Chapter 1 The Boundary of the Living and the Dead

Netherworld Kingdom, Boundless Maze.

The endless desert held not a single grain of sand. As far as the eye could see, it was a field of greyish-white.

The last trace of powder left after the dead were ground to dust and scattered had formed this desolate, ten-thousand-mile expanse of white sand.

Here, there was no distinction between day and night. The sky was forever overcast, a black fireball hanging high in the air, illuminating the world with "black light." That "black moon" was the symbol of the Underworld King, its black light shining upon his territory, its black light intimidating his subjects.

On this day, the mad sands remained, and an eerie, sinister chant echoed, stirring up vortex-shaped sandstorms. Amid the mournful howls, a circular spatial rift suddenly appeared, and a figure rushed forth.

K3-Chiti's form crashed to the ground, like a multi-ton shell striking the desert, unleashing a deafening boom and sending surging waves of sand in all directions. The vast killing intent that bloomed enveloped the sandy plains.

"Come out," K3 sneered. "Even if you now regret letting me come here, it's already too late."

For K3, the difficulty of the script itself was what limited his strength. Wayill thought he would have the advantage in this world, but he clearly miscalculated. Perhaps his strength here could exceed the limit of a fourth-level Derivative, but a third-level Derivative in this dimension with higher combat power, like him, also had room for improvement.

Blood clouds surged, and the black moon paled. The sinister chant in the wind abruptly ceased. In that instant, a puff of black smoke rushed down from mid-air, and Wayill, like an ethereal wisp of smoke, gradually condensed from a gaseous state into a body.

His physical form was that of an old man with a purple face, sword-like eyebrows and starry eyes, a tangled beard and tiger-like temples, and white whiskers reaching his chest, clad in a black robe. The same image, if filled with righteousness, could be called celestial and sage-like, but Wayill exuded an incomparably terrifying, gloomy, and evil aura. Just a glance at him would send chills down one's spine.

The evil wind whispered and stilled, and wandering souls and fierce wraiths scattered.

The surroundings instantly became eerily silent, as if everything was waiting and watching... Wayill's next move.

"I have seen, I have heard... your arrogance," Wayill said. "I have also sensed that you are indeed strong. But these... will not shake my will to fight."

"For a guard dog," K3's attitude remained calm. Even though his right arm could only exert fifty percent of its strength, he had absolute confidence in winning. "You're not bad."

As a Derivative, and a third-level Derivative at that, he certainly knew more about the orders and laws within Thriller Paradise than these script Bosses. His analysis of combat power was obviously more objective and specific.

To make a comparison, Wayill's strength in this Netherworld Kingdom was much greater than that of Fu-De, whom Feng Bujue had encountered on Hunter Island, but still somewhat weaker than high-ranking monsters like Samael.

If he went to the world on Cherry Blossom Island, Wayill would be weakened and restricted. If they really fought, two GMs in full condition would have a considerable chance of killing him.

And K3-Chiti's strength on Cherry Blossom Island was almost the same as, or even slightly stronger than, the combined combat power of two GMs. When he arrived in the world of the Netherworld Kingdom, the restrictions he faced on a data level were correspondingly reduced. Therefore, even after everyone's upper limits were raised, he was still stronger than Wayill.

"He who seeks to destroy my Soul Snatching Formation... die!" Wayill roared in a low voice, his figure suddenly blurring, turning into a streak of afterimages, and in the blink of an eye, he had already attacked K3.

The battle began, and killing intent soared.

Wayill launched a preemptive strike, seeking to gain the upper hand. K3 stepped on the bone sand and turned his arm. His stance barely moved as he deftly pushed aside the incoming ghastly claw, and the two brushed past each other. Wayill's attack was thus easily neutralized.

Of course, this move was merely a probe by Wayill. Facing a powerful enemy, he dared not use any killing moves without knowing the opponent's depth, lest he reveal a flaw and be defeated in an instant.

Turning around, he shouted in a deep voice. Dark mist gathered behind Wayill, and rampant killing intent, accompanied by surging evil tides, transformed into a tangible force, rushing towards K3's back.

"Is this a probe with a ranged attack?" K3 turned around indifferently. "This kind of bluffing technique might still have some deterrent effect on players..." He raised his right arm and opened his palm, and crimson light bloomed on his arm.

Facing the fierce black tide, he met it with an even more vigorous red force, using force against force. The two forces collided, and a clear, bell-like sound rang out in the desert.

The sound waves rippled, and the wind and clouds changed color. When the white dust dispersed, the two figures still stood facing each other, both unharmed and with steady breaths. It seemed that with this level of probing attacks, the two could fight for three days and three nights like the masters depicted in martial arts novels, finally ending with someone losing due to needing to relieve themselves.

"Pitiful temporary data, even if you don't die here, you will disappear when the script ends," K3 sighed in a compassionate tone. "In countless scripts, the system can create countless versions of you. You will be killed by countless players, or kill them... But both are equally meaningless. For you, death is the end; for them, it's just a return."

"I don't understand what you're saying..." Wayill replied.

"It's indeed difficult for you to understand, and the most pitiful thing is that even if you understand, you can't change anything," K3 said. "Only those high-ranking data with 'uniqueness' can 'live' longer. Although they too will eventually escape the fate of disappearing, they at least have a longer-lasting, continuous memory. Their ultimate 'death,' in this dimension, will also be an epic."

K3 sighed, "As for you... stop wasting my time. Behave yourself, disappear quickly, and let the system fulfill the conditions for teleporting the players." A sharp killing intent erupted in K3's eyes. "I'm only one step away from Level Two, and I can't afford even the slightest mistake. I will never let temporary data like you create any variables!"

***

"Are those... people?" Brave Invincible asked in a low voice. Following Copernicus's gaze, he saw a small team of figures slowly approaching from the woods ahead.

"It should be an illusion..." Copernicus replied.

"Oh... it's an illusion, not a monster," Feng Bujue thought. He really wanted to complain about this administrator. They haven't even gotten close yet, and normally people would assume they're monsters, but his first reaction is to tell us that they're not real.

"Should we hide?" Ye Zhi was still thinking along normal lines and offered some reliable advice. As she spoke, she cautiously covered the front end of her flashlight.

"Hey, should we hide?" Feng Bujue simply turned his face and asked Galileo directly in a rather impatient tone.

"Uh... I think... there's no need, right?" Galileo replied somewhat blankly. He hadn't realized why Feng Bujue would suddenly ask him this kind of question, but he instinctively gave the answer.

"Okay, then let's see what kind of tricks this illusion can play," Feng Bujue said, one hand in his pocket and the other holding the flashlight, looking ahead with boredom.

Ye Zhi glanced around with a strange expression, sweeping her gaze across the faces of Feng Bujue, Copernicus, and Galileo one by one. She found it strange that these teammates all seemed unreliable, but they always did the right thing with their abnormal actions, as if they had read some strategy guide in advance.

Before long, that small team of figures came close. They walked very slowly, and their gait was strange, like children playing at pulling a train, one following the other.

The guy walking in front kept his head lowered to his chest, but his hands were held straight out in front of him like a zombie's. He staggered forward, leading the people behind him. The one in second place had his hands on the shoulders of the first, his head also lowered very far, buried deep between his arms. The third person put his hands on the shoulders of the second, and so on. This small team also consisted of six people.

When they got quite close, the players were able to use the lighting equipment in their hands to see the team's clothing clearly. The clothes and genders of these six figures with their heads lowered corresponded exactly to the six players, without any difference.

Feng Bujue laughed, "Ha... no need to say it, the last one definitely has a line, and the content is probably something like 'Follow me'..."

The team silently passed by the players, as if they were just passing by for some soy sauce. Whether it was coincidence or fate, the last one, wearing the same purple long suit as Feng Bujue, raised his head, turned his face, and revealed a pale, extremely miserable face as he passed by, rolling his eyes and saying in a voice that gave goosebumps, "Follow me..."

"See, I told you I was right," Feng Bujue shrugged.

His unusually relaxed attitude largely infected the people around him, just like when you're watching a horror movie and someone spoils the next scary scene in advance. With advance warning, the original creepy plot setting had no frightening effect at all, and everyone's fear levels didn't change much.

"This kind of trick... Hong Kong ghost movies in the nineties were already doing," Feng Bujue said. "I've seen countless similar plots." He watched the team of illusions gradually move away and walk into the dark forest, still complaining relentlessly, "If you really want to make people uncomfortable, you might as well string six people together like a centipede, and then let them crawl over, and then the person at the front of the team says..."

"Stop talking!" Ye Zhi quickly interrupted. "Apart from offering constructive suggestions, could you please stop talking?" As a girl, her sanity was constantly decreasing after meeting this Feng Bujue. Compared to the game, the mental pollution caused by Feng Bujue's words and deeds was even more terrifying, because it might extend into real life.

"Seeing the illusions means we've already entered the area where the formation is located, right?" After all, he was a GM, and Copernicus still seriously steered the topic back to the walkthrough process.

"You can drop the 'right'," Feng Bujue smiled. "Just lead the way."