Chapter 134
Chapter 134
After Guo Lan, Lin Xiaoxue, Xu You, and Chen Lin finished discussing their plan, they each set off toward the Red Door locations marked on the map.
The forest was vast, the wind and snow fierce, and the drifts came up past their knees. Even knowing exactly where the Red Doors were, it would be difficult for them to reach one in a short amount of time.
To protect Lin Xiaoxue and make sure she cleared the Instance safely, Guo Lan chose a door near hers, so the two of them headed in the same direction.
“Sister Lan, I realized that when you have reliable teammates, even an S-Rank Instance isn’t as hard as I imagined,” Lin Xiaoxue said to the person beside her as she struggled forward. “During the whole Instance, everyone worked together to collect clues and figure out how to clear it. Sister Sen came up with the plans, and when we faced an Eerie Entity, you protected me. If only every Instance could be like this from now on.”
Of course, she was only saying that. She knew she had to grow stronger as quickly as possible.
She had to become someone who could stand on her own as soon as she could. Only then would she stop dragging the team down.
Guo Lan’s expression turned grave. “If that’s what you think, you’re dead wrong. Never completely trust anyone inside an Instance.”
“Why? But all of you are worth trusting. And it’s precisely because I trusted you that I was able to clear it smoothly.”
“That’s only because the people you happened to meet were us. Survivor bias, that’s all. If you had run into He Xu or Zhou Jie, would you still be standing here safe and sound?”
Lin Xiaoxue swallowed. “That’s true… Good thing I met you guys.”
As they spoke, the Watch on each of their wrists vibrated at the same time.
Lin Xiaoxue checked the message and cried out in shock, “Speak of the devil!”
[He Xu: Thanks, everyone. You helped draw the Faceless Woman away for us. I hope you can hold out a little longer.]
He Xu’s message in the large group chat was glaringly conspicuous.
“They… They’re heading for the Red Doors too?!” Lin Xiaoxue said in surprise.
No one had told them that the Aurora would appear tonight. Had they been waiting for the Aurora all along?
Guo Lan frowned. “I’m afraid we aren’t the only ones with a Red Door location function. The two of them must have had it from the very beginning. We made quite a commotion catching the Skeleton Monster tonight. Maybe they noticed long ago and deliberately stayed hidden so we would draw the Faceless Woman’s fire, allowing them to escape through a Red Door.”
“Those two… They’re way too scheming!”
“Since He Xu dared to say that, it means the Faceless Woman has already entered the forest. Meiya probably couldn’t hold her off for long. We need to move faster!”
“Okay!”
“Sister Lan, the Red Door seems to be… moving! It’s getting farther away!” Lin Xiaoxue said, looking at the red dot on the map.
The Red Door wasn’t moving little by little. Instead, at irregular intervals, it would suddenly jump to another place, and the distance between them kept growing.
“We have to reach it before it moves again. Otherwise, this will turn into an endless chase.”
The two continued forward for a while. Suddenly, dense fog surged in from every direction. Before long, even their flashlight beams could no longer pierce the mist. A bone-chilling cold seeped through their clothes and into their skin.
Guo Lan stopped alertly and looked around. “It’s caught up!”
Lin Xiaoxue’s eyes went wide. “How is it so fast?!”
“Kekekeke…”
The Faceless Woman’s eerie laughter drifted out from the thick fog.
Lin Xiaoxue edged closer to Guo Lan. “Sister Lan, what do we do?”
“Use your Anomalous Artifact, then run toward the Red Door. Don’t worry about anything else!”
Lin Xiaoxue looked at Guo Lan worriedly.
She only had one Defense-Type Anomalous Artifact on her. If she stayed, she wouldn’t be able to help Sister Lan. She might even distract her…
After quickly weighing the pros and cons, Lin Xiaoxue nodded. “Okay! Sister Lan, please be careful!”
As she spoke, she took the Anomalous Artifact given to her by The Organization out of her pocket. It was a red bead.
After using this Anomalous Artifact, she could hide her identity as an Order Keeper for half an hour. During that time, to any Eerie Entity, she would appear to be a native of this world.
After Lin Xiaoxue used the Anomalous Artifact, she sped toward the nearest Red Door.
Guo Lan, meanwhile, drew a short sword about the length of her forearm from her knight boot. As she headed toward another Red Door, she stayed alert for movement in the fog around her.
In a flash, a hand clamped around Guo Lan’s ankle. Carried by her own momentum, Guo Lan crashed into the snow.
The next second, she raised her sword and stabbed at that ghastly pale ghost hand.
The ghost hand instantly retreated into the fog, giving her no chance at all.
“Kekekeke… Stay. Stay here. The strong should stay most of all.” The Faceless Woman’s voice rang out from every direction within the mist.
Guo Lan took a deep breath. “Then let’s see if you have the ability!”
A pair of pallid hands reached out from the dense fog, followed by a blood-soaked face that suddenly lunged close.
“Once I kill you, killing them will be child’s play. So give up struggling. Kekekeke!”
At the same time, on Xu You’s side.
The fog that had risen out of nowhere was obviously the work of an Eerie Entity.
And yet when she checked the compass, there was no trace of the Eerie Entity.
She shook her head helplessly. It seemed it had already chosen one person as its first target, so for now, it could only use the thick fog to trap everyone else.
No matter which unlucky soul the Eerie Entity had picked first, Xu You could only take care of herself for the moment!
With that thought, Xu You pulled a talisman from her pocket.
Without hesitation, she bit her finger and used the blood from her fingertip to draw the talisman. Then she formed a hand seal and tossed the paper into the air.
The talisman burst into flames at once and flew into the dense fog.
Seeing this, Xu You followed closely behind it, heading straight for the red dot on the map.
Chen Lin, meanwhile, was also trapped in the thick fog.
She had been moving in the direction of the Red Door shown on the map, but the sudden heavy mist had completely robbed her of her sense of direction. It felt like she was walking in a straight line, but judging from the distance between her and the Red Door, she seemed to be going in circles the entire time.
She glanced at the Jade Bracelet on her wrist. Cracks had already appeared on it. If she still couldn’t find the Red Door, then once the Faceless Woman caught up, only death awaited her.
But with the fog refusing to disperse, she couldn’t find her direction at all. She had to think of something!
She opened her phone, hoping to use its Compass function, but the virtual needle on the screen had completely malfunctioned. It was useless.
What should she do… What could she do…
Was she really going to die here?
Chen Lin looked around in panic. Her face grew paler and paler, and her breathing became increasingly rapid.
“Calm down! Calm down!” she kept telling herself, fists clenched tight.
She couldn’t lose her head!
She hadn’t come here to die. She had come to clear the challenge!
Not only did she have to successfully clear this Instance, she also had to successfully clear countless future Instances!
She had to meet God. She had to fulfill the wish in her heart!
Chen Lin desperately focused on the wish she wanted to make, and her chaotic emotions eased slightly.
“If it were Sister Sen, what would she do?” Chen Lin continued walking into the dense fog, forcing herself to think of a solution.
Sister Sen would definitely observe the situation first, and then… use every existing condition she could use to solve the problem…
Chen Lin’s gaze fell on the beam of her flashlight, and she jolted.
Light! Light travels in straight lines through a uniform medium!
Although the suspended particles in the dense fog would scatter part of the light, it could still show the general direction!
With that in mind, she rummaged through her backpack. It was part of the initial gear she had when she appeared in the Instance.
She remembered there was a magnifying glass inside!
She quickly took out the magnifying glass, then adjusted her phone flashlight to its strongest setting and placed it eight centimeters from the lens.
In this way, the originally scattered light formed a strong beam that shot straight ahead.
The beam could penetrate the fog, but it couldn’t penetrate tree trunks. So as long as she aimed the beam according to the Red Door’s direction on her Watch, it would inevitably land on a tree somewhere ahead.
Then, using that tree as the new starting point and the Red Door’s direction as reference, she could fire the beam again. The next tree hit by the beam would become her next starting point.
Her pace would slow down, but the line formed by three reference points-the strong light, the trees, and the direction of the Red Door-would definitely be straight. It would deviate far less than relying on instinct alone.
As for Lin Xiaoxue, she had likewise lost her sense of direction in the fog. She thought she was heading toward the Red Door, only to realize she had been walking in circles inside the mist all along.