“Where did that woman go? How are you controlling the lights?”

A questioning voice rose from the crowd.

The eerie events in the classroom were bizarre and horrifying, and most people panicked when faced with an unknown existence like a 【Ghost】.

But a few of the murderers remained calm and observant, becoming the brains of the group.

Wu Wang couldn’t ignore their questions. Otherwise, it was only a matter of time before they all turned on him.

And the one thing he lacked most was time.

“She probably went off to find a respawn point. Just kidding. She wasn’t the 【Ghost】. I was just running an experiment and, well, accidents happen.”

Wu Wang’s smile never wavered. He then pointed to the spotlights overhead.

“The lights aren’t under my control, either. I deduce this is just the classroom’s response to an 【Accusation】.”

As soon as he spoke, the breathing around them clearly grew more rapid.

Experiment. Accident.

These two words were so cold that the others glared at Wu Wang with undisguised murderous intent.

No one wanted to be a guinea pig, especially not in a matter of life and death.

“Then what was your experiment? Care to share?”

A thin, scholarly-looking man with glasses stepped forward and asked. The previous question had also come from him.

His gaze toward Wu Wang was perfectly calm, a stark contrast to the other murderers, who looked like a pack of starving wolves with ferocious glints in their eyes.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t angry about being used, but he knew that killing Wu Wang now would be meaningless.

Besides, he had noticed that this seemingly crazed youth was actually very smart.

Smart enough to realize that if he didn’t offer some information to win them over, the surrounding wolves would not be so easily pacified.

“Of course, my friend!”

Wu Wang grinned, his smile growing even wider.

“As an apology, I’ll share two clues with you.”

Wu Wang loved dealing with smart people. Crushing their self-righteous intelligence was just too much fun.

“One. The medium the ghost uses to kill is the shadow.”

With that, he pointed to where the woman had disappeared.

“The reason I used her for the experiment was that after the first victim died, her shadow began to shake abnormally.”

“Even with a stable light source, her shadow trembled at a high frequency for a full three seconds. Unless she had some kind of personal electrical malfunction, that shaking was highly abnormal.”

No one paid any attention to the off-color joke. They were all contemplating the credibility of the information.

A trembling shadow…

Indeed, no one had noticed such a detail. In the beginning, there had been fifty people in the classroom, and under the lights, their shadows were a tangled mess. They were too busy watching for attacks from others to look down at their own feet.

“The shadow stepping game you tried to get us to play earlier was also…”

The man with the glasses immediately realized the purpose behind the youth’s childish behavior.

Snap.

Wu Wang snapped his fingers.

He gave the man a gratified look.

“That’s right. Their shadows started to tremble, too. And before that, every one of them had, by coincidence, touched that woman’s shadow.”

“The ghost was hiding in her shadow!”

At this point, a new Death Rule became clear.

【Do not touch an agitated shadow】

Seeing that everyone’s expression had changed, though hesitation still lingered in their eyes, Wu Wang didn’t say much more.

He silently walked over to a corpse, bent down, and ripped off the person’s shoe with a swish.

Instantly, the sour stench of unwashed feet filled the air.

But their attention wasn’t on the smell. They had discovered that the sole of the corpse’s foot was covered in blood.

The skin was twisted and torn in a nauseating way, exposing raw flesh and blood. One could even vaguely see the toe bones within.

“Except for the first victim, who was killed when the ghost stomped on the face of their shadow, the injuries of every subsequent victim were on the soles of their feet.”

“The feet connect to the shadow. The ghost enters the body through the shadow to kill them, and it can even hide inside the target’s body.”

“This method is extremely stealthy, and it also reveals another piece of information.”

“The ghost is getting smarter.”

As he said this, Wu Wang felt a phantom pain in the soles of his own feet.

He knew because he, too, had been killed that way, over and over again, the ghost drilling into the soles of his feet through his shadow. That was how he could be so sure of the victims’ injuries.

Wu Wang’s words were like a huge stone thrown into a calm lake, creating a thousand ripples.

Even those who had remained calm found their breathing quickening.

The ghost can fucking get smarter?! How are we supposed to survive this?

For a moment, everyone frantically adjusted their positions, trying to prevent their own shadows from touching the corpses scattered on the floor.

Fortunately, the classroom was large enough. Even with about thirty people dead, there was still enough space for them to move and hide.

Some of the braver ones used the tools in their hands to carefully pry off the shoes of the other corpses. They found that, just as Wu Wang had said, the soles of every corpse’s feet were mangled into a bloody mess.

The commotion and inspection lasted for about twenty minutes.

Seeing the looks of fear on the faces of the once-arrogant murderers, Wu Wang nodded with extreme satisfaction.

A grin spread across his face once more.

“Of course, don’t get all dejected just from hearing one piece of bad news…”

Just as everyone thought he was about to say something encouraging, Wu Wang’s tone shifted to one of mockery.

“Because I have another, even worse piece of news. You can wait until you’ve heard it before falling into despair.”

The others stared at him, confused.

Before Wu Wang could continue, a familiar loud noise sounded again.

Thud.

The classroom was plunged into inky blackness. The spotlights had gone out again!

Fortunately, with their previous experience, everyone immediately stayed quiet.

Tap… tap… tap…

The familiar tap dance echoed through the familiar scene.

Everyone wore an expression of resignation. It went without saying who was moving now.

Only that guy dared to so brazenly ignore the Death Rule.

“Moshi moshi… It’s time for my one-man comedy show again. Did you all miss me?”

A cheeky voice echoed from the microphone.

Unsurprisingly, Wu Wang’s figure appeared on the lectern once more. His eyes held a madness and mockery that no one else could comprehend.

“Let’s continue. The other piece of bad news is that the 【Allotted Time】 for the mission is running out.”

Wu Wang squinted, surveying the darkness below him.

Allotted time? A question mark popped into everyone’s head.

They hadn’t found any clock or similar device in this classroom. How was this 【Allotted Time】 even determined?

Only the scholarly man with glasses walked silently onto the lectern.

“The days are getting longer, and the nights are getting shorter?”

It seemed this guy had also realized that one could speak normally on the lectern.

Wu Wang didn’t stop him. Instead, he nodded with a gratified smile.

“Hey, not bad. I’m starting to admire you.”

He listed the timeline as if it were a family heirloom, counting on his fingers.

“The first night lasted ten minutes, the second was only seven, and I estimate this one will be four at most. In contrast, the daytime, which started at ten minutes, has already extended to twenty.”

The others were stunned.

They never expected this madman’s observation skills to be so terrifying. It was one thing for him to have noticed the shadow’s abnormality, but he had even memorized the duration of the first daytime?

This meant that Wu Wang had been silently counting the time in his head ever since he woke up! He must have developed some kind of habit to be able to do this.

Damn it! What does he do in the real world? Is he a professional assassin?

The man with the glasses frowned.

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

The others had the same thought. Being able to see everything during the day was much better than fumbling around and guessing in the dark, wasn’t it?

Wu Wang just shook his head and sighed, tapping the microphone to produce a harsh buzzing sound.

“But the 【Accusation】 can only happen at night. That’s the only time we can be sure of the ghost’s location.”

“What!?”

Upon hearing this, their faces turned pale.

If what this kid said was true, then based on the pattern he described, the next night would last one minute at most, or even less. Eventually, the night would stop coming altogether, and they would be completely unable to make an 【Accusation】.

Wasn’t this a surefire death sentence!?

While everyone else was already showing expressions of despair, only the man with the glasses retained a sliver of reason.

He took a step forward until his face was almost touching Wu Wang’s. His eyes were bloodshot as he stared into the other’s lifeless, dead-fish eyes.

“Then how long are you going to keep playing around!” he ground out through clenched teeth.

“Playing? What makes you say that?”

Wu Wang retorted playfully, his gaze shifting down toward the floor.

“You already know where the ghost is, don’t you! Stop beating around the bush! When time runs out, you’ll be finished too! Don’t tell me you really want to die!?” the man with the glasses said with conviction.

But what he heard was Wu Wang’s disappointed sigh.

“I do want to die, but I’ve already tried. This classroom can’t make my dream come true.”

The man with the glasses stared, bewildered.

Before he could figure out what that sentence meant, Wu Wang suddenly raised a hand and pressed it on his shoulder. An immense, monstrous strength followed, shoving him off the lectern.

Stumbling to a steady stance in the darkness, the man tried his best to calm his emotions and avoid making an impulsive sound. His bloodshot eyes remained fixed on the youth on the stage.

He didn’t believe this guy would really pay the price of death just to watch them panic.

Time ticked by, second by second.

When only thirty seconds of the four-minute limit remained, Wu Wang finally spoke.

“I accuse…”

A smirk appeared at the corner of the glasses-wearing man’s mouth.

As expected, he had won the gamble after all. This bastard just wanted to mess with them; he didn’t want to die at all.

But his smile was immediately wiped away by Wu Wang’s pointing finger.

“The ghost is hiding right here!”

The youth pointed directly below him, at the floor of the lectern.

To be precise, he pointed at his own shadow.

“Bastard! What the fuck are you doing? You madman! Are you trying to take everyone down with you?”

The man with the glasses finally couldn’t hold back his curses.

He had naturally observed that the person accused of being the ghost would vanish on the spot and die. But he never imagined that Wu Wang would accuse himself at a time like this.

Is this guy really a suicidal psychopath?!

“Shh… be quiet.”

“Let me tell you all a secret.”

Wu Wang’s voice was low and magnetic. After accusing his own shadow, he continued to speak into the microphone, uttering a sentence that made everyone’s brain freeze.

“About the hidden fourth Death Rule.”