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

However, Gao Hai knew what was going on.

Although it might sound strange, he had a general idea of ​​what had happened to these villagers.

"Those who go mad never wake up, they really never wake up. They've all become like this, how could they possibly be saved?"

He sighed softly, recalling the words the night watchman had spoken.

By the time the old Taoist priest Ge Yuan arrived at Xiaoheishan, the villagers of Liujia Village were probably already beyond saving.

Their minds and consciousness have been fundamentally and thoroughly alienated, their common sense distorted to the point that they consider such cruel acts perfectly normal and they no longer give them any thought.

The root of this change lies not in them, but in the fox spirit they worship.

The fox spirit who guided the villagers to Black Mountain was initially a normal deity, in much better condition than the mountain god who had lost himself. She might even have been able to communicate with the villagers to some extent. It's just that she couldn't mobilize much of her power to help the villagers get through the difficult pioneering period in order to seal the blood flower.

For some currently unknown reason, the existence of the Fox Queen has begun to become distorted. She has started to treat eating as a normal form of communication and will naturally commit various horrific acts. As the direct believers of the Fox Queen, all the villagers of Liu Family Village have been fundamentally transformed into immortals who will actively destroy their own offspring and treat distorted behaviors that no normal person could accept as common sense.

To be honest, this change is hard to understand.

However, upon closer examination, Gao Hai seems to be able to understand the reasons behind it to some extent.

The villagers of Liujia Village have indeed fallen into complete madness. No matter what methods are used, even forced brainwashing, they cannot change the common sense that the power of the gods has given them.

But it is precisely this common sense, and this strange power that absorbs life force, that enabled these villagers to achieve self-containment.

Indeed, Gao Hai believes this is a form of self-containment. Regardless of whether the villagers who made this decision understood this point, they have in fact completed self-containment.

As followers of the completely out-of-control Fox Goddess, all the villagers of Liu Family Village are, in effect, the best source of contamination from the Fox Goddess's corruption. However, with this deeply ingrained distorted thinking, the number of villagers will not fundamentally change. They can only decrease, never increase, and all newborns in Liu Family Village cannot truly grow and continue the lineage, thus controlling their spread.

Furthermore, although it's unclear how they did it, Liu Family Village has completely disappeared from the real world, remaining hidden even within the instance world. Under normal circumstances, players would have difficulty reaching their location, and the villagers have no idea how to escape this hidden environment; of course, they would never even consider leaving. This spatial and temporal isolation further perfected the containment mechanism, ensuring that these villagers posed no threat to the real world for hundreds of years. Therefore, compared to the extremely anthropomorphic Li family, who caused countless tragedies, the villagers of Liu Family Village can be considered entirely harmless.

The prerequisite for achieving this step is "ingredients" that have been consumed countless times.

Gao Hai was certain that those "ingredients" were not followers of the Fox Goddess.

Although their contact was brief, Gao Hai could clearly confirm through the release of his spiritual power that the children were unrelated to the Fox Goddess and were not influenced by divine power. Unlike the villagers who had lived for countless years, the children received blessings from completely normal humans. They had grown up in a very ordinary way, living in a fabricated environment and unable to truly understand their future destiny.

Gao Hai did not inquire whether the villagers' meals were prepared in a cruel manner.

Because from that lingering aura, he had already sensed endless pain and despair, as well as a life force that was further released along with this intense emotion.

Without revealing their true fate, they are cruelly killed when they reach a suitable age, thus using their pre-death pain and despair to stimulate the release of their life force and achieve a sufficient effect?

This is really... how should I put it...

"Well then, it's about time we took our leave. As for this 'delicious meal,' we're not used to this kind of food, so we won't stay for dinner."

In the end, Gao Hai simply chose to say goodbye calmly.

Eliminating these villagers is a pointless act.

Although they still look human, these guys are essentially shells that no longer possess a true self, but only continue to exist based on the distorted consciousness formed by the Fox Queen's corruption.

This space is, in fact, just another looping past timeline within a single instance. No matter what changes they make here, as long as they go in and out of the well, everything is reset to its initial state. The same villagers, the same children, the same "delicious meal"—it's just a recurring, absurd drama that continues until the end of the world, as long as no one breaks the instance.

What truly matters is the information gleaned from it.

Gao Hai was now certain what that third core obsession, which he had not yet come into contact with, was.

In this cycle spanning centuries, only one thing has been tangibly accumulating: the children, sacrificed and consumed. They are the only ones constantly being created and consumed, gradually building up a painful and desperate obsession over time. Although the vast majority of them are fed to the Fox Queen, completely devoured body and soul, the problem lies in the fact that some are consumed by the villagers. These are the ones who have merely lost their bodies; their consciousness and obsession may not have been completely extinguished, and this is the source of the trouble.

The one who successfully restrained these obsessions was the old Taoist priest, Ge Yuan. The paper figures he created crafted false parents and a false village to suppress the children's obsessions and prevent them from causing harm. And among these paper figures, there must be a key individual. This individual absorbed the vast majority of the obsessions, becoming the representative of the dead children, just as the wedding dress-shaped artifact became the representative of the sacrificial women of Li Family Village. Gao Hai was certain that the third core obsession he needed to find was this individual.

The question is, where will it be?

The paper doll village he explored before... no, it can't be there. If the core obsession were truly there, he couldn't possibly have missed it. And even if we insist that he was under the control of the Fox Queen and Blood Flower and didn't investigate thoroughly, there were still several other players who explored that place. As veteran Red Moon level players, they couldn't possibly have been unaware that a Red Moon level core obsession was hiding there.

Perhaps, just as the past of [Liu Family Village] has been hidden, the core obsession they created, which corresponds to this village, will also be hidden along with it.

If that's the case, where would this hidden core be located?

"Hey, why? This food is so delicious, why aren't you eating it?"

Liu Qigui looked up at Gao Hai and the others with great confusion.

"..."

Gao Hai remained silent.

He suddenly recalled what Chatchai had said in the previous playthrough, about what he had initially done to successfully enter the Liu Family Village area.

In order to successfully enter Liu Family Village, Chachai replaced himself with the existence of paper dolls and ghostly figures, to the point that he could hardly distinguish whether he was a paper doll or a human...

The paper figures made by Ge Yuan are capable of truly entering the Liu Family Village area.

Later, they disguised themselves using the aura of the eerie creatures in the Water Ghost Lake, and the aura of those creatures was also related to the paper dolls.

Furthermore, Chachai, who successfully entered this place by concealing his identity through the aura of the paper doll, felt from the moment he entered that something extremely dangerous was watching him, and he sensed the approaching danger after only a short time. Chachai could not accurately determine the source of the danger, only that it was something without a physical form, likely a strange entity acting as an invisible vengeful spirit.

These phenomena did not occur when Gao Hai entered this time. If he were to find the reason for this difference, he estimated that the problem might lie in the fact that he truly possessed the mark of the Fox Queen. The Fox Queen's aura resonated with the existence of [Liu Family Village], which is why these villagers maintained a "normal" state in front of Gao Hai for a longer period of time, and remained unchanged until he realized certain issues and gained this understanding.

But now, Gao has realized where the problem lies.

[Slurp—~]

A paper figure resembling Liu Qigui took another sip of soup, but only managed to wet the area from its mouth to its neck, making it all wrinkled and messy.

The air turned icy cold in an instant, and a strong sense of malice began to spread.

In the hall, everything—from the tables and chairs to the walls and ceiling—has changed from its original form to a paper-like structure.

Then, the thing lying on the large plate slowly raised its head and looked towards Gao Hai.

Chapter 117: The Suppressed Monster and the Twisted Villagers

Both Cat Brother and Tangyuan were actually nervous for a while.

After all, a monster of the Red Moon level core obsession level is already an extremely terrifying threat to them. Even if they gather their own small team to encounter a monster of this level, the outcome is often more bad than good, and they must go all out to seek a glimmer of hope.

Is it time for a war?

Are we going to fight this thing in this unfamiliar place where we haven't known anything beforehand?

Tsk, is there really any chance of winning?

With this mindset, both players were extremely tense and quickly took out their most cherished items, ready to fight and sacrifice themselves.

In contrast, Maki was quite relaxed and at ease. Even though she was actually the weakest among the other players present, and the aura of the suddenly appearing Red Moon-level core had the most intense impact on her senses, she showed absolutely no worry or tension.

In fact, she didn't even pay attention to the thing that sat up from the table. Instead, she continued to use her auditory blessing to monitor her surroundings, guarding against anything that might attack from other directions. In the girl's view, the possibility of something dangerous lurking outside was more important than the strange creature that was about to attack.

【Wow... Woohoo...】

It sounded like a child sobbing softly.

Horrifyingly, something that had been pieced together from shattered, rotten flesh and barely managed to reconstruct a human form reached out its hand, about to grab the players in front of it.

Gao Hai simply lifted his foot.

Boom!

Then he stepped directly on the thing's head, shattering the plates and table, stomping the thing onto the ground, causing the ground to collapse, almost pressing the thing's head into the mud, just like Ah Xing whose head was sunk into the floor by the Fire Cloud Evil God's fist the size of a sandbag.

A crimson light appeared in his pupils, and the power of nothingness covered his entire body, making Gao Hai's body appear and disappear like a phantom.

[Wow... Wowhhhhh...]

The mournful cries spread.

In an instant, Gao Hai's body was covered in various injuries. His skin and flesh were torn apart out of thin air, cooked, and even scalding soup flowed out of his body.

But the power of the rescue team badge immediately activated, working together with the blessing power to quickly repair the twisted parts of his body, restoring them to their normal state.

【Waaaaah—Waaaaahhhhhh—!!!】

Amidst the deafening sobs, a shattered arm reached out and grabbed Gao Hai's head, nearly crushing it on the spot.

One after another, phantom images of children began to appear in the house, each an incomplete fragment, each wailing and screaming in extreme pain and despair.

But Gao Hai remained unmoved.

He simply took out the Persistent One's Pen and began to draw directly on the collapsed and broken wall, sketching items related to this strange creature.

Even though the wailing suddenly intensified, becoming as sharp and piercing as countless children howling at once, and swept in with a strong polluted aura, it did not hinder Gao Hai's actions in the slightest.

The unassuming pistol ended up in another hand.

boom!

A suppressor round was fired, slowing down the twisted creature's movements, and the surrounding chaotic illusions vanished without a trace.

boom! ! !

The second suppressive shell detonated alongside Gao Hai's overwhelming mental energy. Gao Hai had already witnessed the twisted, eerie creature's appearance, understood its origins, and realized it had reached the crucial, hidden Sealed Paper Village, where it was currently enduring its attacks. Furthermore, Gao Hai used his mental energy and the Blood Pen, his object of obsession, to forcibly decipher the still unclear rules of the supernatural tales, managing to determine a portion of them and further enhancing the effect of the second suppressive shell.

【Wow...wooo...】

The terrifying creature struggled twice before finally falling silent.

Considering that it is still being stepped on by Gao Hai, it is probably not a problem that it is in a peaceful state in a sense.

{It really was resolved in an instant! That's terrifying. Which side is the real monster...?}

Tangyuan, who was about to make a move, was stunned by this scene and finally shook her head and put away the object she was obsessed with.

{Maybe this time I can really experience what it's like to be a newbie}

Cat Brother on the other side was also somewhat moved. He was becoming more and more curious about Gao Hai, this mysterious and unpredictable powerhouse.

Close your eyes.

After successfully suppressing the creature, which resembled an infant but was actually cooked rotten flesh that had reassembled itself like mud, with two suppressant rounds, his mind focused entirely on the feedback from the Pen of the Obsessed. Through this blood-stained pen that could empathize with the strange creature through painting, his mind began to delve into the past of this twisted creature, gaining a deeper and deeper understanding of its formation process.

Unlike the intelligence he obtained in Lijia Village, the intelligence Gao Hai gathered here no longer only mentioned a single village.

The Li family... the Liu family... and also the Zhang family, the original village jointly established by the three families, its complete appearance was displayed in Gao Hai's consciousness.

In the beginning, there was no such thing as "Li Family Village", "Liu Family Village" or "Zhang Family Village". Although these three families were indeed always in a state of mutual cohesion, and their residences were somewhat separated from those of other families, the village at this time was indeed a whole.

Its name is [Yingti Village].

Is this really the name?

Gao Hai wasn't surprised, as he had already heard of the name "Yingti Village." The paper figures asking for directions—the ones made by the old Taoist Ge Yuan—would constantly ask others for the village's location and pull those who interacted with them into other dimensions.