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

He leaned against the headboard, staring blankly at the crack in the ceiling for a while. His mind wasn't on the guild, but rather on what he'd seen in the dungeon's basement—

Those twisted runes, that bleeding wall, and the words carved on it:

"They're not trapped inside the copy; they're moving out."

He didn't tell anyone that.

It wasn't that he didn't trust Zhao Qiang and Han Yingying; it was that he himself didn't understand what those words really meant.

For the next few days, the world was unusually quiet.

Zhou Lang maintained his daily routine—working part-time at a convenience store in the morning, studying dungeon materials in his rented room in the afternoon, and doing push-ups and planks in the evening. After the horror game arrived, those strange events were commonplace: an extra shadow under the streetlights, the TV changing channels by itself, and children laughing in the stairwell at midnight.

But these past few days, nothing has happened.

It was so clean it looked like someone had wiped the world clean again.

On the third day, Zhao Qiang called, his voice brimming with excitement: "Brother Lang, have you noticed? Nothing's been happening lately! Even the trash can downstairs that used to turn on its own is working normally again!"

"Um."

"Has the anomaly been eliminated? Has the game system finally had a change of heart?"

Zhou Lang didn't answer the question. He hung up the phone and sent Han Yingying a message.

[Waves: Is it the same where you are?]

[Han Yingying: Yes, it's been three days, and nothing strange has happened.]

[Han Yingying: I feel something's not right.]

Zhou Lang waited for her to continue.

[Han Yingying: Do you remember when those ghosts in the manor instance disappeared for a period of time between 3 and 4 AM?]

Zhou Lang remembered. During that time, the corridor was completely silent, eerily quiet. But after that, the number of ghosts appearing doubled.

[Han Yingying: The receding tide is for the rising tide.]

Six words made Zhou Lang's finger stop on the screen.

He drew back the curtains and looked outside. The sun was setting, the sky a deep orange hue, and a few birds flew past the power lines. Peaceful, serene, a picture of tranquility.

But Zhou Lang felt a chill down his spine.

On the seventh day, the countdown to the eighth instance appeared.

48 hours.

Zhou Lang was arranging shelves in the convenience store when his phone screen suddenly flashed, and the cold system notification popped up:

The eighth dungeon will open in 48 hours. Difficulty: S-rank. Please prepare.

He arranged the last box of instant noodles, asked his boss for leave, and returned to his rented room.

I came to a crossroads on the way, and the light was red.

Zhou Lang stood at the zebra crossing, waiting. Next to him stood an old man carrying a birdcage containing a green parrot. The parrot tilted its head to look at Zhou Lang and suddenly spoke.

"run."

Zhou Lang turned his head and looked at the parrot.

The parrot repeated, "Run, run, run, run, run, run, run."

The old man chuckled and said, "This is a new word the bird has learned, don't mind it, young man."

Zhou Lang didn't mind. But he quickly crossed the road.

Back in his rented room, he had just locked the door when the sky outside changed color.

It wasn't the usual change of a cloudy day; instead, large swathes of the sky began to darken from one side. The blackness spread from the west, not quickly, but with an oppressive force, as if something was slowly turning over on the other side of the sky.

My phone started vibrating incessantly.

Zhao Qiang's message: [Brother Lang!! Did you look at the sky?!]

Han Yingying's message: [Zhou Lang, something's happened. Open the news.]

Zhou Lang opened the news app, and the homepage pop-up was full of red headlines:

[Breaking News! Large-scale bizarre events reported in multiple locations across China!]

[Strange footage captured by surveillance cameras in a shopping mall in a certain city; 6 people are now missing]

[Police Urgent Notice: Citywide Curfew tonight]

He scrolled down—all the engines of vehicles on a highway in a certain province shut down at the same time; all the windows of a residential building in a certain city shattered simultaneously in the absence of wind; hundreds of people were crying out from a dry well in a certain town, and when the fire brigade went down to check, they pulled up the ropes, but the people were gone.

The high tide that follows the receding tide.

Moreover, this wave is bigger than any before.

Zhou Lang replied to Han Yingying's message: 【You were right.】

[Han Yingying: Don't worry about anything else for now, just make sure you're safe. Don't leave the house for the next 48 hours.]

Zhou Lang glanced at the refrigerator—the half-cucumber was still there.

Fine.

He locked the doors and windows, drew the curtains, and placed the bottle of "living dead ointment" beside him. The sky outside was completely dark, not the darkness of night, but a textured black, like ink seeping from cracks in the sky.

Someone was running in the hallway, their footsteps hurried and disordered, accompanied by cries.

Zhou Lang didn't move.

He knew that opening the door was the worst thing to do at this time. The strange rules varied from place to place, but one thing was almost universal—the door you open is an invitation you give them.

The night was long.

At two in the morning, the crying and screaming stopped, replaced by a continuous low-frequency hum, like some giant machine running underground. The whole building was trembling slightly, and ripples appeared in the water glass on the table.

Zhou Lang lay on the bed with his eyes open.

He was thinking about that line of text.

—They are not locked in the copy; they are moving out.

If this statement is true, then the boundary between the virtual world and reality is blurring. The eeriness is seeping into reality from the virtual world, with its intensity increasing each time. The first few times might have just been tests—a rotating trash can, an extra shadow appearing—but this time, it has already caused mass casualties.

What about next time?

He dared not think any further.

As dawn broke, the black sky faded, and sunlight streamed in again. But there was a faint, fishy smell in the air, like the earthy smell after rain mixed with something else indescribable.

Zhou Lang opened the window to let in some fresh air and saw that a window on the third floor of the building opposite was broken, with a dark red cloth hanging on the window frame—no, it wasn't cloth.

He looked away and closed the window.

As the 48-hour countdown reached its final second, Zhou Lang felt somewhat fortunate to still have half a cucumber left.

A white light appeared.

He was teleported to the dungeon entrance.

The gray square was much larger this time than last time, with at least thirty people. Zhou Lang found Zhao Qiang and Han Yingying in the crowd; both of them were there—Zhao Qiang looked unwell, with heavy dark circles under his eyes, indicating he hadn't slept well for the past two days.

"Brother Lang," Zhao Qiang leaned closer and lowered his voice, "I've added a few more people to my team this time, what about you?"

Zhou Lang opened the team information.

Five people.

He, Zhao Qiang, and Han Yingying were the original trio—these three were labeled in the system as "Teammate A (Zhao Qiang), Teammate B (Han Yingying)." There were also two other names.

Teammate C: Luo Qishan.

Teammate D: Shen Ye.

"I know teammate C," Han Yingying said. "I ran into him in the trading area last time. He's alright, and efficient. I haven't seen teammate D before."

Zhou Lang noted down the two names.

At the other end of the square, a person stood alone, his back to them, wearing a gray hoodie with the hood pulled low. Zhou Lang opened the information panel and compared the information—it was Shen Ye.