Why is my journey to the world of anime a strange tale of rules?

Hidal... I'm sorry...

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In the end, only the sound of dripping water remained, echoing one after another in the darkness.

Gao Hai's consciousness gradually cleared from the chaos.

He heard countless screams and wails, and the sounds of people struggling and crawling in the cave.

People are constantly being dragged into this dark hell.

Even after the giant slide was sealed off and covered with a thick wall, people continued to get trapped in the dark cave.

People fled in terror.

Then, trapped in this dark cave, they disappeared silently, yet they remained alive under a mysterious force, unable to die, and could only continue to wander in the darkness.

Is this the power of Andres?

You can feel the pain and despair that belongs to this man.

That agonizing, maddening pain of being buried underground until death, yet still unable to find peace.

That force kept pulling more and more people into this hell, making those who strayed into it become like him. Even if their bodies rotted and everything disappeared, they still could not die and could only wander here, or become corpses trapped in this fork in the road, just like him.

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But who did this?

Why did that sign disappear?

By sheer coincidence, they took the wrong turn and got stuck in a narrow cave from which they couldn't escape, ultimately causing the rescue operation, which was about to succeed, to fail.

Then, after his death, a strange power gradually took shape based on his experiences, changing the environment of the entire cave and burying more and more lives.

It's as if someone secretly planned all of this, manipulating things step by step to where they are now.

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Gao Hai's head started spinning again.

His breathing became increasingly labored and difficult, accompanied by intense physical pain from hunger. The lingering resentment attached to the ring, which had been dispelled by reading, returned and swept over him once more.

This ring... is my core obsession; its power is... immortality...

Unable to resolve his current predicament, Gao Hai wiped the ring on the wound on his arm, making sure it was smeared with his blood, and then tried to struggle again.

Can not give up.

We absolutely cannot give up now.

Gao Hai said this earnestly to himself.

I absolutely must get out of here successfully...

Chapter 54: 30 days, 720 hours, 2.59 million seconds, she

[Game time has ended]

[We regret to inform you that you were unable to complete this game.]

You have lost your qualification to access that true path.

May you find a way to escape this game and find peace.

【Good luck to you】

The cold, robotic game notification sounded in his ears, but Gao Hai had no time to pay attention to it.

He rubbed his hands vigorously against the rock wall until they were raw and bleeding before he stopped.

Then, he let his blood soak into the ring, ensuring that he could obtain this core object of his obsession after his death.

Although this instance is currently displayed as Twilight difficulty, this is because the instance is still in the process of being fixed. This stupid [Sacrifice Game] displays the original game difficulty during the fixed phase, hence the discrepancy between the actual difficulty and the level. However, there's no doubt that the ring Gao Hai is currently holding, which grants players [Immortality] for a short time, is a core item of obsession for Dark Night difficulty.

Once you've stained it with blood, it will be yours after you die and are reborn.

As for how to die or how to start over, Gao Hai had no answer. He simply forced himself not to think about the possibility of being trapped here forever and continued to encourage himself and think about whether there were any other ways to break the deadlock.

"call……"

But just as Gao Hai was struggling to think, he suddenly felt a strong squeezing sensation coming from all sides, forcibly squeezing out the little air left in his lungs in an instant.

How is this going?

"Uh huh..."

The unspeakable pain continues to intensify.

The rock wall shrank again silently, almost squeezing and deforming Gao Hai's entire body.

If Gao Hai could at least move his hands a little before, now even his fingers are pinned down by the rock wall, and there's practically no part of his body that he can move even slightly.

"Uh... phew..."

He can't breathe anymore.

His chest cavity was completely blocked, leaving not even the slightest bit of space.

Gao Hai was suffocating again, but this time, the suffocation wouldn't subside as gradually as before.

The lack of oxygen caused the brain to fall into chaos again.

Gao Hai almost fainted on the spot, then woke up again due to intense pain all over his body. After repeating this several times, he finally managed to recover through sheer willpower and regain his ability to think.

Why is this happening?

Gao Hai felt that his body had been squeezed into a different shape by the rock wall, and he was about to lose his original human form.

The intense pain stimulated his nerves, and he could vaguely sense that even at this point, the rock walls were still slowly changing, becoming narrower and more curved, crushing his bones and flesh, trying to completely integrate him into the rock walls.

Could it be... because I took away the core object of my obsession?

No, that's not right. Taking away the core object of obsession shouldn't cause such a big reaction.

This feeling... seems to be something formed from the nightmares of those trapped here, resonating with Andres's core obsession.

Squeezed by the cave.

Lost in the darkness.

Those who perished here, living a life worse than death, their existence resonated with the obsession Andres had formed, causing the cave itself to become even more distorted.

"Uh... ugh..."

The surrounding rock walls became even more severely distorted.

Gao Hai's arm was completely broken, twisted into an almost pretzel shape by the deformed rock wall.

His chest and abdomen were almost bent at right angles, and his legs were broken into seven or eight different pieces.

Even his head was pressed against the curved rock wall, little by little, Gao Hai's head was almost bent into a curved triangle.

Even so, he still couldn't die.

The intense torment from thirst and hunger continued, with every cell and nerve in the body sending out signals of pain.

Only the narrow crevice above remained, still dripping foul-smelling blood, drop after drop, unchanged from beginning to end, just like the silent corpse hanging upside down in the cave.

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"Ugh...uh..."

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Gao Hai's pained voice mingled with the sound of dripping water.

In the all-encompassing darkness, everything seemed so long, as if there was no end in sight, and it just continued on and on.

Day sixteen, day eighteen, day twentieth...

Every day felt like an entire year had passed, so long that Gao Hai gradually became insensitive to time.

The rock face is still twisting and deforming little by little.

Gao Hai's body was gradually torn into a twisted and unsightly shape, almost merging with the rock wall.

The pain continues.

However, when the pain lasts too long, all that remains is numbness.

Gao Hai could already feel this numbness.

Numb to the point that even thinking has almost stopped, leaving only the instinct to breathe.

"Uh……"

No, I can't even keep breathing anymore; it's just self-deception.

I can't feel anything.

At the end of suffering lies emptiness, where nothing can be felt.

An endless void, as dark as this.

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All that remained was the sound of water droplets falling.

Perhaps my nerves are on the verge of breaking down.

However, perhaps due to the power of blessing and protection, I remained clear-headed, able to think, and able to continue facing the harsh reality before me.

Unable to die.

The reality that no matter what you do, you can't die.

Gao Hai seemed to understand.

Under the influence of this core obsession, what is the only way to find liberation?