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

"I tried to predict the location of Yurikawa Hana, and although I couldn't calculate it, I'm certain it's not in the vicinity. This place is collapsing everywhere now, and the only thing that remains intact is that factory. I suspect she may have already infiltrated it. It just so happens that Miss Kita has also gone down now. Vice Captain, you take Lao Wang to meet her. I'll investigate the situation here."

Angel, determined to leave, said to Li Ling from afar, ignoring the harsh words she hurled in anger, and disappeared into the crumbling ruins.

Despite her helplessness, Li Ling could only sigh and accept it, turning around and heading in another direction.

Rumbling--

The self-destruction of an entire city created a grotesque scene reminiscent of an apocalyptic natural disaster.

Tiny individuals of humanity frantically traverse through it, as indistinct as a speck of dust.

Even those seemingly terrifying monsters were rendered meaningless by this scene of destruction. Unable to resist the collapse of the edge space itself, they even began to disrupt their own rules of movement, causing them to stop and freeze, no longer able to pose any obstacle to the players.

Rumble, rumble——

Judging from the speed at which the city's atmosphere changes, it is estimated that this place will be completely destroyed in less than ten minutes, and the tentacles between the [hospital] and the real world will be permanently severed.

Yotsuya Miko was 100% certain of this.

Forcibly extending a node from the instance world to the real world and maintaining its long-term stability is not something that can be created casually. Human flesh and blood are merely one of the basic materials. The [Hospital] must pay a price that cannot be reversed by the power of the Black Watch in order for the node to truly stabilize. Therefore, even if some unexpected situation later forces Takami to rewind time and open a new instance after all the nodes in the residential area are destroyed, Miko is certain that the situation in the residential area will be much better.

However, this is not a problem that the girl needs to consider right now.

After all, dealing with the immediate troubles was more important than what would happen later. She had no intention of dying and returning to the graveyard now and waiting to be resurrected in the next round.

One of the gates to the amusement park has been closed.

Those who should have been saved are now forced to wander in a sorrowful reality.

Ah, why is the road ahead always so difficult? Why are our beautiful visions always so hard to realize?

A dreamlike voice echoed among the gradually dissolving remains of flesh and blood.

The voice was neither male nor female, or rather, the thing itself was not human, and therefore naturally did not possess the concept of "gender".

Judging from its appearance, the thing was about two meters tall, wearing a doctor's white coat. Its body was so thin that it was deformed, almost like a stick figure. The white coat looked like it was hanging on the thing, which was quite comical.

Its head was a small television set, about ten inches in size, with an image displayed on the screen. It was a black-and-white image, clearly a diagram of the infamous lobotomy, one that would cause severe discomfort just to look at it.

The thing had about six or seven arms, though Jianzi couldn't be sure of the exact number, as the number of arms seemed to increase or decrease from time to time. The two foremost arms, which remained constant, didn't have human hands and fingers protruding from their sleeves; instead, they were needles and a small patch for listening to a heartbeat. The deformed arms extending from the back of the body clearly resembled or were transformed into various medical structures, including scalpels for surgery, electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring equipment, various questionnaires, chains, straps, stun guns, sedatives, and so on. In short, this thing could pull out something new every now and then.

Seeing this, I know it is a [psychologist].

This stems from the fact that one of the entities truly occupying a top position in that abnormal instance within the [Hospital] is one of the three doctors she sensed earlier, the doctor who hoped to bring [false happiness] to everyone, the [psychologist].

It is not a ghost.

Or rather, it is not a strange object transformed from the obsession of a specific deceased human.

Jianzi didn't know how to describe the existence of this thing. Its life form was quite different from the beings she had encountered before. Even beings like Alice from Fujika Middle School or the mountain god from Infant Cry Village were completely different from this [psychologist] and could not be regarded as the same kind.

However, one thing is certain: it can think, it has self-awareness, and it is not just a monster that knows only how to obey rules.

Furthermore, like the strange creatures, it wields the power of supernatural tales and possesses extraordinary characteristics. Moreover, it is incredibly strong, far surpassing those modified Abyss-level monsters, so strong that Jianzi doesn't believe he has the ability to defeat it.

Using her precognitive abilities to dodge an attack once before was already the limit of what Jianzi could do.

So, what should we do next to survive this thing?

As she pondered, the girl clenched her fists, her mind becoming highly focused and tense.

The distorted TV-head monster, after the screen flickered a few times, slowly raised its head as if waking from a dream, and pointed the screen at the direction where Miko was.

Chapter 45: Yurikawa Hana's Reawakening and the Moment of Returning to the Factory

Did something just happen?

In a daze, Xiao Hua opened her eyes, feeling a dizzying pain in her head, her vision blurred, and her whole being was in a dreamlike state of confusion.

I can't quite remember what happened before. Even if I try hard to recall, I can only vaguely recall the violent burst of light and heat, like something suddenly exploded. Then my body flew into the air like a piece of paper, and then I knew nothing more.

A faint red light flickered around me.

As her consciousness and senses gradually returned, Xiaohua noticed a cell phone lying beside her, emitting a very faint red light that seemed ready to go out at any moment. This made the girl immediately realize that after being thrown away by the shockwave of the explosion, she was probably already dead. It was the fragment of the crimson domain within the cell phone that protected her, allowing her to open her eyes alive.

"Is this... Sister Li's phone? We need to find her and thank her properly."

Xiao Hua, muttering to herself, struggled to her feet. She felt as if her entire body was about to fall apart, and even the slightest movement was excruciatingly painful. Gritting her teeth, she looked up and saw the city above her, collapsed and engulfed in flames. Her mouth dropped open in stunned disbelief.

Are those city ruins the places I used to live in?

Something feels completely different now. Uncle Wang Gui's explosives were so powerful that they blew up the entire city?! That can't be right, right? It was just a detonator, wasn't it? This effect is practically like being hit by a nuclear bomb!

At this moment, the girl felt a strong sense of unease, as if she had slept through several different versions of herself, and she didn't know how she should react.

However, Xiao Hua didn't need to do anything, because soon, with a muffled sound coming from afar, she saw Kita Ikuyo, like a red meteor, crash through a building, fly in mid-air and entangle with a black figure. The shockwaves and air currents they generated easily tore apart the surrounding buildings as if they were tearing paper.

"..."

At this moment, Xiaohua didn't know how to react.

She stood there, stunned, frozen in place for a long time before finally snapping out of her daze, before the scene above her, which resembled a superhero battle.

What exactly was that thing I just saw?

Could it be that she's a player too? Is that level even considered a player? Did she just punch a building that blew up? And that was a proper building, right?!

Recalling how she had been dealing with the monster in the mansion just an hour or two ago, and how she had been carefully exploring the rotting room, and then comparing that to Kita Ikuyo's current scene of flying through the air and fighting fiercely with that dark monster, Xiao Hua felt a strong sense of unreality.

Isn't the skill gap between players a bit too big?

If I had that kind of power, why would I be bullied by these monsters? I finally awakened my superpowers, but I couldn't even defeat many enemies. Basically, all I did was run away and dodge, and sometimes I'd get knocked unconscious by the aftershocks of the battle.

Slightly, a longing for a POWER arose in the girl's heart.

Of course, she didn't let herself get caught up in negative emotions. She just sighed a little before shifting her attention, picking up her phone and starting to observe where she was.

The platform I am currently on appears to be the edge of a gigantic gear, estimated to be over ten meters in diameter and over five meters in width.

If the gear had been tilted at an even greater angle, Xiaohua estimated she would have fallen even deeper. In fact, even now, having been fortunate enough to land on this gear platform, the girl found it difficult to move in any other direction, because all around her were gears of various sizes, with no path to be found.

The only option is to try climbing over these gears.

Xiao Hua quickly realized this fact.

Looking down into the dark void beneath her, the girl wondered what would happen if she lost her grip and fell off the gears while climbing. The thought sent a chill down her spine. She quickly took a few deep breaths, patted her cheeks and chest, and tried to focus her thoughts on how to escape this area.

The good news for now is that the gears haven't started moving, so there's no need to worry about getting caught in them and crushed like Xiaohua during the climb, or being pulled down by them. However, whether these gears will remain stationary or suddenly start moving at some point is something Xiaohua can't know in advance. Therefore, she knows she must act quickly, otherwise, if the gears suddenly start moving, she'll be truly doomed.

"Mr. Gao Hai, Mr. Gao Hai, please bless me and everyone else to be safe and sound."

After stretching his limbs and quietly praying to Gao Hai, who had become his spiritual pillar, Xiao Hua turned his gaze to the nearest enormous gear, took a deep breath, accelerated, and leaped into the air.

Bang!

The sensation of crashing into a solid iron gear from a drop of about 3 meters without any cushioning is difficult for a human being of flesh and blood to describe in words, because under normal circumstances, a person who does this would have to lie on the ground for at least ten minutes before they have the strength to speak.

But Xiao Hua only took a heavy breath before slowly getting up, and even had the strength to rub her shoulders and observe her surroundings.

The crimson glow of the fragments of the Crimson Domain surrounded the girl, providing her with protection. At the same time, unknowingly, the essence fragment belonging to Xiao Hua herself, which Gao Hai released into the real world through [Infant Cry Village], had begun to awaken and improve her physical attributes.

Xiaohua herself didn't notice these subtle changes, after all, she wasn't a particularly sensitive or observant person. At this moment, Xiaohua was simply instinctively feeling a sense of security surrounding her, and the source of that security was the phone in her hand, and the presence of that red light.

Finally, we were able to move around under protection.

Just realizing this filled Xiaohua with courage, and she no longer felt the fragile, helpless fear and despair she had felt at the traffic lights and in the restroom.

hum-

It seems like I can hear some sounds in the distance.

"It seems somewhat familiar."

Xiao Hua frowned, feeling as if she had heard these sounds not long ago, so she quickened her pace and decided to move toward the source of the sounds.

She carefully stepped over several large, interconnected gears, then climbed onto a few smaller ones, gradually venturing deeper into the area filled with various gears.

The dusty smell of the metal factory gradually intensified, along with a faint, now familiar, stench of blood, which quickly became clearer to Xiaohua, making her wary.

It seems I have some idea of ​​where this place is.

Thinking this, the girl explored a little further. After passing through several more gears, she looked up and saw a passage extending into the air about ten meters high, with a dim light hanging in the passage.

The rusty metal passageway was all too familiar to Xiaohua, making her immediately realize that she was in a certain area of ​​the factory.

So, did that big explosion blow me directly to this factory area and into some mechanical gear area?

It feels a bit too amazing, how could my luck be so good? Or should this actually be considered bad luck? Ugh, speaking of which, I left my old phone here. I wonder how much energy is left in that phone's domain fragment, or if it was destroyed by those monsters or something.

In any case, now that we've successfully returned here, let's figure out a way to continue stealing corpses.

Xiaohua knew that her strength was too weak to play a significant role in the current war surrounding Tokyo. But since she was here, she wanted to do her best to help everyone, rather than simply being someone who needed saving.

hum-

However, before the girl could make up her mind to take action, a strong tremor interrupted her thoughts.

"Oh dear, what's going on?"

Rumble, rumble——

Before the question could even be uttered, a roar as if it were the end of the world came from high above.

Xiao Hua only had time to raise her head before she saw the already fragmented and distorted city collapsing violently at this moment, as if facing final judgment and falling into an extreme state of self-destruction.

Every building was collapsing and disintegrating on its own, every street was crumbling and disappearing, and the monsters hiding within were turning into dust, either returning to their original instances or vanishing on the spot, losing their existence.

It seems that something has been completely cracked.

Although she hadn't seen what the liberation node looked like, Xiaohua instinctively realized the underlying possibility of such a change in this edge space, and at the same time realized that if she didn't act quickly, she might perish along with this place.

Click—click-click—

“Huh?!”

However, this time the anomaly seemed to be far more numerous and faster than Xiaohua had anticipated. Therefore, before she could take any action, accompanied by a mechanical vibration, she found that the gears beneath her feet and around her had begun to slowly turn.

"Waaaaaahh ...

The girl, utterly powerless against these colossal mechanical creations, was thrown to the ground by the gears and then flung away, crashing into another large gear.

Struggling, Xiaohua tried to stand up, but fell to the ground again after a few attempts. Only then did she realize with astonishment that her center of gravity was gradually shifting—no, the entire factory was shifting; the thing itself was moving. Wait, this feeling… is this area of ​​buildings moving away from the collapsed and destroyed city above?

Is it like a container responsible for collecting materials? If a problem is found at the collection end, it disconnects in time to stop the loss and prepares to bring back the materials that have already been collected?