"Could the hidden mission be dangerous?" someone asked.
The bald man said, "No, we're just going to give it a try. If it really is dangerous and we can't complete the hidden mission, we'll leave."
"All right," someone agreed.
Since the man had the nerve to try the hidden mission, he was probably confident he could clear the Instance.
Following him wasn't a bad idea.
The others looked at one another and nodded, voicing their agreement.
Everyone wanted to clear the Instance without lifting a finger.
Besides, they weren't all honest people. If the hidden mission really was dangerous, they could just pretend they had never agreed.
"This stage is simple. We just have to do as we're told. For the next stage, you'll have to follow my lead."
"No problem." After saying that, everyone stepped forward and took their seats one by one.
The roller coaster started up, picking up speed as it raced along the winding track, rising and falling.
The wind howled incessantly in their ears, and the night air chilled them to the bone.
Before long, the sound of the wind gradually faded, but the wind itself hadn't stopped. Another sound was replacing its howl in their ears.
That sound drew closer and grew louder, filling their ears.
It was screaming—the screams of countless people!
It was as though the vengeful spirits of those who had died here were crying out to them for help.
"Beautiful scenery" began to appear before their eyes.
They saw scenes of people dying gruesome deaths on the roller coaster, crushed into ketchup by a strange force. The sight was deeply disturbing.
Despite that, they kept their eyes wide open, carefully admiring the "beautiful scenery" before them.
They all wore smiles, though the expressions looked terrible, as if they had lost their wallets.
But they had to prove they were happy.
They had to have smiles on their faces.
The roller coaster soon reached the halfway point. Just then, the bald man's expression suddenly changed.
At that moment, the others saw it too.
A little girl stood ahead of them, holding a chainsaw taller than she was. It was making a piercing noise.
The girl stood on the track ahead and clearly wasn't an illusion. In just a few seconds, the roller coaster would hit her.
They naturally didn't care whether the roller coaster hit the girl. They were worried that the chainsaw in her hands might hurt them.
The bald man in particular was closest to her. If he did nothing, the girl would surely saw his head off with the chainsaw.
The others naturally weren't going to help him, and he didn't know what their abilities were anyway. He could only save himself.
His left hand rapidly swelled, and in the blink of an eye, the muscles in his arm expanded, tearing through his sleeve.
Black hair sprouted across his exposed skin, and his hand became like a beast's claw.
He was a Monster System Ability User.
Just before he reached the girl, he swung his arm out and punched the chainsaw in her hands in front of her.
His fierce, surging strength turned into a powerful impact, sending the girl flying like a kite with its string cut before she finally fell to the ground.
Only then did the bald man realize that the girl was nothing more than a doll.
With the danger gone, the roller coaster continued onward.
At that moment, a voice suddenly sounded in their ears. "A visitor has violated Paradise's rules and is about to be erased!"
Everyone was startled. They hadn't expected someone to run into trouble on the simplest first stage.
But none of them knew who it would be.
The bald man cursed inwardly, What a waste. They couldn't even get through the easiest first stage.
Just then, he suddenly sensed something was wrong. His body seemed to be under pressure from some kind of force.
It felt as if two steel plates were squeezing him from the front and back.
The pressure grew stronger and stronger. He could even feel his body about to be crushed to pieces.
*Wait! Could it be...
I'm the one who broke the rules!*
Only now did he realize that he was the waste.
In an instant, his contempt and confidence were shattered, and a powerful fear rose from the bottom of his heart.
It was a feeling he had never experienced before. He had never been so desperate, so terrified.
"Impossible! How could I have broken the rules? That's absolutely impossible!"
The bald man was unwilling to accept it. He used his ability, trying to resist the force.
His body began to swell, and black hair grew all over him. He now looked like a beast.
But his supernatural ability seemed so insignificant under these circumstances. Even his body, capable of lifting a thousand jin, couldn't withstand the power of that rule.
Boom!
His body split apart, crushed into pieces by the mysterious force like ketchup.
The bright red blood scattered in the wind, like a sudden burst of scarlet fireworks.
Blood rained down on everyone's faces and clothes.
"Why did someone suddenly die?"
"Didn't he have a guide? How could he die?"
"Damn, I thought he was a king, but he turned out to be bronze."
The survivors all had different thoughts, but every one of them was shaken by the bald man's death.
He was the only one who had a guide to the Instance. How could he suddenly die?!
If he had violated the visitor rules, then which rule had he broken?
A shadow of fear fell over their hearts.
The only person with a guide was dead. Clearly, clearing this Instance wouldn't be easy.
At the very least, they couldn't win without lifting a finger anymore.
Despite their complicated feelings, everyone still wore a smile, but those smiles looked even worse, as if they had lost a loved one.
But one person was genuinely happy, and that person was Shen Hao.
"Your prey died in fear. You have gained 600 Fear Points."
"Your prey is afraid of you. You have gained 50 Fear Points."
He received a series of notifications that he had gained Fear Points. The bald man alone had contributed 600 Fear Points.
The others were also somewhat frightened by the bald man's death, contributing 250 Fear Points.
The Instance had only just begun, and he had already gained 850 Fear Points.
The roller coaster gradually slowed down. As they drew closer and closer to the end, their smiles finally began to look a little better.
Aside from the bald man, who had died, everyone was fine.
The problem was that the bald man had been the only one with a guide to the Instance. His death was undoubtedly a major blow.
After getting off the roller coaster, everyone felt much more relaxed, but they still couldn't be happy, because they would have to rely on themselves for the upcoming stages.
They had no guide to consult.
"Why did he die?" the blond young man asked. "He didn't seem to break any rules."
A middle-aged man of around forty, wearing glasses and possessing an intellectual air, said,
"He definitely didn't die for no reason. He probably wouldn't have made a basic mistake either, so I suspect his death had something to do with the girl holding the chainsaw."
"But there wasn't any rule that said he couldn't hit the girl, was there?"
The middle-aged man said, "That girl was a doll. I suspect she was either the park director's personal property or one of the amusement park's facilities.
"There were lots of signs when we came in. Two of them said not to damage the park director's personal property and not to damage the amusement park's facilities."
The blond young man understood. "But that doll had a chainsaw. If he hadn't done that, he still would have been killed by the doll."
"Mm," the middle-aged man said. "It was a dilemma."
"What dilemma? If you ask me, it's straight-up extortion! What the—"
The blond young man slapped himself again, because he had once more brought himself to the brink of death.
The long-haired woman said, "What do we do next, then? Does anyone else know the guide?"
Everyone shook their heads. The Instance had only just been updated, and too few people had cleared it.
A stern-faced man said, "As far as I know, since the Instance was updated, only the members of one guild have cleared it: the Blood Moon Guild."
The long-haired woman said, "The Blood Moon Guild? That's a guild belonging to the evil faction!"
"That's right. I think he must have belonged to the Blood Moon Guild," the stern-faced man said.
"So I don't think he would have led us through the dungeon even if he'd lived.
"His death is a good thing, in a way."
The evil-faction guilds were full of crazy extremists. They couldn't possibly have been kind enough to lead the others through, and there really had been something wrong with the bald man.
"We can only rely on ourselves now," a short-haired woman said.
"If others can clear it, we definitely can too!"