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

It used the information broadcast by the radio to form a kind of medium with itself, locked onto Gao Hai's current location, and approached him.

The corridor area on the first floor had come into view before Gao Hai.

He finally found a classroom door marked with green marks.

Pushing open the door, he quickly glanced at the seemingly ordinary little classroom before grabbing Hayasaka and throwing him inside.

"You stay inside and don't make a sound. Shinomiya and I have to keep running. Something is chasing us and has locked onto us."

As Gao Hai spoke, he closed the door. Caught off guard, Hayasaka tried to catch up, but when he met Gao Hai's blood-red pupils after he activated his blessing power, he was so shocked by Gao Hai's spirit that he could not move and collapsed to the ground, unable to move.

The next moment, Gao Hai had already sped up and was running down the corridor.

"Did that radio broadcast cause us to be locked down?"

Kaguya, who was accelerating closely alongside Takahashi, frowned and asked.

"Yes, there's always a price to pay for intelligence, it's always been that way."

Gao Hai, disregarding everything else and pushing the power of the rampage blessing to its limit, answered calmly.

He already knew about a crucial period in the Zao Li Elementary School instance and realized why this instance, which should have only a few hundred casualties at most, could reach the Red Moon level and become one of the four areas of the large instance [School Ghost Stories].

As Hayate Elementary School gradually became a copy of itself, the resulting distorted and bizarre situation was deliberately catalyzed. It seems the higher-ups used Chiyo Hachiya, who was still alive at the time, to achieve some special effect, turning Hayate Elementary School into an inescapable hell, trapping many researchers and children. Then, just when they thought they could reap the rewards, the military raided the school, killing everyone except Chiyo Hachiya, intending to capture her, take her back to their camp, and then send her to an enemy country.

But in fact, Chiyo Hachiya had already died at that time.

The exact cause of death is still unclear, but it's certain that with the girl's demise, the military, which previously had some room for maneuver, has effectively ended the war. Furthermore, given their plan to bring Chiyo Hachiya back to camp, and the fact that Takahashi saw the military camp area within the instance, it's possible... the entire Japanese division was wiped out by Chiyo Hachiya, who has transformed into a monster. Thousands, tens of thousands, or even more people might simply be gone.

If that's really the case, it's kind of funny in a way, like having your entire army wiped out by a specially developed final weapon...

As he pondered, Gao Hai, sensing that the thing locking onto him was getting closer and closer, stopped in his tracks.

He stopped near a classroom door marked in purple.

"Get ready, they're coming soon."

As he spoke, Gao Hai turned to look at the end of the corridor, where he could already see the blurry figure of a small child standing there.

"Where is it? I have no sense of being targeted by the strange creature. Does it have some way of hiding itself?"

Kaguya asked in a low, nervous voice.

"Well, of course you can't feel it, since you're not being locked on; that thing is locking onto me."

At this moment, Gao Hai shook his head and moved closer to the door marked in purple, which was the one that was "absolutely forbidden" according to the rules. He also took out a bottle of water that looked like blood and was constantly bubbling, unscrewed the cap, and took a small sip.

"You didn't lock onto me? Then why, Gao Jun..."

Kaguya Shinomiya was stunned, not expecting Gao Hai to say such a thing.

"Because you've locked onto me too."

Takahashi simply reached out and pushed Kaguya, who was still closely following him, forward, causing the girl to stumble.

Kaguya's head fell to the ground the next moment, rolled once, and her face was full of confusion.

The small, indistinct figure had already reached Gao Hai.

As for Gao Hai, who had already sensed something was wrong and had silently prepared for this moment, he reached out and grabbed the doorknob of the classroom door next to him without hesitation, pushed it open violently, and rushed into the pitch-black classroom with the blurry figure and the headless girl who had caught up with him.

Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Triple Perception of Division and the First Confrontation

In that instant, Gao Hai felt an extremely strong shock spreading through his mind.

He knew perfectly well that what he was doing was tantamount to suicide; in fact, this was his very purpose, otherwise he wouldn't have chosen the purple-marked door, which represented "extreme danger." From the moment he was locked on, Gao Hai knew he couldn't escape the monster's pursuit. Since that was the case, he might as well put himself in an even more dangerous situation to find a possible glimmer of hope.

Teacher... Teacher...

They heard a call coming from behind the door.

He saw a hand reach out from the darkness behind the door and grab him.

A sharp pain shot through Gao Hai's mind.

At that moment, he clearly saw the distorted and chaotic scene.

The once normal classroom was torn in half.

Every student sitting in their seat had lost their original appearance.

The children's eyes, noses, and mouths fell onto the tables and chairs, and onto the floor.

Their skin melted, blending into the surrounding environment, then cracked open, breaking apart and flying into the air before slowly wriggling and clinging to the walls and ground.

The sound of weeping rose from all directions; those hands were made of stone and mud, human skin and rotting flesh and bones pieced together.

Those things reached out from the dark room and grabbed Gao Hai's body; then he heard their voices.

My thoughts almost completely shattered at that moment.

My body is also breaking down little by little.

In that instant, he seemed to faintly hear a voice behind him, a cold, somewhat familiar male voice.

This classroom is ruined too. Let's seal it off.

[It's still unknown what kind of monster the students in this class have conceived, or if there's more than one monster? Hmm, judging from its appearance, this thing has a certain degree of spread; anyone who gets close to the classroom door might be grabbed and pulled inside by some unseen force.]

This is the sixth classroom to be destroyed. If this continues, the building will be unusable. However, there aren't many experimental classes left, so hopefully we can get a good result in the end.

After the sound faded, someone closed the door, sealing the place off.

Soon, the windows were sealed off, the power was cut off, and everything was plunged into absolute darkness.

The children remained silent in the darkness, staying in that place until Gao Hai opened the door.

Click——click——

As his body continued to shatter, Gao Hai saw the children sitting in the classroom, their faces expressionless and deathly pale.

They opened their mouths, as if they were saying something to Gao.

【teacher……】

They seemed to approach, surround Gao Hai, and reach out to grab him.

Teacher...it's so dark here...

Their voices were already close at hand, and their broken bodies had already melted into his flesh and blood.

In the next second, I'll probably be dissolved in this classroom and become a fragmented piece of flesh just like these students.

Gao Hai couldn't help but think at that moment.

【Gao Jun? Why do I feel like this is so strange?】

But Kaguya's hand, reaching out from behind, had already grabbed Takami.

The girl's voice was filled with confusion.

If the bewildered voice had come from the body behind him instead of from the head of the person rolling to his feet, Gao Hai would probably be in a much better mood.

hum-

An even stronger impact was penetrating his skull.

At this moment, Gao Hai felt as if he had split into two different individuals. One of them was being assimilated by the students in the classroom, becoming like them, while the other was being held in the arms of Kaguya Shinomiya's headless body, who gently grabbed his neck and then turned his head off.

Just like twisting off a toy's head, it came off with a "pop".

【Gao Jun...what's wrong with me?】

The skull of Kaguya on the ground continued to mutter to itself in confusion.

Gao Hai had already witnessed her death and the final fate of this unfortunate girl.

It happened in a courtyard. After seeing a student code of conduct carved on the wall, a strange creature appeared behind Kaguya. During the chase, Kaguya found a place that "looked familiar," but the thing chasing her was too fast. Her maximum burst speed was far from being able to keep up with Takahashi, and she had no means to delay or hinder it. As a result, she was caught up and her head was ripped off.

Kaguya was already dead from that moment on.

But after that moment, she could not be considered truly "dead".

Just like those survivors.

In his daze, Gao Hai saw even more things.

That's right. Just like those survivors, Hayate Elementary School was struck by disaster in its last year of operation. A strange force sealed off the entire school, and almost no one inside escaped alive. But among those trapped in the school, there were actually survivors.

The origin of this mechanism appears to be an experiment conducted by Hayate Elementary School, where they hoped to create a ghost story of someone seemingly alive but actually dead, thus allowing them to place a strange entity disguised as a living person into an enemy country's military camp. This inspiration came from Fujika Junior High School, which had recently failed and was completely shut down. However, at this time, Hayate Elementary School was also in dire straits, so the project was unsuccessful, or rather… its success was never known to the researchers.

"No wonder the survivors didn't leave any bodies behind."

Gao Hai sighed softly.

The so-called survivors existing in Hayate Elementary School have actually become strange creatures, but like Kaguya Shinomiya that Takami found before, they are in a state of "seemingly still alive". Only from some small details can you tell that something is wrong with them, but they themselves are absolutely unaware of it.

This special mechanism requires the deceased's body to remain intact or to undergo "reconstruction." Initially, after Kaguya was killed by the headless monster, her body was likely picked up by a headless monster and a dark creature. However, due to Takayuki's unintentional actions during his escape, Kaguya's body and head reassembled, thus triggering this special mechanism. This caused her to reappear in that state, directly near the shelter where "survivors should be," which is why Takayuki found her on the rocking chair.

In this special state, the "living people" are merely believing themselves to be alive; they remain monsters, still capable of harming and killing. However, due to their unique state, if their "living person" form remains undetected, they will be attacked by other monsters, identified as living people, and killed, transforming into other types of monsters. If they are not killed by other monsters, these entities will lock onto other living people they encounter, killing them when they are not paying attention and turning them into the same state as themselves.

The fact that the soldiers who entered Hayate Elementary School returned to their barracks without any casualties is probably due to this situation.

If that's the case, doesn't it mean... that in those military camps I saw on the runway before, there were actually soldiers from an entire army group? And that they were all the kind of people who thought they were still alive, but actually sneaked up behind others and ripped their heads off when no one was looking?!

As I pondered, the intense mental anguish subsided.

The mouthful of blood that Gao Hai swallowed formed a powerful protective force at that moment.

Even though he was locked into two different supernatural rules and simultaneously entered the execution phase, and was exposed to a massive amount of information at the moment of his impending death, he still maintained absolute mental clarity under the pressure that had exceeded the limits of what a Red Moon-level player could bear.

Of course, even without drinking that blood plasma, Gao Hai's own resilience meant he wouldn't need to fear that level of mental damage; he could withstand it.

He now needs the mental lock provided by that blood plasma in order to face the third, most dangerous and unbearable injury while enduring these two types of mental damage.

It has arrived.

Teacher, what are you doing here? You can't come in here.

Laughter rang out beside me.

A small, black-haired girl, about 1.2 to 1.3 meters tall, appeared beside Gao Hai.

The even more intense mental shock was tearing Gao Hai's self apart.

He felt as if he had been torn into three pieces. One piece had almost completely shattered and melted into the classroom floor. The second piece was being led out of the classroom by the headless Kaguya. And the third piece was sitting in front of the girl, facing her directly.