The system fell silent for a moment.
It watched its host from within the void. The figure by the window appeared calm—so calm that, if not for the host's various stats in its data readings going completely off the charts, the system might have actually believed it.
After "afk"-ing for a bit, the system quickly reviewed the visual records of its host from the past ten minutes. After finishing, even its mechanical face darkened.
Just as it was about to speak, a strange sound came from outside the window.
Zzz—scratch—zzz—
The system knew this was bad!
Wen Shichun, meanwhile, quickly stepped back two paces the moment he heard the faint scraping sound from above the window frame.
Each bedroom on the second floor had windows about three meters high. Wen Shichun looked up and immediately locked eyes with a creature hanging upside down from the third floor, its head peering down from above, with only its face visible.
"..."
Wen Shichun took an imperceptible deep breath.
Just moments ago, he had speculated that the bedrooms might be safe rooms. But now, hearing the creaking of the glass—
Just a second before the monster outside smashed through the window, Wen Shichun kicked the chair Xun Yi had been sitting on toward the opposite wall.
The sound of the chair and its occupant hitting the floor overlapped almost perfectly with the shattering of glass.
After kicking Xun Yi out of the way, Wen Shichun vaulted onto the large bed where Chang Zhao was lying, rolled him up along with the blanket in one fluid motion, and with a strong shove, pushed the whole bundle onto the carpet on the other side of the wooden bed.
Then, the white-haired young man flipped back down and landed on his feet again, his posture already shifted into combat readiness.
His gaze swept across the room. With all that commotion, neither of his teammates had stirred. Wen Shichun didn't count on them waking up anytime soon.
At this moment, Xun Yi lay by the wall to the left of the window, his body shielded by the fallen chair; Chang Zhao was wrapped in the blanket and lying on the carpet on the inner side of the bed.
These positions kept them out of the most obvious attack zones—but whether they could escape the monster's notice was still unknown.
By the time Wen Shichun had retreated to the wall farthest from the window, the creature hanging upside down outside had already entered the room.
***
In the official livestream, as soon as the ghost appeared outside the window, viewers spotted the agile figure on screen and exclaimed in amazement:
[That E-rank player is pretty quick. Has he enhanced his physique?]
More and more people started tuning into the feed because of the commotion.
[Outside the window... is that a turned ghost?]
[Should be. Two people have already died in their instance.]
[But that District 4 player just died, right? No way it turned into a ghost that fast. Judging by the build, this one has been fully ghostified for at least a day.]
[So this one is probably a player who died earlier in the instance.]
[What awful luck...]
Someone added: [I thought since the ghosts in the hallway couldn't get into that room, the player bedrooms would be safe zones... but turns out this instance has turned ghosts...]
When players turn into ghosts, they become ghost entities transformed from the players themselves. In many District 5 instances, there are places where the instance's own ghosts cannot enter, but player-turned ghosts can roam freely.
That's why instances in the District 5 can sometimes be especially irritating.
However, when the player-turned ghost actually crashed through the window, many viewers were stunned by the white-haired young man's series of actions:
[He still remembers to hide his teammates when he sees a ghost...]
[My god, what an amazing teammate.]
[That reaction speed is insane—this is no longer just about physical fitness and agility. This E-rank's mental fortitude and judgment are extraordinary too...]
[Codename: Shi? I've never heard of this person before.]
[Is he really someone who was brought into the instance by others...?]
Some people in the chat grew suspicious.
And it wasn't without reason—after all, under the official stream's full-view perspective at this moment, every player in this instance was unconscious except for the E-rank player 'Shi', who was moving freely.
No matter how you looked at it, 'Shi' seemed to be the one in the best shape in the group.
Oh wait...
There was one more person.
Also awake.
At this point, some viewers also turned their attention to the feed of 'He Yi', the B-rank player from District 6.
But...
[This person...]
[Doesn't seem right.]
In the footage, He Yi stood behind the door of his bedroom.
The bedroom door was cracked open a sliver.
He had opened it himself earlier.
Just as Shi turned and ran down the other corridor, He Yi's door swung open.
But after that, He Yi remained standing perfectly still behind the door.
His face was expressionless.
Even now, he hadn't moved a muscle.
[What's wrong with him?]
[He looks off. The ghost in the hallway isn't even lingering by his door—this He Yi... feels even creepier than the unconscious players.]
[Did he get possessed?]
***
Inside the instance.
Second room on the right side of the second-floor corridor.
By the wall, the white-haired young man had already raised his slicing knife, its blade still stained with the nearly dried blood of the dungeon's boss.
The system whispered in Wen Shichun's ear: [It's the ghost that ran out of the mansion earlier. It has grown.]
[Ghosts can't die and feel no pain. Don't get into a drawn-out fight with it.]
The system's voice seemed more hurried than usual.
But in reality, it hadn't offered any practical advice either.
The corridor outside was full of ghosts, and the room contained an undead creature.
It seemed the situation was truly hopeless.
Wen Shichun gave a soft "mm" in his mind, his gaze fixed unwaveringly on the intruding monster, ready to react at any moment.
...
After the creature entered, its two gray-brown legs bent as it crouched in front of the window. Its entire skin had turned into a hard shell. With each breath, that shell would crack open in dense patches, revealing the deep-red soft tissue underneath, then close again—as if its whole body was covered in breathing pores.
The thin red tendrils it had before had now all turned into thick, pipe-like soft tentacles, covered in a layer of sticky fluid, like the monster's saliva.
As Wen Shichun faced off against it, those tentacles had already spread out across the room.
This is going to be tough.
Wen Shichun reached that conclusion in an instant.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Chang Zhao by his feet and Xun Yi against the wall on the other side. Two thoughts flashed through his mind in rapid succession.
There's no other choice.
I'll just have to try.
The moment the white-haired young man made his decision, his figure darted toward the door.
The entire livestream audience was stunned.
Just a second ago, the chat had been saying: [Useless... the space is too small, there's no way to dodge.]
The next second, the door of the dungeon's safe room was opened from the inside.
[???]
[Why open the door??? Isn't it all ghosts outside???]
In the frame, the young man by the wall dashed toward the room's right-side entrance. As he pulled the door open, the creature by the window lunged at him with its entire body.
Those bent legs seemed to contain boundless strength—with one leap, it was almost right behind Wen Shichun.
As the room door swung wide open, Wen Shichun charged straight into the green-skinned ghosts lingering at the entrance. As expected, the moment they saw him, they surged toward him—but they couldn't enter the brightly lit room behind him.
And when the creature's tentacles came striking from behind, Wen Shichun quickly ducked down, letting the monster's tentacles lash into the green ghosts ahead.
That single sweep of the tentacles actually cleared a bit of space for him.
But as Wen Shichun lifted his gaze, he noticed that the green ghosts knocked to the ground by the tentacles were all still stubbornly turning their heads toward him.
Pairs of dark eyes seemed able to see only him.
Wen Shichun: "..."
A polite greeting, nothing more.
But in the blink of an eye, the crouching figure had already risen and dashed toward the corridor on the right.
Unsurprisingly, the ghost behind him followed, leaving that room as well.
As the ghost entered the corridor, its tentacles and massive body blocked some of the green-skinned ghosts trailing behind.
The few scattered green ghosts still in the right corridor were also knocked aside by those tentacles mid-pursuit, as the ghost surged toward Wen Shichun's retreating back.
The length of the corridor suddenly felt incredibly short.
Time, too, seemed to stretch into an illusion of slowness.
Throughout the sprint to the end of the hallway, Wen Shichun barely took a breath. The ghost behind him leaped with terrifying speed—the floor, the walls, and even the ceiling all became its footholds.
Soon, he reached the end.
For an instant, his figure halted—like prey with no escape, standing right in front of the tall window.
On the ghost's final leap, the tentacles on its back fanned out once more, as if it intended to crash through that window together with the frozen figure.
At that moment, the ghost in the frame looked unmistakably excited.
And in the livestream room, the audience held their breath along with that white-haired young man's paused silhouette.
It was the most instinctive reaction when cornered.
But just at that critical, hair-trigger moment—
The previously frozen figure suddenly moved, shedding all stiffness. Wen Shichun spun around, and as he dodged to the side, the slicing knife in his hand cut toward one of the ghost's tentacles.
One clean swing.
A section of the tentacle dropped to the floor, spraying a trail of repulsive slime.
Wen Shichun nearly brushed past the ghost as he evaded, then pressed himself as close as possible to the left wall.
The ghost had lost a chunk of its tentacle, but its main body seemed utterly unaware.
And its prey had dodged at the very last instant, leaving it no time to react.
The next second, the ghost's body crashed through the window under its own momentum.
[My god...]
[What kind of insane reflex is that?]
By now, many in the official livestream had been drawn in by that figure on screen.
Someone blurted out directly: [So beautiful—]
[With that reaction speed, did he deliberately stop in front of the window just now? To make the ghost let its guard down?]
[Sheesh—]
[You can watch his first-person livestream!!! When he had just stopped in front of the window, the footage didn't move at all!!!]
The image in the first-person livestream was completely still.
What did that mean?
It meant the streamer was calm to the extreme—
So much so that the footage didn't tremble in the slightest!
And he must have already thought of a countermeasure—
Just waiting for the ghost behind him to draw near.
Throughout that entire motionless stretch, Wen Shichun relied solely on sound to track everything happening behind him.
Once the audience realized this, both the official channel and Wen Shichun's personal livestream were flooded with bullet comments discussing it.
Finally, someone summed it up: [A textbook example of luring enemies and using one's physical skills.]
But others also analyzed: [He's already pushed human limits to the max. Too bad he's only an E-rank right now...]
The white-haired young man in the footage was fighting that hard—it looked like he had no other life-saving items left.
Otherwise, he wouldn't need to rely on his own physical limits just to dodge monsters.
[He can dodge the ghost once... but then what?]
***
Inside the instance.
The moment the ghost rushed out the window, the person pressed flat against the wall immediately turned and ran back.
But just as the bullet comments had analyzed, the creature that had just smashed through the glass and fallen outside quickly reappeared at the second-floor window.
One of the ghost's tentacles was still hooked onto the window frame—with a single leap, it was back in the second-floor hallway.
Fortunately, Wen Shichun hadn't expected to shake it off that easily anyway—he was only buying time. But the space to move on this floor was too limited, and ahead of him, the bluish-tinged ghosts were rising again.
***
Inside the villa in District 10.
"Our district actually has such an outstanding newcomer?" Gu Heng said.
Though his tone didn't shift much, everyone else present could still tell that the speaker had clearly changed his opinion of the newcomer he mentioned.
Xiao Qi blinked, equally stunned by Wen Shichun's various reactions.
"But the situation is still very dangerous..." Xiao Qi said, frowning as he glanced at the feeds from the two external reinforcements.
"I'm definitely filing a complaint against them," Xiao Qi said.
Xie Huai was amused by Xiao Qi's remark and chuckled. "Don't panic. Let's see what Xiao Shi does next. I get the feeling he has a plan."
Every step the other had taken showed that he was a newcomer with strong strategic thinking.
That said, the people in the villa were also keeping an eye on the feeds from De Yuechen and Yan Shang.
Xie Huai remarked, "These two... throwing down in a full-dimensional livestream, and they don't care about the bad optics."
"Maybe they figure everyone already knows District 2 and District 9 don't get along anyway," Ge Baiyuan said.
So they didn't mind throwing a few punches this time either.
