Jiang Yan had just wanted to ask what this thing was for and why it had appeared here, but a strange and inexplicable sense of dread pulled his gaze back to the sky that was still collapsing.
He saw that as the players poured in their strength, the golden web grew far tougher, yet the collapse of the dungeon remained irreversible, and chunks of data glowing a ghostly blue continued to fall from the sky.
As more and larger data blocks fell, the golden web holding up the sky gradually tightened. The threads, under extreme pressure, grew thinner and thinner, lighter and lighter in color. It was clear it was reaching its limit.
“No…”
Jiang Yan instinctively looked toward the [Divine System] on his personal system panel. It was a primal instinct embedded in his DNA, prompting him to draw on the players’ power of belief.
At this moment, the players floating beneath the golden web were arguing in the flurry of falling rose petals about why Jiang Yan, who should have already become part of the corrupted data mess, was appearing here.
To this group of veteran players, the collapse of the dungeon and the looming possibility of death were nothing new. But Jiang Yan, who had survived being swept into the main system’s data flow, was something entirely beyond their comprehension.
Their wishes had long since stopped being about "leaving the game." They understood that encountering something that defied their understanding within the game was far more terrifying than predictable death.
Especially now, for Cao Youfeng, who was entirely in the dark.
From the moment he chose to enter the dungeon again, he had already been prepared to sacrifice himself. Everything was going according to the guild leader’s plan. But Jiang Yan…
"The guild leader never mentioned this… What is he exactly? Was your last executive meeting all about him? Did all of you know? What the hell is he?!" Cao Youfeng asked Tao Shi in panic.
Tao Shi had no time to explain, but Yu Jia spoke first. "You think our guild put a bounty on him just because he has the potential to be the next 'Movie King'?"
"Sure, he’s a little clever, and combined with some so-called good luck and blatant favoritism from the main god, he did rise quickly as one of the most promising newcomers."
"But have you thought about it? Over the years, there have been plenty of newcomers who were more promising than Jiang Yan. Real NPCs more powerful and monstrous than him appear every five years at least. Has the Movie King ever targeted any of them?"
Cao Youfeng looked at him. "So… what is he?"
"Yu Jia."
Just as Yu Jia was about to speak, Tao Shi immediately stopped him.
However, he couldn’t stop Lu Sha, who was already half-mad.
Lu Sha’s expression twisted. His pair of beautiful eyes were bloodshot and terrifying. He no longer looked like a handsome elven hybrid, but rather a rakshasa crawling out from hell.
It was caused by the [Puppet Thread] connected to the back of his head. But perhaps because the dungeon’s collapse had caused both the main system and the players’ personal systems to go offline, Yu Jia was unable to retrieve his item to reel it back.
Because of this, Lu Sha’s mental state was on the verge of collapse.
His hands, bulging with gruesome veins, grabbed both of Cao Youfeng’s shoulders like two giant clamps, shaking him furiously as he screamed:
"What could he be?! What do you think he is?!"
"He’s 25 years old... and he can die in the dungeon again and again, only to revive again and again! He can survive the main system’s deliberate purge! While still alive, there exist a bunch of duplicate dungeon NPCs with the same genes as him! And—and that weird and eerie husband of his... Right! Right! He can even bring his system-assigned NPC husband from one dungeon into another... even into the real world..."
Cao Youfeng, eyes red, stared dazedly at the frenzied Lu Sha. "His husband… wasn’t it said… wasn’t the one with the problem his husband?"
Jiang Yan’s husband—Yu Xiu.
This system NPC had never appeared in the game before, yet inexplicably became active due to Jiang Yan’s presence.
Cao Youfeng remembered that after they escaped from the "Hospital" dungeon, the guild leader called a meeting to discuss Jiang Yan.
In the end, based on investigations from the intelligence department, the conclusion was that Jiang Yan’s missing husband was highly suspicious.
He hadn’t just appeared in that "Hospital." From the moment Jiang Yan signed the contract to enter the game, Yu Xiu had existed in every dungeon Jiang Yan appeared in.
Therefore, the missions Cao Youfeng received were:
1. Recruit Jiang Yan. He must become a new member of the Dawn Guild. The Dawn Guild had always been player-oriented and needed powerful real NPCs to join.
Although Jiang Yan wasn’t powerful in the traditional sense, being favored by the main god and able to survive any dungeon made him, in a sense, rarer than traditional strength.
2. Investigate the identity of Jiang Yan’s husband, Yu Xiu. This bizarre system NPC who appeared and vanished mysteriously, constantly following in Jiang Yan’s footsteps across dungeons.
According to the Dawn Guild’s intelligence department, Yu Xiu didn’t seem to exist in the real world at all.
Even though his records and background in the real world were flawless, the investigators still uncovered anomalies during the investigation.
For instance, Yu Xiu’s elementary, middle, high school, and even college classmates would all pause for a second when asked about him, then suddenly exclaim, "Oh! Yu Xiu!"
After that, they could recall every detail about him. But strangely, the three major events they mentioned about him were all exactly the same.
When asked who Yu Xiu’s closest friends were during school, not one could name anyone. They just mumbled, "Forgot."
This contradicted the detailed memories they had just given, along with their claims that Yu Xiu was friendly and well-liked.
It was as if their original memories had no trace of Yu Xiu at all. Everything about him felt forcibly inserted into their minds.
What’s more, he had appeared in the game out of nowhere. Both the player and real NPC databases had no record of him.
Even as a system NPC, his face was striking enough that players wouldn’t forget it. Yet before Jiang Yan appeared, he truly hadn’t existed in the game.
So, in Cao Youfeng's eyes, the one who always had a problem was Jiang Yan’s husband, Yu Xiu, and all of Jiang Yan’s strange experiences and behavior in the game were also because of his missing husband, Yu Xiu.
And the strangeness of Yu Xiu must stem from their moody Lord God.
What he needed to do was investigate Yu Xiu’s true identity, as well as the relationship between Yu Xiu and the Lord God behind the game.
But what if... what if everything that happened to Jiang Yan wasn't because of Yu Xiu, but because of Jiang Yan himself...
Lu Sha’s hand on his shoulder was gripping so hard that Cao Youfeng felt like he was about to be torn apart, but at this moment he was actually grateful because the pain of fingernails digging into his flesh allowed him to remain rational and keep thinking.
“Twenty-five years old... twenty-five years old...” he muttered, repeating Jiang Yan’s age, which Lu Sha had just mentioned.
Jiang Yan is twenty-five this year.
“Twenty-five years...”
He looked blankly at Tao Shi, who stood solemn and silent beside him, and muttered, “Boss, have we already been trapped here for twenty-five years?”
“What?”
Immersed in the joy of regaining his lost friend and completely confused by the conversation, Jian Hou finally asked with disbelief when he heard Cao Youfeng say such an absurd thing.
“What twenty-five years? Tao Shi just came of age, didn’t he?”
Tao Shi was his student, but he didn’t meet Tao Shi on the day he started working as a private piano tutor.
In fact, Tao Shi’s parents were business partners with his own parents.
The reason he became Tao Shi’s piano tutor wasn’t because he had some superb piano skills, it was simply that his parents couldn’t stand him lazing around at home like a spoiled second-generation rich kid and Tao Shi’s parents, out of concern, gave him a task to appease his parents.
At the same time, they wanted him to hang out with Tao Shi, so Tao Shi wouldn’t waste his holidays fooling around.
So he had actually known Tao Shi for a long time.
Ever since that kid was ten years old, after the two families started working together, he had attended Tao Shi’s birthday parties every year as the son of a business partner.
Now Cao Youfeng said he and Tao Shi had been trapped here for twenty-five years? How could that be? Tao Shi couldn’t possibly be twenty-five years old!
Jian Hou looked at his friend wrapped in blue ribbon-like data chains not far away, then at the two kids next to him, completely baffled.
“What... what the hell is going on?”
But before he could get an answer, he was suddenly overtaken by an eerie sensation that seized all his attention.
A chill flowed down from the back of his neck.
It wasn’t painful, nor uncomfortable. Just a pure chill, like someone had dripped water on his nape and it trickled down his spine.
He instinctively looked down and saw that the golden spider silk on his wrist suddenly became dazzling, almost blinding.
And not just him — every player present experienced the same, even Lu Sha and Yu Jia, who weren’t supposed to have spider silk.
“What’s going on...?” Jian Hou stared at the silk on his wrist in confusion.
Lu Sha instantly screamed in horror: “He’s going to execute us! He’s going to execute us!!”
“What are you talking about?!” Jian Hou frowned.
“He’s awake! He’s decided to destroy everything!”
Snap.
A crisp sound, something had broken.
Jiang Yan, whose faith power was almost completely drained, paused his breathing.
It’s over... over...
They saw a golden thread fall powerlessly from the sky, creating a gap in the tightly woven golden web. Through the gap, fragments of golden light and data blocks like fireflies began to fall.
The next second, the second, third, fourth threads...
Boom
With a loud explosion, a huge hole appeared in the golden web. The entire sky collapsed like dominoes.
“What—what’s happening?!”
“It couldn’t hold!!”
“So we’re going to die after all?!” Jian Hou shouted in panic as he dodged falling data blocks.
“Great... so great... haha... this is amazing!!” Lu Sha turned to Jiang Yan’s direction, laughing excitedly and manically. “Our sacrifice is worth it! Everyone will thank us. Everyone is about to be freed!”
“Old Jian!!” Rose vines stretched out from the beam of light, and Jiang Yan shouted his friend’s name.
“Yan Yan!!” Jian Hou shouted back.
As the sky and earth collapsed, emitting beast-like roars, Jiang Yan tried to break free from the pillar of light.
Lu Sha laughed shrilly, voice like a demon from hell: “Die!! Die!! It’s too late! You’re going to die here! We’re all going to die here!!”
As soon as he finished, a strange whistling sound suddenly rang out, echoing through the desolate, ruined instance world.
Shhhh
The entire world suddenly fell silent, and the falling data blocks in the sky slowed down drastically.
“What... what’s happening again?” Jian Hou listened to the strange whistle and watched the world seemingly pressed into slow motion, full of confusion.
Still trapped between the pillar of light and the blue data chains, Jiang Yan also felt puzzled. He could hear the whistle right beside him.
“663, what is this?” he asked his personal system.
“Unknown, uncertain,” 663 replied. “But usually, in an instance, things we’re unsure about... are generally your husband.”
“What?” Jiang Yan had barely spoken the word when he suddenly felt a warm sensation in his abdomen — in the next second, black tentacles covered in green eyeballs burst from his stomach and bloomed like petals!
“Yu Xiu?” Jiang Yan looked at the huge tentacles in front of him and instinctively reached out to them.
Come to think of it, even though death was approaching, his lover and friends were by his side. He didn’t know whether to call that lucky or unlucky.
The black tentacles gently wrapped around Jiang Yan’s body, and the wet, sticky green mucus gave him a sense of extreme peace.
Just as he was sinking into it and thinking that dying like this wasn’t so bad, he suddenly heard Jian Hou scream again in the distance: “What the hell—what is that?!”
Jiang Yan, already engulfed by his pitch-black husband’s body, looked up at the shout and what he saw made his eyes widen: “What the—hell?!”
Beyond the half-collapsed sky was a void shrouded in ghostly blue light. A honeycomb-like transparent data shell divided the void into segments, with semi-transparent data flowing through them.
And now, outside that honeycomb world shell, a pair of giant, ghostly green eyes appeared as oppressive as massive planets hanging outside the world. Jiang Yan instantly recognized them as Yu Xiu’s eyes.
But...
This was just too massive.
So massive that the entire instance world reflected in those eyes looked like the size of an egg.
All of them were encased in that semi-transparent egg, like a delicate dessert placed before him.
“What is this?! What is this?!”
“A giant...?! Is it a giant from the instance world?!”
“The giants in the instance world are only three meters tall! There’s no way it could be this massive!!”
“What the hell?! What is he going to do?!”
“Jiang Yan!! Hurry!! Stop your husband!”
The giant outside the world opened his mouth, shark-like teeth glinting coldly and swallowed the instance world whole.
In the next moment, everything plunged into a hellish darkness.
Ding!
System instance resetting [Reset progress: 2%]
The familiar voice of the main system suddenly rang out.
Then, the entire world was abruptly filled with color again, like a watercolor drawing splashed with water — twisting and restructuring.
Instance progress: 24%, 45%, 56%...