Infinite spooky game

"How much is this prayer wheel?" Qis asked the shop owner.

This is a shop that specializes in selling Tantric Buddhist products. On the wooden table opposite the door, there is a statue of Mahakala with six arms waving. On the wooden shelf on the side are various ritual instruments, including skull bowls and bone trumpets, lodapins and human skin drums, and more importantly, prayer wheels.

The shop owner, wearing a cassock, sat cross-legged on a cushion with his eyes closed. He fiddled with Buddhist beads with his left hand and chanted: "Om Ah Hum, the savior protects all living beings; Om Ah Hum, the god of fortune bestows blessings; Om Ah Hum, the god of the graves protects the dead souls..."

The chanting of Mahakala and the prayer for blessings were lingering in the cramped room, and Qisi could somehow understand and comprehend its purpose. He waited quietly for a while, but when he didn't get a response, he asked again, "How much is this prayer wheel?"

This time he picked up a prayer wheel and made a move to leave. The shopkeeper finally opened his eyes and said in a hoarse voice, "Exchange it for something you got from the Mother Goddess."

The answer was exactly the same as the bus driver's. Qi Si was prepared. He took out the [Ink Soul Scroll] from the prop column and handed it over.

[Name: Ink Soul Scroll]

[Type: props]

[Effect: Open a door that only spirits can enter for 60 seconds, suspected to lead to an unknown dimension (cooling time 24 hours)]

[Note: The unknown poet wrote poems with his soul. He did not know that the creation that exhausted his heart and soul was a ritual, and the work was pollution.]

This item is not the most useless one in Qis's hand. It can even be described as "very valuable". If used properly, it may turn the tide of the battle at a critical moment.

Qis replaced it with the intention of testing the copy mechanism and placing an idle chess piece.

Yesterday he traded the ticket with the Ghost Driver's Recorder, and that evening he heard the hymns being broadcast via the recorder in the inn.

It is known that when the player enters Shangri-La Town, the hymn resounds throughout the city, which means that NPCs can create hymns without using any props. Only the player needs to use a recorder to record and play it.

Qi Si was almost certain that the [Ghost Driver's Recorder] had passed into the hands of another player after leaving him. As for the identity of that person, he also had some guesses -

There is "another him" in this copy, and the direction is too clear...

The person who knows oneself best is oneself. Based on the above inferences, Qis is able to infer what "the other him" - let's refer to him as "Zhou Ke" for the time being - did yesterday.

After Zhou Ke got the [Ghost Driver's Recorder], he immediately recorded the entire hymn in the city. According to his daily habit, he played it right after recording and found the clue that "the hymn will attract pilgrims".

A single piece of evidence is not enough to prove a point, so Zhou Ke conducted another experiment when pilgrims gathered together at night. He successfully attracted pilgrims from all over the city to gather outside the inn, confirming the conclusion he reached during the day.

The players who entered the final copy could not be just Qi Si, Fu Jue, Lin Chen and the other twenty-two people. The other identity card holders and followers bound to their small cards must also be in this copy, but they are scattered everywhere - in different timelines or locations, and they have not been encountered for the time being.

Bai Ma said that twenty-two travelers also arrived in Shangri-La twenty-two years ago. Qis tends to believe that there are twenty-two players in every time and space.

Even if Zhou Ke, Dong Xiwen and Zhang Yiyu were in the same time and space, there would be nineteen people who were hostile to them, or at least not in the same camp and could not gain Zhou Ke's trust.

Based on Qis's understanding of himself, when faced with such a huge disparity in power, he will inevitably take risky moves in order to gain greater benefits. The next step will most likely be to use some means to gain dominance and force other players to make certain concessions.

The method, of course, is to use hymns to attract pilgrims - pilgrims who are full of malice towards the players and are eager to convert them and atone for their sins.

When the pilgrims surrounded the inn, the players had only two options: compromise with Zhou Ke or die with him. Most normal people would choose the former.

Of course, there is a fatal problem with Zhou Ke's plan. With his strength, other players can easily shut down the recorder as long as they rush forward...

This is when the [Ink Soul Scroll] needs to intervene.

Qi Si has never been a narrow-minded person who cares about his own uniqueness to the point of madness, and who would do everything he can to kill another self after meeting him.

On the contrary, in the competition with "others", he is happy to be on the same front with himself temporarily, and after eliminating all those boring and idle people, he will slowly play a game with himself.

He is even willing to allow countless more of himself to appear in the world. On the one hand, playing with himself is much more interesting than playing with others. On the other hand, the best one can be determined through survival competition, thus increasing the probability of "Qis" winning in the end.

He suddenly became curious about what the "fool trickster" Zhou could have achieved.

……

The situation in the inn was tense, and everyone picked up their weapons and attacked Zhou Ke. The cold light in the air intertwined into a sharp net.

In a flash, a long landscape scroll appeared out of thin air in Zhou Ke's hand. He raised his hand and threw the long scroll high up. In just a few seconds, it covered the sky above the hall like a gray haze.

The flowing ink-colored landscape was suspended above his head, and the edges of the long scroll were blurred like fog, rendering the surrounding walls and furnishings with the texture of ink and wash. Zhou Ke's figure became almost transparent, and all attacks that penetrated his outline were like entering an invisible realm and were completely eliminated.

"Look at Luoda Pinxuehuci, the so-called mandala is colorful, the so-called dancing beads are bone beads, and the so-called messenger's body is shiny and bright..."

The strange hymns sounded low and deep, like the accompaniment of an ancient shaman's sacrificial dance, circling layer by layer in the hall of the inn and drifting off into the distance like waves.

More and more pilgrims gathered at the door of the inn, knocking their heads with each step, making a rhythmic "bang bang" sound, and the earth seemed to resonate with them.

The first row of pilgrims had already entered the inn, crowding towards the hall. The players could see the bones under the cloth and smell the rotten smell on their bodies. Zhou Ke's figure and the tape recorder playing the hymn disappeared completely. Only a figure outlined by ink was added to the long scroll above his head, and the outline of a young man in a white shirt could be vaguely seen.

If we want to subdue him, we must trace him back to the scroll, but that is Zhou Ke’s home court, and going in is like a sheep walking into a tiger’s mouth.

The young man in the black suit put the sword on Dong Xiwen's neck, raised his head slightly, and said coldly: "Zhou Ke, turn off the recorder immediately, otherwise I will kill your companions."

Dong Xiwen had anticipated this situation when Zhou Ke attacked Lin Jue and others, so he immediately moved to the edge of the battlefield, but he was still a step too slow.

He wanted to cry but had no tears. He just wanted to yell at the young man, "It's useless for you to hold me hostage. I am just a consumable item in Qis's hands. I am in the same boat with you guys. Do you think he cares whether I live or die?"

Zhang Yiyu's reaction was slower than Dong Xiwen's. It was not until Alexi's dagger stabbed at her that she bent her fingers into claws and blocked the attack.

The ghost energy in her body was stimulated and surged in her blood vessels. Purple-blue vein lines appeared on her face and the color of her dark eyes spread out, staining the whites of her eyes an eerie blue-black.

Alexei took half a step back, but reacted quickly. He dodged Zhang Yiyu's claws flexibly while clenching the dagger and stabbed at the girl's heart.

Dong Xiwen watched the two men fighting, feeling sad in his heart. He couldn't help but complain to Dong Ziwen in his mind: "Brother, was our boss so righteous when he was young? Is it considered betrayal of the Libra when he helped the Ark Guild fight?"

Dong Ziwen: “…”

Yes, Alexi, the [High Priest of Disaster], is one of the leaders of the Libra Church, "Yuan", but a younger version who has lost twenty-two years of memory. Who would have thought that such a passionate young man would grow up to be a politician who plays tricks and secretly opposes the Federation?
The strong wind outside the inn blew the wind chimes and bone pieces under the eaves, making a crackling sound. Ice chips blew into the room through the cracks in the door and wall, and the coldness spread over the floor, soaking everyone's bones.

"Everyone, I think we can talk peacefully now." Zhou Ke's voice came from above, as if separated by a thick medium, vague and distorted. "I'm not a misanthropist who yearns for the destruction of the world, nor am I a madman who is happy to see everyone die together. At least my original intention is not to perish with you - and I hope you won't push things in this bad direction."

Xiao Fengchao snorted, his mouth twitching slightly: "The plot has developed to this point, do you think we can still trust you? The shameless, the heartless, the beastly, the ghosts have all gathered together, our next step is to die together on the same day of the same month of the same year..."

“No need to say more.” Lin Jue made a gesture, signaling the others to be quiet, his smile turned bitter, “Now it seems that we have no other choice but to negotiate peacefully. Zhou Ke, I want to know what your intention is in doing this.”

"The purpose... I've said before that this is a method that can allow you to pass the level directly." Zhou Ke's voice was neither hurried nor slow, as if he was just talking about a trivial matter. "Lin Jue, if I remember correctly, your identity card is [Dark Judge], right?"

Lin Jue nodded: "That's right."

He seemed to have figured something out, with a hint of relief in his eyes: "The effect of this card is to sentence a player to be guilty, and cause the copy to continue to generate bounty missions for that player."

Zhou Ke laughed: "It seems you know what I'm going to say. The main quest of this dungeon has not been refreshed yet, and it is very likely that there is no main quest. The former is already troublesome enough; if it is the latter, it is too bad, which basically means that this is a dead dungeon that cannot be cleared.

"Crisis keeps coming. Many of us have been affected by the dungeon mechanism and are showing signs of aging backwards. We may still have a glimmer of hope, but as we stay in the dungeon longer and longer, our thinking and memory will decline to an irreversible point. Even if we clear the dungeon, we will become useless. It's pitiful, isn't it?
"We don't have any survival experts, and our physical fitness is certainly not as good as that of professional athletes. It is not realistic to cross the snowy mountains by our own strength. The most ideal situation is to create a main task as soon as possible and then complete it."

Zhou Ke paused, then changed the subject: "Of course, it doesn't matter if you don't do this. The result will be nothing more than failure to pass the level and staying in the dungeon forever. Rather than struggling in vain for another seven days in this broken place and dying miserably and painfully, it's better to die today and die quickly."

Dong Xiwen had personally experienced the "Colosseum" dungeon and witnessed a series of mechanisms triggered by the activation of the [Dark Judge] effect. He understood Zhou Ke's plan in a second.

After [Dark Judge] finds someone guilty, the dungeon will generate a main quest to kill that person. You can complete the task to clear the level.

The originally extremely complex copy will be directly transformed into a trolley problem of killing one person and saving everyone, and the blame will only be limited to Qi Si who proposed this issue and Lin Jue who designated the sinner.

Apart from the scapegoat who was killed, this plan had all the benefits for other players. The only problem was that the Ark Guild led by Lin Jue usually claimed to be righteous and would never sacrifice innocent people.

But in the face of real survival, reputation and morality are nothing.

Zhou Ke smiled and persuaded: "President Lin, what do you think? Sacrifice one person and save the others, or let everyone die together? Whether from the perspective of utilitarianism or pragmatism, it should not be difficult to make a choice, right?
"I believe that you are not the kind of egoist who cherishes your reputation as much as you cherish your feathers, and who is willing to let everyone die with you in order to maintain your selfless image."

The players' eyes were focused on Lin Jue. Some hoped that he would activate the effect and end the game as soon as possible. Some worried that they would be chosen as sacrifices because they met Lin Jue by chance. Some felt sorry for him and hesitated whether to sacrifice themselves.

"Okay." Lin Jue said calmly, and a black identity card with gold embroidery appeared in his hand. The next second, he closed his five fingers, and the card shattered into powder in his hand.

Black debris rose up, blending with the long ink scroll, and creating gray smoke on the ceiling. The judge in black clothes and golden eyes stood between heaven and earth, flipping the pages of the black-covered book in his hand quickly, and countless golden characters flew out.

Those characters surrounded Lin Jue like a cage. The world seemed to fall into silence and stagnation in an instant. The eyes of all living beings were gathered here, waiting for the young man to make a decision as if waiting for the king's decree.

"I choose... to judge myself." Lin Jue raised his eyes and looked at the judge, enunciating each word clearly, "I am guilty, 'Lin Jue' is guilty."

The players saw astonishment in each other's eyes, and the golden patterns in the sky began to vibrate like water waves when a stone was thrown into the water. They seemed to be touched by the words and shocked by them.

A sigh drifted from the sky, and a black cross slowly fell down, hanging above Lin Jue's head in the form of a phantom, as a sign of "sin".

At the same time, two lines of silver-white text appeared on everyone's system interface, accompanied by a cold system broadcast sound.

[The main mission has been refreshed]

[Main Quest (Optional): Kill the Sinner Lin Jue] (End of this Chapter)