Everyone's playing hide-and-seek: This crazy beauty has maxed-out third eyes.

As Lin Sui'an walked along, she encountered clusters of ice trees, which she walked around.

She wouldn't even join the two trees that were next to each other.

The lone one is the target.

On the way, they encountered three players hiding under fallen dead trees. One of them saw the "Ice Tree" pass by and was so frightened that he rolled out from the crack, crawled a couple of steps on the ground, and then shrank back inside.

Lin Sui'an ignored him and continued pushing forward.

After walking about two hundred meters, we finally found a lone ice tree with four corpses strung on its two branches. The tree was slowly retracting its barbs, embedding the corpses deeper into its trunk.

Lin Sui'an's root system paused for a moment.

She recognized this tree.

Or rather, she recognized the corpse in the tree as the one she had encountered behind the palm tree after her transformation.

It ran away protecting the corpse, and then stole two more.

Lin Sui'an controlled the root system and slowly crawled, not facing it directly, but cutting at an angle.

The route we passed each other on.

The ice tree sensed its kind approaching, its trunk turned halfway around, its branches drooped, and it made the same movement as before—its leaves rubbed together, producing a rustling vibration.

To test the waters, or to say hello.

Lin Sui'an did not respond; his root system continued, maintaining a steady pace.

ten meters.

eight meters.

five meters.

We brushed past each other.

Deep within her branches, the black sphere was firmly held in place by a thin twig.

use.

She moved on, turning away as she continued forward, and rolled out the black sphere.

The hazy light on the surface of the sphere faded, the interior became clear, and the image appeared.

The scene depicts a desolate wasteland with a gray sky and cracked earth.

A young woman with short, ear-length hair, dressed in military uniform, runs across a wasteland, pursued by a group of eerie figures in red. She leaps over a broken wall and slides into a narrow crevice.

Then the game sounds started.

[Hunting time.]

[This round of hide-and-seek is over.]

The woman crawled out of the crack, covered in blood, but alive.

The scene changed again, this time to a different setting.

A square, draped with the flags of the Dragon Kingdom, was packed with people. A woman stood on a high platform, her military uniform now clean, a medal pinned to her chest. People below were calling her name.

"Song Jinshu! Song Jinshu! Song Jinshu!"

A banner below the stage read: "Heroes return, the whole nation celebrates."

The woman gave a perfect military salute, and the applause from the audience was deafening.

The scene shifts again, and it's still the same woman, still in military uniform, but the setting has changed.

A dark underground passage, its walls covered with unknown mycelium, and the air thick with the smell of decay.

She was running, faster and more desperately than before, holding a dagger in her hand, the blade riddled with nicks.

One passage was blocked. She turned around, leaned against the wall, and held the dagger horizontally in front of her.

The sound in the video became exceptionally clear.

"sorry."

The woman's lips were moving, her voice was very soft and trembling.

"sorry……"

"I...didn't make it to the end."

A strange hook-like weapon in red was hurled, striking the woman and causing the screen to shake violently.

The woman's eyes were still open, blood was trickling from the corner of her mouth, and her hand was tightly gripping the dagger in her last second before death.

"I'm sorry to the country...and the people..."

"I failed."

The image is shattered.

The light inside the sphere suddenly went out, turning back into a murky black mass.

------

Lin Sui'an remained where he was, not moving. The real ice tree had already climbed far away, and the rustling sound disappeared into the depths of the bushes.

Chinese military uniform, Chinese player.

He has won, he has lived, and he has been hailed as a hero by the country and the people.

Then they went back on the court, kept playing, and kept fighting hard.

Until the day I can't take it anymore.

It died in the underground passage and turned into an ice tree in this forest that chases after the living.

------

Dragon Kingdom Live Stream Room.

The images viewed through the crystal ball were synchronized; the memory images inside the crystal ball were projected onto the screens of all the live stream rooms the moment Lin Sui'an triggered the item.

The comments paused for two seconds, and then burst forth in a deluge.

My idol is Song Jinshu...

Never eaten vegetables: Round 23... How long ago was that?

Koi Fish: Waaaaaaah, I cried. She said she was sorry, she said she failed.

Another day alive: Waaaaah, Song Shen, you don't need to apologize, you've already won!

Go China! Song Jinshu, Zhao Zheming, Wu Hui, Sun Lanlan... how many more heroes have fallen in battle...?

An Shen, my idol: A tribute... These are the warriors of our Dragon Kingdom.

Don't talk to me: Salute!

An Shen's Little Fan: Wait... the dead players turned into weirdos??

Momo: Did you guys see that clearly? After she died, she turned into a monster in this round of the game!

A descendant of the Zaun people: Holy crap... so these ice trees... were people before? Players?

A descendant of a Zaunite: I can't even imagine how disgusting this game is... turning heroes into monsters and then hunting down their own kind...

Go China! Fighting for my country, and not even getting to rest in peace after death, but being used as a tool in a game... I can't take it anymore!

The barrage of comments was so fast that the screen was almost invisible.

Half of them were crying, and the other half were cursing.

------

command center.

On the main screen, the memory images from the viewing crystal sphere had just finished playing back, and the entire center fell silent.

Jiang Lai stood in front of the control panel and couldn't help but clench her fists.

This is her comrade-in-arms!

Chen Zheng stood behind her, his lips pressed tightly together.

After a long silence, he spoke in a low voice: "Chief of Staff, the twenty-third round was more than twenty days ago."

Jiang Lai didn't turn her head.

Chen Zheng opened the folder in his hand: "The game's survival rate at that time was..."

"No need to check anymore."

Jiang Lai interrupted him: "I remember every single one of the Chinese players who died in the game."

She looked at the big screen.

"Song Jinshu".

"Survivor of Round 23, Round 26... eliminated."

Chen Zheng's hand stopped on the folder.

Old Zhao sat in the corner, took off his glasses, and wiped his eyes: "A soldier who died fighting for his country."

Old Zhao's voice was very soft: "And it's not just one."

Jiang Lai tugged at her sleeve and lowered her voice: "Of the 13 players chosen by the Dragon Kingdom in the forty-six rounds of the game, 12 have already sacrificed themselves."

"Is this the fate of everyone who doesn't return?"

"To become a monster, thrown into the next game, and hunt down one's own kind?"

No one answered, perhaps because no one knew the answer, or perhaps because the answer was too cruel.

Chen Zheng closed the folder and took a step back.

The entire command center, with dozens of people and dozens of pairs of eyes, was focused on the large screen.

On the screen, the ice tree that Lin Sui'an had transformed into was standing motionless deep in the forest.

------

in the forest.

Lin Sui'an snapped out of her reverie. The sphere had gone dark and was stuffed back into the depths of the tree hole. Her roots began to move again, very slowly.

Song Jinshu.

She mentally went through those three words.

do not know.

Have not heard.

But she could see the face in the video, the words "I'm sorry," and the hand that was still clutching the dagger when it was hit very clearly.

Heroes turn into monsters.