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

System notification: [Lord defeated successfully. Based on damage contribution, Team 1 has 67% contribution, and Team 4 has 33%. Team 1 wins.]

The professor took off his glasses, wiped them, and looked at Zhou Lang: "Interesting. Let's collaborate sometime."

Zhou Lang nodded: "Okay."

The scene shifts back to the competition hall.

The final rankings were displayed on a huge screen.

First place: Zhou Lang Union.

Zhao Qiang was so excited he almost jumped up. Song Yutong and Liu Dayong were also laughing. Han Yingying stood next to Zhou Lang, saying nothing, but the corners of her mouth were turned up.

Zhou Lang looked at the words "First Place" on the screen, then looked at a line of smaller text at the bottom of the screen.

The champion team will qualify for the SSS-rank dungeon. The dungeon will open in three days. The champion team, along with the runner-up, third-place, and fourth-place teams, will enter together.

Four teams entered the SSS-level dungeon together.

Zhou Lang withdrew his gaze.

three days later.

The entrance to the SSS-level instance is not in the system space, but in the real world.

The coordinates were an abandoned church. Located on the edge of the city, surrounded by overgrown weeds, it appeared to have been abandoned for many years. But when the twenty-four members of the four teams gathered at the church entrance, the doors opened by themselves.

Inside was a white void.

It wasn't a corridor, it wasn't a room, there was nothing there, just endless white.

As the twenty-four people entered, the white void began to distort. The ground grew from beneath their feet, the walls rose from the sides, and the ceiling closed in from above. Like building blocks, a structure was assembled before their eyes.

It is a city.

It wasn't big, just a city the size of a palm—no, they'd shrunk.

No, that's not right either. It's space itself that's distorted; every street in the city extends in different directions, some upwards, some downwards, and some curving at impossible angles.

Like Escher's paintings.

A system notification popped up: [SSS-level dungeon: God's Chessboard. Mission: Reach the center of the chessboard and defeat the Chessboard Master. Time limit: None. Death is irreversible.]

There is no time limit.

But the dead cannot be brought back to life.

The twenty-four people were scattered in different locations throughout the city. Zhou Lang's team of five was placed at the starting point of an uphill street.

"Watch your step, everyone. The direction of gravity is not fixed here." Zhou Lang looked around. "Walk close to the wall and grab onto anything you can."

Zhao Qiang carefully stepped on the ground: "For now, the gravity is normal—"

Before he could finish speaking, the ground beneath his feet flipped ninety degrees. Zhao Qiang fell to the side, but Liu Dayong grabbed him by the collar.

"I take back what I just said," Zhao Qiang said.

The five people walked along the street. Occasionally, dark shadows could be seen flitting past the windows of the buildings on both sides of the street, but no strange creatures came out to attack.

After walking for about an hour, they encountered the professor from the Fourth Union and his team.

The professor's team has only four people left.

"There was a trap around the corner," the professor said, his expression calm, but his voice was different than before. "Two of us didn't have time to react."

Zhou Lang didn't ask for details. "Want to go together?"

"it is good."

The two teams merged. The nine people groped their way forward in this twisted city, taking each step with extreme caution.

Half an hour later, they encountered the remnants of the Third Guild—only two people remained. The Second Guild was in an even worse state; only one person escaped alive, and he was missing an arm.

The four teams have a total of twelve survivors.

"Where is the center of the chessboard?" the professor asked.

"All roads are converging in one direction," Zhou Lang said. "Just follow the road."

He was right. Although the city's structure was incomprehensibly chaotic, all the streets ended in the same direction—a huge square.

The problem is that the traps on the way to the square are becoming increasingly dense, and the eerie creatures are starting to take the initiative.

The first to fall was one of the two members of the Third Union. He stepped on a seemingly normal paving stone, which sank in, and he fell into a bottomless abyss. The other member of the Third Union froze for two seconds, then knelt at the entrance to try and pull him out, but the opening had already closed.

Then came a member of the Fourth Union. A hand reached out from the wall and pulled him inside, so fast that no one had time to react.

The professor's expression began to change.

"The drop rate for this instance is too high," he said in a low voice. "We need to change our strategy; we can't continue like this."

"There is no other way," Zhou Lang said.

"But if we keep going like this—"

"I know."

Zhou Lang actually knew more than he showed. From the moment he entered this instance, he had a strange feeling—he had seen this city before. Not in any instance, nor in a dream. It was a deeper memory, like a stone at the bottom of water, its outline vaguely visible.

Han Yingying was also acting strangely. She walked behind Zhou Lang, stopping several times to stare blankly at the buildings on both sides of the street.

"What's wrong with you?" Zhao Qiang asked her.

"These houses..." Han Yingying shook her head, "They're nothing special."

On the last stretch of road before reaching the square, a bizarre, large-scale attack was launched.

A dozen or so dark figures surged out of the building, moving with incredible speed and taking on various shapes. Some resembled humans, some wild beasts, and some were simply indescribable shapes—just a writhing mass of black.

"Form ranks!" Zhou Lang shouted.

The twelve people stood back-to-back in a circle. Zhou Lang blocked their way, clearing a path with a chainsaw. The professor directed his team to attack with props from the other side.

But there are too many strange things.

Liu Dayong was grabbed by a dark shadow around the waist, and he was sent flying and crashed into the wall. He was motionless when he landed.

System notification: [Player Liu Dayong has died.]

"Dayong!" Song Yutong called out, her eyes reddening.

"Don't stop!" Zhou Lang roared.

Song Yutong gritted her teeth and continued fighting with the dagger in hand.

During the breakout, the last member of the Third Union and the missing member of the Second Union also fell one after the other. The Fourth Union lost another member.

By the time they reached the edge of the square, only eight people were still alive.

Zhou Lang's side: Zhou Lang, Han Yingying, Zhao Qiang, Song Yutong.

On the professor's side: The professor and two team members.

Plus a random person who joined us halfway through the journey.

In the center of the square stood a giant chessboard. It wasn't Chinese chess or Go; it seemed more like some ancient game, one that didn't belong to human civilization. Above the chessboard floated a black, human-shaped silhouette.

The master of the chessboard.

It had no face, no features; it was simply a humanoid black shadow. But when it "looked" at the eight people, everyone felt it—

fear.

Pure fear, devoid of any rational analysis. Like having your heart squeezed.