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

A black cloud of mist seeped out from behind the tree trunk, without a fixed shape, and slowly crawled across the ground.

Surprising.

The bizarre in reality.

Sensing Han Yingying's approach, the black mist suddenly contracted into a ball and then crashed into her at an extremely fast speed.

A month ago, Han Yingying would have been so frightened by this thing that she would have turned and run away.

But now, she sidestepped and pulled a short knife from her pocket with her right hand—equipment she brought from the strange world.

The blade sliced ​​through the edge of the black mist, and the thing let out a piercing scream, retreating several meters and bouncing back and forth between tree trunks, as if assessing the threat level of the human before it.

Han Ying didn't give chase. Her goal wasn't to kill it, but to confirm one thing.

The strange things in reality are increasing. And—they're preventing her from getting close to certain places.

The last time she came to this forest, she found a strange stone tablet with incomprehensible symbols carved on it. Before she even got close, her senses were disrupted, and she suffered a splitting headache, forcing her to retreat. This time, she came prepared.

The black mist rushed in again, but this time Han Ying didn't dodge. She gripped her short sword tightly and prepared to slash.

Clean and efficient, the black mist was split in two and vanished silently.

She continued to walk in.

The stone tablet was still in the same place, but it was a size larger than she remembered. No, it wasn't that the stone tablet had gotten bigger; rather, the surrounding ground had sunk, revealing more of the part that had been buried in the soil.

Han Ying squatted down and shone her phone light on the surface of the stone tablet. She still couldn't understand the symbols, but she took a picture with her phone.

Just then, a wave of dizziness hit me.

It wasn't some strange interference, it was—memory.

The images flickered in her mind like the static on an old television screen. She saw a blurry figure standing in the dungeon; the person's movements, positioning, and fighting style all conveyed a feeling that was both familiar and strange to her.

The identity of a big shot.

That person who swept through everything in the dungeon… she'd seen him before. Not in the bizarre world, but much earlier—

The image shattered, and the memory was interrupted.

Han Yingying knelt on one knee, her forehead covered in cold sweat.

It took her a full five minutes to recover.

She couldn't remember everything. But she remembered one detail: the skill that person used in the dungeon was exactly the same as Zhou Lang's "Scare Ghosts" skill...

When Zhou Lang entered the sixth instance, he knew things were not going to be peaceful.

Before the white light of the teleportation had even completely dissipated, he heard footsteps. Not the footsteps of a dungeon NPC—they were too synchronized, with a deliberately suppressed rhythm.

This is a player.

And there's more than one.

"Get down!"

Zhou Lang grabbed Zhao Qiang beside him, and the two darted into the roadside bushes. Almost simultaneously, three throwing knives whistled past their heads and embedded themselves deeply into the tree trunks behind them.

With his face pressed against the muddy ground and a withered leaf in his mouth, Zhao Qiang mumbled a curse.

"People from the Skull Rift Society," Zhou Lang said in a low voice.

Twenty meters away, five players wearing dark blue coats emerged from behind a tree, the leader of whom was none other than the bald man they had encountered at the transfer station last time.

"Why are you running?" The bald man cracked his knuckles as he counted on his fingers. "There are no safe zones in this instance."

Zhou Lang's mind raced. This instance's terrain was an abandoned town, and he and Zhao Qiang were teleported to a forested area on the outskirts of the town. Han Yingying and her teammates should have spawned in another direction.

There were five people on the other side. They had throwing knives, and their equipment didn't look cheap.

Zhao Qiang lowered his voice: "Brother Lang, it's not that I'm a coward this time, let's run?"

"They can't escape." Zhou Lang stared at the two people behind the bald man. "Someone has circled around from behind."

Sure enough, a rustling sound came from the bushes behind them.

Zhou Lang stood up and patted the dirt off his clothes.

"Stop hiding," he said to Zhao Qiang, then looked at the bald man. "You know the dungeon rules, right?"

The bald man laughed: "I know, surviving to the end is the way to win. Killing you all isn't against the rules."

"That's not what I meant." Zhou Lang took out a chainsaw from his inventory and skillfully pulled the starter. "I meant—the monsters in this dungeon will come over when they hear any noise."

The smile on the bald man's face froze for a moment.

Just then, a huge noise came from the direction of the town. The ground shook, and a cloud of dust rose from the distant ruins.

Without hesitation, Zhou Lang grabbed the chainsaw and charged at the bald man.

It's not the direction of escape, it's a frontal assault.

"Damn it, is this guy crazy?!" The bald man instinctively took a step back, but it was too late.

The roar of the chainsaw exploded through the woods. The bald man drew his dagger to parry—with a "crack," the dagger broke in half.

Zhou Lang kicked the bald man in the chest, sending him flying three meters away, while simultaneously dodging a sneak attack from behind.

Zhao Qiang shouted from behind, "Han Yingying is here!"

From the woods to the east, Han Ying led the three men, including Jingzi, out. Qi Liuhai threw a chain that wrapped around the leg of the man to the right of the bald man, while the third brother punched another man to the ground.

Mirror stood in the distance, holding a black notebook and muttering incantations—his skill was "Recorder," which could temporarily block a target's access to items.

"Baldy, your equipment won't be usable for ten seconds." Mirror pushed up his glasses.

The bald man struggled to his feet, his face covered in blood. He looked at the chainsaw still spinning in Zhou Lang's hand, then at Han Yingying and the others who had surrounded him, and finally spat out a mouthful of blood.

"Fine, you guys win." He wiped his mouth. "The Skull Rift will remember this."

"If you can't remember, just do it a few more times. I'll make sure you remember it better." Zhou Lang turned off the chainsaw.

The bald man and his men retreated.

Zhao Qiang collapsed to the ground: "Damn it... you went up there with a chainsaw, do you know there were five of them?"

"Six," Zhou Lang corrected, "and one escaped."

"Then why did you charge in?!"

"Aren't we just waiting to be surrounded?" Zhou Lang put the chainsaw back into his inventory. "Besides, I bet they've never seen anyone use a chainsaw to chop people up before. Their first reaction will definitely be bewilderment."

Zhao Qiang opened his mouth, but found that he couldn't find any fault with it.

The dungeon run was actually easier than the skirmish. The mission in the abandoned town was to find seven keys to open the cellar in the town center—Zhou Lang didn't want to describe what was locked inside, but in short, Han Yingying stabbed it seventeen times before it died.

Level completion rating: Perfect.

But what Zhou Lang cared about was something else entirely.

When the dungeon results screen popped up, he noticed a line of extremely small gray text in the lower left corner, which flashed for less than half a second before disappearing:

"Abnormal data stream detected... Source: BUG_037... Related: Real-world coordinates 37.4219N, 122.0841W..."

He used his phone's screen recording function to capture the last few frames.

After exiting the instance, Zhou Lang immediately showed the screenshots to Han Yingying.

"BUG_0037." Han Yingying stared at the string of numbers, her brows furrowing. "The coordinates of the stone tablet I investigated in reality... are around here."

The two exchanged a glance.

"The bizarre bugs in the dungeon and the bizarre occurrences in reality are from the same source," Han Yingying said.

"Are you investigating in real life too?" Mirror interjected, and the three of them had different expressions—Mirror was thoughtful, Bangs was shocked, and the third brother had a look that said, "I knew things weren't that simple."