A bizarre and terrifying experience; I messed up the dungeon world.

"That's a cockroach that's half a person's height! And it has a human face!" Zhao Qiang's voice rose eight octaves.

"See, that's it." Han Yingying spread her hands.

Shen Mo sat on the edge of the platform, his legs dangling in the air, his eyes fixed on the churning gray mist in the void. Zhou Lang walked over and sat down next to him.

The two remained silent for a while.

"What did you see in room B4-017?" Zhou Lang asked.

Shen Mo didn't answer immediately. After a long while, he finally spoke: "I've seen the underlying architecture of this game."

"What kind?"

"A giant loop," Shen Mo said. "All instances, all anomalies, all players—all are in one loop. The starting point and the ending point are the same place."

"What location?"

"SSS-rank dungeon".

Zhou Lang took a moment to process this information.

"You mean, SSS-rank dungeons aren't the end, but rather—"

"It's the beginning. It's also the end," Shen Mo said. "This game is an ouroboros."

Ouroboros. A snake that eats its own tail. A symbol of endless cycles.

Has anyone broken this cycle?

Shen Mo glanced at Han Yingying.

Zhou Lang noticed the direction of his gaze.

"You know about her?"

"I saw the founder's record on the wall of B4-017," Shen Mo said. "Someone broke it once. But only half of it."

Half of it was broken. Therefore, Han Yingying lost her memory and returned to the loop.

"Why is it only half?"

"Because of encountering a god." Shen Mo uttered these two words and then stopped talking.

Encountering a god. The part of Han Yingying's memory that had been erased.

Zhou Lang turned to look at Han Yingying. She was bickering with Zhao Qiang, who had said something silly, and she chuckled and patted the back of his head. It was a very ordinary scene.

He looked back.

She didn't tell him what she saw in B4-017. He could sense it. But he didn't press her. Everyone has their own rhythm; she'd tell him when she was ready.

If she doesn't say anything—that's fine too. He doesn't need to know everything to move forward.

three days later.

System notification: Lin Mu, Su Xiao, and Chen Feng have completed the SS-level dungeon "Shipwreck Graveyard". Rating: SS (highest).

Zhao Qiang nearly jumped out of his chair: "I passed! I passed on the first try!"

Five more days passed.

System notification: Lin Mu, Su Xiao, and Chen Feng have completed the SS-level dungeon "Clock Tower". Rating: SS (highest).

It received the highest rating twice in a row.

When the three returned to the transfer station, Su Xiao had a strand of white hair, Chen Feng's left hand was wrapped in bandages, and Lin Mu didn't seem to have any external injuries, but the dark circles under his eyes were so thick they could be used as ink.

"Don't ask about the details." Lin Mu sat down, picked up the water Zhao Qiang handed him, and drank it in one gulp. "Ask because I don't want to remember."

Su Xiao slumped on the bench, covering her eyes with her arm: "The Clock Tower instance, the weird way it attacks is by filling your brain with noise. One hundred and twenty hours, one hundred and twenty hours of non-stop noise. I don't think I ever want to hear a bell again."

"What time is it?" Chen Feng asked habitually.

Su Xiao took off her shoes and threw them at him.

After a brief moment of laughter, the atmosphere became serious again.

All six people are now qualified to participate in the union competition—strictly speaking, five, Zhao Qiang is still not qualified. But Han Yingying made a decision.

She used her recovered memories to find a solution.

"Follow me." She led everyone to the edge of the transfer station, where there was a hidden panel. Han Yingying reached out and entered a password on the panel—7-3-7-3—and the panel popped open, revealing a management interface.

She operated it a few times.

[Registration for X Union members is now activated]

[New members: Langligelang, Zhao Qiang, Lin Mu, Su Xiao, Chen Feng, Shen Mo]

Registration complete. Total number of members in Guild X: 10

"Ten people." Zhao Qiang looked at the panel. "Only ten people including the six of us? This guild only had four members before?"

"Four are enough." Han Yingying unconsciously repeated what the silver earring had said.

Zhou Lang watched her actions without saying a word. But he noticed something—Han Yingying knew the management password for the X Guild. This meant that her relationship with the X Guild was far deeper than she had shown.

Han Yingying turned around to face everyone.

"Registration for the union competition requires union membership. Now that you are all members of the X Union, you meet the registration requirements."

"Wait a minute." Lin Mu raised his hand. "How do you know the X Guild's password?"

"The silver earring told me that," Han Yingying said.

This answer wasn't a lie—in a sense, the silver earring did indeed convey information to her, albeit through the recovery of B4-017's memories.

Zhao Qiang raised his hand: "I have a question."

"explain."

"I'm not qualified to participate in the guild competition, so joining the guild wouldn't help, would it?"

"You're in logistics," Han Yingying said.

"What can logistics do?"

"Moving things, cooking, doing laundry, tidying up the place—"

"I refuse."

"And there are those who are responsible for cheering."

"...Alright then."

After registering with the union, everyone returned to the real world.

The moment Zhou Lang stepped out of the game space, he sensed a change.

The sky was an odd color. It was already three in the afternoon, but the sky had a sickly orange-red hue, as if sunset and sunrise had been mixed together. There were half as many pedestrians on the street as last time, and the remaining people walked quickly, no one was talking, and their expressions were all tense.

In a residential building by the roadside, three entire floors of windows were boarded up.

"The strange occurrences have intensified." Han Yingying looked at the sealed windows. "It wasn't this bad when I came back last time."

My phone is piled with over a hundred unread messages. An emergency announcement has been issued: 23 bizarre incidents have occurred nationwide in the past week, three times the number from last month. Curfews have been declared in some areas.

Zhao Qiang scrolled through his phone, his face growing increasingly grim: "It's the same where I live. My mom said a new security booth suddenly appeared at the entrance of our complex overnight, and the people who went in never came out again."

"The fake building looks weird," Zhou Lang said. "Just seal off the security room."

"My mother used a more direct method," Zhao Qiang said. "She burned it."

"...Your mother is quite reckless," Zhou Lang commented.

"I'll follow her lead." Zhao Qiang paused for a moment, "No, I won't."

Han Yingying didn't join the conversation. She stood by the roadside, gazing at the changing sky, her mind racing.

SSS-rank dungeon. Ouroboros. Loop. Encounter with a god.

These fragments kept colliding, arranging, and recombining in her mind.

She had reached the finish line. She had broken half of the cycle. She was the only one who had ever left the game.

But she came back.

Why?

What happened when you "encountered the god"? Is there a way to break the cycle hidden in that erased memory?