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

Even if we risk total annihilation, we must not back down when it's time to fight.

{Everyone get ready!}

After the brief order was given, the three people in the spatial crevice were ready to act.

Inside the ancestral hall, Gao Hai silently aimed at the statue for more than ten seconds before frowning and slowly lowering the gun in his hand.

Then, he lowered his head and looked at the offerings on the table, at the players' flesh and blood that had been carefully cut and plated.

The blessing of nothingness has been activated.

With just one glance, all the flesh and blood on the table, along with the altar itself, vanished, thrown into the future by Gao Hai's blessing.

Then, Gao Hai's gaze shifted to the child statue held in the statue's arms. In the blink of an eye, the child statue vanished without a trace, traveling through time to a week later, leaving only the empty-handed statue standing there.

Gao Hai raised his head again.

This time, he saw the statue's head slowly rise, its kind and benevolent expression frozen, becoming expressionless, and staring straight at Gao Hai.

"What, you're not convinced?"

Gao Hai casually twirled his pistol, grinning at the statue.

"If you're not happy, go and pick it up yourself. You can't possibly not be able to do it, can you? No way, no way, a mountain god like you can't even get your offerings back after they've been stolen? You can't be that pathetic, can you?"

With a mocking tone, Gao Hai tossed the pistol into the air, where it spun two and a half times before landing back between his raised fingers, the muzzle once again aimed at the statue.

Without the slightest hesitation, Gao Hai pulled the trigger.

boom!

Chapter Twenty-Six: The So-Called Divine Things and the Unchangeable Outcome

Bang bang bang!

Three gunshots rang out in quick succession, heading towards the eerie aura that had instantly locked onto Gao Hai.

Gao Hai was certain that the aura locking onto him at that moment belonged to the mountain god. After all, the incredibly intense and chilling sensation that swept over his entire body in that instant was exactly the same aura he had felt from the mountain god statue during the welcoming ceremony for the gods.

Therefore, he was certain that the [suppression bullet] he used at this moment would definitely hit the opponent.

Bang bang bang bang bang bang——

Gao Hai fired all ten suppression rounds, sending them all heading straight for the gaze directed at him.

The gun muzzle flashed and made a sound.

The bullet left the barrel and disappeared.

Then, no other traces could be seen.

After the ten consecutive shots rang out, Gao Hai did not see any hits.

The towering mountain god statue remained silent, showing no reaction to the gunshots.

The dilapidated village, which had been almost completely razed to the ground, remained unchanged, still as silent as before.

The attack launched by Gao Hai with the Red Moon-level blessing seemed to be just like the previous bomb explosion; it failed to cause any damage to the mountain god or even elicit any response from it.

Has the gap really gotten this big?

Or perhaps, we just need to wait a little while?

Gao Hai remained silent, simply gazing up at the statue before him, silently counting down the seconds in his mind.

Then, he got the response he wanted.

hum-

After six seconds of silence, the ground suddenly began to shake violently.

An intense chill instantly enveloped Gao Hai's entire body, causing almost all his nerves to stiffen, and he almost lost his most basic ability to move and perceive.

Feel.

That thing's gaze had already locked onto him.

He could sense that this time, the gaze fixed on him was unlikely to look away easily.

"call……"

A strong feeling of suffocation is gradually enveloping my body.

Even though he was merely being watched, Gao Hai felt as if his body had lost control. He felt that all the muscles, nerves, bones, and organs in his body had betrayed him, becoming displaced, twisted, and transformed into something else entirely.

Unable to resist.

Even though Gao Hai tried to resist the moment the strange sensation enveloped his body, he was completely unable to resist and his ability to move was completely sealed off.

"..."

He could no longer even breathe.

At this moment, Gao Hai could only rely on his own willpower to hold on and try his best to stay conscious so that he wouldn't fall into a coma.

Unable to activate any blessings, merely maintaining self-awareness was already at its limit; there was simply no energy left to do anything else. If her consciousness were to wander even slightly, she feared she would succumb to the pressure and faint.

The gaze that led to the current situation was only fixed on Gao Hai.

The other party did not seem to take any further action.

It was just looking at Gao Hai, nothing more.

"..."

I still can't breathe, can't make any sound, and can't do anything.

However, it seems that I can gradually sense something.

You could sense something from that seemingly emotionless, indifferent gaze.

Tall mountain ranges.

A continuous range of snow-capped peaks.

There are also deep caves located within them.

There was a sound of crying.

The cries were muffled and obscured by the deep tunnel.

The cries, growing fainter and fainter, echoed continuously in the cold, gloomy darkness.

Whose crying is that?

And who is listening to this crying, watching the same thing happen day after day?

My consciousness became even more blurred.

This situation seemed to be the first time Gao Hai had ever experienced it.

My body hasn't reached its limit yet and can continue for a while longer, but my spirit is about to collapse.

Could my consciousness really be so vulnerable?

Or is it that... I don't actually want to resist this gaze, I don't actually want to fight against this power? What I'm truly fighting against isn't just the gaze projected from the outside, but also my own [will and thoughts]?

At that moment of realization, Gao Hai seemed to hear an even louder cry.

The sound of crying echoed from a cave high in the snow-capped mountain.

Her cries, weak and trembling, struggled desperately but gradually faded away.

The crying was all around him, right beside him.

It was as if I had become one of those crying voices, a part of the darkness.

No...

In the increasingly hazy moments, Gao Hai realized that he was trapped in a dead end that he could not escape on his own.

The mere presence of that statue, by simply casting its gaze, had already driven him to the brink of despair.

We haven't even really uncovered anything yet, and the new mission has already turned out like this in less than a day.

In this situation, Gao Hai had no way to save himself.

So why is there no response from the other side?

From the moment that gaze fell upon him until now, Gao Hai, though unable to recall the exact time, was certain he had held on for at least a minute. Given that he had stood motionless for so long and experienced constant, intense mental fluctuations, Goto Ichiri couldn't possibly have been unaware; she should have acted long ago.

And Kita too, why didn't she react either? In this situation, shouldn't she have tried to release her mental energy to help Takami relieve his mental burden?

Regardless, they should have reacted.

The silence I am experiencing right now is something that shouldn't be happening at this time; things shouldn't be like this.

The body cannot move.

Despite noticing the subtle inconsistencies, Gao Hai was unable to take appropriate action.

His body, every cell in his body, was almost completely integrated with the space at this moment, as if he had become a motionless statue.

Then, Gao Hai finally realized what was happening.

It wasn't that his companions were unable to react, nor that Ichiri or Kita were unwilling to intervene after discovering he had been affected; rather, everything had come to a standstill, and time itself had stopped moving.

The moment Gao Hai used the suppression bomb to truly attack that thing, and the moment that thing truly looked at Gao Hai, time seemed to freeze.

His own experience of being stared at was stretched infinitely, extending endlessly in that instant.

Therefore, neither Ichiri nor Kita could help Takami, nor could they realize the problem. Because after being hit, Takami's consciousness could never reach the next second; he was locked in an infinitely long second by the power of that gaze.

What the hell? Is this the Mountain God or the Golden Experience Requiem? Am I really stuck in an infinitely extended second, or has my consciousness been deceived and I can't escape this second loop?

click-

I heard the collapse of the mental fragments within my brain.

Click, click—!!!

The fragments meant to help Gao Hai withstand mental harm shattered one after another at this moment, disappearing completely in a very short time.

This did not bring Gao Hai even a second of relief. The increasingly intense sense of abnormality relentlessly invaded Gao Hai's mind. In the gradually chaotic perception, his self-awareness was approaching its limit and was about to collapse.