This entry is suspicious.

Damn... Zhou Ran's heart skipped a beat, and he was so shocked that the hairs on his body stood on end.

He instinctively thought it was a bizarre attack and almost drew his knife, but his movements froze when he saw the dead man's face.

This is Hu Tian.

Hu Tian stood there, his skin a deathly pale white, devoid of any color, his expression still the solemn one from just before the lights went out, as if he were still wary of the danger around him, unaware that he was already dead.

"Hu Tian is dead," Zhou Ran whispered.

The sound was particularly noticeable in the silent darkness, instantly startling everyone and drawing their horrified gazes.

"He's really dead, and he didn't resist at all." Fang Beichen briefly examined Hu Tian's body, his expression darkening slightly.

"We must have been attacked by a monster the moment the lights went out, and this monster is very likely to have rule-level killing abilities," Zhou Ran instructed quickly. "Maintain the lighting spell at all costs. Once the room is plunged into darkness again, more people will definitely die."

"There's a force constantly eroding the magic..." Cui Jin frowned, "It's like someone standing next to you blowing on a candle flame, trying to blow it out."

"The eerie thing wants to plunge the room back into darkness; that must be its killing rule."

Zhou Ran scanned his surroundings, trying to find something strange to glean his fate, but all around him was thick darkness, surrounding them like an isolated island in the sea.

Fang Beichen activated his mental cultivation technique, amplifying his five senses to the limit, but he still couldn't perceive what existed in the surrounding darkness.

"I'll try starting a fire."

Cui Jin unleashed Explosive Flame Flow once more, but this time the spell was clearly suppressed by a strange force. The raging fire wave that should have been unleashed was squeezed into a tiny ball of fire after it was unleashed, and it struggled in the air for a moment before it was unable to be extinguished.

"It's over...it's all over..." Guo Fan squatted on the ground, clutching his head tightly with both hands, wailing in despair.

Su Meilin bit her lip tightly. She had always thought she was numb and hopeless about the world, but when death was really close at hand, she realized that she did not want to die.

She wanted to live, even if it meant living a humble, filthy, and undignified life.

"I don't want to die..." Su Meilin let out a sob, on the verge of collapse.

"Shut up, all of you!"

Zhou Ran roared angrily, "These people just love messing with my mind. Don't they know fear is contagious!"

He took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down and think things through.

"The intensity of the [4-Minute Weird Frenzy] increases linearly over time. If we wait a little longer, other, even more powerful Weirds will definitely appear. And the Weird that only affects the entire room's darkness will inevitably clash with the power of the new Weirds..."

Zhou Ran's eyes gradually cleared.

"The bizarre rule-level killing ability can also be used on bizarre beings. So, as long as we wait for bizarre beings to fight each other, we can take the opportunity to wipe them all out."

After figuring this out, Zhou Ran felt much more relaxed.

In a sense, now is actually their safest time.

As long as they maintain the light and are not swallowed by the darkness, they can use this eerie dark hand to buy time and wait for a way out to appear.

The blood-written words on the back of the first painting convinced Zhou Ran that the path to survival lay in the third painting, but that path would only appear at a specific point in time.

To reassure the others, Zhou Ran shared his thoughts with them.

"That makes a lot of sense."

Fang Beichen immediately perked up upon hearing this. It seemed that this was not yet a truly hopeless situation, and hope still existed in the darkness.

Cui Jin nodded and said, "You're right. There were one strange attack after another just now, but now only the dark monster is attacking us. The other monsters have probably been suppressed or eliminated."

"What if... what if they're not affected at all, and we just can't see them in the dark? They might just emerge from the darkness and launch an attack at any moment."

Guo Fan huddled at the feet of the crowd, clutching his head tightly with both hands, his eyes wide open, his voice trembling with an uncontrollable fear, like a trapped beast driven to the brink of despair, having completely lost his mind.

"Fang Beichen, if he disrupts morale again, stab him!" Zhou Ran pointed at Guo Fan and said sternly.

This is the first time he has ever truly harbored murderous intent towards someone. Not only did he do nothing wrong, but he also kept spreading despair and shaking people's hearts. Keeping him alive would definitely be a disaster.

"Okay." Fang Beichen also felt that Guo Fan was dragging his feet too much.

"You...you can't do this!" Guo Fan shouted.

"Alright, shut up!" Su Meilin was also annoyed by his noise, and finally couldn't stand it anymore, so she kicked Guo Fan, who then shut up.

In the silence, time passed second by second.

Even with all that had happened, Zhou Ran had been silently calculating the time. After equipping the [Exquisite Heart], this was not a difficult task. As for the side effects of the Exquisite Heart, he couldn't worry about them now. Only by surviving could he afford to worry about the side effects.

One minute and thirty-two seconds.

This is the time that has passed since the first bizarre attack.

Two and a half minutes remain in the four-minute bizarre frenzy.

While I was thinking, another five seconds passed.

One minute and thirty-seven seconds.

Just then, Zhou Ran suddenly noticed a subtle change: the darkness in the room was weakening and receding little by little.

A few seconds later, the darkness began to recede slowly like a tide. The magical light that had originally only illuminated three or four meters away was now expanding inch by inch into the distance, first to five meters, then six meters, seven meters... The outlines of the furniture that had been swallowed by the thick darkness gradually emerged.

But the darkness had not completely receded; it still shrouded half the room.

"The darkness has receded, which means that a new, eerie force has joined in, but the darkness has not completely retreated, which means that the two eerie forces have temporarily reached a balance."

Zhou Ran analyzed the current situation while searching for the strange figure.

The bizarre existence takes many forms; some don't even have a physical form, they're just a picture, a line of text... Zhou Ran could only pray in his heart that these two bizarre beings would have a visible physical form.

Soon, he saw it.

On the ceiling of the room, a severely decomposed corpse lay flat like a giant gecko, its limbs outstretched, its swollen and deformed torso blocking the light from the overhead lamp.

However, at this moment, the corpse's body was gradually becoming gray and transparent, allowing the light to pass through it.

[Lights Out Curse], [Level Two Eerie], [Lights Out Means Death], [In Confrontation]

It really is a bizarre rule-based system!

Zhou Ran quickly searched for the other strange creature that was fighting against this one, but couldn't find it for a while. It was probably in the remaining thick darkness.

"Don't kill them yet, otherwise another strange force will gain the upper hand," Zhou Ran warned Fang Beichen and the other man.

"Understood." Fang Beichen nodded.

"What should we do next? Just wait for them to decide the winner?" Cui Jin asked.

"We can only wait."

Zhou Ran approached the third painting and reached out to touch it, but nothing changed; that special point in time had not yet arrived.

Everyone waited anxiously.

Ten seconds later, a new change occurred.

The darkness in the room quickly dissipated, leaving only a blurry outline of shadows enveloping the edge walls.

Before the bedroom door, a grotesque, tall silhouette emerged from the dissipating darkness.

It was an indescribable, twisted entity, its body densely covered with human limbs and organs: arms, legs, fingers, torso, eyeballs... and dozens of human heads, men, women, young and old.

Some heads and faces retained the bewilderment of someone just waking up; some were forever frozen in anger with bulging veins; some had eyes bulging with fear; and some had tears still wet on their faces from grief.

These organs were haphazardly piled on this body, like defective products carelessly discarded by some mad creator, chaotic, disordered, and grotesque.

[Flesh Mutant], [Level Two Anomaly], [Area-wide Mutation], [Devouring and Fusion], [Slow Movement], [Multiple Senses], [Mutant Proliferation], [Rapid Healing]...

A barrage of blood-red entries exploded before Zhou Ran's eyes, like a system warning message.

The strange creature before us possesses no fewer than ten abilities! No wonder it can withstand the rule-based [Lights Out Curse]!

"what!"

Su Meilin's scream suddenly shattered the silence of the room. The skin on her right forearm was bulging at a visible speed, as if something was growing wildly under the dermis.

Immediately afterwards, one after another, white fingers, like tender sprouts breaking through the soil, emerged from under the skin.

With the suppression of the Lights Out Curse gone, the power of the Flesh Aberrant began to spread throughout the room, and a wide-ranging aberration was taking place!

Fang Beichen's expression changed drastically. His left arm was a mechanical prosthetic, a cold metal creation that should have been completely numb, but at this moment, his entire left arm was throbbing with excruciating pain.

What's even more chilling is that bright red blood is constantly oozing out from the gaps in the prosthetic arm.

"Are you kidding me!"

Fang Beichen's pupils dilated in shock, and he completely lost his composure.

His left arm was sacrificed after he cultivated a special demonic technique, and it was difficult to regenerate. But at this moment, he could clearly feel the pulse of flesh and blood coming from deep within the metal and mechanical prosthetic body!

This was by no means a happy occasion, because the flesh deformity did not only occur in his left hand. A tearing pain came from his forehead, and his eyes opened bloody.

Others also began to show abnormal reactions.

Zhou Ran felt his heart pounding wildly at an unimaginable speed, while his mind became increasingly clear and his thoughts raced faster and faster.

The abnormal side effects of the heart mutation in [Linglongxin] were actually catalyzed by this strange phenomenon!

"Take it down!"

Zhou Ran suddenly drew his high-frequency battle blade and charged forward. This distortion ability was truly terrifying; if it continued, everyone would be doomed.

Fang Beichen rushed out first, and in the blink of an eye, he was in front of the strange creature. A layer of dark black flame suddenly ignited on the black blade, causing the light around the blade to distort.

There were no fancy moves, only a clean and swift slash. The black blade sliced ​​through the torso of the flesh-mutated being, which was piled with limbs and heads. Wherever the blade passed, the flesh and limbs quickly lost their vitality, dried up and disintegrated, turning into fine ashes that fell down in a flurry.

Dozens of heads simultaneously emitted piercing howls, extremely shrill, as if dozens of different people were screaming in their most painful voices.

Zhou Ran wielded his high-frequency battle blade, propelling it with five layers of force, slashing at the heads one by one, beheading them.

Seeing this, Fang Beichen swung his sword backhand and unleashed several slashes in succession, working with Zhou Ran to cut off all the heads from the flesh-mutated creature.

The difference was that the heads that Fang Beichen severed all shrank rapidly after hitting the ground, as if everything inside had been drained away, quickly turning into pale ashes and disintegrating.

The head that Zhou Ran cut off remained unchanged.

"Get out of the way!"

Cui Jin had no weapon, but his magical skills were astonishing. He unleashed a blazing palm strike from a distance, and the scorching flames instantly condensed into a giant palm the size of a millstone, which slammed into the flesh-mutated creature with a blazing wind.

The giant fiery palm suddenly exploded open, and orange-red waves of fire swept outwards with a roar.

The mutant staggered back a step, revealing horrific wounds on its body from which blood flowed incessantly. However, wriggling buds quickly emerged from the depths of the charred wounds, regenerating at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The heads that Zhou Ran had severed were also regenerating, with new tissue constantly growing at the severed necks. Only the head that Fang Beichen had cut off with his black knife remained completely still.

Just then, Guo Fan suddenly noticed that the third painting on the wall had changed.

The living room in the painting becomes more realistic; it no longer resembles a painting but rather a window, through which lies a real space.

Guo Fan was stunned for a moment, then burst into laughter and rushed toward the painting.

The next second, he fell into the picture frame and disappeared.

"A way out has appeared, hurry!"

Seeing this, Zhou Ran decisively abandoned the entanglement, unleashed the power from the soles of his feet, and rushed toward the third painting on the wall with unprecedented speed.

The next second, he passed through the painting and returned to reality.

Immediately afterwards, Fang Beichen and the others also left the strange space and landed in the living room of room 404 in the real world.

You have successfully resolved 2 bloody incidents.

[Number of entries extracted +2]

The sudden notification startled Zhou Ran, who froze on the spot, his gaze sweeping over the tops of his teammates' heads.

The "Death is Approaching" message above Fang Beichen and Cui Jin's heads had disappeared.

Clearly, the two people involved in these two bloody incidents are these two individuals.

"So, Fang Beichen and Cui Jin are safe now? What about me?"

Zhou Ran's face was grim. Although there was no mirror and he couldn't see his own entry for the time being, he was very clear that his Death Star was still shining brightly.

The same applies to Guo Fan and Su Meilin.

Zhou Ran's expression was complicated, and then he sighed.

Since things have come to this, let's start with a lottery.

In the spiritual world, a flash of light appeared, and new words emerged on the Book of Destiny.

[Great Strength: Strength tripled, but speed reduced by half.]

[The Eye of Truth: You gain the ability to see through the world's facade and touch its reality. However, as you gaze, something lurking in the shadows will also look back at you.]

Looking at these two entries, Zhou Ran can now be certain.

All entries produced by the Book of Fate have side effects!