everything.
Jiang Yue said, "The quest tells us to resolve the crisis facing the residents here, which means there are still people alive. We need to find them first and find out what's going on."
"Yeah, that's all we can do," Cheng Xu said.
The others agreed. In an unfamiliar place, finding out what was going on first was certainly necessary.
The four walked along the street.
A place without humans should have been a paradise for other creatures, but the town was deathly silent, as though nothing alive existed there except them.
There were no birds or insects, and even plants were extremely rare.
They had walked through almost the entire town when, just as they were growing disappointed, a figure appeared in their field of vision.
"There's someone over there. Let's take a look," Jiang Yue said.
"Be careful." Cheng Xu looked at the figure ahead and felt that something was off.
The person ahead had their back to them and stood motionless, like a wooden carving.
The four approached cautiously, all on high alert. When they were still four or five meters away, Cheng Xu said,
"Hello, are you a resident here?"
The person ahead slowly turned its head.
The way it turned was strange. Its body remained motionless, and only its neck moved.
Gradually, its neck twisted 180 degrees.
"It's a doll!" Cheng Xu shouted hastily.
As he shouted, the doll's arm spun rapidly through a full circle, and several steel needles shot from its body.
All four reacted quickly and, having been prepared, easily dodged the needles.
The doll's body changed again. Sharp blades grew from its arms, and it lunged at them.
The four hurriedly scattered, dodging the doll's attack.
Cheng Xu took the Demon Blade from his inventory. Seeing the weapon in his hand, the doll stopped attacking and fled.
"It's gone," Zhao Yuqing said. "That didn't seem to be the doll that attacked us before."
"Yeah," Cheng Xu said. "That means there's more than one doll here."
Zhang Zhiqiang cursed, "Damn it, these things are too hard to deal with. I hope there aren't any more dolls."
As they spoke, a man cautiously emerged from an alley ahead of them, and they immediately went on guard.
"Where did you come from?"
"Who are you?" Cheng Xu immediately asked.
The man cautiously approached them. "I'm a resident here. I don't mean any harm."
The man continued approaching, and only then did they confirm what he was: a human.
The man looked to be in his forties. He was thin and had a long beard.
"How did you get in?"
"We wandered in by accident. Sir, what happened here?"
The man's face was filled with deep fear. "We can't get out. None of us can get out! Once you come in here, you can never leave again!"
"Tell us what happened. Maybe we can help you."
"You can't help us. People like you came from outside before. They said the same thing you did, but they all died."
Cheng Xu knew that the man was talking about players like them, but those people had all failed.
The man glanced at them and said, "It's getting more and more dangerous here. Those monsters never used to come out during the day, but I don't know what's happened today. They're actually moving around in daylight."
Cheng Xu asked, "Sir, are there any other survivors like you here?"
The man said, "Yes, there are still a few dozen. People have kept dying over the years, and that's all that's left. That thing wants to kill every last one of us!"
"Where are you all staying? Can you take us there?"
The man looked at them a few times, seeming to consider something. Finally, he said, "All right, I'll take you there. They're in the town school. That's the only safe..."
The man stopped halfway through his sentence, unable to speak another word. A long, thin metal spike had pierced straight through the back of his head and emerged from his mouth.
The four were startled by the sudden turn of events. A doll with six long, slender legs had appeared before them.
It was this doll that had killed the man.
The doll maker's resentment had turned the dolls he had made into deformed monsters.
The doll still had a human body, but instead of human legs, its lower body had six long, slender legs like a spider's.
Each leg was long and thin, like a sharp weapon.
The man's blood splattered onto the doll, making it look even more eerie.
"Looks like there aren't just two dolls here. Everyone, be careful!"
Cheng Xu warned the others, and they all prepared to fight.
Just then, strange noises came from nearby, and dolls appeared one after another on the rooftops on both sides of the street.
Looking at the dolls of all shapes and forms standing on the rooftops, all four showed fear on their faces.
They might have been able to deal with one doll, but... against so many, they didn't stand a chance!
The feeling of fear closed tightly around them.
"Damn it! This instance is fucking ridiculous!" Zhang Zhiqiang couldn't help cursing.
"How could anyone possibly clear an instance like this?"
Cheng Xu shouted, "Everyone, be careful! We'll fight our way out and head for the school!"
Although the man had just died, he had revealed quite a bit.
Despite facing so many dolls, the town's residents hadn't all been killed. It seemed their gathering place had to be somewhere safe.
Only by escaping there would they have any hope of survival!