"How did you end up here? Where's your team?"
Ji Yan asked, looking at the flashlight in the other man's hand.
"Our team got a clue too. We heard that the thief hums a nursery rhyme while acting, so we split up to search."
"If anyone finds the thief, report it in the chat group."
If players survived for more than four days, they could unlock the player chat panel.
Ji Yan had not paid much attention to it before. Only after the reminder did he realize that he had just activated the panel.
As soon as he opened it, he found the group chat bustling with activity.
In just a moment, it had reached 99+!
The players participating in the Main Quest were all exchanging various bits of information about the thief.
Some said the thief had no hair.
Some said the thief was a Deformed Ghost.
Some said the thief could make the sound of a crying baby.
Everyone had their own version, and all of them were utterly certain!
The players had obtained this information from their own eerie family members.
For example, Ji Yan had learned from 801 that the thief's body was covered in human faces, and that piercing bell sounds rang out whenever it walked.
But which one was true?
Why did every household the thief broke into provide different identifying traits?
Could there be more than one thief?
Ji Yan rubbed his chin, deep in thought.
Liu Yitong was also bewildered by the different information held by the players in the chat. "I'm getting more and more confused."
Ji Yan closed the chat panel. Looking at too much of this would only muddle his thoughts.
Miss Xu had told him to follow those people, so for now, he could only wander around these floors and see what was going on.
But then, the Screaming Doll perched on his shoulder suddenly moved. It twisted its head and stared in one direction.
Liu Yitong looked surprised. "Why is your doll moving? Is it a reward from Mother or Grandmother?"
Ji Yan looked toward the corner at the end of the passage and said, "It's guiding us somewhere."
Following the doll's guidance, Ji Yan rounded the corner and entered a fire escape passage. Before long, he ran into the blond man's five-person team again.
Those people had somehow dragged out an eerie family of three living in the Apartment.
The parents' heads had both been smashed apart. Only an eerie girl remained, curled up in the corner with a vacant gaze.
As the blond man's team desecrated her parents' corpses, she seemed either frightened stupid or numbly dazed. Her face showed no expression as she waited for her fate.
Huang Ran wiped the black gun in his hand. After shooting several resident eeries in succession, the eerie aura wrapped around the black pistol had grown increasingly dense and glossy.
Killing eeries to nurture the gun!
The eerie gun in Huang Ran's hand could clearly keep improving in quality by shooting eeries.
It followed the same principle as Long Yuan nurturing his blade with blood.
The muzzle pressed against the eerie girl's head and knocked twice. Huang Ran coldly provoked her. "I killed your parents. You should be angry. You should hate us."
"Instead of reacting like a dead fish!"
The stronger the hatred of the eerie killed by the eerie gun, the more effectively it would absorb it.
Looking at the eerie girl standing there like a block of wood, Huang Ran frowned in dissatisfaction and continued provoking her.
The eerie girl looked at her parents' shattered heads and twitching bodies.
There was no grief or hatred in her eyes. She only asked in confusion, "Dad, Mother, and I only wanted to live. We didn't eat anyone. We didn't hurt anyone. Why did you kill us?"
"Little sister, no reason is needed to kill pitiful parasites like you."
Huang Ran spoke expressionlessly and was about to pull the trigger.
Liu Yitong suddenly said, "Huang Ran, that family of three doesn't match the thief's traits either. What's the point of killing them?"
Huang Ran looked up and sneered. "For fun. Is that okay?"
One of the player lackeys beside him chimed in mockingly, "What kind of saint is this in such chaotic times? You can still find someone sympathizing with eeries in the Eerie World?"
"This is a Dungeon, not Notre Dame Cathedral!"
The group burst into mocking laughter.
Liu Yitong's expression darkened as he glanced at Ji Yan beside him.
But Ji Yan's attention was entirely on the Screaming Doll on his shoulder. The doll had been twisting its head in every direction.
Then it stared deep into a passageway to one side, opened its mouth, and let out a scream.
The scream startled everyone present.
"What the hell is wailing like a ghost?"
"Scared the shit out of me!"
Several players cursed under their breaths.
Ji Yan said nothing. He had heard a sound beside his ear.
A piercing, hollow bell sound...
His breathing stalled slightly.
The Mysterious Thief suddenly came to mind!
Huang Ran frowned. He had heard the bell too. It was becoming clearer and closer...
Ding-ling, tap tap—
Ding-ling, tap tap—
Soon, at the end of the corridor in Ji Yan's line of sight, a tall black shadow slowly appeared, its head brushing the ceiling.
Calling it a black shadow was not quite right. On closer inspection, the eerie's entire body was covered in pitch-black bugs crawling across its surface, making everyone's scalp crawl.
"What is that thing?"
The players present stared blankly.
It was the first time they had seen such a bizarre eerie.
The eerie pressed itself against the corridor wall as if searching for something. It raised a hand and carefully stroked the wall.
The black bugs on its palm densely spread over the surface, burrowing into every tiny crack...
"That's an eerie, right...? Could it be the thief we're looking for?"
A female player asked quietly, her tone inexplicably uneasy.
"No hair visible. We can't confirm it."
"Should we make a move?"
Several players discussed it, but no one dared step forward. They could only watch.
They were not idiots. The stranger and more bizarre an eerie was, the more dangerous the unknown risks. No one dared gamble on it.
"What are you scared of? Brother Ran's here. If that really is the thief, we'll have made a contribution!"
"Don't forget, everyone in the Apartment wants that thief dead. After angering so many residents, how could it dare act arrogantly?"
There was always someone bold and brainless. A tall player grabbed a brick and threw it over.
The brick struck the mysterious eerie, yet it passed straight through as though it had no physical form.
The Black Bug Eerie did not react and continued stroking the wall.
Just as several players were preparing to probe it more boldly, the mysterious eerie's back suddenly writhed.
An elderly face emerged from the back of its shoulder, staring at Ji Yan and the others as it uttered, "Remove... the bugs."
As the twisted, hoarse voice fell, the old man's face opened its mouth and released high-frequency sound waves.
Everyone's eardrums buzzed, and their heads spun.
In their vision, the human face became increasingly terrifying. Its hollow eyes stared directly at them, and fear flooded their hearts.
The tall player at the front shrank his pupils. His sixth sense screamed that this eerie was extremely dangerous!
He turned and ran.
But before he had taken more than a few steps, his head swelled with lumps of flesh of all sizes like a water balloon, then burst without warning.
Blood and brain matter sprayed across the floor.
The headless corpse collapsed onto the ground.
Everyone stared in shock.
How had he died?
They had not even seen that eerie attack!
"Fuck!"
Someone cursed and turned to run as well.
The outcome was the same. It was as if a small bomb had been planted in his brain. His head exploded out of nowhere, spraying half a female player's face with blood and brain matter.
The female player clutched her face and screamed, about to flee in utter collapse.
"Don't move! You stupid woman, can't you tell? The moment you turn and run, you die. That eerie only kills those who flee!"
Huang Ran could no longer stand watching these idiots and barked an order.
Before you continue