Möbius Strip

Lin Ye hurriedly stepped back, but Jesse had already vanished, just like that monster, leaving no trace at all.

"...Fuck!"

Lin Ye turned and headed back. If that Class-D personnel member had neither lied to him nor lost his mind, then the anomaly in this tunnel was very likely related to time.

Lin Ye had never encountered anything that could alter time, but just imagining it made it seem like a hell of a headache.

No, I can't draw any conclusions yet. It isn't necessarily an anomaly in time. There are other possibilities.

Lin Ye kept heading back. He had no idea how long he had walked, but it was definitely far longer than he had spent coming in. Yet a long passage still stretched ahead, and the entrance was gone.

Oh boy, I'm screwed. Am I going to be trapped here until I die?

Lin Ye cut off some scraps of his clothes and tossed them on the ground. Without stopping, he continued toward the entrance. After he walked a little farther, everything suddenly went black.

Having experienced this twice before, Lin Ye knew a little about it now. Something had probably passed by up ahead.

He took a step forward. The darkness vanished, and a figure appeared diagonally ahead in the passage.

It was the other Class-D personnel member.

"Why did you turn back?"

Reynold gave Lin Ye a puzzled look. He felt that something was a little off about the person in front of him.

"What number were you to come in? How long have you been in here?"

Lin Ye did not answer, instead asking his own questions.

"I'm Number 3, so of course I was the third one in. As for how long I've been walking, a few hours, probably. I don't have a watch, so I don't know how much time has passed."

Reynold watched Lin Ye warily. The other man gave him a very bad feeling.

Lin Ye said nothing more, leaving Reynold behind as he continued forward.

"Wait! Can you not get out either? I changed directions a few times earlier, but I couldn't get out no matter what. The marks I left before are gone, too. Why did the lights go out just now? Do you know how to get out?"

Although he had no fondness for Lin Ye, this was the first person Reynold had encountered in this damned tunnel. He did not want to be trapped here until he died.

Lin Ye ignored him and simply kept walking. Everything went black, and the other man vanished.

"Heh. Knew that would happen."

Lin Ye quickened his pace. He did not know whether walking forward would help, but he could hardly kill himself or stay where he was and wait to die. After all, even if he tried again, he still would not know what to do.

Who knew how much longer he walked. Lin Ye simply kept moving forward mechanically. Strangely, he was not tired at all, nor did he want to eat or drink.

"What's going on? I feel kind of happy."

Lin Ye muttered to himself in the empty passage, walking faster and faster. After a long time, the tunnel finally went dark again.

This time, Lin Ye did not pause. The darkness flashed past, and he froze as he looked diagonally ahead.

He saw himself.

Although the other person wore a helmet, Lin Ye was certain it was himself, judging by his build, skin color, and that familiar orange prison uniform.

The Lin Ye opposite him turned and ran. Lin Ye hurriedly chased after him, shouting for him to stop, but everything went black, and that Lin Ye vanished.

Lin Ye froze in place. This scene seemed somewhat familiar.

He hurriedly looked down at his body. Wriggling strips of flesh, long, narrow limbs, bone spurs covering his waist... At some point, he had turned into a monster.

The monster he had seen earlier had been himself.

The Abyssal Egg... When did it start affecting me? I didn't notice at all...

As expected of an Abyss item. Just carrying it can turn me into this.

Lin Ye was not anxious about becoming a monster. After all, this was only a simulation. What mattered now was figuring out how to get out. Nothing else mattered.

A time loop? But how exactly does it loop? Is it related to direction? The number of people? Will this place collapse if I kill those two Class-D personnel members? Should I kill myself and report the situation here directly to the captain?

The moment that thought surfaced, Lin Ye ruled it out. Unless his remaining simulations dropped to zero, he would not risk reporting directly to the captain.

First, his innate ability was the D-Class Personnel Simulator. If he did not resolve the anomaly, he might not be able to return at all.

Besides, Lin Ye was deeply wary of this so-called organization. This was an organization that constantly used human lives to deal with anomalous events. He could not imagine what methods it might use. Once he drew its attention, the consequences would be unpredictable.

In the worst case, the organization might trap Lin Ye inside the simulation, leaving him unable to return to the Shelter.

He still did not know what state his body existed in. If he was merely lying on the bed in the Shelter, he would die of thirst there within a few days.

So he had to resolve the anomaly in the tunnel on his own.

Lin Ye did not stop walking as he thought. After becoming a monster, his physical capabilities were terrifyingly strong. He did not feel the slightest fatigue.

Before Lin Ye could figure out how the loop worked, the tunnel went dark again.

"How was it so quick?"

Lin Ye took a step forward. The lights illuminated the tunnel, and a monster stood diagonally across the passage.

He was even more heavily built than Lin Ye was now, his body covered in all sorts of twisted mutation organs. He looked far more terrifying than Lin Ye currently did.

This time, Lin Ye did not run. He knew perfectly well that the monster in front of him was himself from the next loop.

The two monsters approached each other in the middle of the passage. Lin Ye wanted to say hello, but all that came out was a bizarre roar.

The Lin Ye from the next loop had already considered this situation. He tore off a strip of flesh, spilling a large amount of dark red liquid onto the ground.

Then the Lin Ye from the next loop began dipping the strip of flesh in blood and writing on the ground. The monster's fingers were twisted and misshapen. He could barely grip the strip of flesh, writing out deformed characters as though he were drawing.

Kill me now

This is the last chance

I can't hold on much longer

Miss this chance

And there can be no next simulation

After struggling to write those words, the Lin Ye from the next loop forcibly tore open his own chest, exposing his vital spot.

Without the slightest hesitation, Lin Ye plunged his forelimbs into the other one's chest and completely shredded his own vital spot.

He trusted himself, and the other one had written that information about the simulation. In any case, killing him would allow the next simulation to begin.

Afterward, Lin Ye struck a few more times. Only after confirming that he had thoroughly killed "himself" did he leave the corpse alone.

Just as Lin Ye was about to continue forward, he suddenly noticed some scars on the corpse's skin. Perhaps because of the monster's strong regenerative abilities, these wounds had already healed, but they had still left some marks on the skin.

They were three mathematical symbols representing positive infinity. The three symbols intersected, forming a strange symbol.

For a moment, Lin Ye did not understand what "he" was trying to convey. Surely he was not saying that this path was endless?

Even if that were the case, there was no need to draw three positive infinity symbols. One was despair-inducing enough.

But Lin Ye soon realized that those were not three positive infinity symbols, but three Möbius strips.