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

When the system notification popped up, Han Yingying felt a tightness in her stomach when she saw the first line of text.

[Fifth Dungeon: Crimson Circus]

[Mission: Survive seven shows at the circus and uncover the ringmaster's secret]

[Dungeon Difficulty: S-Rank]

S-class.

Since entering the game, the highest difficulty she'd encountered was A-level, which was already deadly enough. What would S-level mean? Double the mortality rate? Double the number of ghosts? Or was the rule itself a trap?

"Yingying!"

Zhao Qiang's voice came from the darkness. Then a beam of flashlight shone through, illuminating Zhao Qiang's round figure, with Zhou Lang standing beside him.

Zhou Lang had already lit the oil lamp in his hand, its green light outlining their surroundings in the darkness—the interior of a huge tent. The tent's ceiling was ridiculously high, obscuring the top. In the center was a circular performance stage, completely empty, but the floor was covered with large patches of dark stains.

"S-rank." Zhao Qiang's face was grim. "I've never seen an S-rank in my life."

"I saw him," Zhou Lang said. "If he gets out alive, he can brag about it later."

Zhao Qiang: "Your way of comforting people really needs improvement."

The three were examining the interior of the tent when the curtain at the entrance was suddenly lifted.

Fang Yi and Su Xiao stumbled in.

Both of them were in poor condition. Fang Yi's work jacket was torn in half, Su Xiao's ponytail was down, and there was a shallow scratch on her face.

"What happened?" Han Yingying went to greet her.

Fang Yi, panting with his hands on his knees, said, "I got scammed."

Su Xiao was calmer than him and quickly explained what had happened—they had been targeted by another player organization in the real world. That organization specialized in "harvesting" solo players in low-level dungeons, looting all their items and points. Fang Yi and Su Xiao refused to hand over their items, so the other party used some means to forcibly raise the difficulty of their dungeon to S-rank.

"Is this even possible?" Zhao Qiang's voice changed.

"Black market items," Zhou Lang said.

Su Xiao glanced at him: "You know?"

"I've heard of it."

Fang Yi straightened up, looking at Zhou Lang and Han Yingying with a complicated expression. He had refused Han Yingying's offer to team up in the previous dungeon, and now that they were in trouble again—he couldn't bring himself to ask.

Before he could speak, Han Yingying said, "Five people, just right. The participants in this instance are the five of us, right?"

Fang Yi opened his mouth, but couldn't say "thank you," so he finally nodded vigorously.

Su Xiao replied decisively, "That's the team."

The five-person team was officially formed.

The rules of the Bloody Circus were announced via broadcast ten minutes later. A shrill voice, like an old man speaking in a pinched voice, blared from the loudspeaker atop the tent—

"Welcome to our troupe! You are all new performers for this season. The circus has seven shows, each with a corresponding test. Successfully completing the show ensures survival, while failure means permanent retention by the troupe."

"The troupe leader will appear to comment after each performance. If you can discover the troupe leader's secret during the seven performances, you will receive an extra reward of a two-level upgrade in your pass rating."

"The first performance will begin in an hour. The performance will feature tightrope walking."

The broadcast has ended.

"Walking a tightrope?" Zhao Qiang looked up at the top of the tent, which disappeared into the darkness. "Walking my ass."

Zhou Lang had already started walking around the tent. His oil lamp shone on a wall, on which hung more than a dozen posters. The posters depicted different circus performances—tightrope walking, animal training, clown juggling, trapeze artists, knife and fire shows, magic, and the grand finale.

The seven posters correspond to the seven performances.

Han Yingying used her spiritual vision to scan the posters and discovered a line of small text hidden on the back of each one. She uncovered the first one—

"Below the tightrope isn't an abyss, it's an audience."

"What does that mean?" Fang Yi leaned closer to look.

Before Han Yingying could answer, all the lights in the tent suddenly turned on.

After the blinding white light, they discovered that the interior of the tent had completely changed. Directly above the circular performance stage, thirty meters high, stretched an incredibly thin steel wire. The two ends of the wire were connected to two platforms.

Below the stage—not the ground, but a densely packed audience seating area.

The audience seats were full.

None of the audience members had faces. Their smooth skin was covered only by two sunken eye sockets, all staring upwards.

Zhao Qiang swallowed back the profanity.

"Supplement to the performance rules," the voice from the loudspeaker blared again. "During the tightrope walking, if any performer falls, the audience will have an 'interaction' session. The interaction will involve tasting."

Su Xiao's face turned pale.

Instead, Zhou Lang squatted down and flicked one end of the wire with his finger. The wire made a buzzing sound.

"It's flexible." He stood up. "I'll go first, you watch which way I go."

"Wait a minute." Han Yingying stopped him. Her spiritual vision was still active, and she could see the internal structure through the surface of the wire—the wire was not uniform; there were three breaks in the middle, held together by some kind of adhesive. If you walked to the break point, the wire would break.

"There are three fake interfaces in the middle," she said, giving their approximate locations. "Stepping on them will break the connection."

Zhou Lang turned around and glanced at her.

There wasn't much in that look, but Han Yingying read the word "useful".

She rolled her eyes.

Five people took turns crossing the tightrope. Zhou Lang went first, avoiding three sharp points cleanly and efficiently. Zhao Qiang went second, crawling across using both hands and feet—an awkward but effective method. Han Yingying went third, and Fang Yi fourth.

An accident occurred when it was Su Xiao's turn. She walked to the vicinity of the second break point, and her legs went weak—not because of the break point itself, but because one of the audience members below suddenly stood up and reached out his hand towards the wire.

The hand grabbed the wire and pulled hard.

Su Xiao's body swayed.

Fang Yi almost instinctively lunged to the edge of the platform and grabbed Su Xiao's outstretched hand. The weight of the two of them pressed against the platform railing, which creaked and groaned.

Zhou Lang jumped back onto the tightrope from the other platform—he had actually run there—and stomped on the hand, breaking it. The grayish-white fingers scattered, and the audience below erupted in a noisy clapping sound.

Su Xiao was pulled onto the platform and sat on the ground for a long time without saying a word. Fang Yi didn't say anything either. The two of them just sat there until their breathing calmed down before they looked at each other.

Fang Yi's lips moved slightly: "Next time, you walk in front of me."

Su Xiao: "Just don't let go next time."

The first performance was approved.

Sparse applause and that shrill voice came from the loudspeaker: "Pass. Next performance—in two hours."

During the two-hour break, the five people split up. Zhao Qiang and Fang Yi searched the area around the tent for any other buildings. Su Xiao studied the information on the poster. Han Yingying and Zhou Lang inspected the tent's structure.

Han Yingying noticed that Zhou Lang was doing something strange—he was shining an oil lamp on the walls of the tent from different locations and then writing and drawing on the back of his hand.