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

{No, I would definitely let everyone know if he sent any news. He's probably still looking for a target.}

Kaguya replied via the mental link, shaking her head slightly and rubbing her temples to try and relieve the throbbing pain in her head.

It seems there's absolutely nothing I can do.

After Gao Hai left on his own, the girls, unaware of the situation outside and in poor condition, dared not act rashly and could only stay in the village awaiting news. They wouldn't actively try to send a message to Gao Hai via mental link, as they were aware of the terrifying and deadly danger lurking in the surface space. Therefore, just in case, unless Gao Hai proactively sent a message via mental link, the girls would not contact him, lest they interfere with his actions in a dangerous situation.

"Aha……"

Qianhua casually tossed the ornament up and caught it again, yawning as she looked at the half-open front door of the house.

It's quiet outside.

All the players were doing their best to avoid making too much noise and attracting attention. Even though the hidden space had been confirmed to be harmless multiple times, everyone was still doing this instinctively. This caution was ingrained in their actions; anyone lacking this level of vigilance would have no chance of surviving in a Dark Night-level dungeon.

However, sometimes being too quiet isn't a good thing either.

Qianhua closed her eyes and checked the situation on Tangyuan and the Moyu Gang's side through the temporary mental link constructed by the object of her obsession. There was nothing unusual, and the responses from both sides were satisfactory.

hum-

A wave of thought washed over me, a ripple originating from the channel created by the black watch.

So Qianhua contacted Tangyuan and the three members of the Moyu Gang again, and received the same reply as before.

{An enemy has infiltrated!}

Then, Qianhua suddenly stood up and spoke earnestly to the people in the room through the mental link.

{...They really came. But this should be the last time. We absolutely cannot let the enemy escape again at a time like this.}

{In that case, the temporary mental link is no longer safe. If the other side has the confidence to launch a proactive attack, it's probably because they brought in the corpses of those Zhangjia Village villagers. We need to act immediately; they could appear on our side at any moment.}

{Huh? Huh? Huh? Enemies are coming?!}

Kaguya and Maki had obviously discussed the matter with Chika beforehand, so they immediately reacted and made preparations.

As for Ichiri, she was awakened by the mental link, and was dazed for about 1.5 seconds before she came to her senses and immediately summoned her guitar to prepare for battle.

It was still quiet outside.

But now that Chika has noticed the problem, this tranquility seems more like a deathly stillness.

tread!

Step out and step from inside the house into the outside.

The sky turned pitch black in an instant, and the once silent village was suddenly filled with desperate screams.

The purplish-blue corpse leaped forward, charging into every corner of the village.

These strange creatures appeared in this place without anyone knowing how, and the less powerful Dark Night-level players were completely unable to deal with them. Even using their most powerful artifacts or blessings, they couldn't withstand the attacks of even a single corpse, and were thus continuously killed. The deaths of these players then caused their artifacts to go out of control, resulting in all sorts of things that shouldn't be there appearing in the village, and the players' own corpses were also transformed, turning into new strange creatures that hopped around and attacked other living people.

When Zhenfei and the others came out of the house and came outside, more than half of the Dark Night level players were already dead. Most of them didn't even have time to come out of the house before those monsters blocked the door and rushed in, killing them all.

"Ahhh, no! No! No!!!"

Amidst the piercing screams, some relatively stronger players managed to escape, only to be met with an even larger-scale attack from the monsters, ultimately dying in helpless agony.

hum-

Kaguya instantly unleashed her crimson domain, only to be struck by two corpses, causing her to stagger and nearly fall.

So Goto Ichiri immediately strummed her guitar, instantly creating three clones. Kaguya, knowing her intention, didn't hold back and immediately used her domain to drain the clones' blood, thus greatly strengthening the domain and successfully blocking the impact of those things.

We need to find those Red Moon level players quickly; they're likely being heavily targeted by the enemy.

Kaguya moved the group through the Crimson Domain while speaking earnestly in the mental link.

{It's more likely that space itself has been divided. If they were also attacked simultaneously, there's no reason we wouldn't have noticed the traces. It's normal for a battle between Red Moon level players to be quite intense; it's possible they were somehow transported to another dimension.}

Chika spoke rapidly in the mental link, then looked up at the sky, at the pitch-black sky where nothing existed.

After the new loop begins, Takami tells his girls about things that might exist in the sky.

That should be a hole that can be seen by all sorts of strange things, a hole that can peer into this planet.

But now Qianhua can't see that void; all she can see is darkness, pure and empty darkness. The sky above this hidden space is empty. As a lower level within the instance space, the sky here is inherently illusory, so it's perfectly normal that nothing can be seen.

But why does it go dark? And what rules govern the changes in time here?

"Help me! Please help me!"

While they were thinking, a player covered in blood stumbled out of a room and rushed toward the group protected by the Crimson Domain.

No one paid him any attention. Even the most righteous Princess Zhenfei merely frowned and turned her attention elsewhere.

Bang!

The next moment, the player crashed into the crimson field.

The player's skin, drained of flesh and blood, then floated down lightly, while the blood, seemingly alive, climbed the domain, trying to break through and burrow into the bodies of the girls.

Bang! ! !

The next moment, with the tremor of the domain itself, this thing was blasted away an unknown distance and disappeared into the darkness.

The Dark Night-level obsession was out of control and no longer posed any threat to the Crimson Domain. Confirming this, Kaguya felt slightly relieved, but then she instantly sensed a powerful threat locking onto her.

Stop moving forward.

Dark red, chalk-like lines drew a grid, and Kaguya almost stepped on it.

It was clearly just a child's doodle, but Kaguya inexplicably felt that if she stepped on it, even the Crimson Domain wouldn't be able to protect her.

A villager's corpse crashed out of a nearby house, followed by two transformed player corpses. The three objects slammed into the crimson field and were then bounced away. The light of the crimson field dimmed noticeably, and Kaguya immediately felt the corrosive power of the ghost story, her face turning pale.

{Over here!}

Zhenfei's voice rang out in the mental link. Having confirmed the structure of the entire village in advance, she led the group to move quickly, striding forward amidst the mournful wails that filled the entire village. Soon they arrived at a long road, at the end of which was the residence of the Li family clan, the place where the well that could traverse between the surface and hidden spaces was located.

{Did you arrive here safely? That's great! I couldn't find you for a while, I thought something had happened to you.}

{You guys are pretty capable, aren't you? I thought you were all gone.}

Amidst a pile of mangled corpses, Cat Brother from the "Fishing Gang" and Tangyuan, the historian, turned their heads and saw Zhenfei and her group. They immediately breathed a sigh of relief and showed expressions of reassurance.

We didn't see Xiao Guo and the Taoist priest, but we could hear their voices approaching from afar, so they must also be on their way here.

tread!

Chika, who was in the middle of the group, stopped at this moment and looked at the mud wall not far away.

Then, she saw a human-shaped outline suddenly appear on the wall, and then it rushed out and crashed straight into her, hitting the blood-red field.

{Huh?!}

Without any warning, the crimson domain that Kaguya had been maintaining collapsed, causing her to suffer a significant backlash.

Realizing something was wrong, Ichiri immediately tried to play the zither, intending to summon a clone to change her trajectory and avoid the incident. However, before she could do so, the cat-like creature in front of her suddenly collapsed, transforming into paper figures that pounced towards them. Sensing something amiss with these paper figures, Ichiri had to immediately change course, summoning a clone to shield everyone from the paper figures. However, the newly summoned clones died one after another; any contact with the palm-sized paper figures resulted in instant death.

The girls then used several items they were obsessed with, hoping to break the current situation.

However, under the suppression of a similar force, these attempts failed to achieve any effective action, and the "glutinous rice ball" not far away also decomposed into a large number of paper figures, which flew among the bluish-purple corpses and approached the girls.

Then, a hand reached out from behind and grabbed the 38-sided pendant that Chika was holding.

There was no way to prevent this from happening.

Even though they were all aware of what was happening, when their "gaze" was focused on the threats coming from all directions, some extraordinary force activated, preventing them from shifting their attention elsewhere and forcing them to focus solely on the immediate threat. Then, that hand reached out perfectly from everyone's blind spot and snatched away the core object of their obsession, the pendant.

"This way, we've turned the tables a bit, but beating the Li family won't be so easy. We'll take back the other two as well; you won't be able to take anything with you!"

Chen Qiucai, whose body parts had been transformed into paper figures, looked completely self-righteous, as if he himself were a member of Lijia Village.

click-

However, his smug expression froze immediately afterward, because half of his body had been severed. Kaguya, who should have been unable to look away, suddenly turned around, holding a katana that gleamed coldly in her hand.

"In this way, we can at least get some justice for Hayasaka first."

She said in a cold voice, and Chen Qiucai realized something was wrong at that moment, and suddenly looked down at the pendant in his hand.

Judging from its aura... it's definitely a core obsession of the Red Moon level, which is my target.

However, this thing doesn't possess any supernatural power whatsoever. What... what's going on? Is this a fake?!

"They've arrived just as expected."

Chika showed no surprise, but as she finished speaking, something else emerged.

The next second, a raging fire engulfed everything in an instant.

Chapter 142: The Players' Traps and the Last Key Location

Copy the magic box.

A small item box that can duplicate items, a Dark Night-level item, which Gao Hai often uses to duplicate food when he's being lazy.

Anything that can fit into this 30x30x30 cm cube can be copied into an exact replica. For ordinary items, like the breakfast Hayasaka Ai makes for Takami, Takami can confirm after tasting it several times that the taste is exactly the same. Even if the item being copied is a cherished possession, it can still be copied into an identical replica, but this copied item will not possess any supernatural power; it will simply be a counterfeit with no real power.

However, although the replica of the item retrieved from the magic box was a fake, it possessed an aura identical to the genuine article, so much so that even highly experienced players would find it difficult to distinguish the difference. In other words, without using the item, it was extremely difficult to tell the difference between the real and fake items simply by visual observation.

From the moment Fujiwara Chika acquired this object of her obsession, she considered the possibility that Li Ziyong might try to take it back.

Or to be more precise, she actually hoped that the other party would try to take back this object of her obsession.

Players are unsure what will happen after collecting the four Red Moon-level Core Relics needed for the Flesh and Stone Statue. As for Li Ziyong, a local, he probably doesn't know either, but he's certain that what happens will be bad for him, and therefore he will do everything in his power to stop the players.

The moment Gao Hai and Li Ziyong confronted each other, Qianhua realized that the hidden village where their group was hiding was likely to be exposed. Li Ziyong, having guessed their possible hiding place, would then inevitably come here. He would either target the statue or the core object of his obsession. Therefore, Qianhua's plan was very simple: to proactively give the enemy a target. So she copied the 38-sided pendant and deliberately carried it around, waiting for the enemy to come to her.

She was certain that compared to the jade pendant suppressed by the mountain god's power and the longevity lock, which the entire Li family had likely never seen before, this pendant's aura would be easier to lock onto and for the enemy to discover. Therefore, as long as the statue was well hidden and this item was deliberately displayed, the likelihood of the enemy prioritizing their side would become very high.

Chika made no attempt to conceal her plan. Therefore, the Red Moon-level players remaining in the village were prepared, waiting for the enemy to appear so they could mercilessly gang up on them. As for the Dark Night-level players, although Chika wanted to protect them and prevent them from participating in the ambush, Kaguya, after learning about and considering Chika's plan for a while, stopped her, stating that the Dark Night-level players must not know the plan and must not be allowed to take any action.

{The enemy isn't stupid. If these Night-level players, who are essentially cannon fodder, were to hide or take precautions, they would definitely realize the problem. These players are too low-level; given that Li Ziyong has Red Moon-level players cooperating with him, it would be far too easy for them to see through the scheme. Furthermore, we can't rule out the possibility that they might capture a Night-level player for interrogation or to extract their memories, thus directly learning our plan. Therefore, we absolutely cannot let them discover our arrangements.}

To be honest, when Kaguya brought this up, both Chika and Maki found it hard to accept, and even Goto Ichiri, who hadn't spoken much, felt a pang of guilt. However, Kaguya ultimately maintained a firm stance on the matter, and Chika and Ichiri accepted it without arguing. Only Maki, unable to bear it any longer, said a few more words, but ultimately also accepted it, choosing to treat the low-level players as expendable resources.

Having made this unavoidable choice, she was determined to reap a substantial reward. Chika was mentally prepared for this, so the moment Chen Qiu appeared, she used the power of the deep link to connect with Gao Hai and activate the third aerial missile.

whoosh-

Kaguya's long black hair danced, and the [Bizen Osafune Genko] in the girl's hand suddenly flashed out a cold light, piercing through Chen Qiucai, who was unable to dodge in time while trying to snatch the fake necklace.