Phantasmal Erosion

"Brother Hat... is... dead?"

Like a startled deer, Ink Dye Sword Xiao quickly pulled back her hand. Blood flowed from Forgiveness Hat's facial features, and he collapsed to the ground with a thud.

She had not even noticed who had killed Forgiveness Hat!

They had not even entered this town yet, and everything about it already felt bizarre.

Wang Qian also put on a timely look of surprise. "Your companion was attacked! This kind of sudden death with blood pouring from all seven orifices sounds like the ghostly death curse the old folks in the village talked about. Could it be Wu Jie...? Quick! Come back into town with me, to the Town Chief's house!"

Xiao Xiao was grabbed by Wang Qian's large hand and pulled inside.

"Lord! Our Lord is still outside!"

Wang Wan, carrying a hunting rifle over his shoulder, walked out of town. "Go back with my brother first. I'll find Little Feng!"

"Okay... Be careful. It's fine if Brother Hat dies, but the Lord absolutely can't die!"

Xiao Xiao was pulled from the sunlit clearing toward the town shrouded in shadow.

It felt like suddenly walking into a graveyard in the dead of night. Chilling and silent.

Along the way, Xiao Xiao saw the old people and women in town busy with their own affairs, yet no one spoke.

Xiao Xiao was still trying to figure out what had happened when Wang Qian dragged her straight toward the only two-story building in the center of town.

He muttered, "Everything will be fine once we get to the Town Chief. He'll definitely have a solution. Whenever people from the nearby settlements run into trouble, they come to Salt Well Town for help. Trading supplies here is the safest."

"Supplies!"

As if suddenly remembering something, Xiao Xiao abruptly stopped and shook free from Wang Qian's hand.

"You said trading supplies!?"

Wang Qian said, "That's right. Salt Well Town is the largest civilian trading hub in Four Mountains. That's because the Town Chief is fair. Violence never happens here, and he can always resolve any problem. Even if an army of Raiders comes, the Town Chief can suppress them with a wave of his hand."

Ink Dye Sword Xiao felt an intense sense of discord as she listened to Wang Qian's perfectly normal words.

She muttered to herself, "Supplies... We came to this town to trade supplies... Because we couldn't understand the people of this world, we kept following behind the Lord. So when did we start understanding them?"

After the Lord left!

She had suddenly been able to understand what these two people were saying!

"Could it be..."

Xiao Xiao kicked Wang Qian hard, sending him stumbling.

Wang Qian snapped, "What are you doing!?"

Xiao Xiao's eyes instantly filled with terror.

"You don't have HP! You're not... alive!"

The moment she said those words, every sound in town vanished. Everyone in town twisted their necks to impossible angles and stared at Xiao Xiao.

Terrified, Xiao Xiao staggered back two steps and bumped into someone.

She turned around and saw that Wang Wan, who had gone after the Lord, was somehow standing behind her.

He said, word by word, "What... did... you... say?"

As he spoke, blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. The skin atop his head split open, turning into a mass of bright red rotten flesh, as though his head had been blasted apart by a shotgun.

The bloody smell that had greeted them upon entering town suddenly grew thicker.

The townspeople rose stiffly to their feet. Parts of their bodies were missing, as if the corpses of a freshly massacred town had come back to life.

Wang Qian suddenly grabbed Xiao Xiao's hand, his head dangling one hundred and eighty degrees beneath his neck. "The Town Chief... wants to see you."

"Ahhhhh! A ghost!!!"

"I'm done playing!"

Xiao Xiao logged off on the spot. Her body went limp and fell inside Salt Well Town.

Only the messages on her Smartwatch continued scrolling.

You have suffered Phantasmal Erosion. HP continuously decreases. HP -1

You have suffered Phantasmal Erosion. HP continuously decreases. HP -1

You have suffered

"Ahhhh! That was terrifying!"

Li Mo Xiao jolted upright in bed, tore off her helmet, and the horrifying town from the game continued replaying in her mind.

Only after seeing her familiar bedroom did she let out a long breath.

She checked the time. It was ten at night.

She had only played for four hours today. There was still a long way to go before reaching the twelve-hour game limit.

Xiao Xiao turned the lights in her room up to maximum brightness, browsed her Bilibili creator dashboard on her phone for a while, and muted several netizens demanding updates before she finally felt a little better.

Then she began reviewing what had just happened.

"It seems Apocalypse OL isn't just a simple grind-heavy online game. It also has horror elements. That town was obviously a horror instance. We entered it without knowing, triggered the horror plot, and I got scared."

"And the Lord himself... used the others to leave the instance because he wanted to separate from the players and stop us from mooching off his safe zone. Otherwise, how would that be any different from knowing who the protagonist is in a horror movie? Just follow the protagonist and clear the story."

After calming down, Xiao Xiao began reassuring herself inwardly.

"Those scary images are just there to create atmosphere. I don't need to be afraid. At worst, I'll die, then revive."

"It's fake! It's all fake!"

"I can handle it!"

Five minutes later.

Xiao Xiao pursed her lips. "But that guy's neck could fall off... It was really scary. Forget it, my character is probably dead already. I'll revive when I log in tomorrow. I'll reward myself with some beauty sleep."

Forgiveness Hat frowned slightly as he watched Xiao Xiao collapse beside him with blood flowing from all seven orifices.

"Xiao Xiao? Xiao Xiao?"

He touched Xiao Xiao's hand. It was already ice-cold. She was completely dead.

Wang Qian also put on a timely look of surprise. "Your companion was attacked! This kind of sudden death with blood pouring from all seven orifices sounds like the ghostly death curse the old folks in the village talked about. Could it be Wu Jie...? Quick! Come back into town with me, to the Town Chief's house!"

Forgiveness Hat was grabbed by Wang Qian's large hand and about to be pulled into town.

Wang Wan, carrying a hunting rifle over his shoulder, walked out of town. "Go back with my brother first. I'll find Little Feng!"

"Come on! Stop standing there like an idiot! The ghosts will attack us soon!" Wang Qian failed to pull Forgiveness Hat and shouted angrily.

Forgiveness Hat looked at the sunlight overhead, then at the town hidden in shadow just a few steps ahead, and shook his head.

"We can't go any farther. Otherwise, we'll enter your domain."

Wang Qian was startled, then feigned confusion. "What domain? I don't understand what you're talking about. You'll be safe if you come inside with me. The Town Chief will protect us!"

"Stop acting."

Forgiveness Hat walked a few steps outward. Looking at the sun in the sky, he felt a warmth and paced back and forth.

"If I'm not mistaken, your attacks started after our Lord left, right?"

Wang Qian's expression changed drastically.

Forgiveness Hat continued.

"Don't look down on me just because I'm only an errand runner. Reading people and situations is basic professional skill for us. Clearly understanding what a client wants is our most important ability. You might not know where my name came from. I'm a gold-medal errand runner in our city, and the orders I take most often are relationship-related. With the same order, whether a client feels furious or secretly delighted after seeing their partner cheating, I can tell from just a few words they type. Of course, you might not understand that either, since you're just a minor monster in a game."

Wang Qian had stopped moving by then, his expression shifting unpredictably as he watched Forgiveness Hat speak at length.

"So, when you spoke the local language with the Lord, then naturally switched to Chinese when speaking to us, I realized... something was wrong with you. Then I wondered whether we had entered an Illusion Domain. When Xiao Xiao suddenly died beside me, I knew... we definitely had."

"Because she's still alive. You've already tricked her into town. And you little ghost, stop pretending. Come out."

Forgiveness Hat pointed at his Smartwatch. The red dot representing Xiao Xiao had just moved into town.

Wang Wan, who had already left, abruptly appeared beside Wang Qian. With a gloomy expression, he said, "Although I don't understand much of what you said, you are an intelligent human."

Forgiveness Hat smiled. "Your flaws were too obvious, and you were desperate to trick us into town. I'm guessing... that's where your killing trap is. You can't act under the sunlight. Only after entering the town in shadow can you do whatever you want."

"And right now, I'm in the safe zone."

He raised his Wolf Tooth Club and pointed it at the two of them. "Little ghosts! Do you dare fight me under the sun!"

At that moment, bathed in golden sunlight, Forgiveness Hat radiated the aura of a powerful warrior like a god of war.

That was right!

Cheng Shaofeng had known Forgiveness Hat before summoning him!

In reality, he was an elite errand runner. There was no order he could not complete!

At the same time, he was an experienced gamer, skilled at discovering every hidden detail in games. Even a different stone placement by the developers would catch his eye, and he could find the path to hidden instances.

People on the forums had given him a nickname: Fiery Eyes Green Hat Man!

At that moment, a woman's heartrending scream rang out from within the town.

Dark clouds swept across the sky, and shadows devoured the sunlight around Forgiveness Hat.

Bursts of cold wind howled toward him.

Wang Qian's head dropped beneath his neck, while Wang Wan's face split apart. They walked toward Forgiveness Hat with stiff steps.

"The Town Chief... wants to see you."

Forgiveness Hat was shocked!

"Holy shit!? You can even change the weather? This instance is way too overpowered, hey!"

"I'm only level one!"

"Lord! Save me!"

Forgiveness Hat turned and ran toward Cheng Shaofeng.

His deduction had been wrong!

Sunlight was not the safe zone. The Lord's side was!

At that moment, an injury notification appeared on his watch.

You have suffered Phantasmal Erosion. HP continuously decreases. HP -1

You have suffered Phantasmal Erosion. HP continuously decreases. HP -1

You have suffered

PS: Tomorrow is Tuesday, and the recommendation placement will be decided. Follow-up reading is very important, so please keep reading for now and stockpile chapters again the day after tomorrow.

The usual 5,000 words—there'll be another late-night update.

A small request for next month's guaranteed monthly votes. Updates are indeed sparse right now, but I'm building up chapters. Once it goes premium, I'll deliver 10,000 words daily.