After seeing the reaction of this Kings’ Guild member, Liu Jiayi did not hesitate. She removed the visualization item from her right eye, leaving only her left eye able to see, then raised her head and looked around.

Crouching in the four corners of the large dormitory were enormous things that resembled spiders—or rather, humans.

The skin of these things had split open petal by petal, from the center of the tops of their heads all the way down to their lower bodies. The split skin had not peeled away from their bodies. Instead, like a rose in bloom, the edges curled outward and hardened into spider-like appendages embedded in the walls, allowing them to move swiftly.

The patches on the walls where the plaster had been constantly flaking off were caused by the walls cracking and crumbling under their steps as they moved.

And the bloody, skinless human columns in the center of these “roses” had become the stamens of these “blooming roses.”

The upper bodies of the “stamens” were dripping with subcutaneous tissue, so fresh it seemed as though they had only just “bloomed” not long ago. As they moved, bloody mixtures fell from them. Their faces were even more unrecognizable. One could see exposed gums and a pair of dead-white eyeballs, bulging out for the most part, staring motionlessly at them.

Liu Jiayi turned her head and looked around, her expression darkening.

Besides these eight relatively large monsters, there were many more inside the dormitory. They seemed not to have fully “bloomed” yet. These monsters, whose “stamens” revealed only half a face or even less, were smaller in size and seemed unable to fly over walls or walk across ceilings for the time being.

Most of these small monsters were sleeping beneath Liu Jiayi and the others’ beds, their eyeballs staring straight up through the bed boards at them. This was also why the Kings’ Guild member had just turned deathly pale from fright.

A “petal” blooming from the monster beneath his bed had passed through the bed board and was pressed against the side of his neck. The edges of the skin’s texture were writhing and oozing blood; the member had almost touched it.

They had slept for an entire night under the gaze of these monsters that had been invisible yesterday.

That lingering fear, combined with the scene before him now, made even a member who had weathered many storms in the game tremble with terror at this moment.

He had never seen such a bizarre monster before.

It was one thing for them to be visible only through one eye, but they had actually stayed with them for an entire night without attacking!

However, the strange silence that had lasted all night was clearly about to be broken now.

These monsters seemed to have sensed that the two of them could see them.

All the monsters in the large dormitory, both big and small, twisted their heads in all kinds of distorted angles and turned their eyeballs toward them. Clawing at the ground with their bright-red, blood-soaked “petals,” they slowly formed a circle and closed in on Liu Jiayi and the others.

The member turned his head, trembling, to look at Liu Jiayi. He was nearly crying from fear.

“...What do we do?”

“I wish I could pretend I didn’t see this whole pile of monsters.” Liu Jiayi stood up on the bed, her face dark and grim. “But now it looks like that’s impossible. Trigger them first and see if we can kill one. If we can’t kill them, run immediately!”

The moment her voice fell, the large monsters crouching in the eight corners of the room let out sharp, piercing shrieks. Then every monster in the dormitory began rushing toward Liu Jiayi.

Yet strangely, although the monsters had caused such a huge commotion, the people sleeping on the shared bunks remained like corpses, lying in place without moving at all. They were completely undisturbed by the noise.

When these things ran past the processing workers, they did not produce any vibration either, as though they existed only in the world perceived by the players.

But once a player perceived them, they were in the same dimension as that player—and could kill that player.

And whether one possessed “the left or right eye of blooming desire” was the key to breaking through the dimension and seeing the other world inside this factory.

Liu Jiayi ran at high speed under pursuit.

She tried to shake awake another Kings’ Guild member who was still sleeping. But when she ran to that member’s bed, what she saw was not that member’s face.

Instead, it was the face of another processing worker, one she did not know at all.

That face had already withered and decayed, as if the person had been dead for a very long time. The processing uniform on the body was covered in dust and cobwebs. With the strength of an eight-year-old girl like Liu Jiayi, after she touched the body and shook it twice, the person’s skeleton fell apart. The dried skin cracked and crumbled into powder.

Liu Jiayi raised her head and looked around.

The dormitory that had been full of living people just a moment ago had now turned into a mortuary.

As far as the eye could see, there were dark-gray, dust-covered white cloths draped over the heads of the corpses lying on the bunks. Huge spider webs drifted everywhere, rolling into catkins on the floor. Everything was dilapidated and deathly silent. The dust on the ground was so thick that running just a few steps stirred up enough to make one choke and cough.

The other member, who was still running madly, saw this scene and roared at Liu Jiayi:

“Little Witch, we’ve entered the inner world where these monsters are! Think of something fast! They’re too quick—we won’t last long!”

Liu Jiayi tilted her body and smoothly dodged a sharp flower petal stabbing at her from behind.

“I know. I’m thinking of how to get out.”

[System Notification: Congratulations to player Liu Jiayi for triggering the Monster Book.]

[“Rose Factory Monster Book” refreshed — Corrupted Staff (2/3).]

[Monster Name: Corrupted Staff (processing workers, factory workers, and perfumers).]

[Characteristics: The upper-class elites who adapted to low-concentration rose perfume soon became unable to gain satisfaction from that low concentration. They had no choice but to use rose perfume of higher and higher concentrations...]

[...As the concentration of rose perfume they used rose higher and higher, they became radiant, youthful, and beautiful, retaining the youthful perfection of dried rose leaves in full bloom for their entire lives...]

[...But they soon discovered that they were becoming more and more like roses. The energy within their skin and muscles was so abundant that it had to burst open and bloom before it could be satisfied. To delay this blooming, these rose-addicted people had no choice but to use perfume of even higher concentrations to domesticate their bodies and postpone the arrival of their flowering period...]

[...Blooming is the destined fate of roses. Refusing to wither means one must welcome the fate of blooming. The frenzied, mad nobles tore away their hypocritical outer skins, revealing the bloody truth within them. At this moment, what you see is a group of upper-class slaves kept by roses. Please enjoy observing their final magnificent bloom. If you refuse, you will be forcibly taken to another world to observe their former glory...]

[Weakness: ??? (to be explored).]

[Attack Method: Rose Debris (A+), using appendages to attack the opponent.]

Liu Jiayi swept through the monster description at a glance. While dodging the pursuers behind her, her mind raced.

In this game, a setting like an “inner world” usually hid more game information.

If that madman Bai Liu wanted to reach the [True Ending], he would inevitably have to turn this inner world upside down and dig out every piece of information hidden in the fine details in order to reach it.

But in this situation, Liu Jiayi only wanted to run.

She was not good at direct confrontations where the weak faced the strong head-on, just as Bai Liu was not good at the kind of “playing it safe” battle style she had used before.

Although Liu Jiayi, as a healer, did not want to praise such reckless behavior, Bai Liu was indeed skilled at gambling-style battles—that is, battles where their side had no chance of winning at all, yet he forced out a victory by betting everything.

And this style of combat was especially brilliant when the opponent was indeed much stronger than oneself.

Handing the parts one was good at to the person who was good at them, rather than having one person take on all the risks alone—this was actually the least risky way to fight.

This was Liu Jiayi’s tactical principle.

It was also what she had taught Bai Liu before, and what she was about to execute now.

Liu Jiayi took a deep breath and sincerely said “sorry” in her heart to the Kings’ Guild member who was still dodging monsters.

This teammate, I’m about to hand you over to an unreliable madman.

—You must be careful when cooperating with him. Although he generally won’t let you die, he generally won’t let you live too easily either.

With your IQ, just believe in him.

After silently reciting these words in her heart, Liu Jiayi opened her system panel and took an Ace of Spades poker card out of her item pool.

The skill poker cards the Queen of Hearts had left for Liu Jiayi were a pair of Aces: Hearts and Spades.

But without the Queen of Hearts present, these two skill cards were basically useful only for the Ace of Hearts. That was because the skill of the other card, the Ace of Spades, was called [Heart to Heart].

The [Heart to Heart] skill meant that after Liu Jiayi used the Ace of Hearts card, if she achieved external consistency with anyone on the field, she could use the [Ace of Spades] card to activate the [Heart to Heart] skill, carrying out three irresistible identity swaps with °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° the other party.

This card was usually only useful when the Queen of Hearts was present, because only she could freely become the person Liu Jiayi would become. Then, in an extremely urgent situation that Liu Jiayi could not handle by herself, Liu Jiayi could use this set of cards to exchange identities with the Queen of Hearts, allowing the Queen of Hearts to take the risk in her place.

—This was a set of combination skill cards, and also the life-saving “password” the Queen of Hearts had prepared for Liu Jiayi in the league. It was equivalent to sacrificing herself once so that Liu Jiayi could have a chance to escape.

As it turned out, Liu Jiayi was now giving Bai Liu the first use of it.

As she ran, Liu Jiayi let out a long breath. She closed her eyes and raised the Ace of Spades card.

[System Notification: Does player Liu Jiayi wish to use the skill card (Heart to Heart)?]

[Confirm.]

The black heart on the poker card began rotating rapidly.

The face inside the heart gradually changed from her face to Bai Liu’s. At the same time, her body felt as though it had been suspended in midair, giving a light leap.

The next second, “Liu Jiayi” opened her eyes.

“She” looked at the situation before her and raised an eyebrow, revealing a smile.

Well done, Little Witch.

You found the source of information I wanted.