Infinite spooky game

In late May, under the leadership of high-ranking officials such as Councilor Hayes, Jiangcheng and surrounding cities quickly restored order, while various clean-up operations proceeded in an orderly manner.

After being hit by a tranquilizer gun, Lin Chen fell into the control of the Bureau of Espionage. After waking up, he remained silent for a whole day before finally processing the events that occurred in the later stages of the final instance and the death of Si Qi.

In the following days, under interrogation by the Bureau of Paranormal Investigation, he confessed to his experiences since entering the bizarre game. Only then did people realize that Lin Wuya, the elusive guild leader of the unnamed guild, was actually just a college student who had only recently entered the game, a decoy used by Siqi to bluff his way in.

According to regulations, criminals like Lin Chen, whose crimes are serious, should be imprisoned for life in a detention cell like Lin Jue. However, the [Undead Shepherd] identity card is too useful; it could even be said to be one of the most needed cards by the Bureau of Paranormal Investigation at this stage.

After a heated debate, Councilor Hayes made the decision to allow Lin Chen to be sent to various parts of Long County to atone for his crimes.

So the investigators took Lin Chen on a plane, and in each city they dropped him off to wander around. Once all the ghosts and monsters had joined his ranks, they would take Lin Chen and his ghost army back to Jiangcheng and use this mysterious forbidden zone to purify or restore them.

In this way, the density of eerie occurrences in Dragon County gradually decreased to the level before the final instance was opened, proving that the idea of ​​using Lin Chen to deal with ghosts was indeed feasible. Councilor Hayes immediately signed a document authorizing the deployment of Lin Chen to other counties and regions.

On May 30, the Bureau of Paranormal Investigations' special plane landed at Regina Airport in Maple Leaf County.

The land, strangely cleansed, was filled with smoke and dust. Upon closer inspection, it was discovered that the tiny particles were not sand or gravel, but rather crushed bone fragments and rotten meat scraps, originating from humans or other creatures, whose source was unknown.

As the cabin door opened, the stench of rotting blood assaulted the senses. Lin Chen, dressed in a pristine white protective suit designed to maximize his physical protection, stepped off the plane.

He loses consciousness as soon as he leaves Jiangcheng's territory, becoming nothing more than a walking corpse, driven by his identity card to walk through streets littered with blood and gore, and through alleys haunted by ghostly figures.

A shimmering white halo emanated from beneath his feet, and phantom images of pure white feathers surrounded him. As he ventured deeper into the horde of ghosts, the light grew ever more intense, cleaving through the dark tide of spirits as if it were a tangible force.

The eerie, bizarre, and malevolent forces lurking in the shadows seemed to be summoned by some force, emerging one after another from the corner and swaying as they followed Lin Chen.

The investigators sat on the plane and monitored Lin Chen's every move via satellite. The young man in the footage was originally wandering aimlessly, but he would randomly turn around when he encountered obstacles.

At one point, as if he had set his sights on a certain goal, he suddenly changed direction, scaling one collapsed wall after another, smashing through walls and roadblocks, running wildly like a beast released into the mountains.

The investigator stared intently at the screen, his heart pounding. This was the [Undead Shepherd]'s first mission outside Dragon County, and things had already gone wrong. Was it a coincidence, or...?

If this level of eeriness gets out of control, anyone without connections absolutely cannot bear the consequences. The investigator's mind flashed through images of being court-martialed, and he shuddered. He immediately frantically pressed the communication button:

"Calling headquarters, the [Undead Shepherd] is showing signs of going out of control. Requesting expert intervention and analysis..."

"Calling headquarters, should we immediately initiate the destruction procedure? Please indicate the nearest nuclear launch site..."

Messages, including satellite surveillance footage, were transmitted to Jiangcheng via the airplane's radio. Five minutes later, the Jiangcheng Bureau of Investigation's analysis and instructions, transcribed in an electronic voice, rang out emotionlessly:
"Calculations show that there is a 90% probability that the destination of the [Undead Shepherd] is the [Mysterious Site of Red Maple Leaf Boarding School], which is 120 kilometers away. It is impossible to determine what chain reaction will be triggered when the two mysterious entities meet."

"A small nuclear bomb will be dropped into Regina in ten minutes, and is expected to create a radiation zone with a radius of 2 kilometers. All personnel are advised to evacuate as soon as possible."

The value of the Undead Shepherd may be extraordinary, but no one is willing to gamble on the risk of it getting out of control. Suppressing the situation with firepower before it gets out of control is the safest option for humanity.

The investigator had completed his preliminary reporting and knew that whatever happened later would not be his responsibility. As the plane turned to return, he breathed a slight sigh of relief, only to hear a piercing alarm sound in the cabin.

[Warning! All electronic instruments on the central control panel have failed; the aircraft is about to crash!]

At the same time, the Jiangcheng Investigation Bureau also received a message from the nuclear missile launch site: "Our nuclear missile has gone out of control at an altitude of 200 kilometers from Regina. The source of the interference is currently unknown..."

On the deserted streets of Regina, abandoned cars lay crookedly, their dashboards, which had been silent for days, suddenly began to spin wildly, making strange "pop pop" sounds.

In an empty house by the street, the television turned on by itself, its screen displaying static and colorful data bars jumping wildly; the radio switch was turned on by an invisible hand, and the eerie station it connected to was broadcasting: "Tonight...buzz...you...buzz...all will die..."

Bizarre scenes unfolded throughout the city, but Lin Chen continued running, oblivious to everything around him. When a person becomes a monster, mingling among demons and monsters is like a lost soul returning home; naturally, they feel no fear. Whether this is fortunate or unfortunate is unknown.

Someone sighed with pity; it was a woman's voice. Suddenly, the gray-yellow sky began to turn a deathly pale from the edges, and countless silver threads stretched out from all directions, weaving a fine spider web on the dome.

Silvery-white eyes slowly opened and closed, and under their indifferent and cold gaze, an old-fashioned school built of gray cement rose from the ground. A group of thin, bony children sat cross-legged in a circle, clapping their hands and singing a nursery rhyme:

"Good children who don't want to eat rice will only be able to eat dirt."

The bad kid is covered in poisonous mushrooms.

Gods grow in rotten vegetables.
Yellow flower buds bloomed at the head of the deceased's bed...

Lin Chen rushed into the school and ran into the group of children. Suddenly, he stopped. His dark gray pupils were filled with a strange light, and for the first time during this period, he felt a sense of bewilderment that belonged to humankind.

Where is this? Why did he come here? He seems to have forgotten something, forgotten some very important people and things...

"Good child, you've finally arrived. We've been waiting for you." The woman in white with white hair stood among the children, her back to Lin Chen, and said gently, "You must be tired these days. You should rest. Find a place to sit down."

Lin Chen stood there, stunned. He felt as if he had been split in two. One half of him was frantically issuing warnings, telling him that the woman in front of him was extremely dangerous, while the other half was calming his soul, making him believe in the woman's goodwill.

The eeriness of the lower sequence could not ultimately defy the gods of the higher sequence. He finally walked up to the woman, sat stiffly on the ground, and let the woman insert her hand into his heart and pull out a blood-soaked identity card.

The silver-white card surface was covered with a layer of blood, and both the shepherd and the demons were smeared with an eerie thin powder. Human perception returned the instant the identity card left his body; Lin Chen's eyes widened, and he raised his hand to try and retrieve it.

The woman lowered her eyes, patted his shoulder with pity, and said gently, "Sleep for a while, it won't hurt, it'll be over soon." Her words seemed to have a hypnotic power; Lin Chen felt drowsy instantly, all his thoughts weighed down by an overwhelming sense of sleepiness. He slowly closed his eyes, his body slumped to the ground with a dull thud, and bright red blood gushed from his chest, soaking his white protective suit and spreading into an irregular pool beneath him.

His blood seemed endless, flowing like a river to the feet of the children around him, soaking their shoes and trouser legs. The children continued clapping, as if playing a game that would never stop. They sat in the pool of blood, their faces filled with terror, their mouths opening and closing exaggeratedly, singing joyfully:

"After the day the yellow butterfly flew in"

Everyone died and was buried in the ground.

The children's graves are barren.

It's all the witch's curse..."

……

Eagle County, Nevada, the headquarters of the Ridean Deep Casino, three floors underground.

The small iron cages were crammed together, each containing a thin boy or girl, huddled together, their eyes filled with fear and despair.

Jack, whip in hand, paced between the iron cages, striking down occasionally and eliciting painful screams in response.

No matter how chaotic the outside world is, it doesn't stop humanity from unleashing its imagination of evil desires, seeking a place far from order and law to indulge in a life of debauchery. Besides its gambling operations, the Ruidan Deep Casino also recruits homeless children from around the world to provide special services to its powerful and wealthy patrons.

Thanks to the bizarre rampage, the police detectives were overwhelmed, thousands of cities were plunged into chaos, and countless children were displaced and orphaned. Human trafficking became easier and cheaper than ever before, and good-looking boys and girls filled the entire three-story, ten-acre basement of the Ruidan Deep Casino in just a few days.

As the head of this gray industry chain, Jack could almost imagine how much wealth he would gain after the situation stabilized. Of course, he wasn't just in it for the money. As one of the few lucky people in the world who turned their hobby into a profession, he had an innate sadistic urge towards the weak, starting with cats and dogs and ending with children.

"Hey kid, what are you staring at me for? Don't be so hasty, the next lash will be on you." Jack sneered at a boy who was staring at him, habitually uttering threatening words.

The boy, however, remained motionless, staring at him. A silvery light spread in his eyes, and the fear that should have been there vanished, replaced by the eagerness of a wild beast eyeing its prey.

"What...what's going on?" Jack instinctively took a step back, only to feel a pair of cold hands grab his ankle. He turned around and saw that the cage behind him had been ripped open with a hole big enough for one person to pass through. A girl in a tattered dress was crawling on the ground like a snake, grabbing his leg and revealing sharp teeth.

"Crack, crack..." The sound of deformed iron bars rose and fell. All the cages in the basement were torn open by the children inside. One by one, the children pounced on Jack like animals, roaring. Inhuman silver light gleamed in the eyes of each child, as cold as a snow mountain.

June 1st, a day designated as "Children's Day" by counties around the world, saw all children under the age of fourteen undergo strange changes, whether by coincidence or due to the wickedness of some deity.

They seem to have regressed in evolutionary history, degenerating from humans into beasts, nimbly running around the streets and alleys with their limbs touching the ground, tearing apart a lone adult in groups of three or five, and then scattering after their target loses their life, gathering in a corner of the city with their faces covered in blood, clapping and singing.

Jiangcheng remains a mysterious forbidden zone untouched by the supernatural, but the surrounding cities have fallen overnight. The concentration of supernatural forces, which had been reduced under the influence of the [Undead Shepherd], has returned to its peak, becoming even more frenzied and irrational, harboring a malice to wipe out the entire world.

The surveillance footage from all over Long County over the past month was sent to the Jiangcheng Bureau of Investigation and Statistics, and Councilor Hayes and others finally noticed the facts they had overlooked when dealing with Lin Jue.

The woman in white with white hair had landed in Long County at the harbor when Siqi entered Jiangcheng on May 17th. In less than half a month, she descended upon various cities like a ghost, distributing white candies to a few children. Those children then skipped and jumped throughout the city, sharing the endless supply of candies with their peers…

"It's Bai Ya! I was wondering why the Balance Church had been so quiet these past few days. Turns out they were up to no good!" In the conference room, a councilor slammed his fist on the table in anger. "Who was it that said all the members of the Balance Church had sacrificed themselves in the final instance? Because of that wrong judgment, we missed the best time to prepare!"

Politicians are used to assigning responsibility as soon as something goes wrong; to put it bluntly, they are shirking their own responsibility and then convicting their political enemies.

Someone sneered: "I did say that back then, but who among you dares to say that wasn't your own thought? Otherwise, why didn't anyone refute me?"

Another person chimed in, "In the end, it's still a matter of faulty intelligence. I'd like to ask, who's in charge of intelligence work?"

A cough came from the direction of the head of the table, from Congressman Hayes. As the de facto leader of the Bureau of Paranormal Investigation and the biggest contributor to Lin Jue's imprisonment in the containment chamber, his opinion often carried significant weight in meetings.

The councilors finally quieted down, and Councilor Hayes shook his head slightly: "The Church of the Balance does not exist anymore, and what we saw was not the White Crow."

Under the bewildered gazes of the councilors, he sighed and put his words more bluntly: "What we need to confront now is the supreme being under the rules, the ancestral god who once created this world."

The councilors fell silent. People at their level naturally knew the secrets of the divine realm and the existence of ancestral gods, and they also knew that the mission of the ancestral gods was to reclaim the entire old world and restart a new one after the collapse of the rules.

But what can they do? Electronic instruments will malfunction, nuclear bombs will go out of control, and the modern technology that humanity is so proud of is like a child's toy to the ancestral god. How can they stop the ancestral god?
Congressman Hayes rose and walked to the window, gazing at the greyish-white sky outside. His silver eyes, like cracks in the heavens, loomed above everyone, indifferently and mockingly surveying the ravaged world. The struggles of ants could not possibly shake the greatness of this being.

He withdrew his gaze and looked at the windowsill. There, a ring of tea stains had formed, and an ant was pacing anxiously along the dark trail, occasionally raising its head and flicking its two slender antennae, as if questioning the origins of its fate.

Senator Hayes stretched out his index finger and scraped the edge of the tea stain, creating a tiny notch under his fingertip. Whenever the ants came here again, they could escape the vicious cycle through the notch.

He repeatedly rubbed his fingers together, focusing intently on the wiping motion. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his fingertip. The ant had somehow circled around to his fingertip and bit him hard.

“I’m wondering, since the Ancestral God could destroy everyone directly, why did He choose to make us aware of it gradually?” Councilor Hayes withdrew his finger and murmured, “Does He want us to be afraid? Or does He want us to react in some way?”

The councilors looked at each other, but then heard the old man in front of them sigh deeply: "We still know too little about the ancestral gods, far less than that person, so much so that even if we know that He is coming soon, we can only wait passively and can do nothing."

Someone caught his subtext and quickly stood up to retort: ​​"Lord Hayes, Lin Jue is a madman. He will harm all of humanity. We are not wrong. We are doing this for the sake of humanity!"

"Humanity is doomed, so what difference does it make who destroys it?" Senator Hayes turned and surveyed the other senators, his voice calm. "Disaster has already struck. Rather than waiting to be destroyed, we might as well take one last gamble, betting that person's side is still on humanity's side." (End of Chapter)