Amid a series of announcements, some Players turned into beams of light and entered the tower one after another, while the rest returned to their rooms to retrieve and put on their masks.
Nian Fu was an exception.
Since Qi Si had casually brought her mask out earlier, she got herself ready inside the black cube and appeared before the Players in animal form.
The Players saw a massive tiger appear where Nian Fu was supposed to be. It leisurely walked toward the board and stopped on one of the squares.
The tiger looked very old, its fur damaged in many places. Yet the white mist curling around it and its blue-green tiger eyes still offered a glimpse of its former power.
Though its appearance was somewhat strange and rather out of place.
Before long, all the other Players had put on their masks and, guided by the cursor, taken their places on the board.
Then they discovered that the distribution of game pieces seemed rather odd.
—There were actually two tigers and not a single fox.
Ninth floor of the tower.
After spending a game coin, Qi Si felt his vision darken in an instant. When he could see again, he had arrived somewhere entirely unfamiliar.
He sat by a river. Smooth, rounded pebbles covered the riverbank beneath him, while the clear, pristine water before him reflected his image like a mirror.
Qi Si looked around. An endless forest stretched in every direction. Though the interior of the tower appeared limited from outside, it was boundless here. He could find neither the transparent wall nor any way to glimpse what lay beyond it.
An eight-hour countdown appeared in the upper-left corner of his vision. Combined with what Goat had said earlier, it could be determined that this was