Dungeon Crisis, Apartment Rupture

Ji Yan's words struck a chord with the two of them.

Watching the eerie worms begin to burrow into his pant legs, Huang Ran frowned in confusion, "So it's not a physical attack?"

"Then all these corpses with their heads blown off on the ground are also illusions?"

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

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

"The sounds it emits affect the players' brains, creating various illusions that guide players to violate that hunting rule."

As Ji Yan spoke, Huang Ran immediately understood, "You mean the hunting rule is fear?"

"More precisely, when fear is amplified to a certain threshold, it triggers the rule that causes death by decapitation."

"That old man's eerie face deliberately created an atmosphere of despair, making us feel its hunting rule was unsolvable, thus infinitely amplifying our fear."

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

"These eerie worms are just one of the methods it uses to create our fear."

Ji Yan looked at his health bar, which hadn't decreased at all. He then turned to Liu Yitong and Huang Ran. Their lower bodies were also gnawed to the point of being bloody and mangled, but with Ji Yan's reassurance, their fear didn't escalate further. They let the eerie worms continue to gnaw at them...

At this moment, The mysterious thief over there suddenly tore open a section of the wall, pulling out a large chunk of bloody flesh and greedily stuffing it into its mouth...

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

"This eerie thing is eating the apartment again!"

After devouring a piece of the wall's flesh, the mysterious thief didn't continue. It began to withdraw its hands, retract its eerie worms, and prepare to leave.

Ji Yan watched this scene, knowing he couldn't let this opportunity pass.

Even if he couldn't catch the guy, he absolutely had to obtain some hidden information.

This thief didn't seem to steal just anything.

It was targeted.

Why were the Landlord and Miss Xu helpless against the thief, only able to rely on players to catch it?

This made Ji Yan feel that there was hidden information within this.

His talent was perfectly suited for this!

Having seen through the hunting behavior, Ji Yan didn't hesitate. As the thief was about to leave, the old man's eerie face closed its mouth.

Ji Yan quickly stepped forward, taking out the last coffin nail, eerie energy coiling around it.

Locking onto the target, the nail pierced the air and embedded itself into the eerie face.

A terrifying burning sensation caused the old man's eerie face to howl, its skin splitting.

The Thief Eerie paused. It wanted to reach out and pull the nail out, but it didn't dare touch the coffin nail.

In the end, it directly tore the old man's eerie face from its body, threw it into a corner, and turned to leave...

Ji Yan watched it leave, doing nothing further.

After the Thief Eerie departed, the illusions dissolved, the terrifying eerie worms vanished, and Liu Yitong and Huang Ran's previously bloody bodies returned to their original pristine state.

"I thought this eerie thing was so powerful, but it turns out it was just bluffing!"

As soon as the Thief Eerie left, Huang Ran spat, feeling very annoyed and resentful after being put through so much trouble.

He looked at Ji Yan, "You just let it go?"

Ji Yan glanced at him, "If you're so capable, why didn't you chase it?"

"I just overestimated that eerie thing; I didn't expect its hunting rule to be so simple. If I had known its killing rule from the start..."

"Stop with the 'if's. If I hadn't reminded you, your head would be off your neck right now!"

Ji Yan's words were ruthless. He never bothered to be polite to those who were incompetent and only spoke tough words afterward.

"Besides, you've misunderstood one thing."

"It left not because it was afraid of us escaping, but simply because it got what it wanted."

Ji Yan never believed that just because he'd figured out one hunting rule, the thief was no longer a threat.

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

The previous information mentioned that the thief was covered in eerie faces, and it was likely that each eerie face possessed a hunting rule!

The Thief Eerie probably hadn't even looked at them properly.

"That thief is like a rat that everyone wants to beat. If we players can't deal with it, we have the help of the eerie residents."

"No matter how strong it is, can it be stronger than all the residents of the apartment?"

As long as it involved players in the main quest, they could obtain equipment and help from the eerie residents. This was the confidence of so many players.

For example, that eerie gun was a reward from the eerie family member that Huang Ran received after accepting a main quest.

With their conversation reaching an impasse, Huang Ran grunted a couple of times and then turned to leave, likely to join other teams to continue the pursuit.

Ji Yan ignored it. The old man's eerie face on the floor detached from its body and quickly withered, its vitality draining away.

Ji Yan walked over and reached out to touch it.

As expected, his talent was triggered. Fortunately, the last coffin nail hadn't been wasted.

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

"You shouldn't be stopping me, you're just digging your own graves."

"...What does that mean?"

Ji Yan's expression was stunned.

It was clear that this hidden message was a self-statement from the Thief Eerie.

Did "what needs to be eliminated" refer to the things it had stolen?

But if it wasn't stopped, the apartment would surely collapse with this continued thievery.

How could that be digging their own graves?

Ji Yan didn't believe the hidden message was false, so it must have another meaning.

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

Discarding the thoroughly "dead" face, Ji Yan clapped his hands. "It's nothing. It just looked strange, I wanted to see if I could pick up any bargains."

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

"Warning! Main quest boss progress has caused 13% damage to the dungeon apartment. The apartment building has entered the initial stage of collapse."

"When the apartment damage reaches 85%, the load-bearing structure will fail, the dungeon map will collapse, and all players will be eliminated offline."

"Please stop the eerie entity maliciously damaging the apartment as soon as possible!"

"Strategy Hint: The eerie resident cannot stop it, but can provide equipment to restrict or even kill it. Players can obtain equipment for the main quest by interacting with the eerie family members."

Upon seeing this message, Ji Yan and Liu Yitong both froze.

Liu Yitong excitedly shook Ji Yan's shoulder. "There's actually a game strategy! Now we have a way!"

But Ji Yan was surprised. "This is the most difficult main quest."

"The game system is just plainly giving out the method to clear it, won't that be too simple?"

Before, even when taking on a C-class mission, there had been no game strategy hints like this.

"There's nothing strange about that. Perhaps the difficulty isn't in the hint, but in the interaction?"

"Besides, that Thief Eerie is so terrifying. If they don't give some hints, players won't have any hope at all!"

"The main quest concerns the survival of the entire dungeon. I guess the game system is afraid of losing everything and is leaning towards helping the players."

Liu Yitong looked at the headless corpses scattered everywhere, the psychological shadow still lingering in his heart. In just one encounter, so many players had been eliminated offline. If the system didn't provide help, how could they even play?

Ji Yan closed the strategy hint panel and turned to open the chat box panel.

As expected, with the strategy hint, the group chat exploded.

The remaining players were no longer like headless flies; they suddenly had a direction.

Interact with the eerie family members, get equipment, and progress the main quest!

Their urgency wasn't just due to the dungeon's crisis, but also because of the massive rewards of the main quest itself.

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

"Go back for what?"

"To get eerie items from the family members. Now that we have some information about that Thief Eerie, we're sure to get more useful eerie items."

"The other players have already set off, we can't fall behind!"

Ji Yan pondered for a moment, then turned and walked towards the corridor. "Then let's go back to 404 first."

As they went downstairs, cracks could already be seen in many walls and ceilings, and thick black blood flowed from the gaps in the walls.

Just as the game system had said, The apartment was indeed collapsing bit by bit.

And as Miss Xu had said, That eerie entity was stealing the apartment's lifeblood!

However, Ji Yan felt that all of this was too straightforward and simple.

This was the most difficult S-class main quest...

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

Even the walls of her room were cracking, and Grandmother's hunched figure looked weathered.

"That thief, did you catch them?"

The Eerie Grandmother wiped her sweater, her cloudy eyes looking at Ji Yan.

Ji Yan shook his head. "Grandmother, I did encounter the thief."

"But it had a weapon, and our thief-catching squad suffered casualties."

"We were unarmed, so we could only watch it escape."

Ji Yan's explanation was anything but subtle.

He was practically asking for equipment directly, implying that without it, he couldn't catch the thief at all!

Upon hearing this, Grandmother didn't even hesitate.

She opened a box and took out a silver needle, about the length of a finger, handing it to Ji Yan. "Here, take this."

"This is my treasured embroidery needle, it's used to cut through many fabrics. I don't know what the thief looks like, nor what its abilities are."

"But, if you use this embroidery needle of mine to scratch it, it will definitely be wary."

Grandmother closed the box and looked at Ji Yan with an expression that felt like entrusting final affairs. "My good grandson, I'm entrusting my heirloom to you."

"You must make me proud and stop that thing."

"Grandmother truly doesn't want to leave this apartment, nor does she want to see it collapse and be destroyed one day."

"I've lived here for too long, and so many of my hopes are tied to this place."

"I wouldn't be able to survive in the outside world..."