This Humble One, Reincarnation Stream Player

"Brother, what about me? If you let me survive and get back, I'll definitely buy you a luxury mansion!" Robert was quite good at reading the room and hurriedly chased after him.

Hayasaka Ai looked at the team, which had become lively and noisy again, and was slightly stunned for a moment before touching her own hair.

The man's body heat still lingered on her strands. Her cold gaze gradually softened, quietly taking on the innocence of a young girl.

This man was truly complex; he was terrifying when he needed to be serious, yet very gentle when it was time to encourage everyone.

By his side, it was truly difficult for a sense of tension to emerge—that kind of tension that made one want to retch when facing a life-or-death choice.

Heh, a professional.

The corners of her mouth curled up into a curve inadvertently, and she lowered her head to follow.

"This isn't bad either. If death is inevitable, at least dying with a smile isn't too shameful."

Because of Yuki's 'encouragement,' the team felt much more relaxed after setting off on their journey. With the destination within reach, whether they lived or died, they could finally end this long, drawn-out torture.

Two kilometers was not far, and the Living Corpse were not very active in the moonlight-free environment. Even without using firearms, with Hayasaka Ai's sharp axe clearing the way, their travel speed remained fast. About ten minutes later, the narrow tunnel suddenly widened.

Ancient Castle Square Station had arrived.

The group stopped in their tracks. Yuki poked his head out to observe secretly; he had fled into this place when he left the ancient castle, so the layout of the station was already clear in his mind.

The subway in Crimson Moon City had no platform screen doors. In the middle were two parallel tracks, where a last train that had just arrived was parked. Having lost its driver, it sat right in the center of the tracks.

On the left and right sides were fairly large platforms, connected to the first floor by four wide staircases.

This was the terminal station, and it was a mob spawn point. Yuki didn't need to hack into the surveillance cameras to know how many Living Corpse were directly above; for instance, there were nearly a hundred wandering on the platform.

The slightest disturbance would make them shriek, triggering a chain reaction that would eventually detonate a corpse tide in the square.

"How are we supposed to get past this?" Robert's fat face turned deathly pale. They had indeed reached the end, only to find the road blocked.

"What are you panicking for? We aren't going up from here; there's still a way forward."

"Uh, it's all in the square, what's the difference? Why don't we just wait until eight o'clock and set off on time?"

Yuki glanced at him and said nothing more. In reality, his muscles were already tensed, and he could feel the sound of the second hand ticking echoing in his heart.

The most dangerous moment had arrived. The Crimson Moon's gift only had a rough range and could not be pinpointed to the exact minute or second; at this point, a crisis could be triggered at any time.

"We must move forward, at least to the Dispatch Room." Yuki remained unshaken, pointing to the train parked in the middle. "Go that way, we'll go straight through it."

The platforms on both sides were full of Living Corpse, but the train doors were tightly shut, and the interior was empty without a single shadow. At this point, there were no other choices left, so the group walked over on tiptoes.

Yuki moved stealthily and quietly opened the rear door. He poked his head in to observe first, and after confirming it was empty, he jumped into the carriage with force, then reached out to pull Hayasaka Ai and the others inside.

Shh.

He made a gesture for silence, then knelt on his knees and crawled inside the carriage. Hayasaka Ai followed behind his backside, feeling even more nervous than when they had crossed the canal.

Combat could vent fear, but sneaking under the very noses of enemies was torture. One only needed to look up slightly to see the heads swaying outside the windows.

Thump, thump.

The sounds of slapping and colliding against the carriage came occasionally, making one's heart jump with every instance. She had to lock her gaze onto the man's backside in front of her; although it wasn't very ladylike, at least that backside, crawling at a steady pace while ignoring everything else, was reassuring.

Not daring to even breathe loudly, she ensured her palms landed silently. They crawled like this for over ten minutes until the Living Corpse were finally no longer visible outside the windows, replaced by pitch-black walls.

The front half of this train had already left the platform, and the head of the train had entered the dispatch area.

Hoo, hoo.

A sigh of relief came from behind him. They had slipped past right under the noses of the Living Corpse; it was truly too thrilling. Yuki, meanwhile, raised his eyebrows slightly.

Li Dan hasn't followed yet. Does he have some kind of Chaos Item that hides his aura?

He didn't believe Li Dan could have bypassed them from the surface; otherwise, there would have been no need to make a deal with him. Moreover, his intuition was telling him that this guy was following not far behind.

Half an hour left.

Yuki glanced at his watch and poked half his head out of the window to look around. The dispatch area was pitch black, and there were far fewer wandering Living Corpse compared to outside.

That made sense; this was a dead end, after all, and the Living Corpse would instinctively head toward the outside.

One piece of good news: they could go to the Dispatch Room to hide for a while.

Quietly prying open the carriage door, Yuki was the first to jump off the train. He peered around sneakily, his eyebrows furrowing quietly.

"What's that sound?"

"It sounds like someone is crying?" Hayasaka Ai, who had followed him off the train, also stopped in her tracks.

Inside the tunnel, several trains were parked—evidently, the day's fighting had caused the subway to shut down—and a vague, crying sound drifted from among these winding trains.

It sounded like a girl, yet as sharp as an infant's. Yuki followed the sound, but after passing the head of a train, he retreated the way he came as if stung by a needle.

Damn it.

He pressed his right hand down and poked his head out, seeing a vague figure at the end of the tracks with its back to him.

The white hair was quite long, obscuring its face, and its skin appeared purple-black due to mutation, but the pair of claws, disproportionate to its body, were truly terrifying.

Hayasaka Ai picked up her axe, wanting to sneak up and crack its skull from behind, but her sleeve was gripped tightly.

"Don't disturb her."

This thing was a Witch, the rarest and most powerful type of Living Corpse, a nightmare for players. That gaunt frame and defenseless appearance were very tempting for a sneak attack.

Hayasaka Ai looked at him with suspicion, seemingly sensing Yuki's deep familiarity with the situation, and mouthed the words: "Is this thing stronger than a Tyrant?"

"Of course it's not stronger than a Tyrant, but we have neither the time nor the energy to fight right now." Yuki was firm; this was a classic case of different circumstances calling for different measures.

When fighting a Tyrant, Yuki could pull out all the stops and battle a powerful enemy to the death, but now that they were in the heart of a Living Corpse nest, there was simply no condition for a fight.

Boomers, Jockeys, and the like were indeed weaker, but they were overwhelming in sheer numbers.

"Turn off your flashlights, step lightly, and we'll skirt around the side."

Yuki retreated along the path they came, quietly bypassing the train carriage on the other side. The straight-line distance between them was no more than a few meters, and the sobbing was clearly audible, but just as he had anticipated, the Witch only covered her face and wept, paying no mind to the players passing by.

My foresight is coming in handy again.

Yuki felt the thrill of a cheater; an average player would surely have chosen to ambush it, only to realize they had invited a massive disaster.

The Crimson Moon caused mutations, but the core essence remained unchanged—well, that was the second piece of good news.

He recalled the Lickers, Tyrants, Tanks, and all manner of Living Corpses; invisibly, he held a massive advantage in intelligence.

Two hundred meters left, fifteen minutes remaining.

Yuki could already see the end of the tunnel and the warning lines. If the plan went smoothly, the final trial would arrive in fifteen minutes.

Tap.

His footsteps suddenly halted, his muscles tensing in an instant.

The pitch-black underground was suddenly illuminated by a flash of red light—the residual power of the moonlight at its peak, piercing through the surface.

In other words, here in the heart of the sea of corpses underground, the fourth gift of the Crimson Moon had arrived.

It was time.

I knew it wouldn't go smoothly.

Yuki's heart skipped a beat along with the surging moonlight, but it quickly returned to its normal rhythm.

This was within his expectations, though the timing was a bit too early. If it had been a few minutes later, he could have had the follow-up plan properly arranged.

"So, what is the gift?"

All four of them turned almost in unison, holding their breath, eyes darting everywhere, not letting a single area escape their notice.

They didn't see any monsters emerging from the moonlight, which made Yuki heave a sigh of relief. If something even fiercer than a Tyrant popped up in a place like this, they would be in real trouble.

"Looks like it's not spawning monsters out of thin air."

"I know, but could it be further strengthening the Living Corpses?" Mai Sakurajima said offhandedly while holding her gun.

"Don't jinx it. This place is already a Living Corpse nest; I'd rather it just spawn two more Tyrants."

Yuki lowered his voice, not daring to move even his fingertips, while his brain raced at high speed.

Compared to the second gift, the difficulty of the third had actually decreased. With so little time left, following this trend, his survival rate was actually increasing.

He always felt that those rewards didn't just vanish into thin air; they had to be connected to the instance dungeon somehow.

Bang, bang, bang.

Light footsteps echoed through the tunnel. Yuki's expression shifted, and he turned his head.

"What was that sound?"

"I don't know, but it came from that direction."

Yuki followed the sound, looking toward where several trains were parked, his eyelid twitching.

"Where... do you... think you're going?"

A disjointed, shrill, and mournful female voice rang out. Before the group could recover, a pitch-black claw pressed down on the roof of a carriage, and a head with purple-black skin and long white hair emerged.

A Witch?

The way she appeared was terrifying, but what was even more terrifying was—

"Wait, how can a Living Corpse talk!?"

For a moment, no one could process it. Players had grown accustomed to the berserk, mindless Living Corpses; hearing one speak suddenly felt incredibly surreal.

Bang!

A gunshot rang out suddenly. Hayasaka Ai saw the situation turning bad and opened fire, but the Witch dodged with a leap and did not immediately charge back to counterattack like other Living Corpses.

Clink.

The shell casing hit the ground with a crisp sound. The suppressed rifle wasn't very loud, and Hayasaka Ai didn't fire a second shot, looking with some confusion at the monster that had jumped to another carriage.

The opponent had become unpredictable. The Chainsaw Sword hidden behind Yuki's back had already begun to rev, ready to deliver a heavy blow at any moment.

The four of them and the one corpse stared at each other. But compared to the players' tension, the Living Corpse's gaze was cold as ice. She didn't jump over like a lunatic, and that restraint gave Yuki his answer.

"Intelligence. The fourth gift is that the zombies have evolved intelligence."

Yuki let out a long breath. They were only one step away from the finish line now; his biggest fear was the Living Corpses continuing to gain raw power.

Admittedly, intelligent Living Corpses would be craftier and harder to deal with, but the players had already obtained supernatural powers; they were no longer just survivors struggling to survive by their wits alone.

What the Living Corpses desperately needed right now was overwhelming force.

Thump, thump, thump...

The gunfire had inevitably stirred the Living Corpses in the tunnel, triggering a chain reaction that drew the entire horde in the plaza toward them.

"It's a corpse tide, we've triggered a corpse tide here." Robert's face turned deathly pale, and he nearly collapsed onto the ground.

"What are you panicking for? Do you think you can just stroll back like you're on a picnic? The subway entrance is only so wide; they can't all rush through at once." Yuki's tone was urgent. He nodded at Mai Sakurajima, who quickly nodded back and ran toward the depths of the tunnel. Robert took a look, noticed something off about the wall at the end, and his eyes lit up.

"Huh, this place connects to the Ancient Castle!?"

"No kidding. Did you really think I'd go to the plaza to seek death?" Yuki had just whispered a few words to Hayasaka Ai before gripping his greatsword, tilting his head back, and roaring: "Li Dan, if you don't show yourself now, are you planning to go down with me!?"

All honorifics were forgotten, but before the sound of his voice had even faded, a dull 'bang' of a gunshot rang out, and the Witch leaped onto the wall like a gecko, vanishing rapidly into the shadows.

Not far behind it, a figure wrapped entirely in a black cloak was revealed.

Li Dan did not pursue the Witch, staring at the young man with a complex expression. He had intended to tail Yuki and pick up the scraps; he had indeed seen the key clues, but he couldn't just abandon the other party.

The corpse tide was already surging in, and the cloak, which could only mask his aura from a distance, had become useless. He had no choice but to reveal himself, and he couldn't let Yuki stay behind to cover the retreat.

There were still over ten minutes until dawn; even if Yuki were willing to hold the line, he couldn't stop the corpse tide.

Crossing that wall meant entering the Eternal Night, and heaven only knew if the Living Corpses would vanish upon entering it. If his path back was blocked, how would he return the way he came and survive this final night in an instant?

Damn it, the path to survival is right in front of me, and I still have to give him a hand!

Li Dan gritted his teeth; the timing was too awkward, as if it had been calculated like clockwork.

The corpse tide behind them had already jumped off the platform and was spreading along the tracks. In the front were the fastest mutated Living Corpses, clawing and snapping, with pus churning from their bodies.

"I'll provide cover, hurry and find a way to block the path!"

He didn't need to say it; with a blast of a whistle, the train in the middle of the tracks was already set in motion. Inside the driver's cabin, Hayasaka Ai remained expressionless, charging head-on toward the corpse tide.

Outside the window was nothing but a sea of black heads. Spikes shot through the glass, and the terror was so great that even her arms were trembling. She lightly pressed her lips together, touched her blonde hair, and accelerated the train to its limit.