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

"Go tell her yourself!" Han Yingying was already crying.

"Zhou Lang." Zhao Qiang turned to look at him.

Zhou Lang squatted down and took his hand. That hand was already getting cold.

"Take care of her for me. She's all alone..." Zhao Qiang smiled. "I told her I was going on a business trip and would be back in two months. It seems I'll have to break my promise."

"Zhao Qiang." Zhou Lang's throat tightened.

"Don't make it sound like a life-or-death situation," Zhao Qiang said. "Aren't you guys going to fight that SSS-level dungeon? If you win, maybe... there'll be some kind of turning point."

He didn't finish the last word; his head tilted to one side, his eyes still open.

The light from Han Yingying's healing hand faded. There were no more targets to heal.

Lin Lei stood behind, speechless. Shen Mo took off his coat and covered Zhao Qiang with it.

Zhou Lang slowly stood up, turned around and walked towards the exit of the stadium.

The Rift Guild members were still there, surrounded by staff. Gu Ming stood with his arms crossed, his face expressionless.

Zhou Lang walked up to him.

"Your people used a venomous poison," Zhou Lang said. "The rules of the competition prohibit lethal methods."

"Where's the evidence?" Gu Ming asked. "Anything can happen in a strange space. Maybe it's just environmental factors."

Zhou Lang didn't say anything more.

He knew that contacting the management would be useless. The Rift Union had deep connections in the industry, and a simple explanation of "collateral damage" could silence all doubts. This wasn't the first time something like this had happened.

He remembered Gu Ming's face.

Back at the Dark Tide Guild's headquarters, the atmosphere was as oppressive as a coffin. After hearing what had happened, the Spider Queen remained silent for a long time, finally saying only, "Prepare for the next round."

That night, Zhou Lang went to room 302 of Anju Community in the east of the city.

A young woman with a ponytail, wearing an apron, and with flour still on her hands, opened the door. She paused for a moment when she saw a stranger standing in the doorway.

"Hello, who are you looking for?"

"I am Zhao Qiang's friend," Zhou Lang said.

Sun Qing's expression changed. Not with sadness, but with tension. She hadn't heard from her husband in so long, and any visit related to Zhao Qiang made her uneasy.

"What... happened to him?"

Zhou Lang opened his mouth.

He made up a lie. He said that Zhao Qiang had been temporarily transferred to another province for a mission and communication was difficult, so he asked him to let him know he was safe. Sun Qing believed him, her tense expression relaxed, and she even insisted on giving him two freshly steamed buns.

After leaving the residential area, Zhou Lang clutched the steamed bun in his hand and walked quite a distance before stopping.

"How long do you plan to keep this a secret?" the bandaged man asked.

"You kept it from me until I finished the SSS-level dungeon," Zhou Lang said. "Zhao Qiang is right, winning might turn things around."

"What if there isn't one?"

Zhou Lang did not answer.

Dark Tide Guild won all three of the following matches.

The opponents varied in strength, but they all shared one thing in common—each team had a past grudge against the Dark Tide Guild. The Spider Queen said it was a coincidence, but Zhou Lang didn't believe her. The match schedule was generated by the system, but the system never did anything without a reason.

Some people don't want them to make it to the finals.

But they still made it in.

In the semifinals, they faced the "Iron Wall" guild. This team excelled at defense and counter-attacks, with all five members being tanky tanks. The match was incredibly grueling, lasting forty minutes before a winner was decided. Shen Mo's stealth was the key to victory; he circled around to the enemy's backline and eliminated their only damage dealer with a single strike.

Their opponent in the finals is the "Blood Moon" guild.

The battle was swift and decisive. The Blood Moon Guild's captain was a master of poisons, but Han Yingying had prepared an antidote beforehand—Zhao Qiang's death had instilled in her an almost obsessive vigilance towards poisons. As the Blood Moon's poisonous fog spread, the five members of Dark Tide, wearing masks, charged straight in, catching their opponents completely off guard.

The system announced that Dark Tide Guild has won the championship of this year's guild competition.

As soon as the reward was credited to my account, a new interface popped up.

Congratulations! Your team has qualified for the SSS-rank dungeon "Divine Realm".

The instance will open in 72 hours.

[Participating Teams: 4 teams in the finals.]

[Note: This instance does not have a resurrection mechanism. Death is permanent.]

There is no resurrection option.

Zhou Lang stared at the last line of text, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. In all previous dungeons, even the A-rank Ghost Realm, at least the physical bodies of the fallen players remained, only their souls were damaged. But this dungeon was directly marked "Permanent Death."

"Scared?" the bandaged man asked.

"No," Zhou Lang said. "I'm just thinking that this time I have to be prepared to die."

The day before the opening of the SSS-level dungeon "Divine Realm", the four finalist teams gathered under the arrangement of the Administration Bureau.

Besides the five members of the Dark Tide guild, there are also Blood Moon, Iron Wall, and a guild called "Abyss." The four teams together have twenty people.

The Administration provided no information about the instance, only saying, "Once inside, you'll be partners, not adversaries."

These words made Zhou Lang uncomfortable. What did the Management Bureau know? How much did they know about SSS-level dungeons?

I don't have time to think about it anymore.

The dungeon entrance appeared in the central square of the city. A massive stone gate stood out from nowhere, its frame covered with densely packed runes that emitted a ghostly blue light.

"Let's go," Zhou Lang said to the people behind him.

Han Yingying, Shen Mo, Lin Lei, and a Dark Tide Guild member temporarily added to replace Zhao Qiang—codenamed "A Gui"—is the Spider Queen's apprentice, wields a two-star ghost weapon longbow, and excels at ranged support.

Twenty people stepped through the stone gate one by one.

The light engulfed his vision, and when he opened his eyes again, Zhou Lang found himself standing on a vast, white plain. There was no sun in the sky; the entire world was evenly illuminated by a grayish-white light, making it impossible to discern the source of the light.

Beneath my feet lay cracked, gray earth that stretched to the horizon. There were no buildings, no trees, nothing at all.

A system notification popped up.

Welcome to the SSS-rank dungeon "Divine Realm"

[Mission Objective: Reach the temple at the end of the world and uncover the truth.]

[WARNING: Within this instance, the effects of all artifacts and skills will decay over time. At the 72nd hour of the instance, all external buffs will completely disappear.]

"All our equipment will be useless in 72 hours?" Lin Lei's expression changed. "Then what are we going to use to fight?"

"Fight with your life on the line," Shen Mo said.

The first day was relatively peaceful. The twenty people formed a large group and moved forward. The greyish-white plain was deserted except for the occasional crack. But everyone was on edge. It was too quiet; an SSS-level dungeon couldn't be this easy.

Night—if there is night here—the sky turned ashen. The temperature plummeted.

Then they came.

Emerging from cracks in the ground, they had no fixed shape, resembling condensed black mist, but within the mist were eyes. Hundreds and thousands of eyes darted through the mist, fixed on them.

"Scatter!" someone shouted.

The first wave of attacks took two lives within thirty seconds. One of the Ironwall Guild's shield bearers had his shield pierced directly by the black mist, turning into a pile of ashes in two seconds. He didn't even have time to scream.