Gamers Are Fierce

The All Bright Moon Palace Lantern in Li Ang's hand emitted a serene yet steadfast glow. Mist surging from the ground's crevices dissipated swiftly upon contact with this light. All the dense fog clung tightly to the surface of the underground fissures, and beneath it, the spatial structure seemed to undergo some unobservable yet real change.

Stepping out, the group didn't touch the expected rock layer and debris, but instead found themselves on a layer of thick fog as soft as a carpet.

[The spatial structure has changed. Players who enter the anomaly will not be subject to the deduction of Sanity Value as a penalty.]

[The survival task of staying alive until "the end of the sixth barrier contraction" remains unchanged.]

Li Ang had a thought. As the System issued its alert, the [All Bright Moon Palace Lantern] also updated with a note.

[Note: This lantern is the key to the Heterodox Academy's entrance into the deepest level of Demon Prison.]

The players proceeded down the sloping foggy passage. Under the illumination of the Palace Lantern, the dense, almost impenetrable fog quickly retreated, clearing a new path straight down.

The electronic positioning devices and drone instruments Chu Yin used had already failed. The positioning ropes Ash had wrapped around the subway station's columns snapped in two when the mist closed off the passage behind them.

Initially, Ash used a multifunctional mechanical watch to record their time, direction, and distance traveled into the underground tunnel. However, the misty passage was not constant; sometimes, before the light from the All Bright Moon Palace Lantern could travel far, the passage behind them would sever itself, detaching and flying away as the players watched. The group continued their descent. The foggy passage beneath their feet began to feel like a subway car quietly accelerating, moving them in various directions—forward, backward, left, right, up, and down—even as the scenery ahead remained unchanged. The most noticeable sensation, however, was the increasing pressure from the downward acceleration.

The experience was bizarre in the extreme.

Only Ash's multifunctional mechanical watch, with its sea-level positioning feature, allowed them to realize that in just the past minute and a half, they had already descended a thousand meters underground and were still falling.

The foggy passageway beneath the players' feet, like a sentient subway car, followed a crack somewhere in the giant tower and flew into its interior.

As they journeyed, the gray-white fog surrounding the passage grew increasingly thin, allowing them to clearly see the scenery outside through its nearly transparent walls.

Beyond lay a vast expanse of gloomy darkness, with countless tiny points of light flickering throughout. These myriad lights formed the silhouette of a colossal, towering pagoda. The sheer scale of it exuded an oppressiveness that made the players instinctively hold their breath.

As the foggy passage drew closer, the players could make out the structure of the building ahead. It was the ruins of a tower-like structure: a twisted cone, broader at the top and narrowing towards the bottom. Its narrowest part measured over a kilometer in diameter, while the broadest section was obscured by mist.

The building's primary material was a type of blue stone, combined with some massive brown timber and various metals. The style of the giant tower was ancient and stark, exuding an aura reminiscent of the primal savagery, or even malevolence, of Ancient Times. It felt empty, oppressive, silent, and profound. Even a single glance made it clear that this structure did not originate from any known human civilization.

The center of the giant tower was not hollow but crisscrossed with strangely structured bridges. Most of these bridges were broken, their fragments hanging in the air as countless boulders. The few intact bridges were dotted with even more points of light.

Beside the bridges, various stone buildings also floated in the air. Some resembled Gothic-style castles, others Baroque Style Churches, still others Eastern temples. There were oval-shaped libraries and even structures resembling modern skyscrapers. It was impossible to imagine the specific functions of these buildings or their purpose.

As they drew closer to the giant tower, the players could finally see what the specks of light were. They weren't lamps, lights, or stars embedded in the buildings, but Deformed Monsters resembling deep-sea anglerfish.

They had bodies similar in shape to baboons, with green faces, fangs, and sharp maws. Their skin was hairless, just an ugly layer of blood-red flesh covered with veins. Tails like whips were wrapped around their waists. Their bodies were extremely emaciated, and atop their heads were fleshy protrusions resembling small lanterns, which emitted light akin to incandescent bulbs.

These monkey-like creatures clung tightly to the stone walls, bridges, and buildings. Each one, regardless of size, had a delicate, long chain of mist tied to its ankle, connecting it to the giant tower itself.

Most of the monkeys were sleeping, their eyes squinted, their sharp nails dug into the stone walls, allowing them to hang from the building surfaces. A few, not well-secured, lost their grip as their nails slipped from the building's surface and plummeted freely. Fortunately, massive stones floated everywhere inside the giant tower. Even if they fell, they would crash with a BANG onto a large stone below, open their crimson eyes, shake their heads, and then climb back onto a building surface to sleep.

There were simply too many of these monkey-like monsters here, densely packing the surfaces of the buildings and the giant tower. A single glance was insufficient to count them all. Millions? Or tens of millions?

Without a word, everyone quietly turned off their flashlights. In the dark, mist-filled space, the light from the Palace Lantern became their only solace.

Suddenly, as if sensing something, the millions of monkey-like monsters all over the giant tower simultaneously opened their crimson eyes and looked towards the players in their section of the mist carriage.

Dead silence reigned; there was no sound in the air. Looking up, the players could only see countless white lights intermingling with red eyes.

As if a signal had been triggered, millions of monkey-like monsters shrieked loudly and leaped out in unison, hurtling towards the mist passage where the players were, like a sudden downpour.

BUZZ—

The All Bright Moon Palace Lantern quietly erupted with an even brighter and more magnificent light. Any monkey-like creature that came into contact with this light would disintegrate, mysteriously combust, and explode into brilliant fireworks in mid-air.

The monkey-like creatures died in heaps, but more kept falling, impacting the barrier of light created by the All Bright Moon Palace Lantern.

Everyone braced for battle, but the mist passage carriage they were in suddenly accelerated, plunging straight down.

The descent was so fast that the acceleration pinned everyone firmly to the ceiling of the mist carriage. The outside world flashed by like a slideshow, and the players could only vaguely discern the changing architectural styles of the giant tower.

Within the varied architectural styles of each level of the giant tower resided a variety of strange, indescribable Demons. These Demons even relied on various plants growing inside the giant tower, as well as hunting and consuming each other, forming a complete ecosystem.

The deeper they descended, the more terrifying the shapes of the Demons became, and the larger their sizes grew. The players even saw a scorpion as tall as a ten-story building, a human-headed giant serpent hundreds of meters long, a Titan Giant with hundreds of eyes, arms, and faces, and a colossal, tentacled, one-eyed orb.

Each Demon seemed like a sinister entity inadvertently birthed from the Creator's distorted and horrific nightmare.

Unlike the Demons on the upper levels, these formidable ones were generally deep in slumber. The mist chains binding them were even sturdier and more secure, continuously drawing pitch-black Demonic Qi from their bodies at a visible rate.

However, despite the mist passage descending so rapidly, the powerful Demons still seemed to sense something. One by one, they opened their eyes, slowly and sluggishly moving their massive bodies to scramble after the mist passage. They even fought fiercely among themselves, smashing the walls of the giant tower and creating countless cracks.

Just as the players were about to be swallowed whole by the giant serpent with a woman's head, the mist passage crashed with a BANG through some kind of invisible, intangible barrier, arriving at the very bottom of the giant tower.