Failed "Visitor"

"—Ugh, aaah...!"

A heart-wrenching scream suddenly erupted, echoing dully through the cramped toilet stall. It was even mixed with a string of violent dry heaves, the choking gurgle of a spasming throat enough to make one's scalp tingle.

The man making the noise was clearly in terrible shape.

The burly man who had just awakened from chaos stared wide-eyed, his face plainly filled with horror.

While retching, he frantically flailed both hands on reflex, struggling with all his strength.

Before he could even make out what was in front of him, his body twisted violently in accordance with its survival instinct. As he rolled over in panic, the big man slipped straight off the toilet seat.

Bang!

Xie Lei hit the somewhat sticky floor tiles hard, his shoulder smashing a chip out of the toilet's porcelain rim.

Even so, his thick legs kept kicking wildly in stress response. The hard heels of his shoes repeatedly slammed into the stall's wooden door with reckless force, producing piercing thud-thud sounds.

Even the blunt pain of the impacts rebounding through his limbs did nothing to make him stop!

As he continued letting out muddled, pig-slaughter-like screams, his thick arms, honed through years at the gym, also kept flailing wildly through the cramped space as though trying to drive back some invisible horror in the air.

It was not until the automatically triggered flush roared to life that he seemed to be abruptly frozen by the sudden loud noise.

Stiffly staring at the light overhead that had turned on with the sound, the man lying on his side on the filthy floor of a KTV restroom, tears and snot streaming down his face, finally looked around in trembling confusion before instinctively glancing at his red, swollen hands.

"I'm back... I'm back... I didn't die... I didn't die... Hahaha... It was a dream... just a nightmare..."

His deranged muttering echoed through the stall for a long time.

In the dead of night, the KTV rooms outside were still singing and howling at deafening volume. Amid the surging electronic beats, no one noticed the sounds that had come from here earlier...

Curled up alone inside the toilet stall, not even caring about the nauseating stench of urine mixed with disinfectant in the air, Xie Lei's face was flushed an unnatural red, and fine blood vessels filled his eyes.

Though his body was clearly unscathed, some phantom pain lingering in his memories still seemed impossible to shake off...

Before he even got to his feet, his hands were already repeatedly searching every inch of his body. His fingers roughly clawed at his chest and abdomen as he anxiously lifted his shirt, pulled open his waistband, pushed aside every piece of clothing, and forcefully pressed and grabbed at every inch of flesh...

His rapid movements carried an almost crazed anxiety, as if he were trying to find certain nonexistent "traces."

Nothing on his hands...

Nothing on his legs...

Nothing on his stomach...

Until he trembled as he repeatedly felt over his scalp, digging all ten fingers into his thinning hair as though it might still conceal something, viciously scratching at the roots beneath. In the end, Xie Lei practically "combed" every inch of his scalp with his nails, using such force that it seemed he wanted to tear his own hair out...

Certain seemingly "illusory" agonizing experiences had already taught him that blind luck often destroyed even more things when one least expected it.

Finally, after repeatedly confirming that every inch of his skin was intact—there were no strange wounds or tears in his flesh, nor any matching abnormal sensation or searing pain!

Thank heavens. At that moment, Xie Lei's mind, stretched to the breaking point, seemed like a snapped string. His entire body suddenly went limp, like a wooden puppet falling apart.

Shaking uncontrollably, not even caring about the stench on his body or the large suspicious yellow stains and damp patches on his clothes, the brawny man with a gold chain around his neck braced himself against the stall wall and staggered to his feet.

"It was a dream, just a dream, it wasn't real..."

He kept muttering it over and over. Beads of sweat the size of soybeans rolled down his face, now drenched in perspiration and blank with exhaustion, while a faint, idiotic snicker quietly appeared on it.

As it happened.

Just as the burly man, clearly traumatized by an enormous psychological shock, stood there stupidly with an odd expression somewhere between laughter and tears...

What he failed to notice was the phone that should have belonged to him. It was still lying alone behind him on the toilet lid, where its owner had smashed out a large chunk, and its battery was nearly dead.

Its lock screen had clearly remained completely black, yet at that moment, it suddenly lit up dimly without anyone touching it.

[Visitor Xie Lei's Newcomer Trial world: "Parasite Crisis." Difficulty rating: "One Star/Low."]

[Total survival time: seven hours, four minutes, thirty-three seconds. Died after coming into conflict with other newcomers and choosing to act separately. The parasitic organism within his body had developed to its second stage and was not removed in time. Bodily damage resulted in death.]

[Main quest incomplete.]

[Side quest incomplete.]

[No qualities requiring special evaluation displayed.]

[Visitor mission failed... Main God ID activation failed...]

[According to evaluation procedures, this individual's current Temporary Visitor status will be removed...]

A string of dark characters slid quietly down from the top of the screen like a living undercurrent. It was as though a cold gaze briefly swept through the depths of the display, examining the outside world.

Even stranger, though no one had touched it, the phone interface had silently bypassed every preset security measure—fingerprint, pattern lock, and manual password, all rendered useless at this moment.

Soon, on the page that had unlocked itself, there was a truth that had briefly existed there, one that perhaps only the man named Xie Lei before it had ever had a chance to glimpse...

It was a strange "app" with no label beneath it: a vortex-shaped icon in dark silver, still slowly rotating.

At that moment, as though erased by an invisible rubber, it quietly vanished from the screen.

There was no record of it running, nor any leftover data. Even the place where the icon had been contained nothing but a suffocating, spotless emptiness.

As though it had never existed...

A "Temporary Visitor," who theoretically had only one precious chance to participate, would naturally be ruthlessly stripped of that Visitor identity by the [Main God] after dying and failing in the "Newcomer Trial." It had come so casually, yet was so hard-won.

After all, if those who succeeded were no different from those who failed, then "opportunity" itself would have no value.

...That did not fit the original purpose behind the creation of the "Main God Game."

After all, the fear and stimulation of merely being hurt or dying was like a child using the tip of a pen to poke at an insect crawling across the ground. The instant the pen tip touched it, it would startle and scramble madly away, but moments later, it would cautiously stretch out again and slow down.

In the end, the child poked it once, and it moved a few times; poked it again, and it moved again...

But after being poked too often, the insect would seem to grow tired of it, to adapt. No matter how it was teased, it would no longer move, unwilling to give even the slightest response.

Even metal structures suffered from stress fatigue, let alone living creatures of flesh and blood, or higher life-forms with self-awareness.

People grew tired. Their bodies and minds alike would become weary.

Life naturally sought a way out, and no one could remain forever amid emotional storms. No matter how turbulent the heart's tides, they would eventually recede into lingering waves. No matter how intense one's joy or sorrow, if it lasted too long, it would become like a bowstring pulled again and again—it would eventually slacken and weaken...

Until, in the end, one became numb and indifferent.

Relentless oppression, terror, and even cycles of despair could not make those who entered them persist for long.

Li Yun understood this very clearly, and had long ago written the relevant "hidden rules" into the Main God's evaluation criteria—

Only through repeated tug-of-war between gains and losses, advance and retreat; only by feeling the threat of brushing past death while also possessing desires for enormous rewards sufficient to make people willingly take risks, forget death, and throw themselves into it of their own accord; only by desperately pursuing onward progress, constantly improving their own quality, and continuously obtaining new kinds of "stimulation signals," could this cycle, seemingly stable but ultimately limited, continue over the long term through repeated rises and falls, making it easier to harvest more hidden spiritual resources.

...That was the meaning of the "Main God Game."

After failing the Newcomer Trial, there were almost no additional losses or punishments. This was a measure of "mercy" someone had deliberately established for the [Main God], or rather, a safeguard against risk that was enough to dispel most concerns in the early stages and make people willingly join.

But beyond that, there was no need to dream of the true rewards that symbolized encouragement.

Those fruits were destined to belong only to those who succeeded through wisdom, determination, and courage.

In the end, the "real game" controlled by the [Main God] required not only the "quantity" of participants, but also the far more important "quality."

At this moment, the victors advanced, and the losers retreated!

An invisible, indifferent gaze was quietly operating everything according to its predetermined procedures during this brief seven-day interval...