Chapter 58: No One Survives

【The ‘Carnivore (Novice)’ instance has been permanently closed due to force majeure】

【Last player to achieve clearance: ** (This player has not set a display nickname)】

In the Ruins of the Sunset, all players heard the system broadcast and saw the changes on the stone tablet.

The sound of discussion erupted like a boiling pot.

“What’s the situation? A novice instance can actually be permanently closed? What on earth happened?”

“This broadcast is exactly 72 hours apart from the last te clearance of ‘Rose Manor’. Could it be the same person?”

“Newbies are all monsters. I’m more curious about what he did to the ‘Carnivore’ instance. He didn’t blow it up, did he?”

“Who knows? Maybe he’ll put together a walkthrough. We’ll check the Forum then.”

“Take it from someone who’s been there: don’t get your hopes up. There’s still no sign of the walkthrough for that last te clearance!”

Although the players discussed it enthusiastically, none of them invested too much genuine emotion.

After all, it was just a novice instance.

Over the past thirty-six years, there have been countless brilliant newcomers, but most of them met their downfall in the third instance and faded into obscurity.

Whether one ascends to the divine throne or falls into the abyss remains to be seen until they become an official player… 【’Carnivore’ evaluation grade A…

【…S, reward: 2000 points】

Against the dark background, the letter of the evaluation grade flashed twice. Accompanied by a string of hallucination-like red garbled code, it changed from ‘A’ to’S’.

Qi Si had a faint suspicion and raised an eyebrow slightly: “It seems the authority of a god-tier npc is even higher than I imagined.”

In the early stages, he hid behind the scenes and avoided many plot points. On the first day, he didn’t go to the west of the village with Yang Yundong to explore; on the third day, he didn’t experience the crisis at the ancestral hall; on the fourth day, he didn’t even personally take part in the killings.

If his evaluation grade dropped because of this, as a perfectionist, he would definitely be very unhappy. He would immediately put all the NPCs in the ‘Carnivore’ instance on a blacklist named ‘Must get revenge if there’s a chance’ and find ways to make them even more unhappy.

Unexpectedly, the Evil God was quite self-aware. Without requiring him to waste words, the conflict was nipped in the bud.

【’Carnivore’ True End line clearance, reward: 2000 points】

【Worldview decryption 100%, reward: 2000 points】

A series of top-tier evaluations popped up one by one. The Evil God remained silent, hiding his merits and fame.

In the pitch-black, lightless space, only the silver-white settlement text scrolled methodically before his eyes.

Qi Si yawned and silently did the calculations.

He had learned from the game Forum that every instance would consider various factors to set a base points value, and other reward points would be settled as multiples of that base.

Currently, it seemed the base points for the ‘Carnivore’ instance were twice those of ‘Rose Manor’.

He wasn’t sure if it was because there were more people, or because the connection with ‘God’ was closer; or perhaps, simply because this was his second instance, and rewards were meant to increase progressively with the number of cleared instances.

Qi Si couldn’t understand the reasoning for the time being. In his view, the mechanics of the ‘Carnivore’ instance were actually simpler than ‘Rose Manor’. Although the scene was once chaotic due to there being eleven people at the start, the difficulty really didn’t match twice the base points.

Of course, if the reward points did indeed increase day by day, it was certainly good news for him.

Since his goal was constant, higher reward points meant he would need to clear fewer instances, effectively reducing the probability of him losing interest in the Eerie Game before he saved up enough points.

If one day he got tired of the game but had to grit his teeth and keep playing because of sunk costs and the promise of a wish, that would definitely be a sad thing.

The settlement text was still refreshing.

【Become the sole survivor, reward: 1000 points】

【Unlocked achievement ‘Gazing into the Abyss’ (actively make contact with a god-tier npc), reward: 500 points】

【Unlocked achievement ‘Evil God Believer’ (reached a deal with a specific god-tier npc), reward: 500 points】

【Unlocked achievement ‘No One Survives’ (become the sole survivor through subjective actions), reward: 500 points】

Qi Si narrowed his eyes.

Extra points were only awarded the first time an achievement was triggered. This was the first time he had seen the ‘No One Survives’ achievement icon, which meant he wasn’t the sole survivor in the previous instance.

Who else survived? Chang Xu or Lin Chen?

The details of the ‘Rose Manor’ instance replayed in Qi Si’s mind, and the details that had faded from memory shifted from illusory to solid.

Shen Ming died on the first day, Ye Zi was killed by Zou Yan, and finally he killed Zou Yan… At that time, fearing there wasn’t enough time, he went directly back to the garden to handle Anna and Annie’s affairs, then witnessed the collapse of the castle, taking it for granted that the people buried inside were doomed… But it was very likely that the moment the clearance prompt sounded, the instance ended, and everything that happened afterward was similar to a CG animation, unable to cause substantial harm to players… ‘Is Chang Xu still alive?’ Qi Si stroked his chin, lost in thought.

Because of his lack of experience in ‘Rose Manor’, he had left many flaws. As long as someone wasn’t a fool, they could always figure it out after reviewing it a few more times.

In the ‘Carnivore’ instance, he had directly used Chang Xu’s name. If word got out, it would be easy for someone interested to connect the two—at least Chang Xu himself would definitely suspect him.

More troublesome was that if they met again in the short term, with Chang Xu’s strength, if he wanted to take back the ‘Pocket Watch of Fate’, Qi Si would have no room to refuse.

Once something was in his pocket, Qi Si didn’t plan to return it to its original owner even if he threw it into the sea to feed the fish. In his dictionary, there were only two phrases: ‘benefiting oneself at the expense of others’ and ‘not benefiting oneself but harming others for fun.’

The empirical belief that ‘good people don’t live long’ was deeply ingrained in him. The mere thought of letting others benefit made him feel nauseous.

However, based on the volume of interaction on the Forum, it could be inferred that there were tens of thousands of active players, and the pool of instances was unfathomably deep. Without a team-up item, the possibility of meeting an old acquaintance again in a random match wasn’t very high.

Once they entered the official pool, the time limits for matching instances would be more flexible. They would have to agree on a time to enter an instance to possibly get into the same one as a specific person.

And to be honest… the fact that a somewhat special guy like Chang Xu was still alive and that there was still a chance to trick him into the studio for a dissection was actually quite good news.

Qi Si archived the redundant information, burying it in a corner of his Hall of Thought, and his gaze lingered on the ‘Become the sole survivor’ entry.

This should be the extra reward Ye Zi had mentioned before, obtained after triggering the ‘minimum death count’ mechanism.

A reward of 1000 points wasn’t much, only half of the reward for decrypting the worldview, but it definitely wasn’t little either.

In cases where the worldview wasn’t decrypted and the evaluation grade was low, the reward points for being the sole survivor could very likely surpass other items and become the bulk of the total reward points.

Those willing to spend energy and take risks to decrypt the worldview were in the minority after all, and this path was destined to be a thankless task, with success not being guaranteed.

It was easy to imagine that under the guidance of the points algorithm, players would tend toward two extremes after being filtered through instance after instance.

Either they would be vicious, aiming to kill other players; or they would be timid, cowering in corners and gasping for breath, hoping to survive to the end by being cautious.

Putting these two types of players together would easily form a ‘wolf and sheep’ pursuit model. Massacres and escapes would happen simultaneously, and the entire process would be filled with blood and cruelty.

Qi Si stroked his cold finger and smiled to himself: “A nice design. You only need to raise them like venomous insects for a while to form a complete assembly line, and then you can continuously harvest a steady stream of sin. It’s really… pollution-free, economical, and environmentally friendly.”

His thoughts touched on something, and he shook his head with a sigh: “It’s been thirty-six years; quite a lot of sin must have been produced by now, right? Can’t that unlucky Evil God use even a little bit of it? He’s still eyeing what I have…”

【Total reward: 8500 points, deposited into your points account】

The cold electronic voice interrupted his wandering thoughts. Qi Si saw that the total points in the upper left corner of his vision had changed to 【13000】.

It was still quite far from a million, but a five-digit number looked much better than a four-digit one.

Science posts on the game Forum had said that the mall would open after becoming an official player. Although he didn’t know exactly what was inside, accumulating some capital in advance was better than being caught short when the time came.

The system prompts continued.

【Congratulations, you have obtained the portable item ‘Ghost Drivers Recorder’ in the ‘Carnivore’ instance. This item will be temporarily stored in your inventory and can only be taken out within an instance.】

【Name: Ghost Drivers Recorder】

【Note: The Ghost Driver hates communicating with humans and can only record his words into the Recorder in advance to play for the passengers on the bus. Now, the Ghost Driver can’t find his beloved Recorder, and the Ghost Driver is very angry!】

“There’s actually such an item?” Qi Si was somewhat surprised.

The Recorder was just an ordinary Recorder. When he took it, he didn’t expect it to be an item he could bring out.

Of course, he couldn’t use this item for the time being.

The inventory would only appear on the updated system interface after he became an official player. Right now, he couldn’t even see a shadow of it.

【Congratulations on your perfect clearance of the ‘Carnivore’ instance. You have received the reward item: Evil God Finger Bone】

A new line of prompt text appeared.

Immediately afterward, a crystal-clear segment of a pinky finger bone appeared out of thin air.

The content of the deal with the Evil God would only be handed over after clearing the third instance; this finger bone was clearly a reward from the instance itself.

The finger bone hovered in front of Qi Si for two seconds before turning into a streak of golden light that merged into his right hand, fusing with his original bone.

Qi Si’s eyes lit up.

With ‘Evil God’ in its name and being able to fuse into the body, it wouldn’t be ordinary no matter how you looked at it. It might even be the kind of growth-type item that would still play an important role in the later stages.

Was the Eerie Game actually this generous?

Qi Si lowered his eyes to look at his pinky finger. Two seconds later, prompt text appeared on it:

【Name: Evil God Finger Bone】

【Type: Item (Bound, cannot be transferred by any means)】

【Effect: Converts the taste of any meat dish into a vegetarian one】

Qi Si’s smile faded.

He moved his gaze down and saw the last line.

【Note: The Evil God believes that the trip to Su Clan Village will make you feel averse to meat. For your dietary health, He has generously replaced your reward item with this one as a return gift for your actions.】

Qi Si stared fixedly at the item information, his gaze scanning the 【Note】 section several times until every word was etched into his mind.

After a long silence, he gave three standard dry laughs and said through gritted teeth, “Lord Evil God, you don’t actually think you’re being humorous, do you?”