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

Zhao Qiang's legs went weak, and he almost knelt down. Song Yutong's hand, gripping the dagger tightly, trembled. The professor's two teammates took a step back.

Zhou Lang stood at the very front, without moving.

He was looking at the chessboard.

There are chess pieces on the board—black and white. The black pieces are scattered throughout the board, while the white pieces are concentrated at the edges. He noticed a detail: there are eight white pieces.

Exactly eight.

"This is not a battle," Zhou Lang said.

"What?" the professor asked.

"The master of the chessboard—it's not for us to fight, it's for us to play chess."

The master of the chessboard swayed slightly, as if nodding, or perhaps mocking.

Then it moved.

A black hand reached out and moved a black piece on the chessboard.

The next second, the lone traveler collapsed to the ground, dead. There were no wounds, no blood; he simply fell.

"It made a move that resulted in the elimination of one of our players." Zhou Lang's mind raced.

"Should we go down too?" Zhao Qiang's voice changed.

Zhou Lang walked towards the chessboard. Could he understand it? He wasn't sure. But as he stood before the chessboard, that vague memory resurfaced, clearer than before.

He reached out and moved a white chess piece.

The master of the chessboard paused for a moment.

It made another move. One of the professor's teammates fell.

"Think of something quick!" the professor shouted.

Zhou Lang continued.

After several rounds, with each move by the master of the chessboard, one person died. The professor's last player, then the professor himself—

"professor!"

Before the professor collapsed, he glanced at Zhou Lang, his lips moved, and he uttered a word. Zhou Lang didn't hear it clearly.

Then there's Song Yutong.

"Brother Lang..." Zhao Qiang cried, "What should we do..."

Only three white pieces remain on the chessboard.

Zhou Lang, Han Yingying, Zhao Qiang.

The master of the chessboard reached out his hand to the black pieces once again.

Zhao Qiang trembled.

Zhou Lang frantically took a step down—he didn't know why he landed in that position; it was purely instinct.

The chess master's hand froze in mid-air.

On the chessboard, Zhou Lang's white piece formed a certain pattern. Black pieces surrounded the white piece, but the white piece was positioned precisely in a place where the black pieces could not place their pieces.

deadlock.

The master of the chessboard emitted a deep hum. Then the chessboard shattered.

All the chess pieces flew up, transforming into specks of light. The black, humanoid silhouette trembled violently, the city's buildings began to collapse, and space itself warped—

Han Yingying suddenly grabbed Zhou Lang's hand.

Her eyes changed—not the color, but what was inside them. It wasn't the gaze of a horror game player; it was something else entirely.

"I remember now," Han Yingying said.

Zhou Lang looked at her.

"Who are you?" No, that's not right. He didn't want to ask who Han Yingying was; he wanted to ask—

"You remembered too, didn't you?" Han Yingying's hands were clenched tightly.

Memories flooded in like a torrent.

This is not a game. Or rather, it is a game, but not a game in the human sense.

This is the chessboard of the evil god.

The bizarre descends, instances, rewards, evaluations—all these constitute a vast game arena. And the initiator of this game is an entity not of this world. An evil god, using the human realm as a chessboard, players as pawns, and fear as nourishment.

And Zhou Lang—

Zhou Lang is not a pawn.

He was the god who was pushed off the chessboard.

This world originally had a guardian, a righteous god. When the evil god invaded, the righteous god, in order to protect the world, dispersed his power among humans. Having lost his power, the righteous god became an ordinary person—a boy who had lost both his parents and was living with his older sister.

sister.

His sister was not missing. She was the last fragment of the righteous god's will, and at the moment the evil god started the game, she voluntarily entered the core of the chessboard to restrain the evil god's power.

Han Yingying—she is the other half of the True God. Not power, but memories. The True God entrusted his power to Zhou Lang and his memories to another human.

Two people, two halves of a soul, meet in the human world.

"That's why we keep running into each other," Han Yingying said. "It's not a coincidence."

"I know," Zhou Lang said.

The Master of the Chessboard—the incarnation of an evil god—revealed his true form after the chessboard shattered. It was not a human form, but a surging mass of darkness, so vast that it filled the entire space.

Zhao Qiang collapsed to the ground, too frightened to speak.

"Zhao Qiang." Zhou Lang turned to look at him.

"It's...it's right here."

"Take good care of yourself."

Zhao Qiang opened his mouth, but only managed to squeeze out, "You too."

Han Yingying held Zhou Lang's hand tightly. After her memories returned, a light flowed around her—the power of memories belonging to a true god, a warm, golden light.

"I'm giving you back your memories," she said.

Light entered Zhou Lang's body through her palm.

The feeling was peculiar. It was like the last piece of a puzzle falling into a gap. Zhou Lang suddenly understood the whole picture of this world—the operating rules of the instance, its bizarre nature, the weaknesses of the evil god, and how his own power should operate.

He's not someone who "has one more skill attribute than other players".

That entry about frightening ghosts is a remnant of the power of a righteous god. He uses fear to feed back to the source of fear, using the weapons of an evil god to fight against himself.

Zhou Lang turned towards the darkness.

"Your game is over."

Darkness surged and rushed in.

Zhou Lang went to meet him.

He didn't use a chainsaw, he didn't use scissors, he didn't use any duplication tools. He stretched out his hands, and golden light burst forth from his palms, colliding with the darkness.

The evil god let out a deafening roar.

Gold and black vie for dominance in space. Cities crumble, the ground shatters, and the entire chessboard world disintegrates.

Zhao Qiang was hit on the shoulder by a piece of rubble, and Han Yingying pulled him behind a crumbling wall.

The confrontation lasted a long time—or a very short time—in this distorted space, time lost its meaning.

Finally, the golden light swallowed the darkness.

The evil god's roar turned into a sob, and then into silence.

The darkness dissipated.

The world quieted down.

The white void reappeared, but this time it was not an empty white—it was the white of the morning light, a white with warmth.

The system's voice rang out, but it wasn't that cold, mechanical tone; instead, it was a soft, smiling female voice.

[Game over.]

The evil god has been purified.

The power of the chessboard has returned to its rightful place.

[All players who died due to the strange occurrence—resurrected.]

All those who have committed evil through the power of this strange descent—shall be judged.

The white light enveloped the three people; it was a warm, non-glaring light.

Zhou Lang closed his eyes.

When he opened his eyes again, he was lying in his own bed.

There's a water stain on the ceiling, left from a leaking heating pipe last winter, which the landlord hasn't fixed. The alarm clock shows 7:12 AM, and sunlight is streaming in through the curtains.