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Bonus chapter! Thank you to JustSomeOne for the donation! ^^
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Ruan Qing and the players had sensed something wrong the moment Lin Zhiyan began speaking. When they spotted the ghoul-like creatures outside the windows, they immediately fled the ballroom.
One player tried using an invitation to summon the elevator—only to find it nonfunctional. Even the stairwell doors remained sealed.
Ruan Qing wasn't surprised. As he'd suspected, these invitations never held real access privileges—only temporary permissions. Once revoked, they became death sentences.
Calmly, he swiped a staff keycard. The elevator instantly hummed to life.
The crew's access still worked.
Though the ship boasted seven or eight elevators, evacuating thousands of panicked guests would be impossible in this chaos.
Instead, the desperate rush for the elevators might trigger pushing, trampling, and even damage the elevator systems completely.
Not only would they fail to save anyone, but they'd make the situation far worse.
Ruan Qing had initially hesitated about leaving behind one of the access cards, but he abandoned the idea. He swiftly followed the other players off the third floor.
Since the immediate danger was concentrated on the third floor, Ruan Qing discarded Lin Zhiyan's access card, handing it to another player while keeping the staff card for himself. He then headed straight for the ship's eighth floor.
During his earlier investigation of the cruise ship, he'd noticed computers on the eighth floor—still connected to an active network.
The moment Lin Zhiyan had used his phone to call him, Ruan Qing realized the ship had its own internal network.
With internet access and a computer, he could override the ship's security permissions.
However, he soon discovered that the ship's local network wasn't unified—there were multiple isolated systems. The only permissions he could currently unlock were for room doors and elevator access between the third and sixth floors.
Everything else remained beyond his reach.
Without hesitation, Ruan Qing immediately disabled the keycard requirement for all third-floor rooms, unlocking every door on that level.
This was the only lifeline left for the guests trapped there.
If they could take shelter in the rooms quickly enough, some might still survive.
This wasn't out of some naive altruism—Ruan Qing would always choose to save lives when possible, especially since rescuing these guests was also a way to save himself.
The cultists weren't slaughtering passengers without reason. Their goal was to summon an eldritch god, and that required blood and sacrifices.
The souls of the guests were the intended offerings.
Once the death toll reached the cultists' desired number, they would undoubtedly begin the summoning ritual.
Ruan Qing refused to naively hope the summoning might fail.
Under normal circumstances, the ritual might not succeed—but his mere presence guaranteed its success.
Because the god they sought to summon was... Ktayat.
The same entity from his very first dungeon in this infinite horror game—the true master of the <Horror Live Stream> instance, the owner of that gargantuan eye Wen Li had studied.
Just remembering the abyssal visions from that time made Ruan Qing's blood run cold.
They absolutely could not let "Him" be summoned.
If that happened—none of them would leave this dungeon alive.
Ruan Qing didn't hesitate when opening room access permissions, but he paused when it came to the elevator controls.
Once elevator access was enabled, the monster could potentially use it to reach upper floors, rendering floors four through six unsafe.
Yet his hesitation lasted less than three seconds before he activated the permissions.
As long as the sacrificial offerings remained alive, they wouldn't count as true sacrifices—and the conditions for summoning the evil god wouldn't be met.
After all, what the ritual truly demanded was human blood and souls.
As for safety, floors six and above required keycard access—permissions he couldn't revoke, and the monster wouldn't easily bypass.
Unless someone completely shut down the ship's permission system.
But currently, the ship's crew seemed intent on trapping all guests on the third floor. They wouldn't voluntarily disable the security system—especially since floors six and above housed other VIP guests. Lin Zhiyan surely wasn't reckless enough to drag them into this.
For now, everything above the sixth floor remained safe.
After enabling the permissions, Ruan Qing quickly left the eighth floor to regroup with the other players.
His combat ability was too weak. Even if the monster couldn't immediately reach him, going alone was still a terrible idea.
Yet what he didn't expect was that the other players—armed with the access card he'd provided—had accidentally stumbled into the ship's security control center.
Ruan Qing's eyes widened as he saw one of them about to press a button. He opened his mouth to stop them—
But it was too late.
The player's finger came down.
Ruan Qing froze. Permissions like these couldn't be bypassed with just Lin Zhiyan's keycard. They'd surely require his fingerprint or retinal scan.
Pressing it outright was no different from broadcasting their location.
And reality proved even worse than Ruan Qing feared.
Lin Zhiyan's keycard alone wasn't just insufficient—it triggered catastrophe.
The moment the button was pressed—
BOOM!
A deafening explosion tore through the control panel, instantly killing the player who'd pressed it.
No one had time to mourn. As the smoke cleared, the control center began pulsing with red emergency lights, casting an oppressive, dangerous glow that ratcheted the players' tension to its peak.
Then, a cold, mechanical voice announced:
"Permission system of the Malegobi has been deactivated."
The players breathed a sigh of relief when they realized it wasn't some self-destruct sequence activating.
But their relief froze halfway as they stared at the destroyed control panel, faces filled with shock and disbelief.
The cruise ship's... permission system had been disabled?
Did that mean the elevator access controls were part of that system too?
A sinking feeling settled in the players' stomachs. One immediately rushed to the elevator and pressed a floor button.
This time, it worked—the elevator started moving without hesitation.
Without any access card.
Which meant that now, elevators no longer required permissions. The stairwell doors would also be unlocked. Anyone could freely move between any floor of the ship.
...Including the monsters.
With the permission system destroyed, nowhere on the ship was safe anymore.
The players' expressions darkened. They had intended to completely shut down the elevators—instead, they had accidentally unlocked everything. Right now, they could have strangled the player who pressed that button.
But it was too late. The one who triggered it was already dead in the explosion. Now, like the other passengers, they had no choice but to focus on avoiding the creatures.
And while doing that, they still had to locate the summoning array for the evil god and destroy it before the cultists could complete their ritual.
Knowing the evil god's name was useless in this dungeon—the only way to clear it was to survive all seven days.
Which meant that in these five remaining days, they had to stop the cultists at all costs.
With the permission system gone, panicked passengers from the third floor stampeded upward, eventually drawing the monsters up with them.
Ruan Qing had initially run with the other players, but his stamina simply wasn't enough to keep up. Eventually, he fell behind.
Luckily, the monsters weren't particularly fast. They relied mainly on sight rather than hearing—as long as you hid well, you still had a chance.
Realizing this, Ruan Qing stopped forcing himself to keep up with the others.
When it came to hiding, he wasn't exactly unskilled.
Yet what sent chills down his spine was that no matter where he hid... the monsters always found him.
...It was as if the monster knew exactly where he was hiding.
Yet none of the other guests had encountered this—normally, as long as you escaped the monster’s line of sight, it shouldn’t have been able to track you.
Ruan Qing hid behind the curtains, the heavy drapes completely concealing him. Through a narrow gap, he watched the grotesque, many-eyed creature not far away, his face deathly pale, his beautiful eyes brimming with unease.
His lips pressed into a thin line, his fingers clenched white-knuckled around the steak knife in his hand. He didn’t make a single sound.
But despite that, the monster continued creeping toward him.
Ruan Qing wanted to retreat, but another creature was closing in from behind. He was cornered.
Nowhere left to run.
As the monster drew nearer, just as Ruan Qing prepared to make a desperate dash—
A hand suddenly clamped over his mouth from behind.
...Who?
Unable to see his captor, Ruan Qing panicked. He thrashed violently, trying to break free.
"Mmph—!" But the disparity in strength was too great. His struggles were feeble, useless—until he was completely immobilized.
Perhaps irritated by his resistance, the man behind him hissed a low warning:
"Stop moving."
Ruan Qing froze.
That voice—opulent, unmistakable—was far too recognizable.
It belonged to the man Lin Zhiyan had addressed as "Mr. Qi."
His... former patron.
