A Psychiatrist's Bizarre Game Journey / Dream of the Mist

The area near the surface was completely pitch black, so dark that even in the bright daylight, one couldn't see their own hand in front of their face. It was as if the sunlight melted away when it touched that darkness.

What's incomprehensible is that after passing through that pitch blackness, deeper underground, there was a faint blue glow. This faint glow, formed by some unknown object or creature, could penetrate the darkness that even sunlight couldn't illuminate and reach the eyes of Zhou Ke'er and the others.

The soft, shimmering blue light, a color that should be sacred, inexplicably gave off a twisted and repulsive feeling.

"What should we do? It's so deep...we'll fall and die, won't we?"

Cold-cooked Rabbit glanced down before looking away—actually, she was a little afraid of heights.

"There, you can go down from there."

Honghe bent down and pointed to the lower right side of the stone pillar, where thick vines were wrapped around it. "It's only about a meter from the sunken ground to there, so it's easy to jump over. And these vines are enough for people to walk on."

"Also, 'this dent is very deep' is just a feeling."

Honghe stood up, waved her hand, and added, "Didn't you notice those vine roots sticking out at an angle? Since you can see the roots, it's obvious that they're not far from the bottom."

"That being said, it's still best to be cautious. These things can't be judged by common sense. Some vines have roots that extend deep underground, longer than the vines above ground. And even if the roots of such vines are short, that's only relative."

Zhou Ke'er shook her head and pointed to the towering stone pillar. "Do you think such long vines could have very short roots?"

"That makes sense, but... coming out of the word 'cautious' really..."

The flamingo retorted expressionlessly.

"Hey!"

Zhou Ke'er held her breath, took the lead and circled around to the spot indicated by the red crane's finger, and was the first to jump onto the vine.

He jumped up easily, but his feet slipped almost the instant they touched the vines, nearly falling over. Fortunately, he reacted quickly, managed to turn around, land on the vines, and then flipped over again, grabbing tightly onto a thinner vine branch clinging to a nearby stone pillar.

"evil...."

Zhou Ke'er frowned, a slightly disgusted expression on her face. The vines were incredibly smelly... no, to be precise, it wasn't the vines themselves that smelled bad, but rather the vines were covered in a murky, viscous liquid, mixed with bits of fish scales and other debris, emitting a putrid, fishy odor.

Just now, when Zhou Ke'er slipped and fell onto the vines, she was covered in all sorts of inexplicable filth. The crevices of the vines were filled with foamy sewage and accumulated fish scales, moss, or excrement.

What's most puzzling is that, despite being on vines, damp, pale green moss is growing on them. This moss spreads from the vines to the surface of the stone pillars, emitting a humid, decaying smell.

"Be careful! This vine is very slippery. You'd better rush over and grab onto the thinner branches on the rock face, otherwise you could easily slip down."

While reminding Honghe and the others, Zhou Ke'er held onto the branches and slowly walked down a short distance to make room for them.

Having learned from Zhou Ke'er's near fall to her death, the remaining members of Honghe and the others were well-prepared and easily jumped onto the vines, grabbing the branches and standing firmly.

After everyone had stood on the vines, Zhou Ke'er took the lead and walked down.

After venturing some distance deeper, the sunlight that had been above them not long ago was almost instantly swallowed up, leaving only endless darkness.

Even the stone wall was invisible; only a wisp of pale blue fluorescence could be seen at the very bottom. Strangely, the fluorescence seemed to exist there detached from the object, unable to illuminate anything else.

It wasn't pitch black; it was so dark that you couldn't see your hand even if you put it right in front of your eyes. The group could only hold onto the branches clinging to the stone pillars and carefully descend, not even knowing whether they would slip and fall if they took another step forward.

The surroundings were completely silent, or rather... deathly silent. If it weren't for the occasional breathing of others behind her and the pattering of footsteps on the slime, Zhou Ke'er wouldn't have known if Red Crane and the others were still following behind.

"...Did you hear anything?"

Red Crane suddenly spoke up and asked.

What was that sound?

Zhou Ke'er held her breath and listened carefully for a few seconds, but didn't hear anything strange: "What do you mean? I didn't hear any sounds other than footsteps and breathing."

"...singing, I heard a faint singing coming from below."

Honghe paused for a moment and replied, "It should be English from the Old Age. Although I have studied a little, the song is too fast for me to hear clearly, and I don't understand many of the words either."

"...How about we try to imitate it?"

Zhou Ke'er suggested.

"Hey...we're already this far, don't be reckless...if you're going to be reckless, wait until we're at the bottom! We can't just die without even seeing what's down there!"

Cold-cooked rabbit couldn't help but speak up to dissuade him.

"Yes, yes! That's right!"

Huai Jin clasped her hands in a trembling voice and echoed.

"That's true. But... the singing is getting louder and louder, didn't you guys really hear it?"

The flamingo asked with a hint of doubt.

"...No, there was no sound at all."

Zhou Ke'er hesitated for a moment before answering.

"..."

The flamingo didn't say anything more.

The atmosphere was somewhat oppressive, and the group continued their slow, downward journey. The boundless darkness and silence were truly a weapon capable of destroying the human spirit.

It's like being in a solitary confinement cell in a prison, with nothing to do, unaware of the passage of time, without sound or light, as if exiled into endless chaos, with nothing left but one's own consciousness.

This can indeed drive people crazy.

"Ahem... um... I mean, how about we chat or something? This is getting too depressing."

Zhou Ke'er suggested this.

As soon as he finished speaking, he heard a sigh of relief from behind him, as if someone had been holding back something.

Then, the flamingo murmured softly, "The time has come for the stars to return to their places..."

Oh no! Has his sanity dropped too much and he's gone into temporary madness?

"Holding your breath and grasping jade, quickly use your title skill to apply another layer of 'Rationality Enhancement' to the Red Crane!"

Zhou Ke'er said decisively.

Given the current situation, "Resisting Chaos" should not be very effective. The Red Crane already has a buff from the Cold Rabbit Set, so even if Huai Jin Wo Yu copies the buff again, the rate at which sanity decreases will only change from 20% to 16%, which is not a big difference.

However, "Rationality Enhancement" is different. With two buffs applied, the originally slowly decreasing sanity value should start to increase.

I was planning to have Huaijin Woyu copy the buff in an emergency, but things went wrong halfway there.

"Okay, okay!"

Huai Jin Wo Yu hurriedly replied.

"How are you now, Flamingo? Are you alright?"

Cold-cooked rabbit asked the red crane.

"Phew...it should be...all right now, the volume of the singing is starting to decrease."

The flamingo breathed a sigh of relief.

"We've reached the bottom!"

Zhou Ke'er, who was walking in front, carefully turned the last corner and finally saw a glimmer of light appear in front of her.

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65. Collapse (IX)

They walked a short distance toward the light ahead. After they passed a certain point, the surrounding darkness gradually disappeared, like ice and snow melting under the scorching sun.

What appeared before them was a city that looked like it had been abandoned.

The structures of the buildings in this city are all abnormal, completely contrary to Euclidean geometry. Its unprecedented spatial structure and dimensional dimensions can evoke a strong sense of aversion.

Like the stone pillar that bursts through the ground, these structures are built from enormous, seemingly impossible-to-come-from-earth green stone, topped with dazzling megalithic carvings, magnificent statues and ornate reliefs, yet they do not touch the ground above, making one wonder just how deep underground they are.

In addition, the entire city exuded a strong sense of uncleanliness.

The ground was covered with silt, wetlands, and huge moss-covered rocks, with no paths for people to walk on. Miasma constantly rose from this twisted complex of buildings, which had been abandoned for who knows how long.

The object hanging at the highest point, which served as a light source and emitted a pale blue fluorescence, like the city's "sun," emitted light that appeared unusually distorted by the refraction of the miasma.

"Wow! An underground city? An abandoned one at that... Don't tell me it's Atlantis? I'm not really familiar with 'sunken cities' or anything like that from the old era..."

Zhou Ke'er clicked her tongue in amazement and walked forward unhurriedly, her feet making a "splish-splish" sound as she stepped on the muddy and slippery road.

"The rate at which sanity points decrease has increased."

Cold-Eat Rabbit frowned and reminded, "Even with the buff from my title ability, my sanity will still decrease by 1% every ten seconds. At this rate, we'll run out of sanity in less than ten minutes..."

"Don't worry, I just got a cross from that dead witcher, it seems to slowly restore my sanity."

Zhou Ke'er waved her hand and said.

"Then why didn't you say so just now?...Never mind, taking turns like this is fine..."

Cold-cooked rabbit was taken aback for a moment, then nodded.

[It has been detected that more than 2/3 of the people present believed the lie of player "Zhou Ke'er". Title effect activated]

[Sanity restored by 5%]

[Current sanity level: 48%]

"Done. Before they go crazy—I'm definitely not going crazy! Just keep fooling them a few more times, and get my sanity back to 120%..."

Zhou Ke'er secretly curled the corners of her mouth.

"But... I didn't see you find anything on that witcher. I was watching your side the whole time when I was up there."

Suddenly, the flamingo asked a question out of the blue.

"Oh, that's because I was lying to you. What kind of cross can bring back sanity? How is that possible? No normal person would believe that..."

Zhou Ke'er was speaking casually when suddenly her eyes widened and her brain raced: "Wait a minute! Red Crane doesn't believe me! But the condition for the title effect to activate is that more than 2/3 of the people believe me. If Red Crane doesn't believe me... the number of people who believe me should be exactly 2/3, and since it's not more than that... then it won't trigger... which means!"

"There are other people here! Be careful!"

Zhou Ke'er immediately slowed down without making a sound, and only after she was alongside the others behind her did she move her lips slightly and whisper a reminder.

"what?"

Originally, Leng Chi Tu was thinking that she had been tricked and mocked by Zhou Ke'er again for no reason and that she had to fight back. But she was surprised and temporarily put that thought aside. She subconsciously wanted to scan the surrounding situation.

"Don't look, don't alert them. Since Zhou Ke'er said that, it means those people don't know we've discovered them yet."

Seeing this, Honghe quickly whispered a warning to stop her. Although she didn't know where the other people Zhou Ke'er mentioned were, she still chose to believe Zhou Ke'er.

"I never expected you to actually come here... To face an indescribable and magnificent being head-on, and still cling to such a meaningless thing as reason?"