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

Han Yingying was woken up by her alarm clock.

She sat up abruptly, and what came into view was the ceiling of her bedroom—white and clean, without the filthy gray of the eerie world.

The real world.

She's back.

Every time she returned to reality from the eerie world, she felt as if she had been transported to another world. Han Yingying glanced at her phone; it was 6:30 in the morning, eight hours since she last entered the eerie world.

But she stayed in the bizarre world for almost three days.

The flow of time is different. She was already used to that.

Han Yingying washed her face, sat down at her desk, and turned on her computer. She was researching something—information about the arrival of the eerie game. She had been doing this for a long time, gathering information ever since she first entered the game.

Three months have passed since the bizarre game began. The official explanation is that it's an "abnormal phenomenon," urging the public not to panic and saying that solutions are being researched. But Han Yingying doesn't believe this.

She opened an encrypted folder containing the materials she had been organizing over the past few days.

Statistics on missing player cases, location distribution and timing patterns of strange phenomena...

While she was looking through a news report, the screen suddenly went black.

It wasn't a power outage—the desk lamp was still on, and my phone had a signal. It was just that the computer screen had turned completely black, and then a line of text appeared on it:

Stop investigating.

Han Yingying's fingers hovered above the keyboard, remaining motionless.

Three seconds later, the screen returned to normal, and the text disappeared as if it had never appeared.

Three months ago, this scene would have been enough to scare Han Yingying so much she would have smashed her computer. But now—she's fought ghosts in S-rank dungeons and been hunted by her guild in eerie worlds; this little trick won't frighten her anymore.

She reopened the folder and continued reading.

The screen went black again.

This time it wasn't text, but images. An eye appeared on the screen—a huge, bloodshot eyeball with vertical pupils, like a snake. The eye stared straight at Han Yingying, and black liquid began to seep from the edge of the screen.

Han Yingying reached out and closed the computer screen.

"Annoying," she said.

She tried a different approach, taking out paper and pen and starting to organize the information by hand. The strange power could interfere with electronic devices, but it couldn't possibly interfere with paper and pen.

It turned out she was overthinking it.

She had just written the third line when her pen suddenly stopped printing. She tried another pen, but it still wouldn't print. She tried every pen in the drawer—they were all ruined.

"Fine." Han Yingying stood up. "So you won't let me investigate, huh?"

She closed her eyes and mobilized the power within her body. After several trials in dungeons, her strength was now vastly different. A warm current rose from her dantian, flowing through her meridians and throughout her body.

When she opened her eyes again, the temperature in the room plummeted. The unseen, eerie forces that had tried to stop her dissipated in the face of the aura she released.

It's like the tide meeting a dam.

Han Yingying picked up the pen again—and the ink flowed.

She quickly scribbled down the information she had previously compiled, her mind racing. The fact that the strange force didn't want her to investigate meant she was on the right track.

She stopped writing on the second page.

A scream came from outside the window.

Han Yingying walked to the window and drew back the curtains. Down on the street, a middle-aged woman was pointing at a tree and screaming. That tree—Han Yingying squinted—had a human face growing from its trunk. The features were distorted, and its mouth opened and closed, as if it were saying something.

Passersby stopped to watch; some took photos, some called the police, and many more screamed and ran away.

Han Yingying's heart sank.

Strange phenomena have begun to appear in the real world.

She quickly dressed and went out. When she reached the tree, the face in the tree had disappeared, leaving only a blurry indentation. Police had cordoned off the area, and several people in white coats were collecting samples.

Han Yingying did not approach; she stood on the periphery of the crowd, observing the scene.

This is not an isolated incident. According to her previously collected data, seventeen similar incidents occurred in the past week. The frequency is increasing.

She turned and walked back, a picture suddenly flashing through her mind—

A gray sky, twisted buildings, monsters roaming the streets...

This scene is all too familiar.

A bizarre world.

The real world is turning into a bizarre world.

Han Yingying paused. At the same time, more images flooded her mind—not her own memories, but... those from the dungeon.

She remembered.

In the basement of the haunted manor, she had seen a wall covered in writing. She hadn't had a chance to examine it closely then, but now the words were replaying in her mind, one by one:

"The strange occurrence is not a natural disaster, but a man-made one. The source lies in reality, the key is in the instance. Find the bug, end it all."

Bug.

The word exploded in her mind.

She also recalled something else—in the dungeon, she had briefly seen someone's back. She hadn't recognized the person at the time, but now, recalling their movements, habits, even the way they walked…

"Zhou Lang?" she murmured.

No. It's not just Zhou Lang. There are others too. Those who appear as powerful figures in the dungeon, in reality...

Her memory ended there, as if severed by some force. Han Yingying tried hard to recall, but the more she tried, the more blurred it became, until finally only one piece of information remained:

The strange occurrences are related to a bug in the dungeon. And this bug is also affecting the real world.

She had to tell Zhou Lang.

The sixth instance.

As the loading screen faded, Zhou Lang found himself standing in an abandoned factory. Overhead were rusty steel beams, beneath his feet was cracked concrete, and the air was thick with the smell of rust and machine oil.

[Instance: Abandoned Factory]

[Difficulty: Level A]

[Mission: Survive in the factory for 72 hours and find an exit to leave.]

[Special Rule: If other player teams are present in the factory, PVP will be enabled.]

When Zhou Lang saw the words "PVP enabled," the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

Han Yingying stood beside him, her expression grave. Zhao Qiang stood on the other side, his face pale. There were three other people in the group—teammates they had met at the transfer station in the bizarre world, codenamed Lao Chen, Xiao Yu, and A Jie.

"A PvP instance." Old Chen, a man in his thirties with extensive experience, understood the situation immediately upon seeing the rules. "The Blood Pact members are definitely in this instance as well."

"Not definitely," Zhou Lang said, "but definitely."

He received news before entering the dungeon—the Blood Pact guild had spent a large sum of money to bribe information brokers to specifically monitor their team's dungeon matchmaking. Blood Pact had sent at least two teams to this dungeon.

"Twelve people," Han Yingying said. She had also received intelligence that "Blood Pact sent twelve people, divided into two teams."

Zhao Qiang swallowed hard: "Six of us against twelve?"

"What's there to be afraid of?" Zhou Lang squatted down, picked up an iron pipe from the ground, and weighed it in his hand. "Good quality."

"Brother, can you be serious for once?" Zhao Qiang was almost in tears.