Forbidden Zone of Deception

Chapter 147 The Gap Between the Lost Layer and the Annihilation Layer
Jiang Jin gripped the boning knife tightly and said in a low voice, "Be careful, the space in this room has been distorted by the Lost Layer."

The three moved cautiously and slowly, the beams of their flashlights sweeping across the corridor.

The corridor, which should have been only a dozen meters long, now seemed to have no end.

Liu Yan's Gu worms crawled on the walls of the house, and the senses they transmitted back were alarming—the structure of the entire house was constantly being reorganized, and the corridors and stairs were almost constantly extending, sometimes even appearing in unexpected places.

So far, no living person has been found.

Even under Xu Yinqiu's [Zhu You Aura] protection, the SAN value can only be kept stable and the rate of decline can be slowed down, but it cannot be made to return the SAN value to the Mysterious Layer.

“Actually,” Xu Yinqiu said, staring intently at the red string bell in her hand, “I discovered something even stranger in the basement.”

“We’ve already seen the basement,” Jiang Jin said. “This is definitely a meme phenomenon.”

Xu Yinqiu took a deep breath and lowered her voice even further: "You can only see those corpses, but I can see... they all have SAN values."

"what!"

Jiang Jin and Liu Yan turned to look at her at the same time.

Does a corpse still have SAN value?
“Theoretically, a person’s SAN value should be reset to zero after death.” Xu Yinqiu’s fingers unconsciously rubbed the bell. “But most of those corpses had SAN values ​​below 30%, which means they had already fallen into the annihilation layer.”

“I understand,” Liu Yan said thoughtfully. “So the reincarnation system determines that those people are still alive. The fact of their death only exists within the annihilation layer, while in the materialistic layer, they are still alive.”

"Is this the terror of the Annihilation Layer?" Jiang Jin finally understood the horror of the Annihilation Layer.

“It’s not quite a true annihilation layer yet,” Liu Yan shook her head. “Otherwise, they wouldn’t still be alive.”

“My opinion,” Xu Yinqiu said, “is that this is a rule-based evil spirit created by a meme that originated in the gap between the Annihilation Layer and the Lost Layer. If we can kill that evil spirit, it is very likely to produce resentment crystal fragments! And I estimate that they will be resentment crystal fragments with a purity of over 50%!”

50%?

Jiang Jin and Xu Yinqiu were both quite astonished.

Although their Reincarnator watches contained over thirty fragments of resentment, their purity was only around 30%, classifying them as relatively ordinary quality fragments. Fragments with a purity of 50% or higher are considered extremely high quality resentment fragments, something even a LV4 Reincarnator would covet!

She paused, then continued, "I said that because I noticed that the SAN values ​​of the bodies that just died today were all precisely at 30%."

It's easy to tell who just died today just by looking at the clothes on the corpses. And without exception, they all have 30% SAN value!
Upon hearing this, Liu Yan was also quite surprised and said, "This can't be a coincidence. So... this is some kind of rule that rule-based evil spirits must abide by."

It's important to know that these people who died were characters from the horror game's storyline, not reincarnators, and therefore wouldn't be subject to the reincarnation system's 30% SAN lock protection mechanism.

Jiang Jin's pupils contracted slightly. He recalled all the information he had studied about the Annihilation Layer, and a terrifying hypothesis was forming in his mind...

Darkness enveloped the corridor like thick ink. Zheng Yuan, panting heavily, anxiously searched for Mei Zi.

"Jungwon..." Soon-hee's voice came from behind, "Will we never be able to get out of here?"

"Don't scare yourselves," Zhengyuan could only try to comfort them. "We will definitely find Meizi and the teacher."

"But," Soon-hee's voice suddenly became very soft, "why would Mi-ja..."

He stopped abruptly halfway through his sentence.

Zheng Yuan was taken aback and immediately turned around.

Behind him, only Eun-young remained!

"Where is Soon-hee?" Jung-won's voice was strained.

Eun-young's face was also full of confusion: "She was just behind me a moment ago..."

Zheng Yuan's heart suddenly raced.

He raised his phone and shone it behind him, but all he saw was an empty corridor.

"Soon-hee!" he shouted, his voice echoing in the distorted space.

no respond.

Jung-won's hands began to tremble; just a dozen seconds ago, he had heard Soon-hee speaking—

A chill ran down Zheng Yuan's spine.

He gritted his teeth and said to Eun-young, "We have to go back and find her!"

Eun-young nodded, her fingers unconsciously twisting the hem of her clothes.

The two walked back along the way they came, but found nothing.

“Jung-won…” Eun-young suddenly stopped, her voice so soft it was almost inaudible, “Do you really believe there are ghosts in this world?”

“I’m afraid it really is,” Jung-won swallowed, “but I don’t understand why, if Young-min really comes back… he would kill us?” Eun-young did not answer.

Suddenly, her gaze went past Zhengyuan's shoulder and stared intently at the end of the corridor.

Zheng Yuan followed her gaze—

In the darkness, a tall, thin figure wearing a rabbit mask stood there silently!

The red eyes on the mask gleamed with a blood-red light, and his right hand gripped a rusty blade, from which blood dripped!

"Young...Young-min?" Jung-won asked, mustering his courage. "Why? Why did you do that? What about Mi-ja and Soon-hee?"

If it's Yingmin's ghost, then perhaps we can communicate with it?
The rabbit killer slowly raised his knife and walked towards them!

"Run!" Jung-won grabbed Eun-young's wrist and turned to flee—

The rabbit assassin moved extremely fast. He stepped forward quickly, the blade in his hand slicing through the air and striking Eun-young hard on the forehead!

"No—!" Zheng Yuan cried out in despair.

……

“I understand!” Jiang Jin said.

The region between the Lost Layer and the Annihilation Layer is a very special level, possessing characteristics of both. Because of this, some argue that the Lost Layer is not an independent level, but rather a transitional layer gradually transforming from the Mysterious Layer to the Annihilation Layer. The shallower layers of the Lost Layer are similar to the Mysterious Layer, while the deeper layers are similar to the Annihilation Layer. However, this view is rarely accepted, as entering the Lost Layer signifies irreversible memetic contamination, and only by transforming into a Reincarnator can one survive.

This means that even if someone in this interlayer suffers from the memetic contamination curse from the annihilation layer, it may not affect the lost layer. This is especially true if the SAN value increases rapidly in a short period of time.

"Suppose someone is killed in this interlayer, and at that moment their SAN value rapidly increases, from 30% to 40%, or even gradually rises back to 80%, then their death will not be elevated to a material reality."

"However, the reality of his death will remain in the gap between the annihilation layer and the lost layer, maintaining a SAN value of 30%. Eventually, as time goes by, the SAN value of the corpse will gradually fall into the annihilation layer."

Liu Yan understood. This was clearly a prominent characteristic of a rule-based evil spirit.

"These are the rules. Only by reducing these people's SAN values ​​to below 30% and killing them in the Annihilation Layer can we ensure that they will have difficulty returning to the Lost Layer or even the Materialist Layer before their SAN values ​​are reduced to zero."

“On the other hand,” Xu Yinqiu continued, “as long as their current SAN value continues to decline, the reality of their survival in the material layer will be replaced by the death reality of the annihilation layer. At that time, their SAN value will be completely reset to zero, and they will be completely dead, beyond even the help of a god. But conversely, as long as their SAN value remains above 30%, they will not die!”

“The evil spirits try to drag them into the Oblivion Layer to kill them at each birthday party, but some force protects them. This force ensures that their SAN value will only drop to a maximum of 30%, and then it can't drop any further,” Jiang Jin continued his analysis. “That's how they manage to escape death at each birthday party, while their bodies are permanently left in the basement of the Oblivion Layer. People can only see those corpses in the basement when their SAN value drops to 30%, right?”

At this moment, the SAN values ​​of Jiang Jin, Liu Yan, and Xu Yinqiu were forcibly locked at 30% by the reincarnation system.

It's difficult to improve further at this point.

If you lose even 1% more SAN, no, even 0.1% more SAN, you will immediately fall into the annihilation layer!

“This shouldn’t be an annihilation layer evil spirit,” Xu Yinqiu analyzed. “It should be a lost layer evil spirit in essence, otherwise, it wouldn’t be that by the fourth birthday party, it still wouldn’t be able to truly kill any student.”

"Is it the ghost of Teacher Park's son? Or..."

“It’s hard to say,” Xu Yinqiu said. “Perhaps that evil spirit is similar to a bound spirit, its resentment rooted in this house. So…”

Jiang Jin suddenly thought of something.

Is it possible that we've made a mistake?

"A mistake?" Xu Yinqiu asked, "A mistake in what?"

"If we follow the new storyline of this horror storyline, then Teacher Park is a good teacher who deeply loves every student. And every year, every student has basically strictly followed Teacher Park's seven rules. Is that why they've survived until now? If Teacher Park's rules are for protecting the students, then leaving a piece of cake for Young-min, which is mentioned in the rules, is also for protecting the students!"

Everyone looked at each other.

Then, they all thought of something very important.

"We saw the person in the rabbit mask, we need to tell Teacher Park!"

This rule! They haven't followed it yet!
"This is probably why most of their bodies ended up in the basement. They may have all seen the person in the rabbit mask, but later lost their memories and didn't tell Teacher Park," Liu Yan analyzed. "The cake left for Young-min might be far more important than we imagined!"

……

At this moment, the scream that Zheng Yuan had expected did not occur.

Eun-young's forehead was slashed open with a gruesome wound, but not a drop of blood flowed.

Her skin peeled off like cracked plaster, revealing rotting muscle tissue underneath.

Her mouth stretched wider and wider, revealing her white, bleeding teeth.

The man in the rabbit mask suddenly grabbed Eun-young and waved tremblingly at Jung-won, signaling him to run!
Suddenly, Eun-young grabbed the rabbit-masked man by the throat, suspending him in mid-air, his neck twisted into an impossible angle.

A sinister smile appeared on Eun-young's pale face as she raised her rotting fingers... and reached out towards Jung-won!
(End of this chapter)