Failed "Visitor"

"—Uwaaaagh...!"

A heart-rending scream suddenly erupted, echoing dully through the cramped bathroom stall. It was even mixed with a string of violent dry heaves and the rattling spasms of a constricted throat, enough to make one's scalp tingle.

The person making the noise was obviously in terrible condition.

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 instinct, struggling with all his strength.

Before he could even see what was in front of him, his body twisted sharply in accordance with its survival instincts. He rolled over, and in his panic, the big man slipped completely off the toilet lid.

With a dull bang!

Xie Lei hit the somewhat sticky tiles hard, his shoulder even chipping the porcelain edge of the toilet.

Yet even so, his two thick legs continued kicking wildly in panic. The hard heels of his shoes slammed desperately against the wooden stall door again and again, producing piercing thuds.

Even the blunt pain of the recoil traveling through his limbs did nothing to make him stop!

Still letting out muddled, pig-slaughter-like screams, he also continued wildly swinging his muscular arms—arms clearly honed through countless gym workouts—through the cramped space without any pattern, as though trying to drive away 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 sound.

Stiffly staring at the lights overhead that had already flickered on, the man lying on his side on the floor of a KTV restroom that could hardly be called clean, tears and snot streaming down his face, finally trembled as he blankly looked around at his surroundings, then instinctively glanced at his swollen red hands.

"I'm back... I'm back... I didn't die... I didn't die... Haha... It was a dream... Just a nightmare..."

His delirious muttering echoed through the stall for a long while.

Late at night, the KTV rooms outside were still blaring songs and howling at deafening volumes. Amid the surging electronic bass, no one noticed the sounds that had come from here earlier...

Curled up alone inside the bathroom stall, paying no attention to 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 uninjured, 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 feeling every part of his body. His fingers roughly scratched at his chest and abdomen, then anxiously lifted his shirt, pulled open his waistband, and kept pushing aside every layer of clothing as he forcefully grabbed and pressed every inch of his flesh...

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

Not on his hands...

Not on his legs...

Not on his stomach...

Until he trembled as he repeatedly felt over his scalp, plunging all ten fingers into his sparse hair as though it might still hide something, viciously scratching at the roots beneath. In the end, Xie Lei simply "combed" every inch of his scalp with his fingernails, using such force that it was enough to make one suspect he wanted to tear out his own hair...

Certain seemingly "illusory" agonizing experiences had already taught him that blind wishful thinking would often destroy even more things when one was not paying attention.

Finally, after repeatedly confirming that every inch of his skin was intact—there were no strange wounds or tears in his flesh as he had imagined, nor any corresponding abnormal sensation or agonizing pain!

Thank heavens. At that moment, Xie Lei's mind, stretched to its absolute limit, seemed like a string that had suddenly snapped. His entire body went limp, like a wooden puppet that had fallen apart.

Shivering violently, without even caring about his own stench or the large suspicious yellow stains and wet patches on his clothes, the broad-built man with a gold chain around his neck braced himself against the stall partition and staggered to his feet at last.

"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, which was now drenched in perspiration and dazed as though he had collapsed from exhaustion. A faint, foolish little chuckle even appeared on it.

As it happened.

Just as the burly man, clearly having suffered a massive psychological shock, stood there dumbly with an expression that looked half like crying and half like laughing...

What he failed to notice was the phone that theoretically belonged to him. It still lay alone on the toilet lid behind him, the very same lid its owner had smashed a large chunk out of. Its battery was running low.

Its lock screen was clearly still completely black, yet at that moment, it suddenly lit up faintly without anyone touching it.

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

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

[Main mission incomplete]

[Side mission incomplete]

[Did not display qualities requiring special evaluation]

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

[According to assessment procedures, removing this individual's current Temporary Visitor status...]

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

Even stranger, although no one had operated it at all, the phone interface had silently bypassed every preset security measure—fingerprints, pattern locks, and manual passwords, all rendered useless at this moment.

Soon, on that self-unlocked screen, there was a truth that had briefly existed there—perhaps one that only the man before it, Xie Lei, had ever had a chance to glimpse...

It was a strange "app" with a dark silver, swirling icon that continued rotating slowly, yet unlike any other app, it had no name beneath it.

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

There was no record of it ever running, nor any leftover data. Even where its icon had once been, there remained only a suffocating, spotless emptiness.

As though it had never appeared...

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

After all, if successful people were no different from failures, then "opportunity" itself would have no value.

...That would never align with the purpose behind the creation of the "Main God Game."

After all, the fear and excitement of "getting hurt" and "dying" alone were like a child poking at a crawling insect on the ground with the tip of a pen. The moment the pen touched it, the creature would be startled into a frantic dash, only to cautiously stretch itself out again and slow down moments later.

In the end, the child poked it once, and it moved a few times. Then another poke, then a few more movements...

But after being poked too many times, the insect seemed to grow tired of it, to adapt. No matter how it was teased, it no longer moved, unwilling to offer even the slightest reaction.

Even metal structures suffered from stress fatigue, let alone flesh-and-blood creatures, or even higher lifeforms possessing self-awareness.

People could grow tired. Both their bodies and minds could become weary.

Life would naturally seek a way out, and no one could remain forever amid emotional storm waves. No matter how turbulent the heart, it would eventually fade into ripples. No matter how intense joy or sorrow was, if it lasted too long, it would become like a bowstring repeatedly drawn taut—it would eventually loosen and weaken...

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

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

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

Only by repeatedly pulling participants back and forth between gains and losses, advance and retreat; only by making them feel the threat of brushing shoulders with death while also giving them enormous rewards worth risking their lives for, so that they would willingly throw themselves into it, desperately pursue progress, constantly improve their own quality, and endlessly obtain new forms of "stimulus signals," could this seemingly stable yet ultimately limited cycle continue through rise after fall for a long time, 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 deliberately established as a measure of "mercy" for the [Main God], or rather, a guarantee against risk that was sufficient to dispel most concerns in the early stages and make people willingly participate.

But aside from that, they need not dream of obtaining the true rewards that symbolized encouragement.

Those fruits were inevitably reserved for those who succeeded through wisdom, determination, and courage.

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

At this moment, victors advanced, while losers withdrew!

An invisible, indifferent gaze was silently running everything according to its preset procedures during this brief seven-day interval...