Life Dungeon Game

Huge factory buildings, roaring machines, and figures 'busy' in front of the machines, their eyes vacant and lifeless.

"Don't you understand yet?"

A hoarse, aged voice came from the side, "You are dead. This is a place only the dead can enter. Your body has become a 'sacrifice,' and your soul has come here."

He Ao shifted his gaze and saw an old man talking to a middle-aged man sitting on the ground.

"You're lying,"

The middle-aged man stood up angrily, glaring at the old man. He reached out to grab the old man's collar, but the old man dodged, leaving him with empty air. "I'm not dead! I've entered the Kingdom of God and gained eternal life!!!"

The old man glanced at him calmly, then sighed, "During the ceremony, didn't you feel any pain? Didn't you feel your body melting?"

"The priest told me that this is normal, a pain that one must normally experience when shedding the old world's physical form,"

The middle-aged man's eyes widened, his face flushed, and he glared angrily at the old man. "What do you know! I'm not dead! I'm not dead!"

This time, the old man didn't speak. Instead, he shook his head, sighed, and turned to leave.

"You liars, you're all liars! You must have been sent by the devil to bewitch me!"

The middle-aged man glanced at the figures around him working diligently, then angrily rushed over. Looking at the screen on the running machine, he raised his fist and charged forward, shouting, "These things must be the devil's way of deceiving me!"

Throughout the entire process, no one stopped him, not even the old man who had spoken to him at the beginning.

Just as his fist was about to reach the machine, his whole body convulsed, and the flushed anger on his face instantly turned into a twisted pain.

He clutched his neck with both hands, fell to the ground, and struggled erratically, convulsing like a fish thrown ashore.

He Ao stared at the man lying on the ground. At this moment, in his spiritual vision, the distorted light within the man's body was fluctuating wildly in his body, or rather, his 'soul'.

It took him a while to recover, as if the punitive 'pain' had just disappeared.

He struggled to prop himself up, lying face down on the ground. Large beads of sweat streamed down his face, but disappeared completely as they fell into the air, never landing on the ground.

"What is this? What is this?"

He raised his head, trembling, and looked at the old man.

"This is the Eternal Kingdom."

The old man answered calmly.

"Was I scammed?"

The middle-aged man finally calmed down. He sat cross-legged on the ground, sweat or tears streaming down his face. "I've given so much, how could this happen? They said there would be no hunger here, an endless supply of all kinds of food, and countless beauties to enjoy..."

He looked up at the endless, rumbling machines in his field of vision. "They lied to me..."

"Strictly speaking, they didn't lie to you,"

The old man glanced around at the surroundings. “There will indeed be no hunger here, and you will not feel tired. You can work endlessly.”

"impossible!"

The middle-aged man looked up, glaring angrily at the old man. "I will never work!"

He staggered to his feet and angrily walked towards the edge of the huge factory. "I've given so much, not to come here and work for the factory owners!"

But halfway there, his body suddenly convulsed, and he collapsed to the ground, convulsing violently. He looked at the old man in horror, "No! Why! I didn't touch anything!"

He crawled towards the old man, writhing, "I feel so bad, even worse than before, why... why..."

"Your time is up. Take a look at your wrist."

The old man looked at him calmly.

The man immediately rolled up his sleeve and looked at his wrist. A string of glowing numbers was displayed on his wrist: 00:07:58:36.

It seemed like a countdown; as he watched, the string of numbers rapidly decreased, and in the blink of an eye, the final number changed from 36 to 33.

"what is this?"

He looked up in alarm at the old man.

"Your last life,"

The old man said calmly, “You have wasted too much time. Newcomers only have 12 hours of life. You can only gain one day of life for every 16 hours you work. If you exhaust your life, you will die in increasing pain in the last eight hours.”

He sighed and continued, “This is just the beginning. The pain you endure will increase every ten minutes. Throughout this process, your soul will not dissipate, and the pain will continue to intensify until all your time is up.”

"Help me! Help me!"

The man's face was now even more ferocious, with sticky saliva dripping from the corner of his mouth, and he seemed to be somewhat delirious.

“Go to the position I just told you about,”

The old man sighed softly, "As long as you keep working, your time will keep increasing, and your pain will disappear."

Upon hearing this, the man staggered to his feet and rushed without hesitation to a spot next to the machine.

The moment he touched the machine, his ferocious expression softened, and he immediately began manipulating the robotic arm to assemble the parts on the machine.

This job is not easy; it requires great care, and the robotic arm requires a high level of skill.

Tears and sweat streamed down his face, but they vanished completely mid-air.

Seeing this, the old man sighed deeply, turned around, and disappeared from the spot.

He Ao glanced in the direction the old man had disappeared, then raised the finger bone fossil in his hand.

He passed through another 'door'.

This time, he found himself in a spacious hall.

Golden pillars stood in the hall, and some people were standing in front of them, placing their hands on them.

"You've saved up enough time so quickly?"

The old man who had been in the factory space was now in front of He Ao. He walked up to a young man who was placing his hand on a pillar and asked in a low voice.

At this moment, a beautifully packaged bottle is floating on the pillar in front of the young man.

Distilled spirits.

"Sigh, I haven't saved enough. It can't be that fast. I did the math: working 16 hours a day would take 24 hours, but after deducting the working time, that only leaves 8 hours."

The young man seemed to know the old man well. He turned around, sighed, and complained, "I've been working a full 24 hours every day for the past few days, but I can only save 12 hours a day, so I've only saved 72 hours in total. But even the cheapest tiny bottle of this wine is priced for 5 days. Speaking of which, old man, did you save enough time to buy the things you were planning to buy?"

"Enough has been saved,"

The old man paused slightly, then nodded gently. "Everything is here."

"Hahaha,"

A woman with darker skin standing next to the young man chimed in, pointing to a small, appetizing roast chicken on a pillar in front of her. "This divine kingdom truly has everything, and you can buy anything, but you just can't afford anything."

How much is your chicken?

The young man glanced at the roast chicken on the woman's pillar and asked with some curiosity.

"Cheap, 16 hours."

The woman gently tapped the pillar, and the illusory roast chicken instantly solidified, its rich aroma quickly filling the entire hall. "We work for two days, and this is all we're worth," she said.

The woman chuckled, picked up the roast chicken, and turned to walk towards the table in the corner of the hall.

He Ao looked at the roast chicken. This kind of small roast chicken is usually a genetically edited fast-growing chicken. It sells for between 16 and 19 federal dollars in various parts of the Federation, and generally does not exceed 20 federal dollars.

Those around them, upon smelling the aroma, instinctively twitched their noses and swallowed hard.

The young man glanced at the distilled liquor in front of him and swallowed hard.

"Damn it, let's have fun first!"

A man nearby suddenly slammed his hand on a pillar.

In an instant, a luxurious steak set meal appeared in his hands. Holding the steak set meal, he turned and walked towards the table next to the hall.

"Wow, you're so rich?"

The dark-skinned woman, who was eating roast chicken, glanced at the man and said, "This steak set meal of yours will take at least a day and a half to prepare."

"I didn't have any money; I used a Rockwell Energy Group credit card,"

The man, seemingly unconcerned, said while eating the steak set meal, "Who cares? Let's enjoy ourselves first."

"Oh, and credit cards too."

The young man who had been eavesdropping on their conversation turned around, looked at the phantom of the distilled spirit in front of him, and swallowed hard.

"Rockwell Energy Group's credit card has a monthly interest rate of over 5%. Are you sure you want to use it?"

The old man beside him asked in a low voice.

"It is indeed much higher than outside,"

The young man gave a bitter smile. "But we don't seem to have any other choice now. We just live one day at a time. We can't even die if we want to. Every time I think about dying, the pain makes it hard for me to breathe."

He glanced at the crowd around him and said, “We’re all the same. This divine kingdom is more painful than hell.”

The old man fell silent.

"But Rockwell Energy Group is really impressive for being able to do business in this eternal divine kingdom."

Seeing the atmosphere become dull, the young man chuckled and changed the subject.

"really,"

The old man nodded gently, looking at the young man. "Where are you planning to go later? Continue working, or..."

"Shall we find a place to rest?"

"Take a break,"

The young man touched his head. "I've been working for several days in a row, and I feel a little dizzy. I didn't expect that people like us who have 'died' before would get tired. I booked a dormitory bed for eight hours."

He looked up and glanced at the young man's 'soul'.

Under the power of spiritual vision, the young man's soul was already somewhat unstable.

The soul is not immune to fatigue. Prolonged thinking and action can deplete the soul, making a stable soul more prone to dissipation.

"Damn, this divine kingdom is truly dark!"

As He Ao looked into the young man's soul, the young man complained indignantly,

"Even the dormitory bunk beds require time to exchange. Two hours of life can be exchanged for eight hours of usage time. We are not allowed to sleep in the factory or the lobby. We can only sleep in the dormitory beds. In order to get eight hours of sleep, I have to work four more hours."