As the sky outside darkened, Gu Zhan took out his phone but realized it wasn’t quite dark yet.
The village chief began to lay out the ritual items one by one.
He frequently glanced back at Gu Zhan and Miyamoto Satoshi, hoping they would change their minds.
"Performing the divination ceremony at this time will lead to something terrifying..."
The village chief hesitated to begin, so Gu Zhan seized the opportunity to ask, "What terrifying thing will happen?"
Miyamoto Satoshi, noticing Gu Zhan was trying to extract information, chimed in, "Are you just trying to scare us? You said the deity grants wishes, so were you lying to us before?"
With this exchange, even the village chief sensed something was off. "Why are you two really here in Haizhu Village?"
"You don’t need to worry about that," Miyamoto Satoshi replied. "You need to perform the divination ceremony. The sooner you finish, the sooner we might let you go."
"…"
The village chief finally realized that if he didn’t comply with their demands, they wouldn’t let him go.
These people seemed determined to uncover something, and ordinary lies wouldn’t fool them.
He could only start the divination ceremony. He placed all the ritual items on the table, lit incense in the burner, and bowed his head to mutter incantations…
As the village chief’s indistinct chanting echoed, the wind outside picked up, and the sound of the waves grew more pronounced.
Nakano Asaka opened the window, and a damp, foul-smelling breeze blew in from the direction of the sea.
"What’s that smell…?"
The village chief appeared genuinely terrified, his whole body trembling.
At that moment, a rhythmic knocking sound resonated from outside the door.
"Bang, bang, bang."
In this eerie environment, the sound was particularly jarring.
The village chief was frightened, his voice quaking as well.
Gu Zhan and Miyamoto Satoshi moved to the door, not intending to open it but listening intently to the knocking outside.
When the “thing” outside realized they had no intention of opening the door, the knocking spread from the entrance outward. "Bang, bang, bang," it continued, reverberating through the entire wall and room… The relentless knocking echoed from all directions, even causing a slight tremor beneath their feet!
The dilapidated little house was on the verge of collapse!
The “thing” outside was massive, as if it had enveloped the entire structure.
Gu Zhan continued to hold up his phone, recording everything that was happening.
Finally, the village chief finished his chant and looked at the group with trembling eyes. “The next step… requires you to drop your blood into the incense burner. Once the blood is received, the deity will establish a connection with you, and then…”
“Bullshit!” Nakano Asaka cursed, “Do you think we're fools? Bloodletting? That just turns us into sacrifices!”
The village chief’s last attempt failed as he realized this group wouldn't fall for his tricks, his expression twisting into something grotesque.
His facial features contorted, and his skeletal structure rapidly changed. His head twisted back, and his body contorted to the ground. He emitted a “kekeke” laughter, rhythmic and resonant with the incessant knocking from outside.
At that moment, the whole house shook violently!
“Shit!” Nakano Asaka hadn’t expected that his casual insult would cause the village chief to “break down.”
He lost all sense of direction, quickly turning to his companions. “This old man is mutating! What do we do?”
Gu Zhan wasn’t sure if the village chief’s divination ceremony had summoned something it shouldn’t have, or if the creatures from the sea were simply angry due to the ritual not being performed on time. He quickly turned off the phone’s recording and pulled Nakano Asuka. “Let’s go!”
“But outside…”
Before Nakano Asaka could finish his sentence, Gu Zhan yanked the door open.
The wind outside was ferocious, and as the door swung open, a violent gust swept inside.
The incense candles on the table were extinguished in an instant. Everyone looked up to see a horrifying sight outside—the sky had turned completely black, yet the sun hung above them, transformed into a black orb radiating putrid light.
The clouds in the sky were thick and oppressive, as if they could collapse at any moment.
Behind the clouds, hundreds of eyes were wide open, staring intently at the ground below, at Haizhu Village. Next to those eyes, writhing bodies seemed to be vaguely visible…
“Shit.” Nakano Asaka's unfinished sentence morphed into another “shit.”
“Run!” Gu Zhan didn’t have time to explain and dashed toward the back mountain.
Behind them, the mutated village chief wouldn’t let them escape. His limbs twisted grotesquely, crawling on all fours like a spider, quickly closing in on them.
It wasn’t just the village chief; the other villagers had also transformed, all of them rushing toward Gu Zhan and his companions, as if they could smell the scent of the living.
They had definitely poked the hornet's nest.
This also answered their earlier questions.
With such a grand scale of chaos, it couldn’t be solely attributed to the village chief’s divination ceremony.
Moreover, according to the timeline, the ritual shouldn’t have concluded yet.
Gu Zhan suddenly realized that the last time they fled, the ritual had likely not been completed because the “Sea God” had already become enraged before the ceremony could begin.
“He” seemed indifferent to the ritual itself.
If he didn’t care about the sacrifice, then why demand so many offerings from the people?
There was still some distance between the village and the cave behind the mountain.
The mutated villagers moved rapidly, almost as if they could anticipate their thoughts, surrounding Gu Zhan and the others from behind.
As they drew closer, Gu Zhan noticed not only had their bodies mutated, but they were also covered in a sticky layer of black substance, from which pairs of small eyes occasionally opened and closed.
Just seeing the black substance on them made Gu Zhan’s head spin, and the system notification rang incessantly in his ears.
【Player Gu Zhan witnessed something that should not be looked at; sanity reduced by 10 points.】
【Player Gu Zhan witnessed something that should not be looked at; sanity reduced by 10 points.】
【Player Gu Zhan witnessed something that should not be looked at; sanity reduced by 10 points.】
“Damn!”
In the midst of it all, Nakano Asaka cursed, “My sanity!”
“Get out of the way!” At that moment, Miyamoto Satoshi shouted, and Gu Zhan and Nakano Asuka instinctively dodged aside, only to see him pull out a flashlight from who-knows-where. As he turned it on, a bright beam instantly engulfed Gu Zhan and Nakano Asaka.
The searing heat made the mutated villagers behind them screech in agony. The black substance on their bodies burned away under the flashlight's glare, and those villagers, now stripped of the black layer, seemed to regain their pain, collapsing to the ground in anguish.
Nakano Asaka exclaimed in shock, “They’re still alive!”
Miyamoto Satoshi shouted, “Don’t worry about them! Just run!”
The flashlight would only last a moment, and soon, the dark clouds re-covered the villagers in a thick layer of black substance, their expressions shifting from agony to numbness and savagery…
The three of them sprinted, finally reaching the entrance of the cave just before being completely engulfed by the black sludge.
But to their surprise, they found a villager covered in black mud blocking the entrance… No, not just a villager.
The face was familiar—it was the girl, Akiko who had left with Masaki Taro earlier!
Even having seen her just once, Gu Zhan recognized her immediately.
She was also covered in black sludge, and her body appeared to have swollen, making her larger than the average villager!
Nakano Asaka also recognized her. “Wasn’t she supposed to have left with Masaki Taro?!”
Miyamoto Satoshi once again took out his flashlight, but this time, its light seemed ineffective against Kaori.
The massive figure stood at the cave’s entrance, blocking their way inside.
As the black clouds closed in behind them, it was evident they would be trapped if they stayed.
At that moment, the three were certain that if they got stuck here, they would never escape.
While Miyamoto Satoshi repeatedly experimented with the flashlight, which still failed to affect Akiko, Gu Zhan suddenly noticed that whenever the flashlight's beam hit her head, Akiko slightly tilted to the side, seemingly trying to deliberately avoid the light.
He suddenly realized that this thing wasn’t afraid of light; it had a weakness.
It needed the flashlight's beam directed into her eyes!
“Her weakness is her eyes!”
Gu Zhan immediately shared this discovery with Miyamoto Satoshi, but it was of no use. The flashlight was running out of power, and she was too tall for them to shine it directly into her eyes.
Seeing no other way, Gu Zhan shouted to Miyamoto Satoshi, “Give me the flashlight.”
Miyamoto Satoshi didn’t know what Gu Zhan planned, but at this point, they had to try something desperate.
He tossed the flashlight to Gu Zhan, and in the meantime, Akiko noticed, raising her hand to block it. However, Gu Zhan was quicker; after catching the flashlight mid-air, he immediately ran towards Akiko.
Akiko reached out to grab him, but he stepped on her arm to climb up, leaping onto her shoulder and jamming the flashlight into her eye socket!
As the light burst forth, Akiko let out a terrible scream, and the black mud on her body quickly receded, causing her to shrink down…
Gu Zhan was thrown to the ground by the force.
The moment Gu Zhan left Akiko, the black mud on her body surged back, spreading rapidly.
But in that brief moment of retreat, the cave opened up, and Miyamoto Satoshi and Nakano Asaka quickly slipped inside.
Gu Zhan closely followed them.
Akiko soon caught up but was blocked at the cave entrance. In the blink of an eye, her howls faded away, replaced by the endless sea wind and the clear moonlight.
The three of them felt as if their minds were about to split; just a second ago, they were in the perilous Haizhu Village.
Now, they found themselves at a calm seaside.
In Gu Zhan's hand, he still held the scale that seemed to pulse like a heartbeat.
However, after this ordeal, the heartbeat of the scale appeared to quicken.
Some faint black mist started to escape from the scale.
Gu Zhan acted quickly, picking up a wooden box that had fallen nearby, placing the scale back inside, and sealing the box tightly!
The other two, still shaken, looked at Gu Zhan's actions in horror.
“What…”
They felt a sense of having narrowly escaped death.
Gu Zhan tightly grasped the wooden box, saying, “We’ll talk about this later.”
The other two, still in shock, headed toward Haizhu Village.
Fortunately, nothing else went awry on their way back, and they successfully returned to the big house.
Takagawa Ayaka sat in the room, looking dazed. After Gu Zhan and the others left, she was left alone… listening to the empty sea breeze, her condition wasn’t much better.
Unbeknownst to them, the original seven players had already scattered.
If they continued to be so clueless, they would soon face total annihilation.
“What happened over there?”
Takagawa Ayaka cautiously inquired, having noticed something was off with them.
Miyamoto Satoshi glanced at her and briefly recounted what had happened in Haizhu Village.
Finally, he added, “It’s not that we’re preventing you from going; in this situation, if you two went, you’d definitely get stuck there.”
“…” Takagawa Ayaka felt reluctant but knew he was right.
But… would going to Haizhu Village leave them trapped there, while staying here could guarantee her safety?
After hesitating for a moment, she said, “While you were gone… I think I heard a strong wind outside, and many people came to knock on the door. I was really scared and didn’t dare to open it.”
“Knocking?” Gu Zhan recalled his experience on the other side of Haizhu Village, saying, “Describe the knocking sound in detail.”
Takagawa Ayaka looked very frightened but still described every word: “It was… a very ordinary knocking sound, or maybe it wasn’t so ordinary, but I was too scared at the time to remember clearly… I just remember that the knocking started outside the door, then it crawled onto the roof, and I was even more afraid to open the door. I had to endure it, with the knocking sometimes fading away, sometimes overwhelming… I never opened the door until you came back.”
Gu Zhan suddenly turned to look out the window, where the night was as dark as ink…
He uttered a chilling sentence that made everyone shiver: “There have always been things living in this village.”