Chapter 52: Welcome… back

The knocking at the door rang out, and the atmosphere instantly turned rigid. Rover, Nanoe, and Selina looked at each other, and it seemed they all shared the same thought.

’Thousand-Faced Wraith’

Knock! Knock! Knock!

The knocking sounded again. Rover wanted to speak, but Nanoe immediately signaled for him to stay silent.

She moved closer to him and whispered with a frown, “Rover, we still don’t know what form the ’Thousand-Faced Wraith’ will use, or what method it will use to copy our bodies and memories. So it’s best if we don’t respond at all.”

“Besides, in this world, we don’t know anyone, and there’s no way anyone would run out in a dangerous time like this just to knock on our door.”

Rover felt it made perfect sense. He decided to keep quiet and continue waiting.

The creature outside seemed to stop knocking. Instead, there came the sound of something being dragged along the floor, and the noise alone made everyone’s skin crawl.

Selina covered her mouth and frowned. “It sounds like… someone’s corpse was hacked to pieces, then dragged along the ground.”

Nanoe nodded. “We should be even more careful. After all, the ’Thousand-Faced Wraith’ can bypass the System’s barrier and even mimic the link between [Tenant] and [Owner].”

Rover let out a quiet sigh and continued checking messages, while Selina and Nanoe kept training.

Over the next eight hours, Rover saw countless cries for help in the chat window. There were even quite a few Rank 2 Survivors who were killed by the ’Thousand-Faced Wraith’.

What was even more disturbing was that… even if you didn’t open the door, the Thousand-Faced Wraith could still enter the room.

That made Rover uneasy. If that was the case, did it mean all the Survivors here were going to die?

Rover skimmed through the chat. The messages became fewer and fewer, to the point where someone would send a message and it would take one or two minutes before anyone replied.

“Is the Thousand-Faced Wraith trying to wipe out everyone?” Rover muttered.

At this moment, Selina and Nanoe had also finished their training. Each of them gained 2 more free attribute points.

Nanoe’s attributes had now risen to: Physique 15 | Spirit 29.

As for Selina, she had risen to: Physique 29 (+4) | Spirit 15.

After finishing their training, they didn’t rush to shower. Instead, they checked the chat window.

Nanoe frowned. “This is really strange. It feels like the System is having some kind of problem.”

“Hm?! What do you mean?” Rover asked, confused.

Nanoe said, “Master, look over there in the corner. Under the names of people who have sent messages before, there’s a small dot. If it’s green, they’re alive. If it’s black, they’re dead. But now, a lot of those dots have turned yellow. What does that mean?”

Rover frowned too and looked at the names in the chat. Just as Nanoe said, many people’s dots had turned black, and a few had turned yellow.

Nanoe spoke softly. “There’s one hypothesis. The people with black dots are dead, while the people with yellow dots might be in a state where they can’t chat, or they’re unconscious.”

“Before, there were no yellow dots like this. They only appeared now, which means these yellow dots are connected to the Thousand-Faced Wraith.”

Rover inhaled sharply. Among those who were dead or in that yellow state, there were quite a few Rank 1 and Rank 2 Survivors.

Even high-ranking Survivors couldn’t resist it. What was this Game trying to do? Was it trying to kill everyone?

While the three of them were silent, the knocking suddenly started again.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

Rover frowned and glanced at Nanoe and Selina. They looked back at him, confusion clear in their eyes.

Should they open the door or not?

As Rover hesitated, the door suddenly cracked open on its own.

Rover: “??!!”

He jolted, certain he hadn’t given any order to open it. So that meant…

Nanoe and Selina also knew Rover wouldn’t be stupid enough to open the door, so there was only one possibility.

The Thousand-Faced Wraith.

At that instant, a frigid draft blew into the room, making everyone shiver, and the air turned suffocating and heavy to the extreme.

Rover immediately tried to command the System to close the door, but a notification popped up in front of him, plunging his mind into anxious panic.

[Your room has been placed into a zone of chaos. You cannot use the System to close the door.]

“Damn it!” Rover cursed under his breath and instantly swung his hand, using spiritual power to shut the door, but…

WOONG!!!

“AGH!!!” Rover cried out in pain. The moment he used his spiritual power, a static-like noise erupted inside his head, throwing his mind into disorder.

Right after that, countless bizarre images flooded into his consciousness.

“What the hell is this?” Rover muttered through clenched teeth.

His head… it hurt so much. But he was seeing so many things… angels, demons, monsters, tentacles… eyes…

In the sky, countless eyes were staring down. Massive tentacles, studded with eyes, seemed to be searching for something.

Those images were incomplete, as if ripped from documentary films made hundreds of years ago, only black and white.

“Rover…”

“Who?!” Rover jolted, feeling as if someone had called his name. “Who’s calling me?”

“Rover… welcome… back.”

“What?!” Rover’s eyes flew open, but he saw nothing except a thick layer of fog. If the bed hadn’t been right beside him, he would have thought he was outside the building.

“Selina! Nanoe!” Rover shouted. He decided to use spiritual power to disperse the fog, but when he swung his hand up, he realized his power was gone.

“What the hell? Impossible!” Rover frowned, muttering under his breath.

He hurriedly opened the System status panel, but it only displayed a single red message.

[Your room is currently in a zone of chaos. Please complete the mission to escape this zone. The System is temporarily shut down.]

Rover clutched his head, gritting his teeth. “What the hell is going on? Those images… they’re still there… and that voice, what is even happening?”

That was right. Ever since the door had been forced open, probably because of the Thousand-Faced Wraith, a wave of strange phenomena had crashed down on him.

Rover could still sense the bond between [Owner] and [Tenant], but that bond was wildly chaotic, like a ball of yarn that had been completely tangled.

Rover drew a deep breath and slowly walked through this fog-filled space. Even though this was still his room, somehow… it felt incredibly wrong, as if it no longer belonged to him.

Suddenly, a shadow moved toward him, and he immediately went on alert.

Rover stepped back. He wanted to pull out the chain, but he realized he couldn’t connect to his personal backpack.

“Damn it!” Rover cursed inwardly.

At that moment, the shadow seemed to notice him and started moving faster and faster.

Rover’s nerves tightened, but when he saw who it was, the tension gradually drained away. “Selina?!”

Selina was panting as she threw herself into Rover’s arms, urgently saying, “Master… I finally found you.”

Rover frowned. “Where’s Nanoe?”

Selina shook her head, her eyes wet. Her hand clutched his tightly as she spoke in a soft voice, “I… I don’t know. I only saw a figure standing in the fog, so I ran toward it. And then I found you.”

Rover felt even more confused. He turned his head and saw that the bed in his room was still here. So this was his room, right?

“We shouldn’t wander around.” Rover took Selina’s hand. Feeling how ice-cold it was, he quickly tightened his grip.

Selina hugged his arm tightly and whispered, “Mm. I think we should stay in one place too, so Nanoe can find us more easily. Besides, Master, I can’t use my backpack.”

“Me neither.” Rover sighed softly. “It looks like our room has been dragged into some strange space, so we can’t use our backpack or the System.”

Selina nodded and didn’t say anything else.

Rover frowned as he scanned the surroundings, unsettled to the extreme. His room was tiny, so why had it been so hard for Selina to find him? Had he truly been thrown into another dimension?

While he was thinking, he suddenly saw two shadows advancing toward him.

Rover became wary, his eyes locked onto the two shadows approaching from different directions, yet their speed and gait were perfectly identical.

When those two shadows came within a short distance, both he and Selina froze.

Selina covered her mouth, her face full of shock. “This is…”

Rover also stiffened, murmuring as he stared at the two people in front of him, “There are two Nanoes?!”

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