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

It took Zhou Lang a full eight months to go from the "Ghost Realm" dungeon to the final entrance of the SSS-level dungeon.

Over eight months, he cleared the SS-level dungeon three times, with an absurdly low survival rate each time. The first time, seven out of fifty people returned. The second time, four out of thirty returned. The third time was the most extreme: twenty people went in, and only he and Han Yingying came out alive.

Zhao Qiang lost an arm in the second SS-level dungeon, but after getting a prosthetic, he could still fight. Lin Yan was a teammate they picked up in the second dungeon; he was taciturn but had extremely fast swordsmanship. Chen Ke joined last; he was a talkative young man, skilled at setting traps, and his verbal skills were even better than his physical abilities.

The four of them followed him all the way to the finals of the guild competition.

At this moment, the four finalist teams stood in front of the entrance to the SSS-level dungeon.

The entrance isn't in a parallel universe, but in the real world—the top floor of the Shengyuan Building, the tallest building in Linyang Province. The entire building has been sealed off by the military; the elevators only go to the top floor, and every stairwell is guarded by heavily armed soldiers.

The top floor has been renovated. The original office area has been completely removed and replaced with a door.

Calling it a door isn't quite accurate. It's a crack that stretches from the floor to the ceiling, with a low, humming sound constantly emanating from its dark depths. Standing three meters away, you can feel a persistent suction, as if something is breathing deep within the crack.

Zhou Lang's team was standing on the far left.

Beside him was the "Night Raven" team, led by Mu Chen, a man in his early thirties with an old scar running from his brow bone to his chin on his left cheek. He was the player with the highest kill count in the entire guild tournament. Behind him were four people, each carrying at least two ghost artifacts.

Next up is the "Iron Wall" team, led by a burly middle-aged woman named Fang Yan, who wields a two-meter-long bone knife, said to have been peeled from a four-star monster. Her team has the most balanced composition: two front-line fighters, one support, one ranged attacker, and one trap master.

The last team was called "Candlelight," and it only had three people. The team leader, Jiang Du, was tall and thin, wore glasses, and looked like a university professor. But Zhou Lang had seen him in action during the semi-finals—that man could control six ghost artifacts simultaneously with abnormal precision.

"Twenty people," Zhao Qiang counted softly, the metal fingers of his prosthetic leg tapping lightly on his thigh. "How many will come out after they go in?"

No one responded.

After hesitating for a while, Chen Ke said, "At least I have to come out. I've never been in a relationship before."

Lin Yan glanced at him, said nothing, and unfastened the clasp on the scabbard.

Han Yingying stood to Zhou Lang's right, staring intently at the crack. Zhou Lang noticed her expression was somewhat strange, not one of fear, but more like... recognition. It was as if she was trying to discern something from the darkness.

"Are you alright?" Zhou Lang asked.

Han Yingying snapped out of her daze: "Um, it's nothing. It just feels like this place looks familiar."

"Have you been to Shengyuan Building?"

"Not the building." She paused for a moment. "It's the crack."

Before Zhou Lang could ask any further questions, Li Feng's voice rang out from behind him. This military commander, who had been responsible for coordinating relations between players and the army for the past eight months, had lost twenty pounds, had sunken eyes, and looked at least ten years older.

"Everyone, there's absolutely no known information about the SSS-level dungeon," Li Feng said bluntly. "We don't know what's inside, we don't know the conditions for clearing it, and we don't know the enemy levels. The only thing we're certain of is—after clearing it, each surviving team can make one wish. Any wish is fine."

Mu Chen snorted: "The key word is 'survival'."

"Yes." Li Feng nodded. "So I suggest that the four teams cooperate in the instance and avoid internal conflict, at least until they understand the situation."

"Cooperation?" Fang Yan leaned against the bone knife. "You didn't say that during the competition."

Jiang Du pushed up his glasses: "Whether we cooperate or not, we'll talk about it after we go in. Let's go in first."

Zhou Lang didn't participate in the discussion. He reached into his pocket and touched the oil lamp. The lamp was warm, and the flame flickered weakly, like a restless heart.

The bandaged man's voice echoed in my mind: "Don't go in."

"here we go again."

"I'm serious." The bandaged man's tone was different from before; it was less lazy and more like something Zhou Lang couldn't quite put his finger on. "What's behind that crack is beyond your capabilities."

"Do you know what's behind the crack?"

The bandaged man remained silent for a long time.

"I'm not sure. But I can feel it, a very familiar, a very bad kind of familiarity."

Zhou Lang gripped the oil lamp tightly: "No matter what lies ahead, there is no future if we don't go in. You've seen it yourself, the supernatural is already invading the real world. Last month, cracks appeared simultaneously in three districts of the neighboring province, killing more than 800 people. If we don't address the source soon, the whole world will be doomed in less than six months."

The bandaged man didn't say anything more.

Li Feng made the final confirmation, and the four teams walked toward the crack in turn.

Mu Chen's "Night Raven" team was the first to enter. The five figures were swallowed by darkness, without sound or light, as if they had been devoured.

Fang Yan's "Iron Wall" team followed.

Jiang Du's "Candlelight" team came in third.

It was Zhou Lang's turn.

He glanced back at Li Feng. The young officer stood there, his lips pressed tightly together, his Adam's apple bobbing, saying nothing.

"Let's go," Zhou Lang said to his teammates.

Five people stepped into the crevice.

The instant darkness enveloped him, all of Zhou Lang's senses failed him. He couldn't see, hear, smell, or even feel the weight of his own body. He felt as if he had been thrown into a void, with no up or down, no front or back.

How long did this state last? Three seconds? Three minutes? Three hours? He couldn't tell.

Then the light came back.

It wasn't ordinary light. It was a grayish-white light, carrying a putrid aura, seeping in from all directions. The first thing Zhou Lang saw upon regaining his vision was—

A city.

A huge, dead city.

Buildings leaned precariously, roads were broken, the sky was a solidified leaden gray, there was no sun, no moon, and the source of light was unknown. The entire city seemed to have been forcibly pulled from the ground by some force, each building clinging to the earth with soil and roots, twisted and crooked.

The air was sweet. A cloying, rotten fruity smell that, if smelled for too long, would make one nauseous.

"What kind of place is this..." Chen Ke looked around.

Zhao Qiang's prosthetic arm made a soft sound, and the sensors on the arm sounded an alarm: "The concentration of strange phenomena here is more than twenty times that of an A-level instance."

Lin Yan had already drawn his sword.

Han Yingying stood rooted to the spot, her eyes fixed on a collapsed clock tower in the distance. The clock's hands were stopped at exactly twelve o'clock.

"What did you see this time?" Zhou Lang walked to her side.

"I've been here before," Han Yingying said softly.

"What do you mean?"

She shook her head: "I can't remember. I just had this feeling."