The other player’s ID read “Poet of the Myriad Springs Division.”

Yun Ze breathed a sigh of relief.

Thank goodness. It wasn’t 【Pending Death】.

He couldn’t even begin to judge that guy’s actions or strength. God only knew what kind of unexpected trouble he’d run into if they teamed up.

As the player approached, Yun Ze suddenly noticed something was wrong.

“Wait a minute! Why did you get to town before me?”

He should have been the first of the six to enter. But from the looks of it, Poet of the Myriad Springs Division had been here for a while.

“…”

The other player didn’t answer him directly. Instead, he looked at Chen Xiuxiu, who stood beside Yun Ze.

“Esteemed nun of Desire, could I trouble you to let my friend and I have a moment alone?” the Poet of the Myriad Springs Division asked.

Chen Xiuxiu smiled.

“Of course, no problem.”

With that, she walked to the town entrance and stood under the dried corpse, smiling in their direction. As a slight breeze passed, the corpse swayed back and forth above her head, looking exceptionally eerie.

“Don’t come any closer. Just talk from there,” Yun Ze said, his guard still up.

The Poet of the Myriad Springs Division didn’t seem surprised by his attitude. He just offered a wry smile.

“This town has a huge problem.”

Nonsense! If this place didn’t have a huge problem, that would be the biggest problem! Yun Ze rolled his eyes internally.

The Poet continued to explain.

“I’m from the Tower of Order. I’ve already met up with my companions.”

“After we discussed it, we discovered that the greater the Suffering offered at the church outside, the earlier one arrives here.”

He lifted his wrist, which had been completely broken but was now moving freely, and gave it a shake.

“I arrived in this town last night,” he said helplessly. “This place has a strange power to heal injuries.”

“And the faith here isn’t just 【Suffering】. There are other beliefs. The nun next to you, for example, believes in 【Desire】.”

Yun Ze’s expression grew increasingly grim.

Since the other player dared to admit he was from the Tower of Order, it meant he had indeed met up with his companions. He wouldn’t have said it so openly otherwise.

But the most bizarre thing was the different arrival times.

The Main Quest was to 【Survive for 72 hours】. If everyone arrived at different times, didn’t that mean the difficulty of the quest was different for each of them?

Furthermore, players like the Poet who had entered the town early might have already obtained more than enough 【Relics】. A player like himself, who had just arrived, wouldn’t even get the leftovers!

As if sensing Yun Ze’s worries, the Poet sighed.

“If you’re worried about the 【Relic】 issue, don’t be. There aren’t any here.”

“There isn’t a single 【Relic】 in the entire town! The time spent here also doesn’t count toward the Main Quest’s survival time. One of our members arrived here five days ago.”

“This place is too strange,” he continued. “We plan to gather all the players in town to try and find the key.”

“Otherwise, we wouldn’t have come to you for cooperation.”

Cooperation?

Yun Ze was stunned. He didn’t understand.

As one of the Three Great Organizations, the Tower of Order had sent a full fifteen members into the 【Relic Scramble】. They had as many people as the Tarot Society; only the Abnormal Affairs Bureau had more. They had also likely made deals with numerous Rogue Players beforehand.

In reality, the 【Instance Scramble】 was a three-way struggle. A solo player like him could only hope to pick up some scraps.

Why would they need to cooperate with him now that they were inside the instance?

And this place didn’t count toward the Main Quest time? Did that mean Aiguyi Town wasn’t even the right place?

The Poet of the Myriad Springs Division’s expression was tinged with sorrow.

“The people from the Tower of Order who came… there are only five of us left.”

His words made Yun Ze’s heart tremble.

How is that possible!

Yun Ze frowned.

“What about the Tarot Society? And the Abnormal Affairs Bureau?”

He never expected the answer he received.

“The Tarot Society didn’t even come this time. They gave all their tokens to Rogue Players,” the Poet said. “And the Abnormal Affairs Bureau… their people entered the instance, but they never appeared in this town.”

“So, right now, the majority of players here are Rogue Players.”

“We have to find a way to leave this damn place together!”

To be honest, the Poet of the Myriad Springs Division hadn’t believed it himself at first. How could the Abnormal Affairs Bureau skip the 【Relic Scramble】?

After all, an estimated seventy percent of the 【Relics】 here were left behind by their own predecessors. This was a golden opportunity to acquire items and equipment to enhance their organization’s strength.

The Tarot Society’s withdrawal was already baffling enough. But for the host, the Abnormal Affairs Bureau, to have also vanished? It made the Poet suspect this was a trap targeting the Tower of Order.

After hearing the long explanation, Yun Ze’s expression grew even uglier.

If the situation was as described, then the problem with this instance was far greater than he had imagined.

Or rather, the problem with this town was.

“There’s one more thing,” the Poet said. “The strangest of all. I think you need to come and see it for yourself.”

He shifted his body slightly, indicating for Yun Ze to follow him deeper into the town.

Yun Ze had no reason to refuse. He was completely lost. The things that had happened were simply too bizarre to accept without seeing the proof with his own eyes.

Watching the two of them head into town, Chen Xiuxiu quietly followed.

They walked in silence. The town’s layout didn’t look much different from the Aiguyi Town outside. Besides the location of the churches, the two places seemed identical.

But when they arrived at the 【Dedication Square】, the same one Yun Ze had passed through with Pending Death, he froze.

“What… what the hell is this?”

“Impossible! How could it be him!”

Hearing Yun Ze’s cry of alarm, the Poet of the Myriad Springs Division offered another wry smile.

“You see the problem now, don’t you? I was even more shocked than you when I arrived yesterday.”

The square was grand and magnificent. Unlike the one outside, this square had two towering bronze statues in its center, each four or five meters high. Years of cleaning and care gave them a refined luster that shone even in the darkness. It was clear the townsfolk cherished them.

Even Chen Xiuxiu, following behind, silently bowed her head and brought her clasped hands to her forehead at the sight of the statues.

She chanted, “Praise the great Lord of Desire. Praise the heaven-sent Saint Son of Desire.”

After finishing her prayer, she turned to Yun Ze and explained.

“These two are the great leaders who saved Aiguyi Town from peril a hundred years ago. One is the High Priestess, a nun who believed in Suffering.”

“The other is the heaven-sent Saint Son of Desire, named Wang.”

“It is because of them that the town is able to tolerate different faiths. Even I, a nun of the church, am permitted to believe in 【Desire】.”

She tilted her head.

“Hm? You two don’t look very well. Are you tired?”

Faced with the nun’s concern, Yun Ze and the Poet wished with all their might that they really were just tired. This whole situation felt like a nightmare.

The bronze statue of the High Priestess of Suffering was blatantly the same holy nun from outside, the one who had caused a massacre that left corpses strewn everywhere.

As for the bronze statue of the Saint Son of Desire…

It was him. The player who had practically traumatized him in the basement.

【Pending Death】.

That deadpan expression of his, the one that made you feel like he was about to cause trouble at any second, was something Yun Ze would never forget.

He was the town’s Saint Son of Desire.

“Saved the town a hundred years ago…”

“This is so fucking ridiculous! What level of Suffering did this guy offer? What point in time did that send him to?”

“Who in the world is he?”

What on earth had happened before the rest of them arrived?

What did 【Pending Death】 do!?