Rules-related weird stories: 4016

Chapter 207: Gale, Rainstorm, Streetlights, and... Phantasms!

“We're getting close, slow down a bit,” Mu Da said, reducing his pace. “Any closer and we're both dead.”

“I already feel terrible,” Mao Feiyang said with difficulty.

“We're approaching His domain, which causes that moth-to-a-flame sensation,” Mu Daxian explained. “Fire can provide light in the darkness, but throwing yourself into it will only lead to your destruction.”

Mao Feiyang nodded, seemingly understanding, thinking to himself, 'Alright, big brother, stop with the impromptu romanticism. Just tell me what we're supposed to do next.'

Just then, he noticed that within the mist surrounding him, illusory figures were gradually appearing.

These figures looked like distant mountains and rocks, distorted by the light and shadows of thunder within the swirling mist, or like specters from a horror movie, existing between reality and illusion. When the wind blew the curtains, their outlines would be traced by the fabric.

But Mao Feiyang quickly realized that this wasn't just the ever-changing mist under the play of light and shadow, but rather… angel statues!

As he and Mu Daxian approached His domain, the angel statues that had been siphoning his extraordinary power from another layer seemed to be gradually pulled into this layer.

The mist still outlined their forms, and the thunder confined them to this place.

“How's the student commemorative coin doing?” Mu Daxian asked in a low voice.

Mao Feiyang glanced at it.

The student commemorative coin seemed to be dragged into flesh and blood by scarlet blood vessels. The originally spiderweb-like cracks had now turned into hideous blood vessels, making it look shocking.

“What should it look like to be considered good?” Mao Feiyang asked with difficulty.

“It just needs to absorb enough blood!”

“How do I know when it's absorbed enough?”

“It will fall off like a fruit after it's full!”

“Like a tomato?”

“More or less.”

“Then… is a cherry tomato okay? I feel like it's about the size of a cherry tomato now!”

“Not even close!”

“Damn it!”

Despite this, Mao Feiyang still felt an indescribable force being frantically extracted from his body by the student commemorative coin. Especially as he approached His domain, the blood in his body seemed to stir, and the rate of loss increased.

“What about the purebred Nightwalkers that were following us before? Why can't I see them?” Mao Feiyang asked.

“They've been driven away!”

“Huh?”

“They don't have the 'qualifications' to approach the angel statues!”

“That's great!” Mao Feiyang thought, finally rid of those purebred Nightwalkers that were like a mudslide.

“What's so great about it? Would you rather face nine angel statues or a mudslide that can't catch up to you?”

“I don't want to face either… Up until yesterday, I was just someone accompanying my roommate here, messing around and making a little money!”

“And let me reiterate, it's not nine, it's eleven!”

“These two student commemorative coins are real vampires!”

Mu Daxian used conversation to maintain Mao Feiyang's will, preventing him from being unable to withstand the angel statues' drain.

“What happens if I get drained by the angel statues?” Mao Feiyang suddenly asked.

“Nothing much,” Mu Daxian thought for a moment, then said in a deep voice, “You won't even realize your own death. You might not even feel anything until you become a statue and completely degenerate into a phantasm.”

“This…?” Mao Feiyang's heart trembled fiercely, “Not even feel death? If even I don't know that I'm already dead, and I can still move, am I alive or dead?”

Mu Daxian was stunned for a moment, seemingly stumped by Mao Feiyang's question. He thought seriously for a moment before saying, “Living is when you think you're still alive, dying is when others think you're dead.”

“Huh? Big brother, I'm not taking the postgraduate entrance exam, can you speak in layman's terms?”

“Cognition,” Mu Daxian said, “It depends on cognition.”

“Like phantasms, under normal circumstances, it's difficult for us to distinguish whether they can be converted back, so we just cut them down without hesitation when we need to.”

“You mean… only when you know you can't live anymore do you know that you're really dead?”

The phantasm state is an alternative form of “living.” The dead do not know their death. What a cruel and bizarre dialectical question.

“Why can I sense the malice of the angel statues, but not His malice?”

“The angel statues really want to kill you, but He hasn't even noticed you.”

“You don't care how many ants you step on when you're walking.”

“He's not on the same level as us. If you want to get His attention, you need to raise your life level to that of an angel statue at least…”

“But then, you're no longer a 'person'.”

“Forget it, don't think too much about it. This isn't something you have the opportunity to come into contact with right now,” Mu Daxian shook his head, glanced at the direction of Teaching Building C, “Let's think about how to get through the current predicament first.”

He is in Teaching Building C, so almost the entire area of Building C is unlit.

A little further out, the lights flicker, sometimes bright, sometimes dim. A little further out, the fluorescent lights are relatively dim but still on. And then further out, the lights in the teaching building are always on.

Mu Daxian and Mao Feiyang are wandering in the area where the lights are always on and slightly dimmer.

To use a concise and vivid analogy, the two of them are like a wild support duo actively going to eat Yang Yuhuan's second skill.

“He almost never attacks us proactively, but there are always exceptions.”

“We wouldn't be that unlucky, would we?” Mao Feiyang asked.

The corner of Mu Daxian's mouth twitched slightly, “You don't think we're going to be lucky, do you?”

Mao Feiyang: “…”

Lin Yi narrowed his eyes, and through observation of the area, he estimated that His domain range should be over fifty meters, but not more than one hundred meters…

If he were within the domain, he should experience the same situation as before, being uncontrollably drawn in.

「Speaking of which, what Pan Jian's digital camera captured should be the scene of Him opening the classroom door, right?」

Judging from the location where the digital camera fell, that location should have been within fifty meters of the staircase classroom door…

「Within fifty meters… the images captured by the digital camera had already turned into static…」

「No, it can't be understood that way… the digital camera's 'shooting' is just a recording method. When recording, it may have captured something, but regardless of what was captured, after electronic imaging, what is displayed is static…」

「In other words, the influence He produces should have permeated the known physical rules… completely transcending common sense.」

Lin Yi didn't know if he could achieve any effect by remotely throwing cold weapons at Him or attacking Him with ranged hot weapons from outside His domain.

「If it were possible… the school would have already solved this hidden danger, right?」

If the school couldn't do it, there's also that mysterious company. If the company couldn't do it, there's the country…

Things like 「Him」, even if they don't actively cause harm, their existence itself is a threat. The best way to deal with a time bomb is not to stay away from it, but to find a way to defuse it in advance.

So even if He didn't show any human emotions or motives, His existence itself was a threat, and the national level couldn't just leave it alone.

The only explanation is that it can't be solved.

Perhaps, as Mu Daxian said, it simply cannot be eliminated. Therefore, it can only be contained, kept within a stable range as much as possible. Even if a landmine is stepped on, before a solution is found, it must be held down tightly to prevent it from truly exploding.

However, apart from the seemingly limited domain, the radiation range of its strange fluctuations is very far, spreading around in a rhythmic manner like ripples. The range of these fluctuations is so large that it's hard to say what the exact extent is.

While Lin Yi was observing its domain, Mu Daxian led Mao Feiyang away from the corridor bridge area. By the time Lin Yi returned to his senses... Mao Feiyang had already followed Mu Daxian down the steps, plunging into the heavy, misty rainstorm!

May 8, X023, 0:35 AM, Teaching Building Area.

On this cold night, the rainstorm not only failed to wash away the mist permeating the entire world, but also caused a thick layer of luminous fog to float on the ground.

The mist wandered through the air like a ghost, blurring the vision, and objects beyond ten meters were completely submerged, not even a vague outline visible.

The wind began to howl, like an angry giant, constantly shaking the trees. The green belt emitted a violent rustling sound, and it was impossible to distinguish between the sound of the forest and the sound of waves in the mist and rain.

Raindrops fell densely like soybeans, striking Mu Daxian and Mao Feiyang at an angle like a hail of bullets, making a crackling sound.

The rain grew heavier and heavier, as if the sky had been torn open, and endless rain poured down, forming curtains of water, wrapping the world in a wet, luminous fog.

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Mu Daxian ran with Mao Feiyang in the rain. Mao Feiyang wanted to ask, "What are we going to do?" but his voice was quickly drowned out by the wind and rain and could not be heard.

The rain quickly soaked all of Mao Feiyang's clothes, and the cold, damp feeling quickly penetrated his yellow knitted sweater and invaded his skin.

His entire body was emitting a dense green mist, giving him the feeling of becoming the Hulk after being exposed to gamma rays.

The chilling sensation tried to burrow into Mao Feiyang's pores like countless poisonous snakes, and in fact, some did successfully merge into his body.

As the supernatural power in the rain entered his body, the weakened Mao Feiyang felt as if he had been injected with several shots of adrenaline, and his whole body seemed to be reborn. At this moment, he even felt a sense of swelling.

So what if nine Black Mountain Old Demons devour my yang energy?

Bring on another nine, I can handle it!

However, at this moment, Mu Daxian's voice seemed to carry some kind of magic, breaking through the rainy night and entering his ears: "Don't actively absorb the rainwater!!!"

"Ah?!" Mao Feiyang was shocked. "What?! Don't absorb it?!"

I just took a big gulp, damn it!

"Resist it!!!" Mu Daxian roared like thunder, "We can't resist the erosion of the rain, so use your resistance to weaken the speed of the rain's erosion. This will achieve a temporary balance of supernatural power in your body!!"

"If you keep gobbling it down like that, you'll turn into a statue before I can even start messing around!!"

Mao Feiyang shuddered violently, his body trembling as if true energy was about to burst out, scattering a large amount of rainwater.

"Big brother, why didn't you say so earlier?!"

"What's there to say?! Damn it, normal people can't even resist in time, who would be as indiscriminate as you?!"

"I was too tired, it felt like recharging, I couldn't help but absorb it!"

"It's not too late to resist now! We're almost there!"

"Where are we going anyway?!"

"Just a few steps away, you'll know when you get struck by lightning!"

"Strike you or strike me? Big brother, I don't have any lightning resistance!"

"Strike your sister, I mean wait for the thunder!"

"Ah, oh, oh, oh..."

As soon as the words fell, a thunderclap suddenly exploded in the depths of the distant sky.

A bolt of lightning flashed across the night sky, briefly and quickly illuminating everything around, and then quickly disappeared, leaving behind a deeper darkness.

Light and shadow were abundant between heaven and earth, with alternating brightness and darkness, and rough and chaotic lines depicted the violent world under this rain curtain.

Lin Yi suddenly understood why he always had that black and white overexposed image on May 8th.

It had something to do with this stormy night.

"Rumble—"

The thunder roared, and the whole world suddenly turned white.

A strong and ominous premonition suddenly arose in Lin Yi's heart.

The surrounding world... is not right!

There's something wrong with this stormy night!

A big problem!!

"Rumble—"

Another thunderbolt tore through the night sky, turning the whole world into a white-background, black-line still frame.

Lin Yi finally realized what the problem was. Under this violent and chaotic world, nine angel statues surrounded them with bared fangs and brandished claws. Not far away stood a lamppost, the only "straight line" in the entire world.

"Found it!" Mu Daxian shouted, "Charge, go to the lamppost!"

After the lightning went out, the whole world was enveloped in darkness again, but Mu Daxian had already found the location of the lamppost, locking onto that route with the afterimage of his momentary vision.

"Hey, stop, don't run!"

Mu Daxian pointed to the lamppost, resembling a guiding immortal.

Mao Feiyang shouted, "Damn, is the lamppost a demon?! Can it run?!"

But he immediately realized he was wrong. Mu Daxian was not talking about the lamppost, but about the... pseudo-human standing under the lamppost!

That's right, there was also a pseudo-human under the lamppost, braving the rainstorm and licking the white paint number on the lamppost.

Lin Yi's eyelids twitched violently. These pseudo-humans... started acting on May 7th?!

Or, could it be that they had already started on May 6th?!

But judging from the situation in the Art Building, the Night Watcher issued a warning and rang the doomsday bell on May 7th. Was the warning issued only after the campus had already encountered a wave of crisis?

Mu Daxian moved swiftly, crossing the distance and reaching the lamppost in the blink of an eye!

"Student, I..." The pseudo-human's reaction was not slow. As soon as it saw Mu Daxian and Mao Feiyang coming over, it immediately opened its mouth to deceive them.

But its logical thinking was almost zero. Who would rush to the lamppost in this weather? Could they be normal students?

Mu Daxian acted even faster. Before it could open its mouth, he directly dragged it down from the lamppost and pinned it to the ground.

Looking at the pseudo-human who was [I can't breathe], Mao Feiyang's eyelids twitched slightly, and he suddenly felt a little sympathy for it.

Before the pseudo-human could react, Mu Daxian directly said: "Isn't this 'Mao Feiyang'? What are you doing here, kid? I've been looking for you!"

Mao Feiyang: "???"

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Added 200 words.