In Dragon Country's livestream chat.
"Holy shit! Why does that elephant look like that?! I'm going to piss myself!"
"That's way too creepy. I've got goosebumps all over. And why is Su Chen just standing there? The exit is right in front of him! Why isn't he leaving?!"
"We're screwed. This is going south. Something seems to have its eyes on Su Chen. Look at his face-holy shit, it's covered in eyes! A ghost!"
Just then, the livestream view shifted, showing Su Chen's face head-on.
The sight terrified the viewers in Dragon Country.
Densely packed eyes covered Su Chen's entire face.
And apart from Su Chen’s own tightly shut eyes, every other eye kept rolling and shifting, staring fixedly at everything around him.
The sight was utterly horrifying.
Quite a few viewers with trypophobia fainted outright from fright.
"What's going on? What the hell is going on? Is this targeting Dragon Country? Other countries' contestants get four eyes when they're targeted, but ours gets a whole face full of them?"
"This isn't his fault! The Horror Story World is clearly cheating! Su Chen already closed his eyes, but it forced him to look anyway!"
After watching the livestream for so long and discussing things among themselves, the viewers had roughly grasped some of the underlying logic of this Horror Story World.
Seeing what happened to Su Chen, they understood what was going on.
This was simply an impossible situation.
Whatever he did, he couldn't escape having his perception corrupted.
All they could do was hope Su Chen's perception was firm enough.
Firm enough to withstand this wave of mental corruption.
But what they didn't know was this.
The first thing "It" had corrupted was Su Chen's memory of elephants.
He had no way to hold firm to his own perception.
At that moment, Su Chen was desperately trying to think of a solution.
But under that gaze, his brain was working painfully slowly.
And all sorts of strange thoughts kept popping up, obstructing Su Chen’s train of thought.
In that state, Su Chen had no choice but to begin mechanically reciting the various rules.
He hoped these memorized rules would help his muddled brain spot a clue and find some hope of breaking free.
Before long, he reached the fourth rule in the Visitor Rules.
[If you find that the appearance of the elephant you see differs from your own understanding, do not panic. Open your eyes wide and tell yourself that seeing is believing. (The final sentence is in blue.)]
Su Chen shuddered, a chill rising in his heart.
This rule looked as though it should originally have described what a real elephant looked like, reinforcing visitors' perceptions so they could resist corruption.
But "It" had twisted the rule.
Apparently, the other party had prepared for this long ago, leaving him no way out.
But Su Chen wasn't someone who simply accepted his fate, and his save gave him the confidence to keep going.
He decided to continue reciting.
Soon, he reached the third rule in the Employee Handbook.
[If, while inspecting the Elephant Enclosure, you notice that the elephant you observe differs significantly from the image of the elephant on the sign, stop observing it and repeatedly tell yourself that the real elephant is the creature on the sign, not the one you see.]
Su Chen paused when he reached this part.
His muddled brain had finally found a lifeline.
Yes, the sign! The sign shows what a real elephant looks like! If I use it to reinforce my perception, I can survive!
Su Chen hurriedly opened his own eyes and scanned his surroundings.
He soon spotted a metal sign labeled "Elephant Enclosure."
Delight crossed Su Chen's face as he focused on it.
The next instant, his body jolted, and a chill shot from his head to his toes.
The elephant depicted on the sign also had a pair of rabbit ears.
At the sight, Su Chen became utterly bewildered.
Had I remembered it wrong? Did elephants really look like this?
Otherwise, why would the sign show an elephant like that too?
It was possible. Maybe this was what elephants actually looked like, and I'd only been confused by corruption before.
Su Chen's perception gradually shifted toward accepting rabbit-eared elephants.
Just then, he bit down hard on the tip of his tongue.
The intense pain briefly cleared his head.
No, that's wrong! "It" twisted the sign! That's also why the Employee Handbook wasn't twisted! "It" no longer cared!
Once he realized this, despair overtook Su Chen.
This fucking Horror Story World was such a scam.
It actually had situations with no solution.
Although he couldn't remember what an elephant looked like right now, he could stubbornly hold out, refusing to believe that the elephant before him was real.
But doing that would clearly mean challenging "It" right under its nose.
After all, when the other party had its eyes on him, he had to keep his perception aligned with its own to escape its attention.
But right now, their disagreement was over elephants!
If he submitted, Su Chen didn't even need to think about it to know he would be finished.
He would end up turning into either an elephant or a rabbit.
Yet stubbornly holding out like this wasn't a solution either.
As long as the other party kept watching him, his perception would still be slowly corrupted.
On top of that, bizarre thoughts kept surfacing in his mind.
He could be doomed beyond salvation at any moment.
"This is such fucking bullshit!"
That was the last thing Su Chen managed to say.
After that, his thoughts grew increasingly muddled, and his perception gradually began to collapse.
In the final moment before he lost all clarity, he saw the lettering on the distant sign change.
It became "Goat Enclosure."
Wasn't there no Goat Enclosure on the map? Or am I seeing the otherworld?
Su Chen asked himself in bewilderment.
Then he sank completely into confusion.
Before you continue