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

You are lying in a narrow, damp, and cold cave. Rocks press down on you from above, below, and from the sides, as if trying to flatten you inside. They are pressed tightly against your body, so tightly that you can't even breathe properly, and your entire chest cavity is constricted.

You can't bend your legs, not even if you feel numbness and want to stretch them a little; they'll be stuck against the rock face and you won't be able to move.

You can't lower your hands to your sides; you can only keep them outstretched because the heavy rocks are firmly pressed against your sides. As you move forward and the surroundings become narrower, you start to feel like your shoulders are about to break. Eventually, you can't even bend your arms.

Then, at that moment, you lost the light source and were plunged into absolute darkness.

"call……"

Gao Hai thought he was a very calm person, but even he, when faced with this situation, still felt his breathing quicken for a moment and his heart beat a little faster. It took him several seconds to calm down.

There is also a spare flashlight in the backpack.

However, the headlamp malfunction just now was no coincidence.

He was certain because he could hear breathing behind him.

Gao Hai has now arrived in an area affected by a strange power, and it is clear that the strangeness is closely related to darkness. It is because of its existence that Gao Hai's lamp can no longer be used.

Even if I take out a flashlight now, I won't be able to get any light. I can't leave this place until I crawl out of this area and get away from that thing.

【call……】

The sound was very close.

Gao Hai couldn't help but think that perhaps it only needed to reach out and grab his ankle, dragging him into the bottomless abyss.

In the end, Gao Hai simply continued crawling forward in silence, and incidentally made the doll run back to him in the dark and put it back into his watch, so that it wouldn't be doomed if something unexpected happened.

He can't see anything now.

He could only rely on his intuition, touching the rock face with his hands, and persevered in crawling forward little by little.

How far had he crawled forward? One hundred meters? Two hundred meters? Or longer, or shorter? Gao Hai had no way of knowing, he could only keep moving, moving forward little by little in the darkness.

【call……】

The heavy breathing sound seemed to be right beside me.

But, since there's clearly nothing around, it's more accurate to say that the concept of "around" doesn't even exist in a place like this.

In the perception of the blessing, the thing that was following behind seemed to have disappeared, as if it had never existed.

Have I already left the area of ​​influence of that thing? If so, perhaps I can turn on my headlamp now.

Thinking this, Gao Hai reached out and touched something cold, somewhat stiff, but far less solid than rock.

The feel of a corpse.

The pitch-black cave was still narrow, so narrow that there was no way to lift one's head; one could only crawl forward.

But the area around Gao Hai, which was originally a rock wall, has been completely turned into corpses.

Suddenly, he found himself not in a cave, but in a pit full of corpses, lying in a tunnel surrounded by bodies.

The foul odor was spreading little by little.

Under the cover of darkness, silence still shrouds this land.

Realizing something was wrong, Gao Hai tried to back away, but his feet kicked a corpse, blocking his escape route. The corpse fell behind him.

Is there no way out?

In the silence, Gao Hai hesitated for less than a second before continuing to crawl forward.

In the narrow cave, his hand would occasionally brush across someone's face. Each person's hands, feet, and body were either whole or incomplete. He could even clearly sense whether he was touching intestines, bones, or maggots wriggling on rotten flesh.

The road became increasingly wet and slippery amidst the foul stench.

It was like sliding forward little by little through the grease of a corpse, accompanied by the sticky sounds of those things being squeezed apart, and he continued to move forward in this way.

Then suddenly, Gao Hai found himself back in the cold stone cave.

There were no corpses, nor any disgusting filth or blood.

All that remained was a still-dark road ahead, and a cave that had become even narrower.

"Uh……"

Gao Hai's breathing faltered slightly at that moment.

He could no longer maintain the posture of slightly raising his head.

The cave became even narrower at this moment, and the height decreased again.

To continue moving forward, Gao Hai had to lower his head and lie face down on the ground like his body in order to squeeze deeper into the depths.

"Huh...huh..."

As the posture changes, breathing becomes more difficult at this moment.

But Gao Hai had no choice but to continue struggling in the darkness, pushing himself forward little by little.

Then he discovered that even with his head down, he could no longer move forward.

Little by little, Gao Hai turned his head to the side, one ear touching the ground and the other ear touching the rock wall above, and continued to crawl forward.

At first, Gao Hai just felt that this position was about to break his neck.

But as the cave continued to descend and his ears began to rub against the rock wall until they were bloody and mangled, Gao Hai's pain in his neck was relieved. After all, compared to that, his ears, which were torn apart by the rock wall, hurt more.

crunch - crunch -

You can hear the sound of your adventure suit rubbing against the rocks.

Blood streamed down Gao Hai's cheeks, mixing with gravel and dust, giving his lips a slightly sweet, metallic taste.

Almost completely stuck in the cave, Gao Hai gritted his teeth and crawled forward a short distance once more.

This time, there happened to be a sharp rock on the top of the cave he moved over, which snagged his ear. Then, at the moment Gao Hai exerted his strength, the rock tore his ear in half, with one half hanging on the rock wall and the other half remaining on Gao Hai's body, pouring the foul blood directly into his ear.

The pain at that moment was indescribable.

But as the power of the blessing was activated, Gao Hai found that the pain he felt actually began to decrease, and the pain of having half of his ear torn off no longer seemed so severe.

We can't stop yet; we have to keep climbing.

Reach out and grab the rock walls on both sides firmly.

At that moment, Gao Hai's right hand grasped at empty air.

what happened?

The rock face in this area appears to have widened slightly.

Although the height was still suffocating, and I could only move with difficulty while keeping my head turned to the side, at least my right hand could move slightly and I no longer needed to keep it in a forward-reaching position.

tick-

A clear dripping sound rang out once again in front of me.

Gao Hai took a breath, enduring the dizziness caused by mild oxygen deprivation, and moved forward a little further.

Then, he suddenly froze.

The area on the right was left empty, giving him a little room to move his arms.

But what if it's not just "a gap left"?

He stretched out his right hand and touched the area to his right, but did not touch the wall.

Then Gao Hai realized that his right side hadn't widened, but rather... a new opening had appeared, a new fork in the road.

If you encounter a fork in the road within the blood vessels...

Realizing what was happening, Gao Hai struggled to retreat back to the area he had just been in.

But before he could do anything, a hand reached out from in front and grabbed Gao Hai's hand tightly.

Please...

He heard a faint sound from that thing.

【help me……】

The next moment, Gao Hai was violently dragged forward by an irresistible force, his bloody ear being torn apart against the rock wall.

It seemed as if countless voices flooded into my ears at that moment.

A muffled, weeping sound.

The voice was labored, breathing heavily.

And something was slowly sliding, like the sound of a mechanical structure in operation.

"Well……"

Gao Hai opened his eyes.

He slowly sat up from the ground and found himself in a dark cave.

Where was I just now...?

He reached out and touched his ear, finding it bleeding profusely, half of it torn off.

Gao Hai took a deep breath, took out bandages and iodine to disinfect and bandage the injured ear, gritted his teeth, and quickly wrapped it up.

By the way, I've made it through the [blood vessels] area. Although the process was extremely difficult, I've finally escaped that hellhole.

It's time to leave this place. Find a way to get across the cliff, reach the giant slide, and then head to the upper part of this world to figure out the specific situation here. Then, try to contact Kaguya Maki so that everyone can work together and escape this hellish place completely.

But... I don't know why, I can't quite remember how I left the [blood vessels]. Was it because I was too tired and passed out after I came out, so my memory of that is blurry?

Gao Hai reached out and rubbed his temples, feeling a strange sense of disorientation.

What happened?

What is it that I...?

"Ugh, finally, it's out."

Qianhua's mournful cry diverted Gao Hai's attention at that moment.

He turned his head and looked at Fujiwara Chika, who was struggling to crawl out of the cave entrance, her face bearing several scratches. Through the power of his blessing, he confirmed that the girl was indeed Fujiwara Chika. So he walked over and watched as she gave him a silly smile, then crawled forward a short distance before collapsing.

"Gao Jun, I'm stuck again..."

The girl, with a mournful face, looked at Gao Hai with a pleading expression.