"Achoo!"
Inside the instance, Wu Chang sneezed. He rubbed his nose to disperse the aftereffect of the sneeze, muttering, "Who’s thinking about me, I wonder?"
After a brief adjustment, he began to check his current situation.
Since he was already drawn into the Abyssal Game, the only thing he could do now was to try his best to survive.
Although the matching system of the Abyssal Game was a pit, the design for entering the instance was quite thoughtful, automatically dressing him in clothes that matched the plane.
In addition, it also gave him a necessary personal space for players.
However, as an initial backpack, the Abyssal Game was quite stingy. The personal backpack was truly a backpack, with space only the size of a regular double-shoulder backpack.
At the moment, there was only one item in the backpack, the silver revolver that the camo man had used.
Wu Chang took out the silver revolver, and immediately felt a bit more secure.
All fear stems from insufficient firepower.
With a weapon in hand, he at least had basic self-defense capabilities.
As he fiddled with the revolver, a line of information popped up on the gun.
"Item Name: Silver Dawn."
"Artifact Level: D."
"Item Skills: Scorching Bullet."
"Skill Description: Silver Dawn generates special silver bullets automatically based on time. When silver bullets hit a target, they cause burning and explosion damage, doubling the damage against spirit bodies and monsters."
"Silver Bullet: Automatically generates one silver bullet every hour. You can also consume one point of energy to immediately load a silver bullet. Current number of silver bullets: 6/6."
Looking at the Silver Dawn in his hand, Wu Chang’s resentment towards the camo man eased, and he began to explore the room.
According to the mission prompt, the place he was currently in was called Moonlight Sanatorium.
Though named a sanatorium, it actually resembled more of a prison.
Rough-style interior decoration, a simple iron plate bed, yellowed white bed sheets, a heavy metal door, and a small window blocked by thick metal bars.
What kind of desperation drove someone to choose this place for convalescence?
It was late at night, coupled with overcast skies, the moonlight was almost completely obscured. All light sources in the room came from a small oil lamp on the desk not far away.
The oil lamp had a strong vintage feel. The world where the instance was located was much earlier than the real-world timeline; perhaps electric lights hadn’t been invented yet.
If the timeline were a bit earlier, he might have been able to give the locals a little firearm shock.
Wu Chang picked up the oil lamp and examined the details within the room.
With the aid of the lamp, he saw a piece of wood hanging on the wall with his case records nailed to it.
"Patient of Room 207: Sean."
"Condition: Paranoia (early stage)."
"Treatment method: Psychological counseling with medication."
"Current mental status of the patient: Stable."
Now it made sense; no wonder the room was styled so hard-core. This Moonlight Sanatorium also served as a psychiatric hospital.
The Sean on the record should be him, early-stage paranoia, which didn’t seem too bad.
Below the case records was the admission notice of Moonlight Sanatorium, written in bright red ink that stood out.
"1. This sanatorium employs a closed management system. Without a passage permit issued by the director, leaving the sanatorium at will is prohibited."
"2. In the sanatorium, only trust the medical staff. Do not trust any patients, not even yourself."
"3. All medical staff in the sanatorium wear white uniforms. Do not trust suspicious individuals in casual clothing who claim to be medical staff, even if they look very familiar to you."
"4. Do not leave the ward after dark. If you find yourself outside your room due to sleepwalking, keep calm when you wake up, cover your ears, close your eyes, lie on the ground, and wait for daylight."
"5. If any medical staff or doctor asks about your specific delusions, immediately inform other medical staff, who will come to handle it."
The rules of the sanatorium were not plenty, but each was peculiar, making Wu Chang momentarily puzzled.
At the level of the door to the abdomen, there was a meal delivery slot. He opened the cover on the room’s inner side, looked out through the slot, and sure enough, as he expected, there was a faint red resentment on the door of the opposite room.
How do you create a button that makes people want to press it at the sight? The answer is to put a warning sign in front of it: Do not press it under any circumstances.
The admission notice emphasized not leaving the ward after dark, meaning some players are bound to try it.
As his ability activated, the faint red resentment unfolded into a curtain, projecting the deceased’s experience before death.
The deceased was a player dressed in a mage robe, and he’s confirmed to be a player because he wore basketball shoes under the mage robe.
The mage stood in the room, waving his magic wand and chanting softly. Magic power materialized into glowing particles like starlight, orbiting around him to form a transparent barrier.
The opponent seemed to be a veteran, continuously chanting for five minutes, layering four different shields before stopping.
With four layers of shields, he cautiously left the room. Everything seemed normal and no accident happened. This boosted the mage’s confidence. He moved forward boldly, preparing to explore the sanatorium at night.
But as he hadn’t walked very far, his body suddenly stopped, wailing as he collapsed to the ground.
As if he had seen something terrifying, he turned and crawled back toward the room with all his might.
It was as if ten meters turned into a chasm. Just as he was about to climb back into his room, his expression distorted with terror, and he emitted incomprehensible whimpering noises. Then, he convulsed violently and turned into a pool of mush.
Physically mush.
His state resembled a perfectly hand-pounded meatball from Chaozhou. Without thousands of beatings, it wouldn’t come out so delicately smooth. When fully worked up and cooked, it could bounce half a meter high if thrown to the ground.
Until death, the four layers of shields on the mage remained unbroken.
Wu Chang furrowed his brow. An instant death effect that ignores defense?
When something seems off, there’s bound to be something supernatural. Allowing a veteran player to die helplessly, his years of gaming experience told him that the two main storyline quests related to the instance must be tied to the sanatorium’s nighttime.
To uncover the secrets of the sanatorium at night, being able to move at night was fundamental.
He replayed the mage’s death footage, attempting to decipher the mechanism of the instant death strike. Did the mage trigger some trap or stray into a certain area?
With each viewing, he grew more attuned to the mage’s experiences before death. By the fourth replay, he almost completely immersed himself into the mage’s perspective.
While desperately crawling back into the room, he suddenly shivered, feeling as though someone was observing him from behind.
With a mage’s perspective, he turned back and noticed a detail he had previously overlooked or missed in the first three times.
At the end of the corridor behind the mage, a chubby figure dressed in a patient’s gown stood in the middle, coldly observing everything.
The chubby figure wasn’t a medical staff, yet could move freely at night.
Wu Chang’s consciousness withdrew from the resentment. It seemed that to move at night, he must first find the chubby figure wearing the patient’s gown.