Infinite spooky game

With forty minutes left in his stay, Qis stood up from the high-back chair, walked through the hall painted with murals of gods, walked to the bronze door of the temple, and pushed it open to go out.

Because it was not a big day, the number of people in Sunset Ruins was much less than last time. He was not teleported to some corner this time, but appeared directly under the list stone tablet next to the trunk of the World Tree.

The three major lists, [Newcomer List], [Overall Strength List] and [Guild Power List], stood silently. Qi Si glanced at the rankings and found that the ranking of his and Lin Chen's [Unnamed Guild] suddenly jumped up a lot.

It rose from the bottom of the list at 2397 to 217th place.

It’s not that the strength of the unnamed guild has been improved much in the short term, but most of the guilds at the bottom of the list are in name only.

Many guilds were established during the chaotic period when the game first came out. They have been growing wildly for thirty-six years, and all the people in them have died, leaving only their names as evidence of their existence.

They have all transformed into business-oriented players who just live a life of idleness and waiting for death, investing and doing side jobs to earn points all day long, and have not entered a new dungeon for several years.

The craze for creating guilds has passed. Although there are still many players who choose to join guilds, the choice is basically limited to the top players, and the players cannot be diverted to guilds ranked below the top 100.

In this way, the Unnamed Guild, which has two active members, stands out from the bottom of the guilds.

According to research in the forum, the Guild Power Ranking will calculate the total number of guild members, the number of dungeons completed by members, and the popularity of the group and individuals, convert them into hidden points, and perform a comprehensive weighted ranking.

Hidden points are cleared once a month on average, so no matter how glorious your past was, it will not affect your current ranking.

Qi Si and Lin Chen just cleared the "Ghost" dungeon as TE, and Lin Chen's name even appeared on the list. The calculated hidden points must be not low.

This might be the reason why the Unnamed Guild jumped into the top 300, surpassing some small guilds that were still active.

Qi Si walked towards the wasteland with a sign that read "Unnamed Guild" and activated the effect of [Special Pass from the Dean] on this piece of land that served as a smokescreen.

The surrounding scene distorted, and in the blink of an eye he appeared in the Frog Hospital, which was the real guild headquarters.

A piece of paper with the title in Founder Small Song No. 2312 and the text in Founder GB28 Fangsong, with the fixed value of in black and white, was floating in front of me.

[Invitation to the Weird Game Frontier Information Exchange Conference]

[Note: This file was transmitted by the "Jiuzhou" Guild using points, and does not represent the position of Supreme Rules and Weird Games]

Qi Si read the above text information and roughly extracted two key pieces of information:
4. At 20: p.m. on April , the "Jiuzhou" Guild will host an exchange meeting at Sunset Ruins to announce some information about the trends of the strange game and discuss subsequent responses.

2. All the top 300 friendly guilds have been invited. Each guild can send one to five people to participate. In theory, all invited guilds will give face to "Jiuzhou".

Qi Si was not surprised to receive the invitation. He left the name "Siqi" in the guild information, so it would be unreasonable for him not to notice it.

As for whether or not to accept the invitation to attend this so-called exchange meeting...

Qi Si directly passed the invitation letter to Lin Chen through the soul contract, with a message attached: "On April 4, I will attend with you."

Firstly, he established the guild in order to get a piece of the pie in the old guild system and gain more information, knowledge and experience;

Secondly, the wording of the invitation letter was ambiguous but also very clear. Not giving face would mean that it was not a "friendly guild" and would probably be labeled as Xila or Tianping.

"I wonder if a certain star player who has already quit the Jiuzhou Guild will be present? Since they are already involved with the Tingfeng Guild, whose side should they be considered on in this situation?"

Qi Si thought of an interesting proposition and laughed.

To be fair, he was still looking forward to meeting Fu Jue.

Since Tang Yu told Lin Chen that Fu Jue knew the deeper secrets about the identity card and encouraged him to find Fu Jue, then even if it was a trap, some of the information in it would definitely not be groundless.

If Lin Chen were to ask questions in the name of the guild's president, the other party would feel embarrassed to answer perfunctorily in public.

Qis has already obtained information about the identity card from the puppeteer. He only needs to get another piece of information from a different source so that he can compare and piece it together, and to a certain extent, distinguish the true from the false.

He believes that this identity card system, which is considered useless by the general public, is just the tip of the iceberg.

There must be a lot of secrets behind it.

"Got it! Brother Qi, do I need to prepare anything in advance on April 4th?" Lin Chen's voice came steadily.

"Change your behavior these few days. It's best not to let anyone you know recognize you as 'Lin Chen'."

Qi Si collected the pass, and the surrounding scene curled up like a newspaper soaked in water and disappeared in just a few seconds.

He once again stood on the dry wasteland of Sunset Ruins. The orange-red sky reflected on his body like blood, making his white shirt look golden.

"From now on, you are 'Lin Crow', and you can only be 'Lin Crow'."

……

"I always feel like I'm walking further and further down a road with no light in sight..."

Dong Xiwen walked on the dry land of Jerusalem, watching the tanks coming and going on the distant horizon, listening to the sounds of artillery fire and gunfire blown by the wind. He could almost imagine how every inch of soil under his feet had been soaked in the blood of holy war over the past thousand years.

Jerusalem, a sacred city in the eyes of devout believers, is one of the few places abandoned by the Federation since mankind entered the 21st century.

Religious influence is so intertwined and deeply rooted here that there is no room for reason, science, or even power and violence to intervene - or it can be said that religion itself is part of power and violence.

Dong Xiwen is not a religious person, and he joined the Libra Church simply because it is the only force that can still cause enough unhappiness to the Federation.

His parents died early, and he and his younger brother depended on each other for survival. After his brother's tragic death, he felt that life was meaningless, and he only wanted to do everything he could to kill the culprits, shake up the unfair mechanism, and avenge his brother.

But gradually, as he got to know the Libra Church better, he felt a strong sense of confusion.

Will the world really become a better place if the Libra Church wins?
Is replacing the ruling class from capital to religion simply disguising power as another form of violence?
And... why did he, who always claimed to be rational, suddenly choose the Libra Church?

It's like... possessed.

Dong Xiwen once again recalled what another leader of the Libra Church, "Yuan", said to him before he left.

"Your brother Dong Ziwen was once a member of our team. I am glad that you have inherited his spirit and chosen to join us. He left some relics with me, and I think I should give them to you."

"Yuan" is a middle-aged white man with stern eyes like an eagle, but his hard features show a kind smile like a president announcing his inauguration. He has broad shoulders and his hands resting on the table make him look like a triangle, giving people a sense of calmness, reliability and approachability. Dong Xiwen took the so-called relics from "Yuan" with doubt, which were some photos and written records - his younger brother Dong Ziwen still loved to write a diary.

The person in the photo was definitely his younger brother, and the handwriting was flawless. Dong Xiwen was shocked to find that his younger brother had planned to kill several people who bullied him in junior high school, and it was the Tianping Church that helped to deal with the beginning and the end.

Dong Xiwen had a vague impression of those deaths. Although it made sense logically, he still couldn't connect the sinister and cruel boy described in the diary with his quiet and lonely younger brother.

As a rising star in the weird game, Dong Xiwen's status in the scale rose rapidly, and even Bai Ya was polite to him.

At that time, he directly said to "Yuan" suspiciously: "Although you are the eldest, don't treat me as a fool. If my brother is so capable, how did he die?"

"Yuan" said: "He died in a weird game."

More evidence appeared before Dong Xiwen, including some posts on the forum containing the name "Dong Ziwen", some video and audio recordings, and... a jade pendant that Dong Ziwen had carried since he was a child.

"Yuan" handed the jade pendant to Dong Xiwen and said, "Dong Xiwen expected that you would not believe some things, so he sealed this jade pendant with me in advance, just to give it to you now. You should also know that with your current status, it is not worth it for me to deliberately make up a lie."

That day, Dong Xiwen took away his brother's belongings and wore the jade pendant close to his body.

He felt that "Yuan" still had a lot of information to tell him, such as why his brother, who was so powerful according to word of mouth, died in a simple copy; why a name that was so famous in the past had not been mentioned for so many years...

He was about to investigate further when he received an urgent order from Bai Ya.

All members who have been on the list of newcomers in the weird game went to Jerusalem together to take something very important that is worth everyone's life.

Time goes back to the present. A slender figure of a white crow appears in the yellow sand in the distance. A woman is holding a white mask of unknown material in her hand. Behind her is a large group of men and women in white robes, approaching step by step.

That mask must be the so-called "important thing".

The members who were scattered everywhere and ready to respond at any time also gathered together, including Dong Xiwen, who had been paddling for half a day.

As he moved forward among the crowd, the jade pendant on his chest suddenly felt slightly hot, as if it was an illusion caused by excessive fatigue.

When he looked up at the white crow again, his vision was clearer than ever before.

He saw the hollowed-out smiling face on the mask, the golden vine patterns on the edge, and the refreshed prompt text:

【Name: God's Face】

[Type: props]

[Effect: After wearing it, you will be isolated from all weirdness, mystery and faith]

[Note: Legend has it that a believer who abandoned God used it to imprison a god; others say that it was God who took the initiative to wear it and abandoned His people]

……

In the Jinjiang Community of Jiangcheng, Qi Si logged out of the game directly from the Sunset Ruins and opened his eyes in his own apartment.

He sat up and felt as if there was nothing around him, as if he had penetrated a critical membrane and dispersed into a nothingness with nowhere to end.

He lowered his head and saw his spirit body in red, knowing that he had fallen ill after a long absence.

I don't know if it's because it became an [Undead] or because it was affected by the [Scarlet Priest] card, but the spirit's appearance has changed slightly from the original.

The originally neat red suit was covered with crack-like patterns, with golden marks outlining vine-like lines. The shape was familiar yet unfamiliar, and I couldn't remember where I had seen it before.

What changes more is the world in front of us.

Perhaps because the ghosts and monsters nearby had been harassed by Qis too many times or for some other reason, they had already cleared themselves out, leaving a vacuum zone with a radius of five meters with him as the center.

However, his vision could penetrate the obstruction of the wall and see the evil spirits wandering in the distance.

That was not "seeing" in the true sense, but a kind of perception. He seemed to be connected to countless ghosts by invisible threads. As long as he thought about it, he could feel all the strange existences in this city.

For a moment, he gained a bird's-eye view, and a floor plan composed of large and small monsters appeared in front of him. Because almost every corner was crowded with ghosts, this picture was exactly the appearance of the entire city.

The farther away, the darker the sky, symbolizing the unknown, but there are still a few bright spots.

A small piece of bright irregular pattern covered the direction of Qijia Village, and the brown and yellow earthy color told him that it was the territory of Qijia Village.

There was an unfamiliar area in the other direction. He zoomed in and a thought told him that it was Su's Village. He used his strange tentacles to sense the investigators coming and going nearby.

In addition, there are countless small dots scattered around, most of which are in North America, where the insomnia bacteria are rampant; and a few are in Long County, which are the transferred insomnia bacteria and the people controlled by the soul contract.

Zeiss zoomed out, the land shrank before his eyes, and he was able to take in the whole picture.

He saw that the boundaries were not static. The uneven, worn edges were slowly wriggling and changing shape, like a piece of growing meat, swallowing the nutrients around it and becoming a part of itself.

Yes, the land is growing.

Qi Si thought of the "Ghost" copy for no reason. The range of the strange effect was originally only Yanghua Town, but as time went by, the surrounding mountains and forests also unknowingly became a part of the strangeness.

"pollute".

A word popped into his mind, dirty and graphic enough that Qi Si liked it.

The spread of weirdness is like the spread of pollution; as long as there is contact, it cannot be stopped.

And he, for some reason, seemed to have become a living, walking source of pollution.

This kind of pollution had been going on secretly for a long time, and it was probably started when he sent the statue of the God of Joy to Qijia Village.

And it was not until today that he saw the results of his work by chance, just like a squirrel storing pine cones for the winter and accidentally digging up a warehouse full of pine cones that he had forgotten.

Qi Si smiled, withdrew his gaze, and floated on the ceiling of the bedroom again, looking down at himself lying on the bed with his eyes closed.

Beside my ear, a smiling voice whispered: "I once said that you will dominate the weirdness." (End of this chapter)