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

[The three-minute countdown has ended.]

[The retention period has expired; unclaimed treasure chests have been retrieved.]

The three beams of light went out simultaneously, and the moment the box disappeared, the biggest heat source on the field was gone.

Then Lin Sui'an sensed an even more critical change: the temperature seemed to have dropped.

The heat on the ground began to dissipate, the remaining warmth in the piles of fallen leaves quickly contracted, the air cooled down, and it continued to drop.

The real ice tree next to her reacted much faster. It shook off the corpse it had just killed, and with a powerful push from its roots, it sped off towards the southeast.

Direction: pond.

Lin Sui'an's branches trembled slightly.

As the temperature drops, the water temperature also drops. People soaking in the water can't withstand the low temperature and will eventually float to the surface.

The game is really increasing in difficulty.

She immediately followed the real ice tree. The two enormous gray trees rolled over the bushes one after the other, and the fallen leaves were swirled up by their roots and flew everywhere.

Along the way, two more ice trees suddenly appeared from the side, both facing the same direction, towards the southeast.

Four now.

Lin Sui'an sped up, raising the frequency of her root system's movements to the highest level; she had to get there before them.

The three ice trees behind them saw their counterparts in front of them suddenly accelerate, and their root systems followed suit.

Is it because they're afraid she'll steal their prey? Just how rigorous are the KPIs for these strange trees?

Lin Sui'an threw away the completely hypothermic corpse hanging there, leaned forward, and sprinted with all his might.

She was only three seconds faster than the three trees behind her. When the pond came into view, Lin Sui'an's heat perception spread out first. The surface of the water shimmered with a cold light, and the temperature dropped sharply.

Lydia wasn't there, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

But the next second, the sensor network detected two heat sources underwater, huddled behind a pile of rocks at the bottom of the pond, their bodies curled up in a ball.

Lin Sui'an extended one of his branches into the water. The water temperature was dropping, dropping rapidly. If the temperature dropped another five minutes, a normal human body would not be able to withstand it.

Behind them, three ice trees arrived.

Without any hesitation, their roots plunged into the shallow water at the edge of the pond, and their thick branches simultaneously plunged into the water, stirring it up, down, left, and right.

Water splashed everywhere, and mud and sand churned.

Lin Sui'an then stretched out two branches, plunged them into the water, and stirred them around like the other ice trees.

The two people underwater fled to the deepest part of the pond as if their lives depended on it, clinging to the crevices in the rocks at the bottom and shrinking inwards. The reeds were not long enough, so the two had long since given up on them and were just holding their breath as they hid in the deepest part.

The branches of the strange tree are of limited length and cannot reach the deepest part of the pool. However, the water temperature continues to drop. People soaking in the icy water will either hold their breath until they reach their limit and float to the surface to die, or freeze to death in the icy water, or drown.

The one on the west side couldn't hold on any longer. A series of bubbles surged up from the bottom of the water. He choked on the water, his body convulsed violently, and instinct drove him to float upwards.

The person next to him reached out and grabbed him, shaking his head at him: You can't go up!

"Cough... glug glug..." The man looked like he was about to drown, struggling to break free of his restraints.

The moment his head broke the surface of the water, the man coughed a few times, then gasped for air.

The branches of the four ice trees rose up in unison, and Lin Sui'an followed suit, raising her branch as well. She didn't stretch it out quickly, and the angle was a little off.

The branch from the real ice tree on the far right was the first to be grabbed.

"puff."

It pierced straight down from the top of the head, through the entire chest cavity, and the blood gushed out mixed with water, spreading on the surface of the pond.

"Ugh..." The player's hand made a grabbing motion in the air, then fell silent.

They pulled out the branches and then rolled up the body.

Lin Sui'an's branch paused in mid-air, tentatively touching the leaves of the nearby True Ice Tree. The other tree's side branch swept over, pushing her branch aside.

They also protect their food.

One was left underwater, huddled in the deepest crevice of the rocks, its face growing increasingly red.

Lin Sui'an frowned; she had to go.

In the sensing network, further away, several more ice trees are approaching.

If all ten trees were gathered together, her imposter would be exposed. But turning away now would also be problematic. There were still players in the water, and other ice trees were rushing here. If she ran away alone, wouldn't that be blatantly telling all her kind—"I'm a liar"?

dilemma.

Lin Sui'an's roots rubbed against the muddy ground a couple of times. Taking advantage of this moment, she separated a sliver of her consciousness and focused it on the butterfly specimen deep inside the tree hole.

[Zhuangzi's Dream of a Butterfly (Passive/Active)]

[In a sealed state, it resides within the contractor after the contract is formed.]

[It can create dreams and defend against mental attacks (including mental pollution from bizarre entities, fearful stares, and memory manipulation).]

This can only be used once per round of the game.

The words "creating dreams" swirled in her mind.

Is it useful for dealing with eerie things?

uncertain.

But the image of peering into the crystal sphere was still etched in her memory. These ice trees used to be people, but they died and became monsters, which were then stuffed into a new round of games.

Humans have memories and dreams.

Even if you become a monster, your memories won't just disappear into thin air; the Crystal Sphere has already proven this.

What about dreams?

Do people who are already dead still dream?

Let's take a gamble.

"contract."

The fluorescent light on the butterfly specimen flickered, and its wings unfolded inside the tree hole, flapping twice.

A vibrant, colorful butterfly flew out of the tree hole, its wings fluttering and scattering shards of light.

It circled the main trunk of the ice tree, found the back of the neck (which, for the ice tree, is roughly near the thickest burl at the top of the trunk), and gently landed there.

Its wings folded, blending into the gray bark texture.

During the contract signing, three more ice trees arrived at the edge of the pond. Together with the four already there, seven branches plunged into the water, stirring up the pond in chaos.

Lin Sui'an no longer hesitated.

She moved the roots, slowly moving them to the middle of the six ice trees to ensure she didn't miss any due to insufficient coverage.

Use it, Zhuangzi's dream of a butterfly.

She didn't know what kind of dream to create for them, but only one image came to mind—the memory of peering into the crystal sphere.

The square was filled with flags and a sea of ​​people. Women on the stage saluted, while people below shouted names.

The hero has returned.

She pushed this image outward, not specifically about Song Jinshu, but as a vague, generalized version.

The game is complete.

You won.

You made it back alive.

Someone is waiting for you.

The butterfly's wings unfolded from the bark's texture and trembled silently.

An invisible ripple spread out from the center of Lin Sui'an's tree trunk, like ripples on the surface of water, penetrating the bark of the six surrounding ice trees.

The nearest tree had its branches digging into the water, stirring it up, its barbs scraping against the rocks at the bottom of the pool. The moment the ripples passed through it, the branches stopped moving.

The second one, stopped.

The third one.

The fourth one.

The fifth one.

The sixth tree.

The six ice trees, which had been in a frenzied predatory state, all froze in a second.

The branches hang motionless in mid-air and on the water, the roots are firmly planted in the mud and no longer move, and the leaves no longer scrape against each other.

It was unusually quiet.

Lin Sui'an wasn't sure how long the dream would last, nor when the unaffected ice trees would arrive. Her roots suddenly ripped out of the soil and retreated at full speed.

The six ice trees behind him, maintaining the posture of their last movement, stood on the edge of the pond.

The water surface returned to calm.

The last player left at the bottom of the pool is about to reach their limit.

As the bubbles grew larger and larger, he could no longer hold on when the last large bubble rose to the surface. He pushed aside the pebbles in front of him and struggled toward the surface.

Its head broke the surface of the water, and it opened its mouth to suck in air.

The sound of the air intake was rough and harsh. He slapped the water surface haphazardly with his hands, and his eyes darted around. The six ice trees stood on the shore, none of them moving.

What's going on? This is unbelievable!

He didn't care anymore and scrambled to the shore using both hands and feet. The moment his body left the water, he was jolted by the cold air, his teeth chattering, and he tumbled and crawled into the bushes in the distance.