Forbidden Zone of Deception

Chapter 167 Shadow Blade Suffers Another Loss

Next, the other four team members came over, pressed their left ring fingers against the cold metal edge, and leaned over to look at the water.

Behind them, Lin Ping, Li Zhen, Sun Jing, and Shirakawa Rin checked their reflections one by one.

As a result, both Li Zhen and Sun Jing's faces showed varying degrees of abnormality.

“Sun Jing and I have appeared in our balloons.” Li Zhen’s voice was low as he tapped his fingers on the edge of the sink. “But the team doctor and the witch are still alright.”

In the reflection, Li Zhen and Sun Jing's faces were distorted, their mouths were strangely grinning, and their pupils were dilated into pitch-black holes.

Qin Mei did not respond. After taking her own medicine, she also took out blue pills from the bottle and distributed them to everyone.

"Take your medicine," she commanded curtly. "Take it according to the prescription instructions."

The pill's packaging indicates it's a "cognitive stabilizing pill" developed by an American pharmaceutical company. This is very similar to the drugs distributed by the Meme Pollution Monitoring Department in the real world; these drugs were obtained by the imperial court from the reincarnation system, but are generally ineffective against reincarnators. This blue pill, however, appears to be a treatment for the meme pollution state of reincarnators.

Chen Yao took the pill, put it on the tip of her tongue, and the bitter taste instantly spread.

She swallowed, her throat tightening slightly.

After taking the medication, I estimate that the nylonization of my skin will be reversed.

"Sister Qin, I'll go and get rid of the glass bottle."

She said, picking up the glass bottle containing the amber liquid.

Qin Mei remained silent for a moment, then took out a black baseball cap and a thick wool scarf from the wardrobe.

"Put it on." She placed the hat on Chen Yao's head and carefully wrapped the scarf around her neck. "Don't let the people of Nirvana recognize you, and don't give the balloons a chance. It's winter now, so you don't look out of place dressed like this."

Chen Yao nodded, her fingers unconsciously touching the skin under the scarf—her neck was still very smooth, without any pores, like some kind of artificial material.

Before leaving, Chen Yao hesitated for a moment, then lowered his voice and said, "Sister Qin, do Li Zhen and the others... not quite respect you?"

Qin Mei's gaze turned slightly cold, but she quickly regained her composure.

“It’s normal that they’re not happy about Blood Lord’s decision to appoint me as the leader,” she said calmly. “But you’re different; you’ve always been very supportive of me.”

Chen Yao pursed her lips: "I just think... they shouldn't question you."

In fact, the Bloodstained Guild has always felt that Chen Yao, who has reached the LV2 Shrine Master rank at the young age of sixteen, has more potential for development. If she can become LV3, then as the leader of Shadow Blade, I'm afraid no one would dare to disobey her.

"It doesn't matter." Qin Mei's voice was soft, yet carried an undeniable coldness. "Shadow Blade doesn't need infighting; we just need to complete the mission. By the way, when you come back later, do another divination; that should help you find the Nirvana team's location, right?"

“Well, I’m about 70 to 80 percent confident about the next divination. After all, I don’t believe the Nirvana team has the ability to keep the formation running indefinitely. But, Sister Qin, you can’t lose your composure because of Duan Pei’s death. Blood Lord has made it clear that he wants Jiang Jin and Liu Yan alive.”

"I know, I lost my temper for a moment."

After all, Qin Mei knew that even if this operation succeeded in the end, the death of any of her subordinates could lower the Blood Lord's opinion of her. She had fought so hard all this time so that her daughter, Mingyan, could leave Muxu City permanently.

She was, after all, just a branch leader of the Bloodthirsty Team, and she didn't know... that the extinction of humanity had long been on the countdown.

Chen Yao didn't say anything more, but tightened her scarf and walked towards the entrance. Finally, she turned back and said, "Sister Qin, I understand how you feel. So, don't make things too hard on yourself. I think... you didn't do anything wrong."

Before leaving, she looked out the window. Although the sky was overcast, there was no sign of the balloons.

She took a deep breath and pushed open the door.

The streets were silent.

Chen Yao walked quickly, the glass bottle swaying slightly in his pocket.

The doors and windows of the houses on both sides of the street were tightly closed, and occasionally the silver armbands of patrol teams could be seen flashing in the distance.

She kept her head down, her hat brim pulled low, and her scarf covering half her face.

The first step is safety.

The second step is safety.

Step 3——

Click.

A faint metallic scraping sound came from above.

Chen Yao's pupils suddenly contracted, and he instinctively looked up—

A steel cable lasso fell vertically and precisely wrapped around her neck.

"Ugh——!"

The thick scarf was like tofu in front of this steel cable noose. In just a moment, the scarf was completely strangled and firmly wrapped around Chen Yao's neck!
Her throat was instantly constricted, her trachea was squeezed, and the oxygen supply was brutally cut off.

Her hands instinctively reached for her neck, her nails tearing at the noose, trying to find a gap to untie it—

But it's too late.

The noose tightened suddenly, and an irresistible force lifted her up!
“Kuh!”

Her feet were off the ground, her body was suspended, and her bones made a cracking sound as if they could not bear the weight.

Her eyes became bloodshot due to lack of oxygen, and her vision was quickly covered by blood.

Suffocation! She now finally understood why suffocation is considered one of the most painful ways to die!

Her lungs contracted frantically, trying to inhale even a sliver of air, but her trachea had been completely crushed.

Her lips were purple, her tongue was sticking out uncontrollably, and saliva was dripping from the corners of her mouth.

struggle.

Her legs kicked in the air, her fingers scratched her neck frantically, her nails drawing blood from her skin—but her skin had become smooth, like nylon, and even the blood flowed unusually slowly.

She finally considered using her priestly skills to cut the noose, but she couldn't even think straight now.

The priestess class receives the same level of protection within a team as the healer, especially since she is considered a genius among reincarnators. This results in a severe lack of practical and real-world experience for her.

Soon, my consciousness began to fade.

Her vision began to darken, and all she could hear was the thunderous pounding of her own heart.

In her last glance, she saw—

A balloon with her head hanging above her had her face on it, with a wide grin revealing a sinister smile.

Inside the room, Qin Mei suddenly stood up.

"Chen Yao?!"

She rushed to the window and yanked open the curtains—

Above the street, Chen Yao's body was suspended more than ten meters high, his neck deformed by the steel cable, and his limbs hanging limply.

Qin Mei's fingers gripped the window frame tightly, her knuckles turning white.

She cannot attack the balloon.

Rule 6: It is strictly forbidden to destroy balloons in any way.

She could only watch helplessly as Chen Yao's corpse swayed slightly in the wind, like some kind of cruel ornament.

The Shadowblade's genius priestess, a sixteen-year-old LV2 shrine maiden—

Just die.

In the distance, the Black Crow Hotel.

Jiang Jin's lips curled up slightly.

The Reincarnation System notified that Shadow Blade has lost another member.

"Shadow Blade hasn't even encountered us yet, and another person has already died?" Xu Yinqiu's face lit up with surprise. "That's great! I just wonder who it was?"

"Hopefully it's either Lin Ping or Chen Yao who dies," Yu Tianlun said. "However, on another note, our balloons are starting to appear."

He took out a blue medicine bottle and began distributing pills to his team members.

Tomie came closer and looked Jiang Jin up and down.

Looking at the smile on his lips, she had a hunch that this matter was related to Jiang Jin!

Yes… Jiang Jin used his ability to tamper with the rules. He modified the third rule, making it: From this day forward, if any resident of this town sees a balloon that looks exactly like you, please immediately close your eyes, take ten steps back, then turn around, open your eyes, and leave. It is strictly forbidden to look directly into the balloon's pupils for more than three seconds. Taking photos of the balloon with a mobile phone is prohibited, as is revealing your full name.

In the original rules, this rule required closing one's eyes and taking three steps back. Jiang Jin merely altered one word, simultaneously affecting Sun Jing, Chen Yao, and Lin Ping. Sun Jing, a hunter and a reincarnator with ranged attack capabilities, must be eliminated first in this instance world. Lin Ping, as the team healer, would lose his means of restoring SAN if killed, making him vulnerable to the mental pollution caused by Tomie's charm. Chen Yao, who could determine their location through divination, must be eliminated even more quickly.

Regardless of which of the three people died, it was good news for him.

“We need to be careful when we go out next,” Yu Tianlun reminded everyone: “Except for Tomie, all our balloons have already appeared.”

As it stands, Tomie probably can't even be considered a living person, so her balloon won't appear.

The sky over Black Crow Town was so gloomy it looked as if it were covered by a layer of gray cloth.

Xu Yinqiu's Eye of Incantation could already see many human head balloons floating down from the gloomy sky!
Qin Mei stood at the window of the Yamamoto family's house, her spiritual eye piercing the boundary between the material and polluted layers, gazing at the sky above the street—

Many balloons depicting human heads were already hanging there, some of which, three or four meters high, had a corpse with an exact likeness suspended below them, swaying gently in the wind like manipulated puppets. The expressions on these balloons all looked sinister and ferocious, as if they were about to devour someone at any moment.

Some ordinary balloons, however, appear to be only a little over a meter tall, and their expressions seem quite indifferent. Clearly, these balloons are not yet "gazing" at their own bodies.

But ordinary residents can't see it.

They could only see an empty sky, and occasionally someone would look up in confusion, but they couldn't find anything.

Qin Mei's fingers gripped the window frame tightly.

At that moment, she suddenly saw that not far away, Li Zhen, Sun Jing, and... Qin Mei's balloon had also appeared!
And it's floating over here!
Qin Mei immediately drew the curtains, then closed her eyes and turned around!

Below these balloons, a black government vehicle was parked in front of the Oda family's house.

Yuko looked on in confusion as two officials wearing silver armbands handed her a document with expressionless faces.

"Ms. Yukiko Oda, according to the duty roster, it's your turn to patrol today. Your balloon hasn't appeared yet, has it?"

"Hmm, not yet. But my daughter's balloon has appeared."

Yuko, standing behind her mother, was stunned.

She then remembered that her mother seemed to be a member of the town's internal association.

Yukiko silently accepted the silver armband and slowly put it on her right arm.

“Three patrolmen went missing last night,” the official said coldly. “Please be extremely careful.”

The instant the armband was fastened, Yukiko's pupils contracted sharply—

She saw it.

The balloons in the sky, each with a human head, all have familiar faces.

The corpses hanging below looked like dried bacon, their deaths extremely gruesome. However, the vast majority of the balloons still appeared to be about a meter in size.

A balloon floats more than ten meters above their heads, with a steel cable suspending a kind old man from a nearby convenience store.

His eyes bulged out, his tongue hung out, and his neck was so tightly bound by a steel cable that only the skin remained.

"Mom?" Yuko called out worriedly.

Yukiko snapped out of her daze, forcing down the churning in her stomach: "It's nothing. I'll be right back. Yuko, remember, don't go out."

Then, Yukiko went out with them.

Yuko looked at the closed door and recalled the human head balloon that had appeared yesterday, feeling a chill run down her spine.

Was it really a collective hallucination, as my mother said? How could everyone see the exact same thing in a hallucination?

She immediately went to the telephone and called Junyan.

The person who answered the phone was Junyan's mother, who said that Junyan had gone out in the morning and had not returned yet.

Went out? Where did you go?

At that moment, as Oda Yukiko's patrol team walked through the shopping street, the crowd suddenly stirred.

"Please help me! My husband is missing!" A middle-aged woman grabbed Yukiko's armband and cried out.

“My daughter too! She was hoisted up by something right in front of me! And then she disappeared!” Another man said, his face pale.

The patrol leader—a tall man with a stern face—mechanically repeated: "Please report the incident to the police station. We are only responsible for maintaining order."

After walking a while longer, Yukiko couldn't help but ask in a low voice, "The patrolman who went missing last night..."

The captain did not answer. He picked up his binoculars, searched for balloons in the sky, and then took out a folding crossbow from his waist.

He deftly extended the crossbow arm, nocked an arrow, and aimed it at the sky—

"Whoosh!"

The arrow shot through the air and struck a floating balloon shaped like a human head.

The balloon that was hit made a "pop" sound as it deflated, shrinking rapidly like a punctured swimming ring. Even more bizarrely, the corpse hanging below also changed—its head began to collapse, its skin wrinkled, and the whole person, like a deflated human-shaped balloon, fell limply from the sky.

Yukiko did not show any surprise.

She already knew that all the damage caused by attacks on the human head balloon would be completely synchronized with her main body.

"boom!"

The corpse hit the ground with a dull thud. Yukiko forced herself to go forward and examine it, only to discover that it was no longer a human body—the skin had completely turned into a translucent nylon material (polyamide fiber).

She had seen similar bodies before, their entire bodies replaced by solidified amber-colored gelatinous substance.

“This has turned into polycaprolactam,” the captain said coldly. “That is, nylon 6. These balloons and the corpse have essentially become the same substance. This person was a homeless man in town and had no relatives. The body will be taken back and handed over to the US military researchers.”

Yukiko could only nod. Even though this was Japanese territory, the Ground Self-Defense Force was essentially a subordinate force of the US military. Yet, while the Japanese were facing this terrifying balloon, not a single US soldier dared to enter Black Crow Town; instead, they remained stationed on the outskirts to prevent anyone from escaping.

The patrol members weren't issued any neck protection gear, so encountering a balloon meant almost certain death. Those Self-Defense Force members, equipped with gear provided by the Americans, why weren't they the ones on patrol?

The captain gestured for his team members to come forward and retrieve the balloon: "I'll repeat myself: once your balloon appears, absolutely do not look directly at it. Otherwise..."

He kicked the shriveled "human skin" on the ground and said, "This is how it ends."

“Captain, there’s no need for this,” Yukiko said with a hint of reluctance. “He was, after all, a living, breathing human being.”

"Can these still be called human?" the captain sneered. "They're no longer human."

As more patrol members joined in the shooting, balloons continued to be shot down from the sky.

Each bursting balloon drops with a dried-up corpse, like a bizarre rain of humanoid figures.

Qin Mei had intended to search for the Nirvana team members' balloons through the window, but now her own balloon was outside.

Now, she can only wait for Zhou Chen to bring the Crimson Team in, since Crimson is the strongest sub-team under the Bloodstained Team. Moreover, Han Wei is currently a temporary member of the Crimson Team, and once he enters, he can immediately locate the Nirvana Team.

"Team leader, what should we do?" Lin Ping, the team doctor, said, "I can't raise everyone's SAN value to the material level, and the skin of those of us who appeared from the balloons has started to change."

"We can't get out now." Li Zhen was still shaken. "Chen Yao clearly followed all the rules and took the blue pills, but why didn't they work? Did she still hang herself with her balloon? If we go out, will we also hang ourselves with our balloons?"

"Damn it!" Sun Jing also felt frustrated. "I could have just shot that balloon with one shot! But if the balloon bursts, my face will look like Duan Pei's, like a deflated balloon!"

This is precisely the most terrifying aspect of the human head balloon meme contamination!

Attacking the head balloon will kill you too!

The Nirvana team knew this, which is why they chose to lure them into this terrifying instance! Once there, all they need to do is attack their balloons to eliminate them!
After all, the human head balloon itself has almost no combat or defensive capabilities. Let alone a reincarnator, even an ordinary person can shoot the balloon down as long as they have a gun!
At that moment, outside the Yamamoto family's house, Yukiko followed the patrol team down the street.

She looked at the devastation in the sky and could smell the increasingly strong stench of decay in the air.

Suddenly, she stopped!

"What's wrong?" the captain turned around and asked.

Yukiko's gaze remained fixed on a certain point in the air, her lips trembling slightly, as if she were looking at something.

"Did you see your balloon?"

"No, no... I, I saw someone I know..."

Yukiko stared wide-eyed at Toshihiko Fukasaku, who had been hanged alive from a telephone pole because the balloon cable and the power line had become entangled!

(End of this chapter)