Dungeon Crisis, Apartment Collapse

Ji Yan's words brought the two of them to their senses.

Watching the Eerie Worms begin to burrow into his pant legs, Huang Ran frowned in confusion. "So it's not real damage?"

"Then all those headless corpses on the ground were illusions too?"

Ji Yan shook his head. "They really died."

"That eerie old face can only kill through a single hunting rule."

"The sounds it makes affect players' brains, creating all kinds of illusions. Those illusions then lead players into breaking that hunting rule."

As soon as Ji Yan said that, Huang Ran immediately understood. "You mean the hunting rule is fear?"

"More precisely, when fear is amplified past a certain threshold, it triggers the rule that forces your head to explode."

"That eerie old face deliberately created an atmosphere of despair, making us feel like its hunting rule had no solution and endlessly amplifying our fear."

"In reality, its hunting rule is extremely simple."

"These Eerie Worms are also just one of the ways it creates fear."

Ji Yan looked at his health bar, which had not dropped in the slightest, then turned to Liu Yitong and Huang Ran. Their lower bodies had also been gnawed into a bloody mess, but with Ji Yan's reassurance, their fear did not continue to grow. They allowed the Eerie Worms to keep biting at them...

At that moment, the Mysterious Thief suddenly tore open part of the wall, yanking out a large, bloody chunk of flesh from within and greedily stuffing it into its mouth...

As the flesh was torn out, cracks spread across the wall.

"That thing is chewing through the Apartment again!"

After swallowing a chunk of flesh from the wall, the Mysterious Thief did not continue. It began withdrawing its hands, recalling the Eerie Worms, preparing to leave.

Watching this, Ji Yan knew he could not let this opportunity pass.

Even if he could not catch the thing, he had to obtain some hidden information.

This thief did not seem to steal just anything.

It was selective.

Why were the Landlord and Miss Xu both helpless against the thief? Why could they only rely on players to catch it?

Ji Yan felt there was hidden information behind this.

His talent happened to be perfect for it!

Having figured out the hunting behavior, Ji Yan no longer held back. Just as the other party was about to leave, the eerie old face closed its mouth.

Ji Yan strode forward and took out his last Coffin Nail, eerie energy coiling around it.

Locking onto the target, he sent the nail piercing through the air and drove it into the eerie face.

The terrible burning pain made the eerie old face howl as its skin split apart.

The Thief Eerie paused. It wanted to reach out and pull out the nail, but it did not dare touch the Coffin Nail.

In the end, it directly tore the eerie old face off its body, tossed it into a corner, and turned to leave...

Ji Yan watched it go without doing anything else.

After the Thief Eerie left, the illusions vanished. The horrifying Eerie Worms disappeared, and Liu Yitong and Huang Ran's blood-soaked bodies returned to being completely unharmed.

"I thought that thing was some kind of big shot. Turns out it only knew how to bluff!"

As soon as the Thief Eerie left, Huang Ran spat on the ground. Having been tossed around so miserably, he was furious and unwilling to accept it.

He looked at Ji Yan. "You just let it get away?"

Ji Yan shot him a glance. "You're so capable. Why didn't you go after it?"

"I just overestimated that thing. I never thought its hunting rule would be so simple. If I'd known its killing rule from the start..."

"Enough with the 'ifs.' If I hadn't warned you, your head wouldn't be on your neck anymore!"

Ji Yan showed no mercy in tearing him down. He had never bothered giving face to people who were useless yet liked to talk tough afterward.

"And you got one thing wrong."

"It didn't leave because it was afraid of us. It left because it got what it wanted."

Ji Yan had never believed that figuring out one hunting rule meant the thief could do nothing to them.

That was merely the eerie old face's method of killing.

The earlier information had said that the thief's body was covered in eerie faces. Most likely, each eerie face possessed a hunting rule!

The Thief Eerie probably had not even regarded them as worth its attention.

"That thief is a Rat everyone wants dead. If us players can't deal with it, we still have the Eerie Residents to help."

"No matter how arrogant it is, can it really stand against every resident in the Apartment?"

As long as players were involved in the Main Quest, they could obtain equipment and assistance from the Eerie Residents. That was where so many players drew their confidence from.

For example, that eerie gun had been rewarded to Huang Ran by his eerie family after he accepted the Main Quest.

After exchanging only a few unpleasant words, Huang Ran snorted twice and turned to leave, likely planning to join forces with other teams and continue the hunt.

Ji Yan ignored him. After the eerie old face on the floor had separated from its main body, it rapidly withered as its vitality drained away.

Ji Yan walked over and reached out to touch it.

As expected, his talent activated. At least his last Coffin Nail had not been wasted.

Everything needs to be replaced. I'm merely eliminating what should be eliminated for the sake of longer-term survival.

You should not be stopping me. You are only digging your own graves.

"...What does that mean?"

Ji Yan's expression turned stunned.

Clearly, this hidden information was the Thief Eerie's own account.

The things that should be eliminated referred to the things it had stolen?

But if no one stopped it, the Apartment would definitely collapse if it kept stealing like this.

How was that digging their own graves?

Ji Yan did not believe hidden information could be false. There could only be another meaning behind it.

"Is there something special about that face skin?" Liu Yitong asked from behind, looking at the completely withered and rotten face skin in Ji Yan's hand.

Ji Yan tossed away the completely "dead" face skin and dusted off his hands. "Nothing. It just looked pretty strange. I wanted to see if I could pick up something useful."

As soon as he finished speaking, the game's notification sounded in his mind.

"Warning! The Main Quest boss has currently caused 13% damage to the Dungeon Apartment. The apartment building has entered the initial stage of collapse."

"When the Apartment reaches 85% damage, structural failure will occur. The Dungeon Map will collapse, and all players will be eliminated and forced offline."

"Please stop the eerie being maliciously destroying the Apartment as soon as possible!"

"Strategy Tip: The Eerie Residents cannot stop it, but they can provide equipment to restrain it or even kill it. Players can obtain Main Quest equipment by interacting with their eerie family members."

When they saw this information, both Ji Yan and Liu Yitong froze for a moment.

Liu Yitong shook Ji Yan by the shoulders in delight. "There's even a game guide! Now we have a way!"

But Ji Yan was surprised. "This is the most difficult Main Quest."

"The game system just spelled out the method for clearing it so plainly. Isn't that a little too easy?"

Even when they accepted a C-tier mission before, there had never been anything like a game guide prompt.

"What's strange about that? Maybe the difficulty isn't in the hint, but in the interactions?"

"Besides, that Thief Eerie is so terrifying. If it didn't give us some hints, players wouldn't have even the slightest hope!"

"This Main Quest concerns the survival of the entire Dungeon. Maybe the game system is afraid the Dungeon will be destroyed, so it's leaning toward helping the players."

Looking at the headless corpses scattered everywhere, the psychological trauma still weighed on Liu Yitong's heart. Just one encounter had forced so many players offline. If the system did not offer help, how were they supposed to play?

Ji Yan closed the strategy prompt panel and opened the chat panel instead.

Sure enough, after the strategy prompt appeared, the group chat exploded.

The remaining players were no longer running around like headless flies. They suddenly had a direction.

Interact with eerie family members, get equipment, push the Main Quest!

They were in such a hurry not only because the Dungeon was in danger, but also because of the enormous reward of the Main Quest itself.

Liu Yitong grabbed Ji Yan. "Let's go back to Room 404!"

"What are we going back for?"

"To get eerie items from our family members. Now that we have some information about the Thief Eerie, we can definitely get more useful eerie items."

"The other players have already set out. We can't fall behind!"

Ji Yan thought for a moment, then turned toward the stairwell. "Then let's go back to Room 404 first."

As they went downstairs, they could already see cracks appearing across many walls and ceilings, with thick black blood flowing from the gaps in the walls.

Just as the game system had said, the Apartment really was collapsing bit by bit.

And just as Miss Xu had said, that eerie being was stealing the Apartment's lifeline!

But Ji Yan felt that everything was too straightforward.

This was the most difficult S Rank Main Quest...

When they returned to the room, Ji Yan entered Grandmother's room.

Even the walls of her room were cracking, making Grandmother's hunched body look especially weathered.

"Did you catch that thief?"

Eerie Grandmother wiped her sweater as she looked at Ji Yan with cloudy eyes.

Ji Yan shook his head. "Grandmother, we ran into the thief."

"But it has weapons. Quite a few people from the thief-catching team we formed were killed or injured."

"We were empty-handed and could only watch it escape."

Ji Yan's wording was anything but subtle.

He was practically holding out his hand and asking for equipment. Without equipment, they could not catch the thief at all!

After hearing this, Grandmother did not even need to think.

She opened a box, took out a Silver Needle about the length of a finger, and handed it to Ji Yan. "Take this."

"This is the Embroidery Needle Grandmother has always treasured. I used it to cut open and remove many pieces of fabric. I don't know what that thief looks like, nor do I know what abilities it has."

"But as long as you use Grandmother's Embroidery Needle to make a cut on its body, it will definitely be wary of you."

Grandmother closed the box and looked at Ji Yan with an expression like she was entrusting him with her final wishes. "Good grandson, Grandmother has given you even her family heirloom."

"You have to do your best. You must stop that thing."

"Grandmother really doesn't want to leave this Apartment, much less see the day it collapses and is destroyed."

"I've lived here for far too long. Too much of my heart has been left here."

"In the world outside, Grandmother can't survive..."