Why is my journey to the world of anime a strange tale of rules?

Angel didn't intend to explain further. She simply took out her phone and turned on the screen. In the dark red light of the Crimson Realm, she showed the phone to the others, displaying the newly appeared information. Then she tossed her phone to Hongxia and Xiaohua so that the two newbies could take a closer look at the records.

[Urgent Notice]

These large characters were the first thing that caught Hongxia and Xiaohua's attention.

[A new supernatural force has been confirmed to have entered the battlefield. All players currently in the battlefield are urged to check this notification as soon as possible and immediately assess their own situation.]

[Currently confirmed high-risk paranormal phenomenon: the isolation effect]

[Danger Level: Extremely High]

[Phenomenon Description:]

[1. The isolation effect will cause players affected by this effect to be in a state of "loneliness" to some extent. These affected players will find that others in their line of sight, with whom they have relatively shallow contact, have disappeared, and this effect applies to both living people and monsters. This phenomenon cannot yet completely separate people who are cooperating with each other within a certain range. Under normal circumstances, players can maintain a group size of 2-15 people while affected by this anomaly.]

[2. Players affected by this strange phenomenon will gradually fall from the real world into another dimension. Under the influence of the power of this dimension, they will gradually become unable to trust others, instinctively developing a strong sense of suspicion towards others, and believing that only they can do certain things. This phenomenon will eventually develop into aggressive behavior towards others. Severely affected players will believe that everyone except themselves is a fake entity in disguise, and will become extremely self-inflated, believing that they can do anything. To prevent this situation, all players must undergo psychological testing and check their own status at any time.]

[Detailed rules confirmed:]

[1. Observe any activities other than your own and your own team's. If you determine that the actions of others cannot be fully observed, it means that you may have already been affected by this strange phenomenon.]

[2. Constantly examine your inner self to ensure that you genuinely believe you can do something absurdly impossible. If you notice yourself gradually developing such mental impulses, it means you have been severely affected. From this point on, you need to do your best to ensure that you are protected by the fragments of the Crimson Realm and constantly examine yourself to protect your mental health as much as possible.]

[3. Due to the decreased stability of the real world, the stability of the interdimensional spaces that intersect with the real world has also become significantly disrupted. Therefore, approaching areas with clearly abnormal spatial structures may allow one to return to the real world. For severely affected individuals, even if a sufficiently large and stable entrance back to the real world cannot be found, the existence of these unstable areas can temporarily weaken the influence of the interdimensional spaces.]

[Note: It should be noted that although disordered spatial regions are continuously being generated, this alternate dimension itself is also constantly trying to repair these disordered regions. Therefore, the existence time of each disordered spatial structure is usually limited, and you cannot hide in a certain disordered region indefinitely.]

4. When venturing into another dimension, the memories of those affected are used by the dimension itself to create false individuals, combined with strong mental manipulation to deceive your senses. However, in all confirmed cases of deception, the false individuals created by this other dimension are corpses; it is certain that they cannot create living individuals. Therefore, if you are certain that you have fallen into some kind of deception or trap, please ensure that you do not believe any information from corpses.

5. If you are severely contaminated and unable to maintain your senses, and cannot find an escape route or temporary refuge in this chaotic area, try calling out to Gao Hai, or firmly believing in him in your heart. He may not be able to come to your side to save you immediately, but a strong enough belief will prompt him to find you faster and give you the strength to protect yourself. But remember that he is not a god, and do not add any suffixes you think you should add when calling out to him.

【Root cause of the phenomenon:】

[It has been confirmed that the "hospital" deployed a constructed edge space into the battlefield area, forcibly combining this space with the real space and projecting its rules and power into the real world. The current anomalies arise from this.]

Because this was a forced embedding of a stable space into an unstable one, the "hospital's" actions greatly disrupted the stability of this marginal space. As a result, the "hospital" has lost stable control over this marginal space. However, this has also further reduced the stability within this space, causing the strange rules governing its phenomena to change and become more aggressive. This is now a problem that every player who reaches the outer edge of the battlefield must be careful to face.

However, this also brings good news: the alienated edge space doesn't just affect players; flesh-and-blood monsters and strange creatures can also be captured by its power. In fact, because the power originates from the same source, this space is even more effective at capturing non-human beings. Therefore, although many players are currently trapped in this space, the defense line itself remains stable and will not threaten the internal battlefield situation for the time being.

The Red Moon-level player team has now arrived at the front line, preparing to penetrate deeper into this edge space and attempt to find and destroy its core area.

[Players who receive this message are advised to act within their capabilities, prioritize their own safety, avoid venturing too far into dangerous areas, and especially avoid allowing the power of the supernatural legends to corrupt them.]

Clearly, Gao Hai's side actually had some understanding of the source of these anomalies, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to provide so much information in such a short time.

However, things have changed drastically. Gao Hai clearly didn't expect the [Hospital] to pull off something like this in its desperate struggle, directly slamming an entire space into the real-world battlefield, turning the players' and monsters' battlefield into a chaotic, distorted, and broken environment. Now, after the interdimensional portal appeared, in just a few minutes, more than 30% of the players and 77% of the attacking flesh-and-blood monsters and strange creatures have been dragged into another space.

Rumbling--

The violent explosions continued to reverberate, but the battlefield belonging to the surgeons and the girls wouldn't be affected by such a minor incident. The hospital also dared not allow this peripheral space to actually get close to that kind of place. After all, given the power that both sides were currently displaying, this weakened peripheral space might collapse on the spot after taking a few hits, and then the hospital would truly lose its last remaining force.

"There are so many words, I can't remember them all..."

Xiao Hua, whose thought process is the simplest, started to feel dizzy while watching.

"Mr. Gao, is there any way to display the information on the fragments of the Crimson Realm? If I write the intelligence information on them, well... that won't work. I remember Mr. Gao saying that these fragments are more suitable for receiving information than transmitting it. After all, we can't maintain constant contact now. Mr. Gao probably won't notice any extra information in a fragment. We still need to find a way to communicate with him directly..."

Although Hongxia struggled to understand, she roughly grasped the situation and was momentarily delighted, thinking she might have found a shortcut to reporting intelligence. However, she quickly realized that this approach was not feasible, and thus became somewhat frustrated and regretful.

At that moment, a chill suddenly swept over everyone in the car, making each person feel as if a cold wind had passed by them.

Then, Wang Gui's exclamation from the back of the car attracted the attention of most of the people on board.

"Corpses! There are so many corpses!"

Wang Gui, who was shouting this, pointed to the back of the bus. Hong Xia and the others looked in the direction he was pointing and saw seven or eight things wrapped in black bags, all sitting in the back of the bus, emitting a foul smell.

Chapter Ninety-Six: The Tacit Understanding Between Players and the Actions of the Survivors.

As a genuinely strange bus, this bus, which took the Sunflower Team a lot of effort to finally obtain, is naturally no ordinary vehicle.

Not to mention that this thing can go anywhere as long as there is a road, and can forcibly drive onto any place, its ability to maintain absolute stability inside the vehicle no matter how severe the bumps are is already an extremely amazing feature.

Of course, every advantage has its disadvantages. Obsessive objects are inherently flawed, unlike blessings which are entirely positive. The problem with the Ghost Bus is that it continuously creates corpses inside. Once the total number of people on board, including both the living and the dead, exceeds thirteen, the bus immediately goes out of control, transforming from an extremely efficient means of transportation into a killing machine, relentlessly slaughtering the living inside.

The Sunflower Squad now has seven members, and then Xiaohua and Wengu Yinyu were added, followed by Hongxia, bringing the total number of people in the vehicle to ten. This means that the vehicle will go out of control once it produces three corpses. For this reason, Wang Gui, who is in charge of disposing of the corpses, deals with the first corpse he finds immediately, unlike before when he could wait until three or four corpses had accumulated before throwing them out.

Now, however, there are seven or eight more corpses inside the car.

"How...how can there be so many?!"

Wang Gui was shocked and instinctively took a few steps back.

"Don't panic, the car is not out of control. These corpses are either hallucinations or strange creatures, and are not within the scope of judgment."

As the vice-captain, Li Ling reached out and pressed down on Wang Gui's shoulder, stopping him from retreating. Then, she strode forward and walked directly to the large black plastic bags wrapped up in human shapes. She pulled out a baseball bat and struck one of the bags.

bang——

After being enhanced by Gao Hai, Li Ling's shot produced a subtle sonic boom, and the baseball bat itself flew past like a phantom.

Nothing was hit.

If that merciless blow had actually hit the plastic bag, it would undoubtedly have shattered it instantly. But just as Li Ling's attack was about to strike the plastic bag, everyone watching felt their vision blur for a moment. Then, when their vision cleared again, all the plastic bags had vanished without a trace, leaving only Li Ling standing in front with the baseball bat, as if those corpse-like objects had never existed.

"It seems like it was just a hallucination?"

After carefully checking her surroundings for a while and confirming that there was nothing unusual, Kazama Ren said in a low voice with some doubt.

"This is probably just a warning shot for now. After all, we were only recently captured by the other dimension, so we won't encounter any major problems for the time being."

Standing in the back of the vehicle, Li Ling spoke while gently poking the spot where those things had been sitting a few times with her baseball bat. Only after confirming that they had truly disappeared, and not simply vanished into thin air, did she breathe a slight sigh of relief. Then, realizing something was amiss, she quickly became serious again and immediately walked towards the front of the car, entrusting the task of continuing surveillance to Kazama Ren and Sai Emi in the back.

As Li Ling began to move, everyone in the car except for Hong Xia Xiao Hua and Wen Gu Yin Yu, who had gotten into the car with Xiao Hua, started to move as well.

"This is really going to keep me busy again."

"Let's talk about it after we survive. It's best not to expect Mr. Gao to save us. We won't always be so lucky."

"Alright, alright, stop saying discouraging things right from the start. Let's get started first."

"Should I continue to handle the body inside the car?"

"Okay, Lao Wang, you should continue dealing with the corpses. The rest of us are better enhanced and more suitable for observing the surrounding situation."

The team members, some with tense faces, some with helpless expressions, and some maintaining a calm demeanor, all sprang into action amidst the exchange of words, each finding their own appropriate course of action, and each clearly knowing what they should do.

Yu Qingshan didn't give any instructions throughout, knowing his team didn't need to say anything at this point. After all, everyone had seen this kind of situation many times before, and apart from Wang Gui who might not be used to it yet, the others wouldn't react much.

"Then, let's begin the search."

Li Ling, who was sitting next to Yu Qingshan, spoke calmly, to which Yu Qingshan simply nodded slightly, his gaze remaining calmly fixed on the front.

The most important thing now is to ascertain the surrounding environment of this vehicle.

Now that the power from other strange and supernatural entities can affect the women inside the car, even manifesting illusory forms within the carriage, it proves they've become deeply entrenched. According to the previous rules, to escape this place, they must find areas of clearly abnormal spatial distortion, where interaction with the real world is possible.

Furthermore, even if no way out is found, these distorted areas will weaken the strange power of this alternate dimension, mitigating the effects on everyone inside the vehicle. Therefore, the focus now is to confirm their location and the surrounding situation. The members of the Sunflower Squad are no newcomers to this, and they immediately began to scatter and observe, ensuring that at least one person in each direction was observing the external environment and searching for areas of spatial distortion.

"Can I help?"

Xiao Hua raised her little hand and asked earnestly.

"You can't do it. Your superpower is a trump card. We'll talk about it when real danger comes."

Sai Saki, who was in charge of the back of the bus, immediately rejected Xiao Hua's idea.

"You don't need to go for now. We need to coordinate to take action. You should rest and recover first. If we really can't handle it, we'll ask you for help."

Next, Kazama Ren spoke to Nijika and Fumiya Otoha, who hadn't had a chance to speak yet, causing Nijika to also give up the idea of ​​helping. Incidentally, although Fumiya Otoha also pretended to help along with Kohana and Nijika, she actually had no intention of helping and just wanted to be a freeloader in the team. This veteran player had carefully observed and confirmed that the Sunflower Team was the kind of team that worked closely together and didn't like outside interference, so she deliberately followed the two newbies' reaction. After receiving the team's reply, unlike the two high school students who were still somewhat unwilling, Fumiya Otoha immediately let go of all burdens and happily became a freeloader.

hum-

There seemed to be some sound coming from outside.

I don't know when the rain stopped.

The flames had disappeared without anyone noticing.

In the deathly silence and darkness, the ruins of dilapidated buildings piled one on top of another, and a stench seeped in through the broken windows of the bus. Faint sobs and shouts could also be heard by the players present.

Something exists here.

Although those things haven't yet revealed themselves, everyone inside the car can sense that something else is lurking around them.

"The situation is not good. I shouldn't have tested them just now."

Sitting next to the driver, Li Ling turned around to observe the reactions of the people in the car, then whispered to Yu Qingshan, her expression showing some worry, but she didn't let anyone except Captain Yu Qingshan see it.

"Is the number of suspected corpses nine?"

Yu Qingshan kept his gaze fixed ahead, but at the same time he was responding to Li Ling's words.

"I can't quite remember. My memory of those plastic bags is hazy. I only remember that there might have been seven or eight bodies, but I'm sure that I'll gradually start to think there are nine bodies. Others will probably have the same reaction."

Li Ling shook her head, her expression still not very pleasant.

Although she didn't realize it at the time, she immediately realized after the plastic bags disappeared that these corpses themselves were a manifestation of the rules and power of this alternate dimension.

They wouldn't cause them any direct harm. These things, which looked like corpses wrapped in plastic bags, were actually meant to plant a psychological suggestion in everyone present that "everyone except me is a corpse, and only I am still alive."

Therefore, while everyone is still conscious, the number of bodies in the plastic bags would be an uncertain, vague figure of "seven or eight." However, if someone's mental state deteriorates and the impact intensifies, it's certain that in their minds, the number of bodies in the plastic bags would then be fixed at nine, meaning everyone present, excluding themselves, would correspond to a single body. If that were to happen, they might end up fighting each other, which would be a very troublesome situation.

"If something really goes wrong, we'll split up. After all, the key right now is intelligence. As long as one person can get out alive and re-establish contact with Mr. Gao, the victor of this war will inevitably be us, and humanity will inevitably be the victor."

Yu Qingshan's answer remained calm. After being resurrected by Gao Hai after his death, his spirit had become significantly more resilient than before. Even now, in a completely unknown situation, he showed little emotional fluctuation.

"...That's true. The key is intelligence; that's the most important thing."

Upon hearing this, Li Ling was taken aback for a moment, then understood Yu Qingshan's meaning. It meant that when everyone's mental state deteriorated to the point where they could no longer maintain teamwork, they should completely scatter and act separately to maximize their chances of survival.

The reason for making this choice naturally lies in the information provided by Nijigasaki. This information, which Ryo obtained and then passed on to Nijigasaki, was initially not something the girl realized she should share. However, as she got to know the Sunflower Squad better, Nijigasaki quickly made all the information she knew public. Therefore, at this moment, all ten people on the bus were able to take on the task of transmitting information.

Yes, including Xiaohua. Even if she herself can't remember what Hongxia said, as long as she still has that matter in her mind, Gaohai can use subconscious memory reading to find and review what happened back then, thereby ensuring the transmission of information.

However, all of this hinges on the premise that someone can successfully escape this area and establish a mental connection with Gao Hai. Otherwise, no matter how much they think about it or how detailed their plans are, it will all be meaningless.

"Phew... Has it started?"

I don't know who said that in a low voice. It sounded like someone in the team, but I couldn't remember who it was. I looked back but couldn't see who had spoken.

He looked out the window at the dark, gloomy ruins, devoid of any light. His gaze inadvertently swept across the shattered car window, past the reflection of a corpse standing behind him, wrapped in a plastic bag, emitting a foul stench.

Upon closer inspection, however, nothing was found; it seemed as if it were all just an illusion.

Such things continue to happen, causing ripples in everyone's thinking, large or small, gradually leading them to bear some kind of malicious force and become increasingly mentally polluted.