Infinite spooky game

Lin Chen didn't remember when he appeared in the snow and ice, nor how he got there.

His last memory was that he was matched into a copy called "No. 33 Middle School" and was called into the office by a female teacher, but he saw another self in the makeup mirror on the table.

The man was dressed in black and called himself "Lin Crow". He told him a lot of things about the future and then put a white card into his hand.

[Identity Card: Undead Shepherd]

[Effect: You will be able to control any undead or ghost in the dungeon]

[Note: They are sheep, and you are the one who shepherds them. Where will you lead them? Protect them, redeem them, or...slaughter them?]

On the card, a figure in a white cloak holds a scepter and stands in the center of the flock of sheep, with huge white wings spread out behind him and feathers falling all over the sky, looking holy and sad.

Lin Chen stared blankly at one of the feathers, watching the golden blood dripping slowly from the feather tube, and inexplicably thought of the word "ending".

It was a very strange feeling. People spend their lives busy in the world, following rules and not thinking most of the time. But there are always a few moments, like leaves being swept into the water by the Gulf Stream, when they stop and stare at a certain scene, thinking they have seen it in a dream, or thinking to themselves, "I will die like this." Then there is one more person in the world who understands fate.

Lin Chen thought about death and the past. When he came to his senses, he was no longer in the "Chapter 33" copy. There were many memories of the future in his mind.

This is the immortal Shangri-La. He is on the snow-capped mountains in the final copy. Under the guidance of the Lama, Qi Si and Fu Jue decide to join forces to fill the sacrificial pit with human lives in exchange for the opportunity to get out of the snow-capped mountains and compete for the throne.

Something seemed to have happened afterwards, but my memory of that period is completely blank, and it dissipates into dark fragments if I try to trace it.

He only knew that he was in the night at this moment, and the dream of the ancestor god enveloped everyone, and everyone in the world was dreaming the same colorful dream of God.

Where should he go next? How should he deal with himself? Lin Chen couldn't think of a definite answer.

He couldn't even think effectively. How could the "big boss" who saved him in "Rose Manor" suddenly become a villain who killed countless people overnight?

Lin Wuya also couldn't think of an answer, so he gave him the method to break the deadlock and the objective facts and let him make a choice.

……

Ever since Lin Wuya stepped into the mirror and completed the exchange with Lin Chen, he has been in a pitch-black darkness. He didn't know how long he stood there in silence before a faint light finally appeared in front of his eyes, illuminating the dim space.

He saw clearly that this was a game room filled with stuffed rabbits, balloons and various small toys. It was his play space.

The rabbit hole in the center of the room was the entrance to the dungeon. It was closing rapidly at this moment and disappeared in just one second.

The surrounding furnishings were depreciating at a rate visible to the naked eye. The toys were rusting and moldy, the stuffed rabbits were dropping cotton, the balloons were deflated, and the walls were crumbling into ruins.

"It's over." Lin Wuya smiled.

The age-degrading effect caused by the copy has dissipated, and he realized how much he has changed in just a few months, and how completely different he is from the "Lin Chen" in the past.

He was a child who grew up in love and kindness. Even though he was a little timid because of his poor family background, he was naive and childish for a long time, with unrealistic idealism and was out of place.

Reaching a certain age limit does not mean that you have become an adult. Spiritual growth is often accompanied by painful transformation, until one day you suddenly realize that there is no such thing as the best of both worlds or wishful thinking, nor is there complete harmony and unconditional kindness. Human beings have always been lonely.

And now, his childhood is over, and he has completely bid farewell to Lin Chen of the past.

After realizing that Qis wanted to kill tens of thousands of people as a step to becoming a god, he was stunned but did not think of stopping him. Instead, he calmly realized that this was the best way to break the deadlock.

He remembered that according to the mechanism of the copy, the killed people would turn into ghosts at night to claim lives, and Qis alone could not fight against tens of thousands of evil ghosts.

Then he began to think about how to save Qi Si from the upcoming ghost siege. There was no extra reason, just because Qi Si had saved him three times, he owed Qi Si three lives, and he wanted Qi Si to live.

The [Doctor Bird's Beak] card can only revive Qis once, and there is uncertainty; he must solve the problem from the root, and the [Shepherd of the Dead] card is the only choice.

A person can only bind one identity card. He has already bound it to [Doctor Bird's Beak] and cannot unbind it in a short time. Fortunately, he saw Lin Chen who had not yet bound his identity card behind the ice wall.

Lin Chen is kind and naturally inclined towards good and rejects evil.

The only one who would condone Qi Si's evil deeds and save this evil man is Lin Crow.

What choice would Lin Chen make after knowing everything? Lin Wu Ya didn't know.

But that's the only way.

Let’s give the right to decide the ending to the purer self in the past, and consider it as an explanation for the past twenty years of life.

The outline of a full-length mirror appeared before his eyes, showing the image of the stagnant copy of "No. 33 Middle School".

The time is up, there is no time.

Lin Wuya stepped into the mirror, his black cloak turned into crow feathers and flew away, and the identity card in the upper right corner of his sight disintegrated into fragments.

He will lose his memory as "Forest Crow", lose the [Doctor Bird's Beak] card, return to the past timeline, and walk to the ending from the beginning along the original path.

Under the world tree of Sunset Ruins, the words "Lin Crow" on the broken monument of revelation dimmed forever, leaving an abrupt blank.

……

Lin Chen stood in the snow-capped mountains. He could not see any temple when he looked back, nor could he see any people when he glanced to the side. He could not find any road signs or inscriptions in the vast white snow, let alone any buildings to serve as reference.

The cold wind blew his cloak, and he seemed to be in an endless space and time without past and future. There was no one else in the world except him.

His existence also seems to be no longer necessary. When only one person knows and remembers his name and past events, it is an unprovable nothingness, a flickering illusion. In the narratives of other species, humans have never occupied a dominant position.

Lin Chen gritted his teeth and walked in one direction against the wind and snow. The ridge seemed always so far away, and the night seemed always so deep.

Could he walk down the mountain? Could he wait until dawn? Unreasonable, uneasy thoughts surged at the bottom of his mind, and he took deep breaths again and again, suppressing the trembling caused by both physical and psychological factors.

I don't know how long I walked before I saw a golden light in the distance. A white altar was set up in the snow. It was the same color as the snow and was almost hidden in the white background. Only a scarlet figure was flowing in the gray like blood, dazzling and vivid.

It was Qi Si. Lin Chen recognized him. It was the Qi Si who had killed tens of thousands of people.

Lin Chen had never thought that he would meet Qi Si so early, nor had he ever thought about what to say as an opening remark, but the moment he saw that figure, he walked over step by step almost instinctively.

Then he saw the young man in red jump down from the altar, walk towards him with his back to the light, and stretch out his hand to him: "Lin Chen, you are here.

"The night in Shangri-La is the dream of the ancestor gods. What we need to consider next is how to get out of this dream."

……

Qi Si didn't plan to become the ancestor god. He suddenly felt that it was very boring.

Sacrificing all humanity and believers, becoming a tool like "or" that lacks will and emotion of its own and meticulously executes the will of rules, in exchange for the qualification to survive to the next era is really boring, ridiculous and sad.

Survival itself has no value, nor is it something that must be pursued, and death does not seem to be a huge horror. Qi Si remembered that he did not seem to resist death from the beginning, and he did not enter the weird game to cure a terminal illness, but simply to choose an interesting way to die.

As for participating in every game seriously and accumulating considerable competitive capital, it was simply because he didn't want to lose and couldn't bear to see others win.

When did he develop a strong desire to survive and start wanting to live?

Oh, now I remember, it was when I encountered the ancestor god on the bus.

The moment he looked into the woman's eyes, he felt a long-lost fear, and was immediately immersed in an environment filled with the dead, mistakenly believing that the fear was directed at death.

Then he entered Shangri-La, where everyone was pursuing eternal life and resisting death. He felt that he was the same and began to think about living.

But he should have been like Zhou Ke said, not afraid of death and not yearning for life...

Yes, the ancestor god guided him. The ancestor god wanted him to survive and become the ancestor god.

Based on this, at the end of the "Sacred City" copy, the ancestor god wanted to occupy his body, and his purpose might not be resurrection at all. After all, resurrection is a foregone conclusion.

What the ancestor god wanted was to escape and exchange fate with him...

At this point, Qisi will not sacrifice anything anymore. What he needs to do is find a way to leave the snow mountain and not let the ancestor god get what he wants.

The wind and snow were getting stronger and stronger, and the road was almost invisible. Qi Si and Lin Chen walked forward one after the other.

A large ice wall appeared in front of him, reflecting the phantoms of the dead. Qis once again saw his long-dead parents.

The young couple's expressions were distorted and trembling in the blur of the wind and snow, but it could be seen that they were smiling: "Qis, why did you come with someone? Is he your friend?"

Qi Si smiled and said casually: "Yes, we have known each other for a long time. We met on the road and came together."

The couple looked at each other and smiled even more: "That's great, Qisi finally has a friend."

Qis continued to move forward, and he and Lin Chen passed through the area where the ice wall was and stepped into the endless ice field.

Rows of dark shadows appeared on the distant horizon. The ghosts that died at his hands returned with more force than the night before.

A familiar voice whispered in my ear: [Qi, will you sacrifice your believers and humanity to become the ancestral god...]

Qi Si understood that this was the choice given to him by the rules.

He will either lose his self as a "Qisi" and become an ancestor god, or lose his life as a "Qisi" and be torn apart by ghosts and monsters.

In comparison, he felt it would be better for him to die.

"Lin Chen, it seems those ghosts are coming for me. If you don't want to be buried with me, you'd better go back to where you came from." Qi Si said with a sense of humor, strolling towards the group of ghosts that were getting closer and closer.

Lin Chen did not leave, but followed even more closely, silently and firmly following Qi Si's increasingly fast footsteps, like a ghost living in the shadows.

Qi Si had to stop and look back, sighing helplessly: "I think you can leave now. If you die, the Unnamed Guild will no longer exist. I have invested points in it."

Lin Chen's face was abnormally pale, whether from fear or cold, but his eyes were firm and unwavering.

"Qi...Brother Qi, I don't care whether the Unnamed Guild exists or not." His lips trembled, and he suddenly raised his hand and took off the human skin mask on his face, revealing a young and handsome face. "I am not Lin Wuya, I am...Lin Chen, the Lin Chen who owes you three lives, and I want to...stay."

He just thought that the "turn back into a child" mechanism of the copy confused the age difference, and Qis failed to notice that there was a different person in his core, so he used this method to explain it.

But Qis possesses billions of years of memory and the essence of a god, so how could he not see it?

Qi Si said calmly: "You saved me once in the "Colosseum" copy, and I have already repaid you."

Lin Chen shook his head: "Not yet paid off, two more times left."

Lin Chen was unwilling to leave, so Qi Si let him follow him. He even thought with some malicious intent that as the greatest evil spirit in the world, a demon dedicated to turning the world into hell, it seemed not bad to drag someone to be buried with him. This way, even if he died, at least he would be warmer.

The ghosts surrounded him, bypassed Lin Chen and started to bite Qi Si's body, from his limbs to his torso. Blood flowed from the wounds, seeping into his red suit but not obviously, but dyed the white snow beneath him red.

The tooth marks overlapped intricately on the skin, and the pain enveloped the whole body like a web. Strength and temperature were lost with the blood, as if the soul was also being devoured by ghosts.

Lin Chen watched from the side with a pale face and activated the effect of the [Undead Shepherd] identity card.

The ghosts hanging on Qis were controlled by him, and the ghosts' memories before their death poured into his mind, sad, painful, unwilling, desperate...

He could have wiped them out completely, but he couldn't make such a decision - they were all innocent and suffering so much.

There were more and more ghosts. As soon as he controlled the first batch to retreat, the next batch rushed forward. He could only control them all at once.

The memories of countless people filled his mind. He didn't know when he burst into tears. The falling tears froze into icicles on his cheeks, heavy and painful.

He tried his best to stay awake and control more ghosts. His mind was torn into countless pieces and his consciousness gradually faded. In the haze, he saw the silver-white words:

[The hidden effect of the ID card "Leader" has been unlocked]

[Note: You will become a member of the dead, severing all ties with reality; you will become the flute player of Hameln, leading them to the promised land; you are the only beacon in the world of the dead, and all the dead will join your team after seeing you and follow you forever.]

[Do you want to activate the hidden effect? ​​]

Lin Chen knew that this was the opportunity to break the impasse, and that this was where his role lay.

He said without hesitation, "Yes."

In an instant, a huge figure in white appeared in the sky, and the snow-capped mountains were covered with white wings. The feathers fell like snow, and appeared dirty gray and black after landing.

Lin Chen is a kind person, and the only one who would condone Qi Si's evil deeds and save this evil man is Lin Crow.

But no Lin Chen would let Qisi die, so Lin Chen was destined to become Lin Crow.

Lin Chen's figure became transparent little by little. All the ghosts who saw him staggered towards him as if in a trance, and formed a long line behind him, their figures becoming fainter as well.

Qis's area was soon empty. Lin Chen stood there, his thoughts and memories lost in the process of undeadization as one of the prices for severing his connection with reality.

He lowered his eyes and looked at the young man in red lying in a pool of blood. He felt sad for no reason and his heart felt astringent, as if someone was squeezing it. But no matter how hard he thought, he couldn't remember the reason behind it.

He couldn't remember who the person in front of him was. He only remembered that he wanted to leave, taking all the ghosts in the world away from the young man, the farther the better.

So, he turned his back and walked step by step into the darkness deep in the snowy mountains, with a mighty force behind him. (End of this chapter)