"Player has violated Paradise's rules. Erasure imminent!"
Liu Shuai nearly broke down when he heard the voice.
Now, not even a sliver of hope remained.
He never could have imagined that he would come to grief in a place like this.
The doll had tried to kill him, but all he had done was tug on the hammer in its hand. The doll had fallen over and shattered on its own.
And for that alone, he was going to be erased.
It was so unfair!
At that moment, his reason completely collapsed.
"No! You shouldn't erase me! You shouldn't!" Liu Shuai roared in defiance.
But no one would listen to his explanation.
If he had been killed just now, it would indeed have been a little unfair. But it wasn't unfair anymore, because he had broken another of Paradise's rules.
No loud noises!
The power of the rules descended, a crushing force pressing in on him from every direction.
That force was immense, as solid and heavy as the earth. He felt it would crush him to pieces, but he couldn't resist it at all!
Despair and terror gripped his entire body at that moment.
Even though he had killed countless people, he still couldn't face his own death calmly.
He could imagine that the people he had killed must have felt the same way in their final moments.
"Aah—"
Liu Shuai let out a defiant roar.
But it was only a helpless roar, and it accomplished nothing.
"Boom!"
His head was crushed apart, and his body was squeezed into ketchup.
"Your prey died in fear. You have received 600 Fear Points."
Shen Hao, now the Amusement Paradise Director of the ghost amusement park, stood beside the pool of blood on the ground.
He had been here all along, watching his prey fall into fear and despair, then die in defiance and turn into a pool of blood.
Everything had gone as expected. Now, all the players had been stopped here.
He looked at the doll shattered into many pieces on the ground. He really hadn't expected it to be so skilled at faking accidents. Five of the six players had died because of it.
The doll's scattered limbs began reassembling themselves, and soon a beautiful Puppet Girl stood before him.
The Puppet Girl smiled at him, seemingly seeking his praise.
"You did a great job, Xiaobai." Shen Hao didn't hold back his praise, and the Puppet Girl smiled even more happily.
Shen Hao walked up to it and noticed that her arm had been attached backward, so he had to reattach it for her.
After fixing the doll's arm, Shen Hao checked his character panel.
He had reached level 9, with 2100/3000 experience points.
Going from level 9 to level 10 required 3,000 experience points. He was still 900 short.
That was the one imperfection. He had thought he would reach level 10 directly.
Now that all the players were dead, he could no longer gain Fear Points.
Having hunted down every player, he, as the Amusement Paradise Director, could now control almost the entire park.
There was only one small area he couldn't control, but that was nothing to worry about.
He was now immensely powerful and could easily crush the other boss.
Just then, he suddenly received a notification from the game system,
"Mission complete. You may choose to return to the real world or stay and continue the hidden mission."
Without hesitation, Shen Hao immediately chose to continue the hidden mission.
He now held an overwhelming advantage, so there was no reason to abandon it.
"You have chosen to continue the hidden mission. The mission objective has been updated. You cannot leave the instance until the hidden mission is complete."
Shen Hao chose to check the mission,
"That thing appeared in the amusement park at some unknown time, and its arrival brought tremendous changes to the entire park.
It has taken over half of your amusement park's facilities and also wants a share of your prey.
But you will not allow this. You must drive it away and regain full control of your amusement park.
Mission objective: Kill the invader and gain full control of your amusement park."
Sure enough, the so-called hidden mission was to kill the other boss.
At the start, their powers had been evenly matched, so the hidden mission would certainly have been difficult to complete.
But things were different now. After killing six Ability Users, his strength had increased tremendously, and he had regained control of 95% of the amusement park.
He checked his attribute panel,
Physique: 0 Spirit: 28+61
At the start, the Amusement Paradise Director had only had 11 Spirit. Now it had shot up to 61, an increase of a full 50 points.
The boss on the other side, by contrast, had been weakened to an extreme degree and had lost control of many of the amusement park's facilities. It was in a very weakened state.
So this mission should be easy to complete.
He would regret it for the rest of his life if he missed a reward he could pick up so easily.
Shen Hao was just about to set out when he received another notification from the game system:
"Player has been resurrected. The hunting mission continues!"
"Resurrected?"
Shen Hao wasn't too surprised. The Substitute Doll he carried was also a resurrection item that could give him a second life.
But in instances below S-rank, the Substitute Doll took him straight out of the instance.
The other party had been resurrected in the game, which was clearly different from his Substitute Doll.
He didn't understand why the other party had chosen to resurrect. Resurrecting would only mean dying again, and it would waste an important item.
Without resurrecting, the other party would only lose 90% of their experience points. Although that was still a severe penalty, at least they would still be alive.
So the other party must have had some purpose in resurrecting, right?
Shen Hao didn't dwell on it and decided to finish the hidden mission first.
He put the doll back into his inventory and, with a thought, appeared somewhere else.
"[Soul-Returning Incense] Consumable."
"Brings the dead back to life and puts flesh back on bones.
When a player dies in an instance, they are immediately resurrected. The resurrection point can be anywhere in the instance and may be freely chosen.
Cannot be used in the real world.
After resurrection, you will have 100% of your base attributes.
Can only be used in instances below S-rank."
The Soul-Returning Incense was an extremely precious resurrection item. It could resurrect a player in full condition in an instance below A-rank, truly giving them another life.
For players planning to complete an instance's hidden mission, having one provided an extra safeguard and greatly increased their chances of completing the mission.
Sun Jingyu had originally thought he wouldn't need the Soul-Returning Incense, but he hadn't expected it to be consumed before he even reached the hidden boss.
He thought of what had happened just before he died. It was a truly tragic story.
He swore he hadn't so much as touched that doll.
He had merely used his Spirit to block the spiked club the doll had swung at him, but that single action had cost him his life.
His Spirit had blocked the doll's spiked club, and then the doll had simply shattered into dozens of pieces, as though it had suffered a fatal attack.
Then he had been erased for violating the amusement park's game rules.
He felt his death had been far too unfair.
Would a doll capable of lifting such a huge spiked club really shatter so easily?
There was no way. No matter how he looked at it, the doll seemed to have faked the accident.
But there was no point saying anything now. His Soul-Returning Incense had already been consumed.
He reappeared in the instance.
He could resurrect anywhere in the instance, even choosing the amusement park's exit as his resurrection point.
But he hadn't chosen that, because he had an important mission to complete.
He absolutely could not let those evil organizations obtain that thing, or a terrible disaster would surely befall the real world.
Only by taking that thing away and entrusting it to the Player Alliance Guild for safekeeping could this hidden danger be eliminated.