CH 1

Pain.

Intense pain.

Unparalleled pain, like a husky tearing apart his nerves in his head.

Rode was awakened from his deep sleep by the pain.

"Damn... why does my head hurt so much? Is someone trying to open up my mind?"

"Damn it, whoever said drinking can prevent strokes, I'll let them have a stroke first..."

Rode opened his eyes and was about to get up.

"This is bad, I need to go take some cephalosporin to calm down..."

However, the next moment, he was stunned.

This was not his dormitory or home, his drinking buddies were gone, and he was not in bed but sleeping on the dry and hard wasteland.

What was even more chilling was that there were many people lying around on the wasteland, motionless and lifeless.

They had clearly been dead for a long time.

Rode's hair stood on end.

Why were there so many dead people?

Was he dumped here?

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But this didn't look like a crematorium.

Rode forced himself to calm down, and as his gaze moved, he noticed more strange things.

The clothing of the dead was strange, not modern style, and the bodies were withered and black, not like normal deaths. There were signs of destruction all around, but as a man who had watched over a thousand episodes of Conan, he keenly noticed that these signs were not harmonious.

But what was even more bizarre was a lamp.

It was held tightly by a withered hand in the center of the pile of corpses.

Its outer layer was made of gray metal grilles, and the inner layer was thick, semi-transparent glass. A small, almost extinguished flame could be faintly seen inside.

But the fragile flame emitted a light that illuminated the hundred-meter radius around it.

Beyond this hundred-meter radius was a thick, rolling black mist.

There was no night sky, no stars, no moon, and no sun.

Rode opened his mouth wide, unable to breathe, with only the husky in his head tearing apart his mind.

Undoubtedly, this was not a normal and understandable world.

If the pain had not continued, Rode would have thought he was dreaming.

"Oh no, am I in a strange world... this is not going to end well..."

Rode regretted watching so many horror movies. Various terrifying scenes from his memory flooded his mind uncontrollably, such as being devoured by monsters, being stuffed alive into a sewer, being packed into a suitcase, being made into candy, and so on.

"Calm down, calm down, I need to stay calm now."

Rode took deep breaths.

"Don't panic, don't panic. As Lu Xun said, the best way to eliminate fear is to face it. Not everyone dies in supernatural horror movies..."

"I can survive, I can definitely go back to my world. Lin Chi-Ling, Ishihara Satomi, Aragaki Yui, Asuka Saito，Agano Mei，Komatsu Nana are all waiting for me. I can't let them down..."

Finally, Rode managed to calm down. Just as his rational thinking recovered, fragments of memory flooded out of his brain.

After digesting this not-so-long but extremely fragmented information for several tens of minutes, Rode's heart sank to the bottom of the sea.

This was a world shrouded in darkness, where the pervasive black mist corroded all living creatures, and countless monsters roamed within it.

The only thing that protected humans was fire.

They called it the Guardian Fire, or the Fire of Light, the Fire of Life, the Fire of Hope, the Fire of Eternity, and built human settlements with it to survive in this apocalyptic hell.

The settlement relied entirely on the power of fire to exist, and the stronger the fire, the larger the settlement.The most powerful guardian fire is the Holy Fire of the Royal City, which is also their largest settlement. All villages and towns are within its range of power and exist around it.

The Redstone Village where he was located was such a settlement, with the task and livelihood of mining redstone for the Royal City.

All the corpses on the ground were members of the migration team from the Redstone Village to the Royal City.

"Everyone is dead? Am I the only one alive?"

Rode felt a strong chill.

This is definitely not a good thing, usually meaning that he will encounter more terrifying and worse fate.

He didn't know what happened during the migration process, how they died, and how he survived.

Memory is fragmented with large gaps.

"What should I do? Will I die here?"

"No, it's impossible."

"Observe, I need to observe, maybe I can find a clue to go home."

Rode looked around and quickly noticed the scattered red stones among the corpses.

They seemed to be artificially arranged in a certain pattern, forming a specific composition with a strong sense of direction. The center it was pointing to was a strange pattern drawn with blood.

It was less than half a meter in diameter, with a circle on the outside and two intersecting lightning bolts inside. Its strong visual sense made it look extremely aggressive, while the black bloodstains made it look somewhat eerie.

Rode's pupils shrank, forgetting his fear and headache for a moment.

The symbols on this pattern, aren't they the frontispiece of the dream symbol about courage by the famous psychologist Freud in his book "The Interpretation of Dreams"?

The previous experience rushed to his heart.

He was reading in the dormitory, and his brothers asked him to drink.

He didn't want to go, but a friend said that drinking can prevent cerebral infarction, unblock the blocked areas in the brain, make him enlightened, and let his long-lost emotional talent shine. With a re-reading of his classic secrets, he can become a master of love, a gentle and warm man who can warm her heart with just one sentence, easily chase the goddess in his heart, marry a white rich beauty, and reach the pinnacle of life.

Rode couldn't resist his friend's enthusiastic invitation and his own desires. Although he didn't drink much, he still went.

It seemed to work a little. After drinking, he read books such as "The King of Womanizer" and "The Scumbag God's Power". Rode felt that he had already understood the true meaning of life, understood "Emotional Intelligence", and would no longer fail to read the atmosphere and be rejected by girls.

The only thing missing was courage.

Then, he thought of the symbol of courage in "The Interpretation of Dreams" that he had just read.

Before going to bed, he followed the book's instructions and put his hands in this symbol, placed it on his chest, and closed his eyes peacefully.

He thought that when he woke up, a new bright path in life would unfold before his eyes, but he didn't expect to really feel "peaceful".

In an instant, a thought jumped in Rode's heart.

If all of this is really related to it, then...

Can I go back?

The thought made his brain vessels jump wildly, and his heart almost burst. The desire to go home attracted him, his family, his dead friends, the internet, the keyboard, real or virtual, present or future wives, encouraging him.

Infinite courage rose in his heart.

There is nothing to be afraid of anymore.

Rode quickly ran towards the target point.

Being in such unknown danger, decisive and clear action may not necessarily have good results, but it is the closest path to success.

Hesitation, indecision, standing still, seemingly safe, but often leads to worse results.Although it was uncertain, this was the only possibility.

Maybe just a light touch and he could instantly return home.

Rode leaped into the strange pattern.

In the next moment, his body heated up, as if something hot had pierced him.

Suddenly, countless images appeared before him.

On a dark wasteland, a team walked alone.

One hand in the team was raised high, crushing a black skull with a very obvious eye pattern on the back of the hand.

The team was in chaos, with ghosts passing through them.

Everyone died.

The image disappeared, the strange feeling faded, and Rode came back to his senses. He was still in the same place, and the pattern under his feet began to evaporate. Black blood rose up and turned into tiny black dust, scattering in all directions.

The light dimmed a bit.

"What happened?"

Rode was a little confused. What did those images mean? What was that hot and swollen feeling?

Did the strange symbol just disappear like that? Aren't you going to give me a surprise?

Looking around, the scene of corpses everywhere still made people shudder, but there was a familiar feeling.

Suddenly, a thought jumped out: "Could the scene I just saw be the scene of the team's destruction?"

"That hand that crushed the skull, is the murderer?"

But what's the use of knowing who the murderer is? If I kill the murderer, will a teleportation gate open on his body and send me back home?

Just as he was lost in thought, Rode suddenly noticed ghostly figures floating around him, and strange moans sounded in the air. All the corpses were shrouded in shadows.

"What's going on?"

"Oh no, did I release some kind of monster?"

Puff!

A creature covered in black hair, about three meters tall, stepped out of the edge of light and darkness.

As soon as the fire shone on it, a raging fire ignited, and black smoke scattered with the flames.

Its movement froze for a moment, but it didn't stop completely, as if struggling in the mud.

"Damn."

Rode was startled and kept backing away.

"What the hell is this thing! I don't want this kind of surprise!"

Puff! Puff! Puff!

More black-haired monsters stepped out of the black mist.

The flying black ash and burning flames made them look extremely terrifying, like demons that chose their prey.

Bang!

In a panic, Rode accidentally tripped over a corpse. Just as he was about to get up, the corpse grabbed his ankle.

"Damn!"

Rode kicked the corpse's hand away and jumped out like a scared rabbit.

"The corpse is alive!"

But things were far from over. Rode looked around and saw that within a hundred meters illuminated by the fire, every corpse was moving.

"Damn!"

Rode couldn't say anything else.

He had nowhere to run and didn't know where to go.

Am I done for?

Just as he was panicking, he suddenly saw a shooting star in the distance sky.

His thoughts were instantly triggered. Rode immediately remembered that this was the rescue team from the royal city.

In his memory, the royal city was their only refuge, with the power to fight against the darkness.

The range of the royal city's power was the area they could move in.

And this place was definitely within its range.

As a human kingdom that could survive in such a harsh environment, they must have their own way of operating to deal with threats from the outside world.

The migration team lost contact here, and they must have discovered something!

"Hey!"

Rode shouted loudly, hope rising in his heart.Not only is there hope of being rescued, but there is also a greater hope.

Just now, he stepped into the pattern and saw the scene of the migration team's destruction. Combined with the traces left at the scene, it can be inferred that this must be a deliberate murder.

And the killer's characteristic is a very obvious eye pattern carved on the back of the hand.

This is a very important clue. If he provides it to the rescuers, he should receive some rewards.

According to his experience in the original world, a major case of hundreds of murders should at least issue an S-class wanted order. Providing important information to capture an S-class wanted criminal and receiving a set of houses in the royal city is not excessive, right?

If things can really go as he thinks, at least the probability of surviving will greatly increase.

"I'm here! I'm here!"

Rode jumped and waved in front of the lamp, and the meteor in the sky seemed to have noticed here and changed its direction to fly over.

"Great! I have hope!"

However, in the midst of ecstasy, Rode suddenly discovered a black mark on the back of his waving hand.

Looking closely, isn't that an eye?

The black lines criss-crossed to form a huge pupil, exactly the same as what he saw before.

No way?

Rode was frozen.

This...the killer is actually me?

Should I report myself and be assigned a cell in the royal city?

Bang.

The meteor landed.