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

The girl, struggling to her feet, reached out and grabbed a small gear, hoping to gain leverage from it. However, the force of the rapidly spinning gear lifted her up, threw her off, and sent her crashing into another gear. She was then rolled twice before finally landing on a platform.

The continuous collisions made Xiaohua see stars. If it weren't for the protection of the blood-red domain fragments, she estimated that she would be dead by now.

However, even though she was in excruciating pain all over her body, Xiaohua still had the strength to stand up and check where she was once again.

Then, she found herself on a conveyor belt, surrounded by fresh corpses. Judging from the looks of it, she figured she would be taken by the conveyor belt to the warehouse she had almost reached earlier.

"So I'm back here after all. Hmm, my luck seems to be pretty good after all?"

Xiao Hua muttered something under his breath, then turned to look around. He immediately noticed a corpse among the surrounding bodies that was emitting a faint red glow.

What happened?

Realizing something was wrong, the girl carefully got up and moved unsteadily to the corpse. Judging from its appearance, the corpse was a young woman, probably no more than twenty-five years old. She was lying diagonally on the ground, clutching a dirty-looking climbing axe. Her body was covered in wounds, and there was congealed blood on her forehead, making her look extremely disheveled.

As for the faint red light, it emanated from the corpse's waist. It seemed that the body was pressing down on something that was glowing. No one knew what it was, but the fact that it could continue to emit a faint red light in the factory gave Xiao Hua a slight sense of déjà vu.

However, because her attention was entirely focused on that strange light, the girl did not realize that the "corpse" in her eyes was actually still experiencing a slight rise and fall in its chest and was not truly dead.

Reach out.

Xiao Hua stuck her phone, which she was holding, onto the "corpse."

According to previous practice, the red light should have absorbed the corpse very quickly.

This time, however, Xiaohua found that the red light did not move at all. She held the phone still for a while, but the thing did not change at all and did not react at all.

"Huh, how could this be?"

Xiao Hua, unaware of what this meant, was very puzzled. He took back his phone, shook it a couple of times, and then stuck it on the "corpse." After waiting for a while, he found that the thing still had no effect.

Could it be that because the phones are different, the functions of the fragments are also different?

The girl, lost in thought, put her phone away again, wanting to try tapping the screen or turning it off and on again to see if that would work.

Snapped!

Then, just as she withdrew her hand, the "corpse" that she thought should have been unable to move suddenly reached out and grabbed Xiao Hua's hand.

"Waaah—"

Before the girl could scream, the "corpse's" second hand covered Xiaohua's mouth, silencing her completely.

Heavy breathing slowly began to rise.

Fragments of the crimson domain, also emitting a faint red glow, emanated from the phone screen that the "corpse" had been pressing down on.

"where is this place?"

The battered and bruised Kazama Ren opened her eyes, carefully observed the frightened Xiaohua, and only after confirming that the other party was human did she let go of her hand and ask in a tired tone.

Chapter 46: A makeshift two-person team in the factory and an invincible doctor

Kazama Ren can no longer clearly recall how she got here.

She only vaguely remembered escaping the apartment and landing in a collapsed ruin, falling heavily for at least ten meters and hitting the back of her head. After that, she was in a dazed state. Then, she didn't know when, but when she opened her eyes, she found herself lying on a slowly moving conveyor belt. At the same time, she clearly sensed someone approaching her and doing something to her.

How did I end up in this place?

And this thing that appeared next to me... is it human? Hmm... I can't sense any malice. It just seems to be an ordinary person, but it seems to have awakened its essential power. I guess it's about the strength of a Twilight-level player?

As she gradually regained consciousness, Kazama Ren instinctively tensed up upon discovering Xiaohua, almost launching an immediate attack. However, given her still weakened state, she lacked the strength to launch a direct attack and could only lie low and observe. She quickly confirmed that the seemingly clumsy girl was indeed human and harbored no ill will towards her.

It's really amazing to encounter an ordinary person alive in a place like this. Just how lucky must this person be to survive here?

"where is this place?"

While thinking, Kazama Ren, who had regained some of her mobility, suddenly turned around, grabbed Xiaohua's wrist, and asked in a hoarse voice, while also covering her mouth with her other hand to prevent her from screaming.

"Hey, hey, hey, so you're still alive? That's great, that's great! I thought I was all alone here."

Startled by Kazama Ren, Xiao Hua was initially taken aback, then immediately whispered after being released. The girl's eyes were bright and clear, revealing her undisguised joy at finding a teammate, giving Kazama Ren the illusion of seeing a human-shaped blonde.

I always felt it was a bit silly.

Kazama Ren made her own assessment of Xiaohua in her heart.

However, from a sensory perspective, there's no problem; contact is possible. It's just… how come she has the vice-captain's phone? Has she already contacted the other team members? I don't see anyone else, just her alone.

"Ahem, do you know where this place is?"

Reaching out to wipe the bloodstains from her face that hadn't completely dried, Kazama Ren spoke while carefully observing Xiao Hua again, confirming that she was currently carrying Vice Captain Li Ling's cell phone.

zizi——

It was at this moment that she suddenly heard a faint sound coming from beneath her. Looking down, she realized that her phone screen had gone black. Clearly, she had survived until now entirely thanks to the fragment of the Crimson Domain she carried, but that fragment had reached its limit after saving Kazama Ren's life, and thus it completely dissipated and destroyed as soon as she regained consciousness.

"This is the [factory]. The [hospital] collects all the bodies of the people they killed here. I'm not quite sure what the [hospital]'s purpose is in doing this, but the Crimson Domain can absorb these bodies, so I was thinking about whether we could move them all away. After all, anything the enemy wants to do is definitely harmful to us. Oh, and this phone was given to me by a sister named Li Ling. There was an explosion up here before, and I was blown down..."

Xiao Hua herself wasn't very good at explaining things, but fortunately, the two of them had enough time. So, Kazama Ren and Xiao Hua asked and answered questions, and after a few minutes, Kazama Ren roughly understood Xiao Hua's experience of meeting Li Ling and the others, confirmed the relationship between Xiao Hua and Yotsuya Miko, and also got some general information about the [factory].

A complete novice who had never encountered the [Sacrifice Game] before, even with the protection of Mr. Gao Hai's mental fragments and Crimson Domain fragments, first soloing into a Twilight-level dungeon, then awakening extraordinary power and stepping into the edge space, and making it this far without suffering any serious harm. To be honest, Kazama Ren finds it hard to describe Xiao Hua's luck; she even considered taking Xiao Hua to buy lottery tickets after surviving to see if they could win.

"You're really something. Honestly, most people would have died dozens of times over after encountering all this along the way. Hmm, it seems unlikely that we can go up and meet up now. It looks like the two of us will have to investigate this [factory]."

As she spoke, Kazama Ren, whose body was still a little sore, thought for a moment, took out a small box, opened it, and revealed various cosmetics inside.

"Hehehe, maybe I really am lucky. Um, Kazama-neechan, what is this?"

Although Xiaohua didn't quite understand what Kazama Ren was saying, she still showed a somewhat proud expression. Then her attention quickly shifted to the small items Kazama Ren had taken out. Based on her instinctive intuition, Xiaohua could sense an eerie aura emanating from these cosmetics.

"Let me do your makeup first. This is my obsession item, the 'Death Makeup.' After applying this, it will be harder for ghosts to detect your presence as a living person. It might even have a miraculous effect in a critical moment."

As Kazama Ren spoke, she used the red light from Xiao Hua's phone to start applying makeup to her. Although Xiao Hua didn't understand what was going on, she saw that the other party was very serious, so she obediently sat on the conveyor belt and let the other party apply makeup to her.

In the dim, reddish light, the black conveyor belt continued to move slowly. In the distance, the massive factory, flashing red and green warning lights, could be seen, with wisps of black smoke floating within it.

hum-

Something seemed to be trembling slowly beneath the factory.

As the edge space changes, and as this area gradually loses stability due to the fragmentation of nodes, the [Hospital] seems to react in some way and begins to release its energy through the [Factory] located within the edge space.

hum-

Kazama Ren heard a dull thud. She looked up at the source of the sound and saw a huge mechanical arm and corpses being transported by mechanical probes.

"Um, Kazama-neechan, did you sense anything?"

Xiao Hua, who was halfway through her makeup, didn't dare to move, but she still vaguely sensed something, so she asked in a low voice with some unease.

"...It's alright, as long as we stay on this conveyor belt, we should be fine. Don't talk anymore, I'll finish your makeup right away, and then we'll go inside and see what's going on here."

Kazama Ren tilted her head and wiped the bloodstains slowly flowing down her cheek with her shoulder. She looked away and spoke to Xiaohua, her hands trembling slightly as she applied makeup.

Splash splash splash—splash splash splash—

The wriggling sound gradually became clearer.

One after another, the exact number was impossible to count; one could only feel an overwhelming sense of pressure that defied description.

Kazama Ren knew that if she were to look around even slightly, she would be able to see those things.

That was the extremely powerful eyeball-like monster that she and Yu Qingshan had encountered in that apartment building.

However, at that time, we only encountered one.

Now crawling over the factory walls and gears around the conveyor belt are countless, densely packed, eyeball-like monsters, so numerous that their mere presence is enough to suffocate anyone.

Even with a rough estimate, the number is probably over ten thousand, right?

It's certain that these monsters were directly released into this area from the [Hospital].

But why?

Kazama Ren could sense that this edge space was already in a state of collapse. Obviously, all the nodes had been destroyed, and it wouldn't be long before the connection between this place and the real world would break down, and it would fall into self-destruction and dissipate into the void.

As a derivative of the Red Moon level, the Eyeball Monsters are certainly inferior to individual Red Moon level players, but their sheer numbers make them difficult even for elite Red Moon level player teams to handle. They can be considered the elite force of the [Hospital]. Throwing such a large number of Eyeball Monsters into a collapsing space—what if they can't be retrieved and all perish inside? Derivative monsters don't possess the same strong immortality as regular monsters from legends; if they're trapped here, they're almost certainly going to die.

Unless, of course, the hospital believes there is a very important objective here.

It's so important that we must take it down, even at the cost of a significant number of troops. Could it be Ms. Yotsuya? After all, the [Hospital] was hunting her down before. But if it's just Ms. Yotsuya, that doesn't seem quite right. There should be... a second one, right? Mr. Takami's girlfriend, the messenger who carries a portion of his power. That's right, there was news before that a messenger would be there to support us, so now the [Hospital] has confirmed the existence of two messengers, and they've confirmed that they're both in the same place, right?

Could all these eye-shaped monsters be there to ambush and kill the two of them?

Kazama Ren keenly realized the reason why the hospital, having already suffered a decisive defeat in the residential area, had suddenly gone mad, mobilizing a large force to fill this soon-to-be-destroyed space. However, even if she guessed the reason, she lacked the strength to go to their aid or notify others. Therefore, despite her immense anxiety, she didn't show any negative emotions on her face, but calmly applied makeup to Xiaohua. After finishing, they helped each other to their feet, turning their gaze to the end of the conveyor belt, to the factory that was now so vast it was impossible to see its entirety.

Regardless, at the moment the [Hospital] chose to go all in and attempt to eliminate Yotsuya Miko and Kita Ikuyo in one fell swoop, the [Factory], now the only remaining connection between the [Hospital] and this peripheral space, had to stop and could no longer stray from this area. Most of the monsters originally located in the factory were either dispatched to the location of the two messengers or given top-level orders and unable to patrol the factory, providing the two infiltrators with the perfect opportunity to investigate.

"Let's go. I can be considered your senior, and I'll protect you."

Saying this, Kazama Ren jumped onto a platform next to the conveyor belt, turned around and pulled Xiaohua up with her.

Brother Yu, and Seventeen, I wonder if I'll be able to see you soon this time?

A few thoughts crossed her mind. Kazama Ren, carrying Yu Qingshan's climbing axe, gestured for Xiaohua to follow her closely, and then stepped into the darkness ahead.

hum-

In the distance, sounds seemed to rise again from the collapsed city ruins above.

Hum--

The sound was so far away that Xiaohua and Kazama Ren, who were in the factory, had no way of knowing what it was.

Rumble, rumble——

As for the true source of the sound, Yotsuya Miko, who was now in the ruins of the city, didn't even have the strength to stand up. She could only sit on the ground, panting, with blood dripping from her broken left arm and the penetrating wounds on her side and thigh that just wouldn't heal.

"Haah...haah..."

There was absolutely no way to fight against such an enemy.

The battle between Miko and the "psychologist" was basically decided in the first second.

The ability to foresee the future helped Miko avoid the first attack within 0.05 seconds, but it couldn't help her avoid the several attacks that followed within 0.051 seconds.

Although she immediately activated Hirano Kurasuke's blessing, which had been enhanced by the blessing, to create a favorable position for herself, and used Jonathan's blessing to create a barrier made of mental spikes, the psychiatrist still found a weakness in Miko's defense. On the fourth attack, he broke the girl's arm, then pierced her abdomen and legs with sharp needles, applying force to these injuries so that Miko could not heal quickly. Instead, she became increasingly weak from blood loss.

Miko had actually foreseen this outcome through the prophecy. However, she had already exhausted all the countermeasures she could take. Therefore, even knowing how her opponent would attack her, the girl, lacking sufficient strength, had no way to dodge the attack and could only suffer injuries in a sorry state.

However, it is not completely without gain.

Through the several attacks launched by the "psychologist," Miko has gained a deeper understanding of the nature of this thing and the abilities this monster possesses.

First, it can be confirmed that in combat, the [Psychiatrist] possesses three different rule characteristics: