I'll go first

"Did the possession work?"

Meng Chengcheng's face was calm, and even her tone hadn't changed.

Seeing Spirit Communion for the first time, Chen Feng marveled at it. In his stereotypical image of the process, wasn't a Medium supposed to undergo a drastic personality change, sway her head around, and speak in a distorted voice?

Captain Wu told Chen Feng to keep his voice down. "Shh. Don't disturb Chengcheng's Spirit Communion."

A Junior Medium's abilities were limited. In most cases, she could only invite someone who had just died to possess her, so Meng Chengcheng chose a visitor who had just failed the game.

The amusement park only stipulated that the living couldn't reveal the game's contents. It hadn't accounted for the dead being able to speak, too.

Although the dead hadn't cleared the game, their failures might reveal a way to succeed. At the very least, the others could avoid making the same mistakes.

Meng Chengcheng began recounting what the deceased had experienced before his death. "He took a gun and entered the forest. Balloon monsters began appearing around him."

Captain Wu asked, "Damn it, even balloons can turn into monsters?"

Meng Chengcheng explained, "Yes. They look like balloons, but they're alive. They're very fast, and the strings on their tails are as sharp as blades. They can even slice through large trees."

As she spoke, the three incense sticks suddenly snapped on their own.

Meng Chengcheng cried out, "He died."

Everyone hurriedly asked, "How did he die?"

Meng Chengcheng opened her eyes, sweat beading on her forehead. "One balloon monster called out in front of him to draw his attention, while another hid overhead under the cover of the leaves. When he wasn't looking, it ambushed him and killed him."

A diversion?

Captain Wu couldn't help cursing. "Damn it, these monsters are even using military tactics."

Pastor nodded as well. "Looks like that's how the people before us were ambushed."

Holy shit.

While everyone else lamented the monsters' cunning, Chen Feng was awestruck by the Medium's ability.

She can actually make the dead speak. That's an incredible ability for gathering intelligence, and this is only the first stage of being a Medium. Once she reaches the third stage and finishes binding her spiritual apertures, she'll be able to invite gods to possess her. Won't she be unstoppable then?

In a world crawling with monsters, someone powerful enough to rely on was certainly worth clinging to.

Chen Feng felt he was beginning to understand Liu Xiaohu.

Speaking of which, as a devoted admirer, shouldn't I say something right about now?

Chen Feng was just about to speak when he heard Lin He flatter her. "Thank goodness we have Miss Meng. Otherwise, we'd be done for."

Meng Chengcheng replied shyly, "You're exaggerating."

Damn it, those were my lines!

Chen Feng now understood why Liu Xiaohu hated Lin He so much.

Time flew, and soon it was the five-person group's turn. Yet of the dozens who had played before them, only a pair of twin brothers had cleared the game.

The death rate was nearly ninety percent.

Afraid something might happen to his teammates, Captain Wu volunteered to go first. "I'll go first. If it's too dangerous, we'll switch to another attraction."

But Pastor, the deputy captain, disagreed. "No, Captain. You're our backbone. If anything happens to you, the entire mission is over. Let me, your deputy, go first."

Captain Wu hesitated. "But you're not very good with a gun."

Pastor replied nonchalantly, "Then I'll take a gamble. The Lord will protect me."

Seeing his insistence, Captain Wu could only relent. "All right. Relax, and stay alert."

"I know, I know."

Pastor swaggered into the forest with the scissor-handed proprietor.

Everyone spent the next ten minutes on edge, but thankfully, the moment time was up, Pastor appeared at the edge of the forest.

Captain Wu couldn't help shouting, "Well done!"

But their joy was soon cut short.

Captain Wu noticed that Pastor's right sleeve was empty.

He had lost his arm.

Chen Feng frowned. The monsters could actually sever an arm. Meng Chengcheng had been right—the strings on the balloon monsters' tails really were sharp.

But with advance warning, Pastor shouldn't have fallen victim to an ambush.

Was his aim so bad that he'd run out of bullets?

Although he had plenty of questions, the rules prevented Chen Feng from asking.

Pastor reassured everyone. "I've already treated the wound."

As the team's medic, Pastor could heal the injured through Prayer, stopping bleeding and closing wounds with basic treatment. But he could do nothing about severe injuries such as severed limbs.

At the thought that he might have to live with only one hand from now on, no one knew what to say.

Faced with everyone's silence,

Pastor remained philosophical. "It's fine. It's just an arm, isn't it? At least I'm not dead."

"It's just a shame I'll have to play cards one-handed from now on. That'll be a little inconvenient."

Captain Wu sighed. "You're taking it well. Still, with all the extraordinary people in our organization, someone must be able to handle something like regrowing a limb."

While they were talking, the proprietor emerged from the forest as well, waving his scissors and urging the next visitor forward.

Captain Wu went second.

When he returned, his face was ashen, and a horrifying, long gash stretched across his chest. Under Pastor's Prayer, however, the bleeding soon stopped.

Even Captain Wu had been injured.

At first, Chen Feng had thought Pastor had gotten hurt because his aim wasn't good enough and he'd run out of bullets to deal with the monsters. But if even Captain Wu, with his superb marksmanship, had been injured, something was wrong.

Could there be more than ten monsters?

But the captain also has his own Demon-Slaying Gun, Holy Judgment, with a hundred rounds. Surely he didn't use them all?

If there were more than a hundred monsters in the forest, the twins and Pastor couldn't possibly have come out alive.

Or was the captain trying to conserve ammunition?

While Chen Feng pondered, Lin He, the third to play, emerged from the forest as well.

Unlike the first two, Lin He had neither lost an arm nor suffered an injury. But the Bagua Mirror on his chest had split in two.

Liu Xiaohu paid particularly close attention to his chief romantic rival, of course, so Chen Feng knew that the Bagua Mirror was a magical artifact Lin He's Taoist temple had issued to him. It could protect him from one attack by an evil creature.

The shattered Bagua Mirror proved that he, too, had been caught out.

That doesn't add up.

The others could only wait helplessly for death once their bullets ran out, but Lin He had a Coin Sword.

At first, Chen Feng had thought there were so many monsters that Lin He had exhausted his magic power. But on reflection, if that had been the case, Lin He wouldn't have survived after the Bagua Mirror, which could only block a single attack, shattered.

What had really happened, then, was probably that after the Bagua Mirror broke, Lin He reacted and killed the monster that had attacked him.

So it was an ambush.

Maybe one of the balloon monsters is special, with an ability like invisibility or teleportation, and it caught all three of them off guard.

No, if that were the case, ordinary people would be almost certain to die. How did those brothers clear the game without a scratch?

While Chen Feng racked his brains,

the team's mood sank to rock bottom.

One man had been maimed, another injured, and the third had lost a cherished magical artifact.

After finishing the fish-catching attraction, they had all been full of bold declarations. Now they were like frost-wilted plants, each quieter than the last.

Captain Wu smoked a cigarette, seemingly reaching some sort of decision. Suddenly, he called out to the remaining two. "Xiao Hu, Chengcheng, don't try this attraction."

"Captain!"

Meng Chengcheng looked at Captain Wu. She understood that he was protecting them. An attraction that had nearly brought down an Exorcist, Pastor, and a Taoist would likely put her, a Medium with no means of attack, and Xiao Hu, an ordinary person, in mortal danger.

But she couldn't accept it.

Based on the information they had gathered so far, they only knew that the survivor had exchanged the ten Game Coins he had earned himself for a souvenir. He hadn't said whether they could pool other people's Game Coins to reach ten and exchange them for a souvenir.

If they couldn't, then under the rule that prohibited repeating attractions, she would already have lost her chance to complete the mission.

That was something she couldn't accept.

Meng Chengcheng pressed her lips together and looked at the captain. "I have to go."

Captain Wu understood how Meng Chengcheng felt, but her ability to gather intelligence by communing with the dead was far too valuable. He couldn't let her be lost here.

"Chengcheng, if you still recognize me as your captain, obey my orders."

"I..."

"You have to learn to act within your limits. Xiao Hu does that very well."

As he spoke, Captain Wu suddenly realized something wasn't right.

Something seemed to be missing.

Captain Wu asked in confusion, "Where's Xiao Hu?"

Lin He pointed toward the forest and said with obvious relish, "He's already gone in."

"What????"