Chapter 300 Accelerating the Game

Chapter 300: The Game Progress Accelerates

"Where are the laborers? Someone come with me to fix the mansion's gate!"

"Where is everyone!"

What the hell is going on?

Hearing Butler Zhao, who had been prying at the front gate moments ago, suddenly yelling hysterically in the backyard, the players in the east courtyard, preparing to trick the bride into revealing a weakness, instinctively looked toward the courtyard gate.

Then, as soon as the four players turned around, they noticed that the red lanterns hanging on both sides of the gate had, at some unknown point, turned white! Even though the candlelight hadn't gone out and the surroundings weren't plunged into darkness as they had been initially, the ghastly white lanterns were still enough to send shivers down their spines.

What on earth is happening?

Wen Wen, part of the team, recalled what had just transpired. They had initially intended to question the bride in the east courtyard for information, but the seemingly simple task wasn't going smoothly.

Even though Wen Wen and the others couldn't see the face beneath the bride's bridal veil, judging by her gesture of holding her forehead and her overall state, it seemed that even recalling her own name caused the bride pain.

Before Wen Wen could ask anything further, a cold wind began to blow around them again. The penetrating chill, which felt like it was freezing them inside and out, made Wen Wen, whose body was still that of an ordinary child, feel extremely uncomfortable.

Then Butler Zhao started shouting outside the courtyard gate. Was he searching everywhere for the laborers and the cook?

Was it because he couldn't pry open the gate himself and needed help? Aren't they in an illusion created by an Eerie Entity? Why didn't the laborers Butler Zhao was looking for appear, unlike the cook earlier?

Why did the originally red lanterns turn white?

Wen Wen sensed that the anomalies around them were like an omen, foreshadowing something unexpected, perhaps even beyond their capacity to handle.

"Look at that bride's hand," Lin Wenhua, standing nearby, suddenly whispered.

The others instinctively turned to look at the hand of the "bride" in the east courtyard. They couldn't recall what the bride's hand originally looked like, but at that moment, the hand and wrist she revealed while holding her forehead were corpse-pale, utterly devoid of blood.

It didn't look like the skin tone of a normal person at all. Though her fingers were slender, the joints didn't appear delicate like a woman's, and even the sharp, exposed nails were stained with a dark red, almost black.

After noticing this detail, the "bride" in the east courtyard seemed to transform in an instant into a monstrous figure from a real-world horror movie.

Before Wen Wen could figure out whether the "bride" before them was the Ghost Lady, who had a motive to kill all the brides, or a ghost bride who had drowned long ago and remembered it too deeply, the old butler's chilling voice sounded behind them.

"So there are still people here, how wonderful..."

"I thought there wouldn't be any living people here anymore."

"I thought everything... um... failed."

The cold voice drew closer to the players. Sha Linghai, the oldest, turned around while shielding Wen Wen and Lin Wenhua behind him. At that moment, they finally saw the old butler appearing outside the courtyard gate.

Previously, Butler Zhao had a somewhat strange temper, and his motive for offering the broth was impure, but at least in front of a child like Wen Wen, he still seemed like an ordinary old man. But now, Butler Zhao outside the gate not only had a deathly pale face but was also covered all over with something resembling mud.

The reason they weren't sure if it was mud covering the butler was that the substance was wriggling continuously with his movements, even slowly forcing its way into his mouth, ears, and eyes.

"Come with me—um—don't disturb the bride." Because the mud kept entering his mouth, the butler's voice became very strange.

But for the four novice players, now was absolutely not the time to consider whether his voice was strange or not. The old butler before them looked entirely like an Eerie Entity!

Although Lin Wenhua among the four seemed able to see things others couldn't, including Lin Wenhua, everyone was seeing such a gut-churning Eerie Entity for the first time.

It seemed that from this moment on, the mutated butler before them and the cold air around made all the novice players realize they had truly left the real world and entered a nightmare world inhabited by Eerie Entities.

"Come—um—with me."

As the old butler approached the courtyard with squelching steps, as he reached out his mud-covered hand toward the players in the courtyard, the wriggling mud extended from his body like living tentacles, slowly wrapping toward Sha Linghai at the front.

Sha Linghai realized what the controlled mud intended to do and immediately stepped back a few paces with the others behind him. But the butler, step by step approaching the courtyard, and the disgusting, damnable mud clearly had no intention of letting them go.

Just as Sha Linghai was considering the possibility of the four of them taking down the old butler, he caught a glimpse from the corner of his eye of a figure in a red wedding dress passing by them—it was the "bride" from the east courtyard!

It was only when a faint, clear jingling sound reached their ears that the four noticed several small bells attached to the bridal veil covering the "bride's" head. Up close, the "bride's" figure was also taller than they had imagined.

"Bride..."

With expressions of disbelief on Sha Linghai and the others' faces, the east courtyard "bride," wearing a red wedding dress but with deathly-pale skin showing, actually stood directly in front of them, shielding them from the approaching old butler and the annoying mud?

The players behind instinctively worried that the "bride" might come to harm, as their first impression of the "bride" was still one of fragility and gentleness. But after Sha Linghai and the others noticed the bride's pale hands and long, sharp black nails, they realized that the one blocking their path wasn't a delicate bride but another Eerie Entity!

But why?

"Why?" Wen Wen looked at the "bride's" back, also wondering why one Eerie Entity would shield them from another Eerie Entity.

"Our conversation isn't finished." Influenced by A Xi's power, Su Bai's voice also carried a supernatural chill.

But for Su Bai, who had deliberately provoked an external conflict, he had to speak at this moment to tell the four novices behind him that he still retained consciousness and wasn't some mindless vengeful spirit.

Su Bai heard one of the players behind him breathe a sigh of relief, but unfortunately, this thrilling game had only just begun. After all, the external conflict triggered by Su Bai's energy spillover might not be limited to the mud-covered butler before them.

Creeeak—

At that moment, the old butler before them hadn't given up on trying to capture the four players, and the sound of gates creaking open came from both the west and north sides.

More entities were emerging!

Su Bai knew that all of this was inevitable; all he had done was speed things up. But he still hoped that the four players behind him wouldn't panic and hinder their progress.