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

Fortunately, Takami was familiar with the original work, so he could tell from Goto Ichiri's anxious expression that she didn't know how to communicate the information. He quickly confirmed the information by asking the girl various questions that only required her to express affirmation or denial.

"Are you still able to use this guitar normally?"

The girl nodded vigorously.

"Are you sure it would be dangerous for us to stay on this floor?"

The girl hesitated for a moment, then nodded heavily.

"Can you be sure where the danger will come from? Are you certain that the route we took back is no longer safe?"

The girl first shook her head, then nodded vigorously.

Gao Hai didn't ask any further questions, but instead gestured for the two of them to follow him quickly down the other side of the stairwell.

The staircase they came up from was definitely unusable, since the thing upstairs was already very close when they escaped. Going back now would likely result in a direct confrontation, so they had to choose another staircase.

They were now traveling along the corridor containing the two restrooms and two teachers' offices. This route would avoid the area where they had encountered problems earlier, but whether they could successfully reach the stairs to the third floor was uncertain.

tread--

Clear footsteps echoed through the dark stairwell.

Without deliberately lowering his voice, Gao Hai noticed that the three of them seemed to be making more noise than expected.

【■■……■■■……】

A sound quietly spread through the darkness.

Gao Hai couldn't tell what kind of sound it was, nor could he tell where it came from.

He simply felt a strong, chilling sensation.

It was as if something had already spotted the three of them in this pitch-black stairwell, something was already impatiently approaching.

An ominous thing, something that, even just hearing a few sounds or not yet actually touching, already makes one feel a deadly threat.

"Woo..."

Seeing this, the child instinctively let out a mournful cry.

She heard that voice.

Laughter brimming with malice and agonizing cries of torture mingled and resonated together at that moment.

[Haha, crying again? Is crying all this guy can do?]

I'm sorry... I'm so sorry...

[Isn't this a bit too boring? Let's do something exciting! How about we strip her naked and lock her in the classroom? I'm curious what the first person to come to the classroom tomorrow will think when they see her, hahaha.]

No...please...

[That's a good idea. By the way, the temperature today seems to be around 5 degrees Celsius, right? Why don't we go to the bathroom, fill a basin with water, and splash her with it, just like giving her a bath?]

No...don't...

The laughter of those people grew louder and louder.

The cries mixed in with those vicious voices grew fainter and fainter, becoming increasingly inaudible.

The sound seemed to be coming from a classroom, but after hearing it, Miko began to feel that the sounds were getting closer and closer at an increasingly faster speed.

No, this feeling... it's as if they're right outside that classroom, as if this bullying is happening right next to them, just a wall away. If they take one step forward, just a small step, they can immediately see what's going on, see exactly what it's like.

"Stop! Stop it now!"

The moment she realized something was wrong, she immediately shouted out loud.

Upon hearing the sound, Gao Hai immediately stopped in his tracks. Goto Ichiri, on the other hand, subconsciously took another step forward, clearly lacking experience in cooperating with teammates. Gao Hai quickly reached out to stop her, which finally made her stop.

A moment later, Gao Hai noticed the change in his surroundings.

The three people were no longer in the corridor they had just left, but had appeared in another place.

Sometime later, they found themselves standing next to a classroom with its door open, its interior pitch black. Just one more step and they would be inside, into this classroom whose doors were wide open at midnight.

I had no idea when I arrived... Was this a spatial displacement? Or some other mechanism?

Gao Hai's forehead was covered in a fine layer of sweat.

He looked up at the classroom sign and realized that it was the classroom of Class 10, Grade 11.

A sobbing sound came from inside the door, as if someone who had been bullied was hiding inside.

But that's not Gao Hai's current focus.

Come back.

He looked behind him and saw several figures in school uniforms standing in the darkness.

Smiling, watching them, whispering something... something that had appeared silently behind the three of them in the corridor.

【■■？】

The next moment, a crimson light burst forth.

The crimson light, filled with the stench of blood, spread out instantly and enveloped the entire floor in the blink of an eye.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Grim Shadow Shattered Under the Crimson Light

Almost instinctively, Jianzi reached out and covered her nose.

The strong smell of blood was spreading, filling almost the entire corridor and permeating the girl's sense of smell.

The moment the light spread, Jianzi seemed to see shattered corpses floating in the blood, a dying figure being tortured, and the laughter of onlookers sitting nearby.

She felt a chill that went deep into her bones.

Then, the crimson light almost completely obscured vision in the blink of an eye, covering everything around with a red filter. The figures that had been standing in the corridor were also distorted at this moment, like people reflected in a funhouse mirror, completely losing their original shapes.

The murderous intent that was already so close was forcibly forced back at this moment.

The cries and wails that echoed in the classroom, as well as the laughter and merriment of the creatures in the corridor, all receded as the crimson light spread. In their place came the strong smell of rust and the lingering chill, which made Jianzi think, "This crimson light could easily kill me."

Of course, the bloodshed did not actually take Miko's life.

In fact, they completely bypassed Yotsuya Miko and Goto Ichiri, but simply spread outwards, forming a barrier-like structure that firmly blocked external threats.

The distorted figures constantly shifted their shapes outside the blood-red light, violently writhing as if they had gone completely mad. But no matter how these things moved, they could never truly penetrate the blood-red barrier.

Moreover, Jianzi could even see traces of chemical liquid corroding the surface of objects on those strange creatures. After they came into contact with this blood-red barrier, they seemed to begin to rot more and more severely, and their original terrifying aura was also weakened considerably.

Is the barrier's power attacking those strange creatures? No, that's not right. It feels more like... absorption?

That's right, that feeling is absolutely correct. Some of the power of those strange creatures has been absorbed by this barrier.

Is this... the senior's new blessing?

The girl had realized that what appeared to be a blessing of a defensive barrier was actually a man-eating monster capable of instantly taking the lives of others and absorbing everything into its own body.

To be honest, when she sensed the power of this blessing, Miko even doubted whether it was truly a blessing.

Ultimately, a blessing is the power formed from the sincere wishes left by the deceased before they dissipate from the cycle of reincarnation, having finally let go of their attachments. Regardless of its form, such power inherently contains profound goodwill. Yet, under the manifestation of this blessing's power, all Miko could feel was madness and hatred, only extreme cruelty.

What kind of person would leave behind such a fierce and cruel blessing?

What kind of tragic experience must a person have gone through to decide to leave such a vicious weapon for the person who saved them at the moment when they are about to die, fulfilling their regrets?

Even though she had heard about Hayate Elementary School from Takami before and had some understanding of the poor girl Chiyo's experiences, Miko had to admit that she was still somewhat shocked and terrified after truly witnessing the power of this blessing. She had never imagined that Takami's new blessing would be like this.

"go!"

But then, before she could think any further, a large hand grabbed her shoulder and pulled her backward.

Releasing Chiyo Hachiya's blessing barrier did little to improve Takami's expression. He could clearly sense that from the moment the barrier was released, it was immediately resisted by another force—a very powerful, completely equal force.

It is a power that can only be possessed through core conviction.

And the other party's location... was inside that classroom.

Gao Hai's gaze turned to the classroom with the door open as he ran, but he couldn't see what the classroom, shrouded in darkness, looked like.

The crimson light began to move in sync with Gao Hai's movements. The barrier was clearly formed with Gao Hai at its center; wherever he was, the barrier would appear. However, as the force resisting the barrier grew stronger, Gao Hai could sense that its power was gradually being limited, and it could no longer expand its range.

As expected, even a Crimson Moon-level blessing cannot gain an advantage in a direct confrontation with a Crimson Moon-level core obsession.

However, Gao Hai had already made some guesses about the current situation.

This classroom, with its doors open, holds the core of our convictions; it is the classroom of Class 10, Grade 11.

According to the information available, one of the core obsessions of Yoruyama Middle School, the guitarist named Eriko Asamoto, should be a senior high school student in Class 10. However, during the day, the group was unable to find this student in Class 10, and the other core obsession, Koji Morihara, who should have been in Class 3, Grade 11, was also nowhere to be found in his class.

At that time, players didn't pay much attention to this matter because so many changes had occurred within the dungeon and they couldn't find any clues even if they wanted to investigate.

But now, the power of the barrier has clearly encountered a confrontation with the core obsession level of power in the classroom of Class 10, Grade 11. Coupled with the dream before entering the instance, Gao Hai finally completely understands what the core obsession in this instance is all about.

You are about to enter a time when everything can still be salvaged and we haven't reached a dead end.

The KP, dressed as a clown, left these words in the dream.

Nightfall Mountain Middle School itself has undergone tremendous changes, becoming completely different from its original form. However, this is due to external forces modifying the instance and the players' memories combining with the instance itself, and cannot be considered a fundamental change in the instance.

The most crucial change lies in the fact that Eriko Asamoto, the core obsession of the story, has been regressed from her third year of high school to her second year. In other words, her previously doomed obsession, which seemed almost impossible to fulfill under the writer's design, may now be in a completely different state thanks to the clown's adjustments. Perhaps the previously undetectable method to break the core obsession now has a loophole to exploit.

But before that, we need to confirm whether it is indeed Eriko Asamoto.

A pistol appeared in Gao Hai's hand.

Pull the trigger.

Three bullets roared out of the barrel at that moment and then disappeared.

The bullet was aimed at the classroom with the open door, the location of the strange creature that was fighting against the blood mist barrier.

The next moment, Gao Hai clearly sensed that the power that was constantly eroding and destroying the blood mist barrier had been weakened to a considerable extent. As a result, he was able to fully confirm that the core obsession located in Class 10 of the second year of high school was actually named Asamoto Eriko, and was the root of the ghost story of the guitar that Goto Ichiri had been obsessed with.

At the same time, without stopping, he rushed back to the stairwell they had come from, carrying Miko and Goto Ichiri, who was still somewhat confused about the situation.

There's no longer any need for us to stay in this teaching building.

Having located a key, core obsession, this information is enough for the players to proceed with their next move. Now, their priority is survival—to leave the school building alive and ensure they can take this information with them, rather than dying here and wasting a precious slot in their watch.

As for whether to try exploring more locations or investigating more things, sorry, that's not an option. Gao Hai knows very well what it means to know when to stop. Putting aside everything else, it's uncertain whether the information he's currently gathered can be successfully conveyed to his companions. If he investigates more information, whether he can survive is one thing, and whether his teammates can still communicate after obtaining the information is another. The risks involved are simply not worth risking his life for; running away is the best policy.