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

Like that ethereal core obsession, it has no form, no sound, no breath, and not a trace of its own existence.

Gao Hai's pupils dilated at that moment.

His clothes were covered in blood; the pen, painted with his blood, had drawn a pattern on them.

No, it was less of a pattern and more of a wanton splattering of paint. This time, the strange brush didn't draw anything; it simply used Gao Hai's clothes as a canvas, completely staining them red. That was all.

However, this is precisely the only thing it can depict.

For something that has no real origin and no tangible form, this pen can only depict it in this way.

He himself had already sensed something belonging to this "illusory thing".

……

How do we imagine something that doesn't exist?

An empty room.

Its appearance cannot be the same as anything we know.

An empty chair.

Its perception is also different from our understanding of the world.

One person was sitting in one chair, while the other chair was completely empty.

[How do we imagine and conceive of a world fundamentally different from our own, something truly unprecedented, and construct its outward and inner workings to transform it from falsehood into reality?]

Is he talking to himself?

Since the dawn of civilization, has the knowledge and power we possess and understand truly enabled us to travel such a vast distance and achieve this miracle akin to divine creation?

Or was he talking to that empty chair?

I cannot deny that this is an absurd idea, but if I were to deny such an idea, if I were to stop exploring this path, what difference would I make from other fools blinded by self-interest, only able to see what's in front of them?

[I have clearly come into contact with a world I have never experienced before, I have clearly truly reached that realm, if after surviving I still only focus on the things around me, still only focus on what I, as a human being, can see... no, no, no, no, that kind of me cannot be called alive at all.]

So it's time to make a choice: to become like everyone else, or to find something that will make me different.

……

First and foremost, it cannot be a ghost story.

The ghost story approach has been proven time and again to be completely unworkable. For a ghost story to function, there must be real victims. Otherwise, no matter how much atmosphere is created or how many people believe in its existence, the result will only be something as unreal as Hayate Elementary School.

Therefore, the first step must be to ensure that the internal logic of this thing is different from that of ghost stories, and that it is not treated with the mindset of creating ghost stories.

There were pencils circling and drawing something on the paper, accompanied by someone muttering to themselves.

Let's use this batch of newly released "Eriko Asamoto" for testing. The output of Eriko this time is quite large, so it's feasible to select two or three as research subjects.

[So, since the path of ghost stories is not viable, does that mean that to create this thing, "fear" and "death" cannot be used as the foundation of its existence? No... that would conflict with the manifestation of the monster's power... But wait, perhaps it's not necessarily like that. After all, the monster is ultimately characterized by "mechanization" and "lack of self," and killing is merely its external manifestation.]

If something doesn't exist, then the first priority is to ensure that someone will believe in its existence.

In the realm of the spiritual, the reality of matter is not necessarily reality; thought is the foundation of everything. Once someone can unequivocally believe in this "non-existent thing," the subsequent steps become much easier.

So, how do we define the identity of this "non-existent thing"?

The pencil eventually drew the image of a girl on the paper, the image of an ordinary-looking high school girl.

……

The sounds started to become noisy.

The image became increasingly distorted.

The sound of a gun being chambered.

The roar of gunfire.

And there's someone else shouting and cursing.

A document fell to the ground. The original title of the document was "[A True Record of the Exploration of the Third Kind of Existence]". This title was crossed out and deleted, and the new title was "[The Ultimate Weapon Project: A Tale of the Unfounded and Unreal]".

The smell of blood permeated the air.

The desperate cries of the soldiers mingled with the sobs of the students.

Blurry images flashed by one after another, making it impossible to discern the specific content, but one could clearly sense that everything was heading towards failure, and everything was collapsing towards destruction.

Someone was screaming in hysterical fear, trying to continue giving orders.

Some people, in fear and despair, throw themselves into the darkness, thus cutting themselves off from the real world.

Some people bow their heads and sigh in the face of their inevitable death, helplessly preparing to accept their fate, unwilling to continue to escape.

【Eriko Asamoto】

The name was written on the paper.

Chacha——

Many names were crossed out on the paper.

Next to the name "Eriko Asamoto," many other names were crossed out, as if someone had a name-giving disorder, repeatedly trying to draw a certain name but never succeeding.

Then, Gao Hai heard the other person's voice again.

I ultimately failed.

Even with the help of Bydos's colleague, and despite conducting so many in-depth experiments, it ultimately failed.

Amidst the sighs, there seemed to be some strange breathing sounds and soft laughter.

[Sato entered Takamagahara, and he always struggled forward with all his might, refusing to give up even when things had reached a dead end.]

But this time he won't succeed, just like my current failure. From the moment we were blinded by this extraordinary power, failure was already inevitable.

The speaker chuckled helplessly, and scattered footsteps began to echo in the background, as if something had spotted him and was approaching.

I think that after I die, I will become part of the ghost stories, and like this eternally looping school, I will become an inescapable nightmare. I have nothing to say about it; compared to the evil I have already committed, this level of punishment is nothing.

However, my experiment will not end here. Eriko will continue to be born and sacrificed. Every year, new students will enter this hell, be devoured, and assimilated into it. As long as the power of the living is involved, each cycle will continue to bring about new changes.

For years, decades, or even centuries to come, as long as no one stops this insane cycle, this school will continue to devour more lives, repeating the experiments I can no longer record. And perhaps, that perfect third existence can be created in this process.

Other sounds began to mingle with the man's voice, as if he wasn't the only one in the room, and something else was mimicking his speech.

As for this failed product... ha, is it too late to deal with it? Oh well, compared to the failed products we dealt with before, this one is actually quite mild. Let it continue to exist.

It's a pity, I actually started to like the ghost story club, even though it's just a children's game, I still had a lot of fun.

"So, this is the end. I am Kenichi Egani, and these are my last words to this world."

As for you, do whatever you want...

The laughter of countless young men and women instantly drowned out the man's voice. Bones were crushed, blood and flesh flew everywhere, and the muffled breathing grew heavier and heavier until it finally disappeared.

Then, some kind of force began to operate.

Accompanied by a cold, hoarse cough, a voice that sounded somewhat similar to the man's voice from before, but devoid of any human emotion or feeling, rang out.

[Welcome to the Ghost Stories Club radio station! Our new newspaper will be available on campus soon. I'm Kenichi Egani.]

Today we're going to talk about a strange tale about a non-existent, false object that gradually became real.

I hope you all enjoy this new story...

……

The hazy consciousness returned to clarity.

Gao Hai couldn't describe the emotions he felt at that moment, the emotions conveyed by the pencil.

That is something flawed and incomplete.

It has been given all sorts of concepts time and time again, and has been distorted into different forms.

It has had all sorts of appearances and different postures; these images were established and then broken.

In the end, it seems that nothing was left, it failed to satisfy the Creator, and was simply abandoned, abandoned again and again, just starting over and over again.

But in the end, its essence still did not truly escape the realm of ghost stories and eerie creatures.

After all, using existing things, no matter how much you modify or innovate, the best you can achieve is at most "evolution," merely "improvement from the original foundation." It's impossible to truly create something that fundamentally overturns everything. This is the essential logic of all things, and it won't change because of the delusions of one or two mad scientists.

But it is precisely because it is a ghost story that it cannot end on its own.

The experiment is still ongoing.

The verification of the existence of the third party has never stopped.

Even though the mastermind behind all of this is long dead, and even though all the participants who were responsible for maintaining the progress of the experiment no longer exist, the experiment has not stopped.

In a world of ghost stories where everything has gone mad, twisted, and collapsed, terrifying experiments that failed decades ago are repeated time and again. This never-ending nature is a defining characteristic of ghost stories.

"So... even if no new Eriko Asamoto is born, the Third Core Obsession, this rootless mystery, will still not stop being tested."

At this moment, Gao Hai finally understood everything.

The thing residing in Kita Ikuyo's body cannot be called a core obsession at all.

The true third core obsession of Yelu Mountain Middle School, the thing that was ultimately born through countless cruel experiments and strange tales, is essentially a process.

The entire process of this experiment, which exists within Yeluoshan Middle School and verifies a third existence beyond humanity and supernatural tales, attempting to have humanity replace the gods to verify the power of creation, is the school's third core obsession.

This core obsession, which has lost its creators and maintainers of the experiment, is essentially something formed from the subconscious of countless people after they were thrown into this vicious, dark massacre. It is something without self-awareness, that only knows how to repeat past verification steps.

Its existence depends on [Eriko Asamoto] and on the still-functioning Yoruyama Middle School, which still admits living students every year. However, after the enrollment of new students one year, an unusual student, [Koji Morihara], somehow found a bomb used by bombers in an abandoned military base in the forest, brought it into the school auditorium, and successfully detonated it, sending almost the entire school's teachers and students into the air. This disrupted the balance between the living and the dead at Yoruyama Middle School, which was previously functioning normally, causing it to disappear completely from the real world and fall into the world of ghost stories. As a result, this third core also became unable to function properly.

Therefore, in order to keep the program running, it began searching for a replacement for Eriko Asamoto. And Kita Ikuyo, also a high school girl, inexplicably fulfilled its requirements and was successfully chosen to become part of the ritual, becoming part of the "Void Tales".

Even so, the program still couldn't function.

Because Yelu Mountain Middle School has been destroyed.

Because Kita Ikuyo herself is ultimately not Asamoto Eriko. While this entity might be more like Eriko herself when possessing Fujiwara Ichiri, Kita Ikuyo can never be equated with Eriko. Furthermore, due to being possessed by the power of the ghost story, Kita Ikuyo herself is in a half-dead state, to the point that this "Void Ghost Story" exhibits a strong tendency towards violence within her. It seems that some failed product in the iterative process of this ghost story has materialized in Kita Ikuyo.

However, from this perspective, the blank teacher certificate that Gao Hai has now obtained seems to be a manifestation of one iteration of the "Novelty Tales".

These iterations are hidden deep within the school, leaving almost no trace, but they do exist.

So, if this thing is also an iterative manifestation, a result of one version of the "Void Ghost Story," and if "Eriko Asamoto" was used multiple times as a development vehicle during the development of this ghost story, then...

Teacher, is that you?