Chapter 97.2: Xishan Residential Area (17)

  And the Blood Shadow, because it was distracted by snatching Ruan Qing, was tightly entangled by the long, dark tendrils of the Dark Shadow, without noticing that the person in its arms had been frightened by its terrifying appearance and fainted.

Since Ruan Qing had been awakened earlier and the blood infusion hadn’t succeeded, it seemed that Blood Shadow wanted to feed the blood into Ruan Qing’s mouth once again.

Even though they didn’t know the exact purpose of that blood, everyone knew it was definitely not something good.

Except for the handsome stranger, the others rushed forward urgently, trying to rescue the young man once more.

The handsome stranger, named Su Zhen, was the man who had accepted the invitation from the game’s main system.

Su Zhen wasn’t here to complete the game but to correct this broken instance.

No, it should be correcting two broken instances.

In the ‘Xishan Residential Area,’ Blood Shadow, this big boss, shouldn’t have appeared. Blood Shadow belonged to another game instance, the Yang Family’s big boss.

The instance related to the Yang Family was called ‘Eerie Blood Shadow,’ with a storyline of the Yang Family sacrificing descendants and summoning Blood Shadow to take over Yang Family members.

Although they had never successfully summoned it, Yang Family members could obtain a trace of Blood Shadow’s essence and power through the summoning ritual, making themselves incredibly strong.

Of course, this also led to the sacrificed Yang Family members turning into monsters and becoming fanatical followers of Blood Shadow, determined to summon it.

And even more determined to become powerful.

However, the descendants of the Yang Family were limited, so the Yang Family started targeting others, attempting to summon Blood Shadow.

As a child of the Yang Family, Zhou Qing’s mother didn’t want him to become a monster, so she switched him with a child abandoned in a hospital.

That child was Yang Tianhao.

After Zhou Qing accidentally learned the truth, he didn’t want to be sacrificed and turned into a monster, so he plotted to escape.

However, he unexpectedly ended up in the ‘Xishan Residential Area’ instance.

And then, even more unexpectedly, he became the sacrificial lamb of the ‘Xishan Residential Area’ instance.

Originally, this wouldn’t have mattered much. Zhou Qing’s death wouldn’t affect anything, neither the Yang Family’s instance nor the ‘Xishan Residential Area’ instance.

But unfortunately, Yang Tianhao, the fake young master, had been treated as the real young master for the sacrificial possession ritual.

Although the ritual had failed, Yang Tianhao didn’t gain Blood Shadow’s power, and he didn’t turn into a monster, but it did result in him having a trace of Blood Shadow’s essence within him.

As for Zhou Qing, a true member of the Yang family, in order to escape the fate of being sacrificed and possessed, his soul entered Yang Tianhao’s body, which strengthened this faint presence.

Originally, even so, Zhou Qing had not undergone a complete sacrifice. The essence of the Blood Shadow inside him was not enough to awaken within Zhou Qing’s body and did not affect much. His death at most meant that the Yang family had one less descendant to offer as a sacrifice.

But for some reason, the Yang family summoned Blood Shadow that had not been successfully summoned for hundreds of years, and inexplicably, they awakened here.

This resulted in the Yang family’s instance lacking a big boss, while the Xishan Residential Area’s instance suddenly gained an additional big boss.

Having two big bosses gathering was not a good thing. As they say, there could be only one king, and no boss could tolerate their territory being invaded by another entity.

Moreover, the power of both bosses was too much for the instance to bear, and it wouldn’t be long before the instance collapsed.

The source of the Yang family’s power was the Blood Shadow, and suddenly lacking this boss, the monsters of the Yang family naturally sensed that their power had weakened, leading them to crazily sacrifice humans to summon the big boss.

Players were given almost no chance to pass it. As soon as they entered, they were sacrificed by the Yang family.

This was equivalent to instantly rendering two instances useless, along with the players in those instances.

Su Zhen had an item that could reset instances, which was why the game’s main system brought him in to correct these two instances.

And because Su Zhen was brought in to correct the instances, the game’s main system naturally provided him with some basic settings about the two instances.

The Xishan Residential Area instance started with the murder of Zhou Qing and Yang Tianhao, attracting instance players who were visitors to investigate clues.

Following the clues, they went to the Xishan Kindergarten to investigate the ‘Xiao Xi’ role-playing game and obtain more clues about ‘Xiao Xi.’

This would trigger the death condition, and they would be targeted by the Xishan Kindergarten’s mini-boss, Xia Wuyan, who would kill them one by one.

The game’s main system couldn’t provide all the information about the instance to Su Zhen, only up to this point, and the core of the instance was not revealed at all.

However, it did provide Su Zhen with live recordings of those players.

Su Zhen had already watched the live recordings of those players, and basically, there were no clues. Even those players didn’t touch any clues about this instance.

They were completely on the fringes of the instance, and he estimated that when the instance reached an uncontrollable stage in the later stages, they wouldn’t even know how they died.

While Su Zhen was not sure what happened before this instance, it was clear that everything should be related to the NPC named Zhou Qing.

He should have been killed by the murderer along with Yang Tianhao at the beginning of the game, but he had inexplicably survived until now, even causing a rivalry between the two major instance bosses.

It seemed there was a problem with the murderer.

Could it be that the murderer let him go because Zhou Qing was blind, so he showed mercy?

Not only the murderer but also the boss of the Xishan Kindergarten, Xia Wuyan, was not doing his job, forcing the young man in his office, and was caught by a group of people, showing no self-awareness as a small boss.

He didn’t even look at the players who were very suitable targets throughout the entire process, as if he had abandoned his ‘career’ that he had persisted in for decades.

It’s as if he suddenly changed from a homicidal maniac to... someone in love.

Su Zhen found it somewhat unbelievable, but uncontrollable NPCs did exist in instances, although such situations were rare.

If he wanted to correct the instance, everything must return to the beginning and follow the plot set by the instance.

Since the problem with the copy started with the murderer, replacing him and killing Yang Tianhao and Zhou Qing at the beginning should correct the instance.

In other words, Zhou Qing and Yang Tianhao must die at the beginning, and Blood Shadow should not awaken in Yang Tianhao’s body in this instance.

Killing Zhou Qing and Yang Tianhao was not difficult. After all, Zhou Qing did not truly participate in the sacrifice possession ceremony and should not have gained the power of Blood Shadow.

As for preventing Blood Shadow from awakening in Yang Tianhao’s body, it’s also not difficult, just destroy Yang Tianhao’s body or Zhou Qing’s soul.

But now, restoring this instance was the most difficult part.

The two major bosses, equivalent to advanced instances, had awakened. Even if he had an SSS-grade item to reset the instance, it’s very difficult to seal these two major bosses again.

Unless they were willing, or... had no resistance at all.

Su Zhen’s gaze fell on the young man who was still well-protected despite the chaos caused by the two major bosses.

When the two major bosses fight, even this entire instance began to tremble. Everything around them was instantly annihilated by the power of the two bosses, leaving no trace, not even ashes.

It’s like a force that wanted to annihilate everything, so powerful that it didn’t allow a hint of resistance.

But, whether it was Blood Shadow or Dark Shadow, they deliberately avoided the young man.

So even though the young man was at the center of the battle, he didn’t suffer any damage. At most, there were a few bloodstains on his clothes, but they weren’t his own.

Clearly, he mattered a lot.

But trying to snatch someone from the hands of two big bosses...

Su Zhen extended his slender hand, and the burning talisman floated up and down on his fingertips.

Leaning against the door, he glanced around thoughtfully, as well as at the young man imprisoned by Blood Shadow.

Apart from Dark Shadow wanting to reclaim the young man, several men around were also trying to snatch him back.

But even in the siege, it seemed that they couldn’t inflict too much damage on Blood Shadow. After all, Blood Shadow, this boss, was the final boss of the advanced instance, equivalent to a demigod. Even if it came to other instances and its strength was suppressed, it was still difficult to deal with.

Unless one knew its weakness.

But whether the ultimate boss of the instance had a weakness was one thing, and even if it did, the clues to its weakness would only be found within its own instance.

For someone who crossed instances, there was simply no way to find any clues.

If it weren’t for the information provided by the game’s main system, who would have thought that Blood Shadow shouldn’t have awakened in this instance, let alone having a weakness?

Although Su Zhen was very tempted by the promised item from the game’s main system, he didn’t act recklessly.

Despite Blood Shadow being stronger, in the midst of Dark Shadow and the others’ entanglement and siege, protecting the young man in its arms, it couldn’t immediately achieve its goal.

For a while, the situation came to a standstill.

Until a man suddenly walked out of the kitchen.

And at this moment, Blood Shadow was very close to the kitchen, which was not far behind the man.

The man who walked out of the kitchen was none other than the male neighbor who had been killed by the murderer.

The murderer had directly crushed the male neighbor’s heart. Even though he had the ability to regenerate, it still took some time to regenerate his heart.

As a result, just as he had regenerated, he came out and encountered such an exciting scene.

While the male neighbor was in the freezer, he could vaguely feel the corpse next to him moving, so he wasn’t surprised at all by the presence of Blood Shadow.

Even more surprisingly, it was quite clear that Blood Shadow seemed to rely on the corpse in the freezer.

When the male neighbor saw that Blood Shadow had entangled his beautiful neighbor, he wanted to rush up and snatch him away, but he instantly realized that he couldn’t defeat Blood Shadow.

So the male neighbor instinctively retreated to the kitchen.

He attempted to destroy the twisted corpse inside the freezer directly.

Blood Shadow seemed to sense the neighbor’s intent and charged directly at him with a terrifying and eerie aura, as if to tear the male neighbor apart.

Meanwhile, the Dark Shadow that had been entwining Blood Shadow all along took advantage of this opportunity and split into numerous tendrils from the shadow, snatching the person from Blood Shadow’s hand.

The person in Blood Shadow’s arms disappeared, seemingly infuriating Blood Shadow. Its entire form became increasingly unstable, and the blood on it writhed more horrifyingly.

The entire space became even more unstable, filled with danger and uncertainty, giving rise to an unsettling feeling deep from within.

Some parts of the space even started to warp.

The Dark Shadow seemed to be afraid of harming Ruan Qing, so it gently lifted him with its tendrils and placed him in front of Xia Wuyan and the murderer.

Upon seeing this, the two immediately reached out to catch Ruan Qing.

However, the next moment, an unexpected incident occurred.

Neither of them managed to catch Ruan Qing.

Because just as they were about to reach Ruan Qing, he was suddenly pulled away as if by some force, flying toward the door.

The two turned ruthlessly towards the unfamiliar man at the door.

Su Zhen glanced at the two, then with a leap, he avoided their attack, holding Ruan Qing by the back of his collar like he was a piece of trash. He floated in the air without any visible support, looking down at the two on the ground, a faint smile playing on his lips.

Just as someone seemed to want to make another move, a dagger was placed directly at Ruan Qing’s throat.

Su Zhen looked at everyone present, wearing a malicious smile as if he carried endless malice and malevolence. He casually spoke, “Don’t make any sudden moves; my dagger is very sharp, you know.”

<Prev> <ToC> <Next>