Terrifying Tenth School Building

The girl looked a little lost in the spectacular sea of fireworks overhead.

"Fireworks... feels like it's been ages since I've seen them."

"Well, if we get the chance, and it's the same time of year, we can go to Nara for the competition. They should have a pretty good fireworks show then."

Su Wen smiled gently.

"I wonder who set off these fireworks?"

"Who knows? Maybe some rich guy who doesn't know what to do with his money."

He never imagined...

That with enough money, Schlote Heavy Industries' service quality could be this high.

But there's no point in regretting it.

After all, he couldn't have spent that money himself anyway.

Su Wen glanced at Lighthouse 43, still brightly lit in the distance.

Now a secure area, it's dedicated to researching hurricane energy diversion technology.

Everything is in the past.

A grand fireworks display as a final curtain call is enough.

He stood up, feeling the evening breeze sweeping in from the coastline, and said calmly, "Let's go. Time to head back."

Ten days passed.

After finishing breakfast.

The countdown in front of Su Wen began to tick down again:

[Time until 'Player' scheduled death: 15 natural days]

[Commencing countdown]

[Start game?]

Thankfully, it was the weekend.

He wasn't worried about being penalized for this.

And so, he opened his computer with a practiced ease:

[The Inescapable Patient]

[Game Type: Role-Playing]

[Real-Time Duration: Five days]

[Game Difficulty: Low]

[Game Background:

Time: Early Origin Era

Location: Old Building of Tenth Middle School, Coastal Old Town

The Tenth School Building's records show that the souls of the deceased have not returned to the Silver Sea.

Subsequently, due to cognitive pollution from the Abyss Border, the Old Building of Tenth Middle School has expanded into a large-scale Dead Zone with a Threat Level of Tier 2.

The Dead Zone resonates through dream wave frequencies, causing widespread deaths in dreams across the Jiangnan Area, posing an extreme hazard.

It was only contained at the cost of 13 Night Watch lives.

Impacts the timeline: Birth of 'Heavenly Kingdom Anthem,' triggers the beginning of the 'Death Sleeping Girl' destruction event, and affects the 'Bronze Throne' revival by 15%.]

[Game Objectives:]

[One Star: Successfully escape the Old Building of Tenth Middle School]

[Two Stars: While escaping, uncover what exactly happened at Tenth Middle School]

[Three Stars: Hidden Objective]

[Note: Achieving the minimum score will prevent the player's death in reality.]

[Trial Ability: None]

At that moment.

The screen was gradually enveloped in darkness.

Countless whispers emanated from the computer's background audio:

'Kill him'

'I am innocent'

'Don't save me'

'I see you, I see you'

'I'm sorry, I'm sick.'

Amidst the background noise of rambling and heavy darkness, Su Wen saw a line of prompts on the computer screen:

[Some heavy force is affecting your thinking]

[You cannot move]

[Elementary Fear Immunity activated]

[You have broken free from fear and oppression]

He gradually opened his eyes from the darkness, feeling like he was lying in bed.

The room was dark, extremely dark.

Su Wen turned his head and saw that he was lying on a bed in what appeared to be a six-person dormitory.

But apart from himself, there was no one else around.

Drip.

Drip.

A drop of thick liquid dripped from the rusted iron railing of the upper bunk onto his face.

Only when Su Wen increased the brightness could he barely make out that it was dark red liquid.

[Identification: Uncoagulated blood, source unknown]

['Deep Dream' Corruption +1]

[Note: If Deep Dream Corruption accumulates to five points, the character will fall into a deeper layer of terrifying dreamscape]

Dark red blood flowed across the screen.

Eerie and chilling.

Su Wen got up.

He first looked at the upper bunk.

In the dark shadows of the upper bunk, a stuffed doll lay on its side, its head and body connected intermittently by threads.

One of its eyes was made of a button, but the other stared intently at Su Wen, like a human eye.

Thick, dark red blood flowed from the broken neck of the doll.

[Identification: A stuffed doll missing some parts]

Su Wen picked up the doll.

[Storage]

[Contact with the source of nightmare 1: Death Appearance]

['Deep Dream' Corruption +1]

He felt the screen darken a bit more.

Apart from this bizarre doll, the dormitory room only contained a torn page of notes:

[7-23, The doctor said my illness won't last long, I need to take medicine]

[7-24, The family has no money, I'm not going to tell my parents]

[7-25, The sparrow next door is already dead]

[Identification: Notes casually written by a middle school student]

['Deep Dream' Corruption +1]

Su Wen didn't get much information.

But now he already had three points of Deep Dream Corruption.

[You feel someone is watching you]

The next second.

He controlled his character to turn around.

Behind him, apart from the closed door, there was no sound.

Su Wen packed up the items in the room and prepared to unlock the dormitory door.

Just as he opened the door.

He saw a huge, deformed figure crawling on the ceiling of the corridor.

It was a huge, deformed creature with more arms than a typical arthropod, more like human arms.

The next second.

Its head twisted at an eerie 90-degree angle, staring intently back and forth at the area where Su Wen was.

The deformed creature's head resembled a burr covered in spikes, with a pair of huge black eyeballs on each side.

It also had huge, spider-like mouthparts.

"Well, aren't you a peculiar little thing."

Unlike facing a natural disaster, the oppressive feeling brought by this kind of bizarre entity in a dark and confined environment was even more intense.

Su Wen cursed inwardly, but he didn't close the door. Instead, he opened it wider and stepped outside.

Because he could clearly see that this 'deformed lifeform' hadn't noticed him with its 'gaze'.

[Identification: Deathborn Aggregate, Tier 2. Hunts 'Near-Dead' in the Abyss Border, attaching the corpses of the dead to its body. Anomalous factor: Abyssal Contamination.]

He tentatively increased the force slightly and took a step out of the door.

[You are being watched]

[Danger!]

A bright red warning flashed.

In that instant.

The gaze of death focused on him.

The deformed creature turned into a black shadow and pounced towards him.

Su Wen was now a First Order Transcendent, and of the [Engraved Knight] sequence, which emphasized both mental strength and physical power.

He rolled away, dodging the Deathborn Aggregate's attack.

But in the next moment.

Under the continuous attacks of a dozen or so limbs, Su Wen's movements were instantly disrupted, and a huge maw bit down fiercely in front of him.

The screen turned blood red.

[You have died!]

[Do you wish to load a save?]