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

The reward amount stirred a subtle ripple among the crowd. Five thousand points of Oddity Points were enough to buy two decent three-star Ghost Weapons; two-star Ghost Weapons were even more valuable, easily exchanged for resources. Several players who had previously turned pale now showed signs of relief.

Li Feng raised his hand to urge things down: "But the prerequisite is—to complete the mission alive."

The soldiers behind him unfurled a huge floor plan, an aerial view of the factory. Red and blue lines intersected, marking three routes of advance.

"The production line is on the east side, the storage area is on the west side, and the entrance to the underground passage is on the west side." Li Feng traced his finger across the map. "Assign fifteen to twenty people to each route. If you encounter a three-star monster, don't fight it head-on. Mark its location with a flare and wait for backup."

"If we're lucky and the clearing of the outer perimeter goes smoothly, we'll meet on the third basement level in two hours." He looked at everyone. "Understood?"

No one answered, but the atmosphere became noticeably tense.

Zhou Lang, Zhao Qiang, and Han Yingying were assigned to the east production line. This route involved passing through a row of rusted conveyor belts and abandoned machine tools; the lighting was dim and visibility was limited.

"Walk close to the wall," Zhou Lang said in a low voice.

The group of twenty people spread out in a loose fan shape and advanced into the darkness. The beams of flashlights flickered on the greasy ground, and there was a lingering smell of rust and some kind of decay in the air, not strong, but persistent.

The first ones they encountered were low-level ghosts. They were semi-transparent, slow-moving, and could be cleaved in two with a single strike. But there were many of them, constantly seeping out from under machine tools and through pipe cracks. Some people got impatient and used Molotov cocktails. The flames lit up for a moment and burned seven or eight of them, but the thick smoke made nearby people cough.

"Use it sparingly," the middle-aged player leading the team whispered as he turned around. "There are still tough battles ahead."

After walking for about ten minutes, a problem arose in the group.

A short scream came from the right. Zhou Lang turned his head and saw a tall, thin player being pinned to the ground by something that had pounced down from the ceiling pipes. The thing looked like a human, but its limbs were bent backwards, its skin was grayish-white, and its mouth stretched to its ears.

"It's 'Crawler,' two stars!" someone shouted.

The tall, thin man struggled to get up, but the thing had already bitten his shoulder. The sound of bones breaking was clear.

Zhao Qiang rushed forward and swung the chainsaw in a wide arc, cleaving it down. A long gash was ripped open on the crawler's back, but it didn't let go; instead, it turned its head and bit Zhao Qiang's arm.

Zhou Lang slipped in from the side and shone the oil lamp over its face. The dim yellow light spread, and the crawler's movements visibly faltered. In that instant, Zhao Qiang's chainsaw severed its neck.

The gray head rolled out, the body still convulsing. The tall, thin man clutched his shoulder and got up, blood gushing from between his fingers; his face was as white as paper.

"Can you walk?" Han Yingying squatted down, placing her hand around the wound on his shoulder. A faint white light seeped from her palm, and the bleeding began to slow down.

"Yes...it's possible," the tall, thin man grinned.

The team continued forward. The atmosphere was even more somber than before. Everyone knew they had only gone less than two hundred meters into the production line.

After walking for a few more minutes, the middle-aged player leading the way suddenly raised his hand, signaling to stop.

At the end of the flashlight beam, on the open ground at the end of the conveyor belt, a figure was crouching.

No, it couldn't be called a shadow. The thing was nearly two meters tall, its body looking like dozens of pieces of flesh of different sizes sewn together, with thick, grotesque stitches and dark red thread. It had its head down, its shoulders rising and falling with its breath, and with each inhale, the stitches tightened a little more.

Samsung's Ghost, "Stitched Corpse Demon".

A collective gasp rippled through the ranks.

"Take a detour," the middle-aged player said in a low voice. "Go through the maintenance passage next to it, and don't disturb it."

"There's no way around it." Zhou Lang stared at the thing. "It's squatting right in the only passage. We either have to step over it or get it out of the way."

"Open it? You fucking joking?" the middle-aged player exclaimed, his eyes wide. "That's a three-star!"

"I'm not kidding," Zhou Lang said. "It's facing away from us right now. If we're quick enough, we have a 50% chance of slipping past it."

"Slip away?" Zhao Qiang grinned. "That's a really polite way of putting it."

The middle-aged player was still hesitating when someone in the back of the line became impatient: "What are you dawdling for? Taking a detour will take us much longer, and if we run into a few more three-star monsters, we'll all be done for."

"Shut up!" the middle-aged player roared as he turned around.

In the short time it took to say just a few words, the shoulders of the stitched-up corpse demon stopped trembling.

It slowly turned its head.

It has no eyes. Where eyes should be on its face, there are only two intersecting sutures. But everyone can feel that it is "looking" at them.

"Damn it!" the middle-aged player cursed. "Scatter! Find cover!"

Behind the conveyor belt lay the skeleton of an abandoned machine tool, a metal frame. The team scattered in a flash, each rushing towards the nearest cover. The stitched-up ghoul stood up, growing even taller, its joints creaking as it moved.

It lifted its foot and stomped on the ground. The vibration transmitted from the ground, and fine iron filings fell from the machine tool frame.

Then it started dismantling the bunker.

The first to pounce was the player on the far left with the Molotov cocktail. The moment the man threw the bottle, flames exploded on his body, but only charred the surface flesh; the stitches inside remained intact. The Stitching Corpse Demon reached out, grabbed the man's legs, and yanked them apart.

A muffled thud.

Blood splattered on the iron frame next to it, dripping down in a trickle.

"Fire!" the middle-aged player roared.

Gunfire erupted. Rifles, pistols, and even shotguns—someone pulled them out of nowhere. Bullets struck the stitched-together corpse demon, bursting into clumps of grayish-black fluff. It was knocked back two steps, but didn't fall. Instead, it was enraged and turned towards the direction from which the most intense gunfire was concentrated.

Zhou Lang didn't fire. He crouched behind the machine tool's frame, staring at the stitches on it. The oil lamp was slightly warm in his hands. He was considering a possibility.

"Zhao Qiang," he lowered his voice, "do you see the longest seam on its belly? The one that runs from the left rib all the way to the right hip."

"I saw it, so what?"

"Find a way to cut it open."

"Are you crazy?" Zhao Qiang's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. "I'm going to rush up and cut it?"

"I'm not telling you to charge in headfirst." Zhou Lang turned his flashlight to its brightest setting and shone it on the face of the stitched-up corpse demon. The bright light pierced its eye-less face, and it paused, letting out a low, metallic growl. "I'll distract it; you approach from the side."

"What the hell are you using as bait?"

"This," Zhou Lang said, shaking the oil lamp in his hand, "it seems to react to this."

Zhao Qiang wanted to curse, but he didn't have time. The Stitching Corpse Demon had dealt with the firepower on one side and was turning towards them.

Zhou Lang stood up, raised the oil lamp, and turned it to its brightest setting. The dim yellow light spread out, and the stitched-up corpse demon indeed stopped, its eyeless face "looking" at the light source.

Right now.