Gamers Are Fierce-Chapter 749 - 747: Sacrifice (4K)
The red-clad elderly woman glanced around the group, lowered her head, and said hoarsely, "Danfei was merely average in both strength and disposition, far inferior to Kafei, and only managed to live and advance to Lv15 thanks to his brother. However, he possessed a Perfect Level item that he stumbled upon by sheer chance: Baron Samedi's Staff."
Li Ang raised an eyebrow. Baron Samedi, or Baron Sabbat, Baron Samdi, is the God of Death in Haitian Vodou. He is commonly depicted as a gentleman wearing a top hat, a black tailcoat, and a monocle, slender with just a skull for a head, and speaking with a heavy nasal voice. He has many avatars and is known in legends as the mediator between life and death, appearing at the crossroads to receive the dead and guide them to the Underworld. In certain circumstances, Baron Sabbat also makes deals with the living, such as reviving a beloved deceased or bestowing the knowledge and skills of the dead upon the living—of course, this usually requires the living to pay a most grievous price.
"The specific effect of this item is to allow the user to cheat death once," the red-clad elderly woman said solemnly. "When the user's physical body is killed, their Soul will leave the body and rush into the body of the murderer. If they can suppress the other in the ensuing battle of Souls, they may return to the mortal realm in that body. It's somewhat like the Eastern concept of soul snatching. Before he was killed by me on the second night, Danfei activated the staff's effect. What he didn't anticipate, however, was that I was one of the hotel's strange entities, already possessing the ability to consume Souls and strengthen myself. My very essence of life was completely different. Consequently, the effect of Baron Samedi's Staff didn't allow Danfei to return to life by possessing another's body; instead, it resulted in his fusion with me, and with Kafei, whom I had consumed. The three Souls were shattered, torn, and crushed, then pieced and glued back together, indistinguishable from one another."
"Is that so?" Li Ang nodded. "Take some clay and mold a you, sculpt a me, break them together, mix with water, and then mold a you, sculpt a me. My clay has you within, and your clay has me; we are inseparable. I understand. I'll go buy that staff as a token of love."
The players' eyes twitched. What the...? There's something off about him, they thought.
The red-clad elderly woman fell silent for a moment before continuing, "'I' inherited player abilities while also acquiring an Other's body and learning the hotel's true secrets. I can take the elevator after 01:11 and be seen as one of their own by other entities, but I must also obey the hotel's rule that every floor must be occupied. Danfei was dead but not truly dead, having returned in a new body, so the hotel didn't consider him fully deceased. Even if he stayed on the eleventh floor, it wasn't enough to calm the hotel—unless he died once more. In other words, from that moment on, we no longer had a choice. We couldn't just annihilate ourselves to appease others and calm the hotel, preventing the slender Bamboo Hat, the hotel's rule enforcer, from appearing. Therefore, the only solution was to kill a player each night, using their deaths to fend off the Bamboo Hat's shadow."
"I see." Li Ang rubbed the chin of his Dragon Head Mask. "That would explain your motive for killing. Even if you revealed your true circumstances as a normal player, the other players, to protect themselves, would only choose to kill you. It's better to hide your identity and wait for the chance to kill others, not only protecting yourself from being targeted but also enhancing your strength by absorbing them. But you didn't kill 13MARK directly on the eleventh floor last night..."
"That's because the fusion wasn't yet complete," the red-clad elderly woman took a deep breath and said in a low voice. "My true identity was originally the oldest resident of the Dolphin Hotel. She lived in the hotel for thirty years and even got married, leading a happy and content life. However, that anomaly killed her husband and left her in this half-human, half-Ghost form."
The red-clad elderly woman raised her emaciated, pale arm and laughed self-deprecatingly. "After that, she wandered the hotel, looking for her husband. The act of killing any living being that appeared before her was actually this old woman's instinctive embrace of her husband."
She paused for a moment, then slowly continued, "She has devoured a large number of human Souls, integrating fragments of their Souls, and has long since lost her mental faculties, becoming like a wild beast. This side effect also affects us. Sometimes, I become like a low-intelligence wild animal, retaining only the instincts to feed and avoid harm, unable to control my own body. That is why 13MARK didn't die immediately on the eleventh floor."
Li Ang narrowed his eyes. "Then you..."
"My consciousness returned midway. Seeing you coming to help, I dragged 13MARK to the deserted eighth floor and killed him." The red-clad elderly woman, or rather the amalgamation of Danfei and others, calmly admitted, "Even I didn't expect him to remain so composed. Knowing he was going to be eaten, he still had the rationality to leave a message to aid the remaining players. If I were still Danfei or Kafei, I probably wouldn't have been his match in strength or character. He fought until the very last moment."
Li Ang nodded noncommittally. "So, the true nature of the hotel is..."
"Let me explain that." Bai Haozheng, at the other end of the corridor, sighed. He flipped his palm over and took out a wooden comb, which, by its design, was the same one Wanli Fengdao had seen the woman using while combing her hair in front of the mirror on television.
"Everything that happened at the Dolphin Hotel was triggered by the owner of this comb, a girl named Yuka Yuri," Bai Haozheng said calmly. "You all probably remember the scene when the Murder Game first started on Earth a year ago, right? Abnormal events occurred frequently. Ordinary people were harassed and killed by otherworldly entities, leaving no traces, and society was thrown into a panic, while even the officials of various countries were clueless and had no strategy to counter it. This situation also occurred in this world."
The Intelligence Analyst from the Special Affairs Bureau paused for a moment, gently rubbing the comb with his gloved hand, and slowly said, "This world, ten years ago, faced the same issues as we did, the difference being they didn't produce players capable of destroying the anomalies. Governments of various countries made every attempt, using modern firearms, paper charms, Talismans, Holy Water, holy emblems, scriptures, and relics... Yet, nothing could harm the evil spirits and demons. They are tangible yet intangible, able to phase through walls and move through the earth, and can manipulate space, time, and even causality, delighting in slaughter. They would either take over a place, in an Earthbound Spirit State, killing any intruders, or become a Meme, increasing and multiplying by spreading concepts—just like Sadako. What's even more terrifying is that humans tortured and killed by them, due to their intense hatred and resentment, would transform into new vengeful Ghosts and start a chain of massacres. It was like countless horror films all became reality at once; the world was overrun with evil spirits, and the situation deteriorated so rapidly that the media couldn't cover up the truth, and social order was on the brink of collapse."
Bai Haozheng's narration was calm and indifferent, but everyone could feel the terrifying implications behind his description.
"Yuka Yuri, twenty-two years old, a female university student from Sakura Island in that world. She was lucky to survive an anomaly attack and caught the attention of Sakura Island officials. During testing, the Abnormal Event Control Department of Sakura Island quickly discovered that Yuka Yuri had a special gift—since childhood, she could see Spiritual Bodies, and even enter the world of Spiritual Bodies in her dreams, resolving the grievances of vengeful spirits and aiding their release."
Bai Haozheng spoke slowly, "Just like 'Natsume's Book of Friends,' for over a decade Yuka Yuri lived a dual life, on one hand maintaining her identity as a regular girl—attending school, reading, watching dramas, dating, fangirling—and on the other hand, discreetly resolving adverse events caused by low-level Spiritual Bodies.
"However, as demons gradually spread across the world, Yuka Yuri, with her gift of traversing the Spirit Realm, also suffered severe pain. Whenever she entered her nebulous dreams, she would hear screams and wails from every direction, witness grotesque and bizarre scenes of slaughter, and even be hunted and brutally killed by senseless vengeful spirits. In her dreams, she couldn't die; no matter how many times she was killed by Ghosts, she would come back to life, and in the next dream, she continued to suffer hellishly."
Bai Haozheng's eyelids drooped as he spoke dispassionately, "The Abnormal Event Control Department of Sakura Island appreciated Yuka Yuri's previous contributions to exorcism and sympathized with her plight, but the dire circumstances of the Mortal Realm forced them to make a decision: namely, to use Yuka Yuri as a container to hold all the Evil Spirits from around the world."
Li Ang's eyes narrowed. "You mean..."
"That's right." Bai Haozheng sighed deeply and continued solemnly, "The Abnormal Event Control Department of Sakura Island placed Yuka Yuri into a massive apparatus, inducing her into a state of eternal sleep, and, using the device, amplified her conscious power a thousandfold, extending its reach over half the planet. They then dispatched agents to lie in special containers connected to the apparatus, entering Yuka Yuri's consciousness. Since Yuka Yuri could access the Spirit Realm, her consciousness was in communication with it. The agents from the Abnormal Event Control Department received Spiritual Sense from Yuka Yuri, along with the power to interact with Spiritual Bodies in the Spirit Realm. They eradicated a large number of Spiritual Bodies in the Spirit Realm, and those that were too troublesome to destroy were brought back and stored in the prison of Yuka Yuri's consciousness, guarded by the young girl herself.
"She was both a Hero who sacrificed everything and an unknown figure, unrecognized and unsung; both the warden maintaining order in the Mortal Realm and a tragic Prisoner consorting with resentful spirits. Although the device could amplify her latent powers, it couldn't stop the Evil Spirits from gradually corrupting her sanity. To slow down Yuka Yuri's deterioration, the Abnormal Event Control Department of Sakura Island shaped her conscious world into the form of a hotel and, through psychological suggestion, made Yuka Yuri establish ironclad rules for the hotel, to either confine the indigestible resentful spirits within the rooms or incarcerate them in the corridors. In order to protect the core of Yuka Yuri's consciousness from erosion, they collected the Souls of missing persons from around the world and placed them in the Dolphin Hotel to serve as guests, residing in the rooms to attract the attention of unworldly entities—the entities in the rooms would harass the guests with notes, thereby concealing the true location of Yuka Yuri's core. The reason for choosing missing persons rather than criminals deserving of death is that the latter's Souls are too sullied and would only intensify the corruption of the hotel. For this purpose, they also sent agents, who had passed rigorous psychological evaluations, into the device to act as hotel staff, to repair everything here, maintain the order, and guard the Prisoners. The existence of the Dolphin Hotel is indeed unethical, built upon the seemingly endless sacrifice of Yuka Yuri as well as all the innocent residents, but it's also a necessary measure. Without the Dolphin Hotel, this world's Mortal Realm would descend into a hell overrun by a myriad of Ghosts."
Bai Haozheng continued in a solemn tone, "The Dolphin Hotel requires Yuka Yuri—that is, the woman in the kimono and the woman combing her hair in front of the mirror—to stay alert at all times. If she were to fall asleep, the hotel would lose its physical form and merge with the Spirit Realm. For this reason, the hotel staff must kill Yuka Yuri every night to allow her to refresh her cycle, as she had done before. The 'kill me' that the woman in the kimono had previously mentioned to the Ghost of Hidden Eye was for this precise reason. However, something unforeseen occurred at the Dolphin Hotel, leading to an invasion by entities, the hotel being overrun, and the annihilation of all residents and staff. Those tall figures in Bamboo Hats were actually transformed staff members. Endowed with power granted by Yuka Yuri, and although they had turned into some sort of aberration, they still retained all the memories of the training they had received in life, always following the rule that each floor must be occupied to calm the hotel's restlessness."
Bai Haozheng calmly finished explaining what he knew about the hotel's true nature. To corroborate the authenticity of his words, he took out paper and pen and, using his Mental Writing Skills, drew a dynamic image on the paper of his encounter with the woman in the kimono, Yuka Yuri.
In the last scene of the drawing, Yuka Yuri told Bai Haozheng that her consciousness was trapped and she couldn't see the whole picture of the hotel. It had been a long time since the hotel was breached, and she was unclear about the situation in the Mortal Realm (as the hotel's time flowed differently), but she was close to her limit. She herself would appear in Room 0621 tomorrow, hoping Bai Haozheng would come tonight and the following night to kill her, to reset the aberrations' erosion of her.
In the dynamic comic, Bai Haozheng finally nodded in agreement and killed Yuka Yuri.
As the dynamic comic concluded, the room fell into a hushed silence. After a long moment, Li Ang finally nodded. "With this, everything can be explained. The aberrations that haunt the hotel, the residents who are reborn after death, the tall, thin Bamboo Hat entity possessing terrifying power, almost like a rule itself..."
Having heard Bai Haozheng's description, his thoughts whirled. Unlike the tasks he had faced before, this time the Dolphin Hotel had fourteen players, and clues about the deep lore were extremely fragmented. The woman in the kimono had appeared in the videos seen by Wanli Fengdao, the dreams of the Ghost of Hidden Eye, and Bai Haozheng's dreams. Players had to work together to piece together a complete understanding of the lore. However, the Murder Game's task design is generally fair and just, giving every player an equal opportunity. The fragmented nature of the clues also implies, to some extent, that in this task, fully exploring the lore does not directly determine the players' survival and may only exist as a kind of extra reward. Even if players fail to discover the lore and ultimately fail to completely rescue Yuka Yuri from her suffering, it won't affect their chances of surviving the time limit and completing the task—otherwise, the task design would involve randomness and unfairness, which the Murder Game discourages.
Li Ang understood all of this in a flash and looked at his wristwatch.
The current time was 1:29.
If what the red-clad elderly woman said was true, then the task's original design was likely for the fourteen players to correspond to the fourteen floors, each using their abilities to survive 180 hours. Even in death, as long as they died on their own floor, they would not trigger the Bamboo Hat entity. However, the Baron Samedi's Staff carried by Danfei caused the red-clad elderly woman to mutate. Danfei's feigned death wasn't recognized by the hotel, and he couldn't possibly commit suicide to save the others. From the second night onward, the players were doomed to fail in meeting the condition that every floor must be occupied. Under these circumstances, Danfei was bound to embark on a path of killing his companions. And the mole who allied with Danfei must have learned this before the others, colluding with Danfei to kill others to avoid being randomly selected for death themselves. So, once it deviates from the intended path, the task mutates drastically, and the difficulty spikes...
Li Ang shook his head and calmly looked at the red-clad elderly woman. "The current time is 1:29. No one died tonight, so the tall, thin Bamboo Hat entity will surely appear in two hours. Nobody here wants to be chosen for elimination, and we haven't tested whether the elevator shaft, as opposed to the elevator car, can withstand the Bamboo Hat entity, which is almost like a hotel rule itself. So, there's only one option left. You've been willing to stand here and talk with us for so long, partly to heal your injuries, and partly because you're waiting for that mole companion of yours to get ready..."
Before he could finish, the situation abruptly changed. Yuyi Xinzhong instantly entered Prajna transformation, and her blade, entwined with thunder, struck down towards the Black Holy Son.
