Chapter 88

Chapter 88

After the explosion, chaos reigned. The ground was littered with shattered glass and metal fragments.

They were all soaked in a red liquid, as crimson as blood from a corpse that had been dead for days. The NPCs stumbled and struggled to move— their precise mechanical bodies seemed to lose their coordination in this tremor, becoming difficult to control.

"Damn… Are we really going this big?" The unfortunate doll student rolled from east to west in the blast wave, covered in glass shards, but he couldn't afford to feel the pain.

The big shot blew up the school; can this instance still continue? Or is this not the main scene?

No way.

"Gather up, gather up." An NPC searched through the debris for its students, calling them to regroup. But the students were dazed and stunned, struggling to recover from the shock of the explosion.

Not just the students, even the teachers barely managed to keep their composure.

To them, everything before their eyes looked like a post-apocalyptic scene: "What on earth happened? I came out upon receiving a notification. Did a terrible enemy arrive?"

"I don't know," sighed the NPC.

"Ah! Pollutants!"

They watched in fear as colorful lights rose from the red puddles, a fear ingrained by repeated teachings.

"The pollutants are moving; there are so many. Is it okay to leave them like this?"

"Who cares?" sighed the NPC. For someone honest and law-abiding like it, this was simply the worst day ever.

"Pollutants?"

If the NPCs are this scared, could these be some key items in this instance? The students thought, secretly reaching out...

All the NPCs were focused on the pollutants, so no one noticed the peculiar presences among the dolls. They smoothly touched the colorful lights that still shimmered in daylight.

"Oh my God."

The colorful lights stuck to the students, enveloping them in an indescribable sense of bliss. The students felt as if they were floating, their souls lifted.

The colored lights landed on their skin, emitting light, giving a sensation akin to a full-body massage. In just a few seconds, more colored lights gathered around, completely surrounding the exposed skin.

He felt the suffocating sensation of the rubber suit disappear, along with the constant pull of the rules.

The student half-closed his eyes, letting out a puzzled sigh. Suddenly, his eyes widened almost to the point of popping out.

"What is that?"

More and more doll students reached out and touched the 'pollutants,' being enveloped by the colors.

In their vision, the world had transformed entirely.

The sky and the ground were writhing inner walls, oozing pus and mucus, with veins attached.

But what was most shocking wasn't the foul-smelling world around them, but the cylindrical building in front of them.

It was a person?

It was a blob of fat, almost unrecognizable with limbs and head, covered in layers of fat and tumors hanging from it, with flesh tendrils dangling.

At the top, a vaguely visible fat head with small, shrewd eyes could be seen.

The top of the fat mass was bald, with only a thick vein connecting it to the outer wall.

Now, the vein had been blown open, blood splattered all over its face and body, seeping into the folds of fat, mixing with the filth and pus, spurting out with each squeeze.

"Ugh—" they vomited.

"Ugh."

The audience also vomited, hardly believing what they saw.

Was this what Ji Xinghai saw earlier?

How could he remain calm and enter the main building after seeing such a disgusting thing?

"Hmm?"

The clown doll looked at the vomiting students in confusion: all feeling sick? Did they eat something bad?

He then looked at where the main building used to be. After a while, it seemed to have grown fatter. Was it due to another half-day's nourishment?

Initially, he thought it resembled a womb with a parasite inside. But later, he realized it wasn't, as the dolls were providing nutrients by being absorbed into the tumors.

But how did the dolls come here? Why were they feeding this blob?

Ji Xinghai guessed the answer lay in the remaining 50% of the instance exploration. But he never followed others' steps—how boring would that be? Life needed a little excitement.

And to find the answer, one could be more direct, like cutting it open.

Between two points, the shortest distance is a touch. (By bending the paper, the points touch.)

"Daydreaming? Hurry up and get away!" The three-legged mechanical body stumbled, trying hard to fend off the approaching colored 'pollutants,' but its companion stared blankly at the sky.

The red liquid in the glass pipes above had emptied, leaving them empty and void. There was nothing worth looking at.

The pollutants flew everywhere, sticking here and there. The three-legged mechanical body was utterly disgusted, a voice shouting about 'disorder,' causing a buzzing headache.

"Move quickly." The three-legged mechanical body tried to pull but failed, turning back to shout again.

The NPC teacher, wearing a hood, finally turned its head and asked, "Have you ever thought about living another life? A life where you can laugh, cry, and like anything, as long as it doesn't harm anyone else."

"What are you talking about?" The three-legged mechanical body frowned, then suddenly took a step back, looking defensively at the NPC teacher. "Are you contaminated?"

The NPC teacher smiled, reached out to remove the hood, revealing a furry doll's face.

The three-legged mechanical body retreated several steps in fright, falling to the ground. It pointed at the NPC teacher in shock. Perhaps sensing joy, the NPC teacher was surrounded by numerous glowing dots.

The moment it discarded the hood, it felt like it had freed itself from a cage.

Even as it faced the lowest point of its life, bidding farewell to everything before it, it still felt an unusual sense of relief.

"I've rehearsed this countless times in my mind, but I never expected it would happen under these circumstances."

Is bravery really that simple?

"Do you know, I couldn't breathe? I've been suffocating all along, even with daily self-comforting—it didn't help. This isn't the life I want! I don't want to be this kind of teacher."

"No, you're crazy." The three-legged mechanical body turned its head, only to see another person removing their hood, followed by a third, a fourth...

"Crazy, you're all crazy!"

Panic spread through the crowd; more and more NPCs were removing their masks under the influence of the numerous 'contaminants,' basking in the light.

The opponents were overwhelmed, unable to stop them. The glowing dots almost completely enveloped the NPC teacher.

Its eyes slowly filled with a different kind of light: "I seem to be... I am..."

With a clang, the NPC teacher's mechanical limbs cracked and fell off, and the furry face distorted in the light.

The three-legged mechanical body shielded its eyes from the blinding light. When it opened them again, a young woman stood there, her features delicate and her eyes as clear as a mountain stream.

"I remember now, I'm Tian Chengxi." Her body began to glow and turn transparent. The three-legged mechanical body lunged forward, passing through her translucent figure, sending ripples spreading out as she vanished completely.

"Beep—beep—"

Everyone looked up abruptly.

A strange sound came from the sky, like an electronic device.

"There's a response, the patient is responding! Bed 33, Tian Chengxi." Another voice echoed through the sky, slightly muffled but clear enough to hear.

"Beep—beep—"

Another young man emerged from a doll's body, his face full of defiance and vigor, his figure gradually disappearing.

"Bed 16, Wu Haoran."

Dolls, NPC teachers, even the menacing patrollers—more and more people were being enveloped by the contaminants. As things seemed to spiral out of control, the ground began to tremble.

The flowing red liquid on the ground seemed to gain consciousness, tightly binding those who were about to disappear, like sticky glue wrapping around them.

The earth hummed, saying, "No one can leave!"

Ji Xinghai drew his knife.

He had already placed a piece of prepared chewing gum in his mouth, savoring its sweetness. His body stretched and expanded like rubber, and his clothes changed along with it.

The pale gray shadow lengthened, reaching the size of a three-story building within seconds. The dolls scattered in panic beneath the shadow.

The rules that had suppressed the students were washed away by the colorful light.

Neither the identities of toy dolls nor the rules could constrain them anymore.

Regaining freedom meant this kind of freedom.

Under the gaze of billions both inside and outside, starlight gathered around him, and the oil paint faded in the daylight, revealing the true form beneath the toy exterior.

His handsome face, rebellious expression, bare feet stepping on the blood-soaked earth, the morning light draping over him like a cloak—a hundred-foot-tall giant wielding a double-bladed sword, surrounded by clouds, appeared like a divine being descending upon the world.

He looked up at the pile of fat sprawled on the ground, its small eyes still rolling. It had just been shouting "No one can leave," but now it writhed, trying to retreat.

Too late.

A flash of cold light split the sky, momentarily dimming the world.

Survivors heard an inhuman shriek as the long blade sliced the building in half.

The split building crumbled into a pool of dark red sludge, causing the students to vomit even more, nearly bringing up their meals from the night before.

The NPCs sat on the ground, stunned.

As the main building collapsed, the red vines that had held the NPCs captive returned to a liquid state. The sky buzzed with beeping sounds, and figures disappeared one by one into the rainbow mist.

Ji Xinghai looked up at the sky, which still pulsed, its rotting wounds dripping pus. It seemed so close, as if he could touch it with a mere lift of his hand.

Another earth-shattering strike, slicing the sky open, revealing blackness within.

Before, he wanted to cut through the layer of fat to see if the insides were connected by steel bars. Now, he wanted to slice through the pulsating flesh above to see what lay beyond.

"I'm a curious person, you should have been prepared for this, right?"

"Is our chewing gum prop really that powerful?" Barbie student Rosa was stunned. She had already regained her human form with the help of the glowing dots, and her suppressed powers had returned. But it seemed they were no longer needed.

"Did we do this together?" The cotton doll Gu Li placed her hand on her shoulder.

"Right?" She wasn't quite sure.

The nine who had left earlier looked up at the shadow between heaven and earth.

"Truly beautiful."

Ji Xinghai truly gave them an unparalleled fireworks show, a substantial amount of points, and a ticket straight to the top ten.

"How should I thank him?"

"Quietly appreciate his masterpiece?"

"Good idea."

The group sat down cross-legged, watching the figure in the distance that resembled a black lightning bolt.

At this moment, the sky had been split open, revealing a dark curtain outside, flickering with arcs of electricity. The beeping sounds from before were now clearer than ever.

The NPCs couldn’t see the inner world, but they could see the torn sky and hear those puzzling noises. This world was completely collapsing, as if the unsolved mysteries were about to sink into darkness.

"Beep—Bed 33, Tian Chengxi?"

"Here."

The three-legged mechanical body stood motionless, recognizing the voice.

Ji Xinghai also stopped and looked over.

"How are you feeling now? You were unconscious for a day and a night."

"…I think I had a long dream."

"A dream? What was it about?"

"I forgot. It wasn't a pleasant dream, but I think I met someone, someone really great."