Chapter 543 No Pattern

Chapter 543: No Rhyme or Reason

Just moments before, the players could see the brightly lit thirteenth-floor corridor just ahead, but in the next instant, the entire stairwell was plunged into complete darkness, as dark as if an abyss had suddenly opened its jaws to devour everything.

After learning of this sudden, terrible situation from Le Shiya, Su Bai paused on the stairs, a thoughtful frown creasing his brow.

This time, the lights had also gone out without warning.

Su Bai quickly ran through the events in his mind. In this short span of time, the corridor lights had cut out twice at random. If there was no fixed interval, no predictable regularity, then it meant—

Darkness could fall at any moment!

Even worse, there was that *thing* that came with the darkness!

Thinking of this, Su Bai's fingers tightened slightly. He recalled the chilling, scraping sound he had heard earlier in the ward, as if something rough and hard was being dragged along the floor, even bumping against the doors of lit wards.

"Everyone, don't speak, try to slow your breathing as much as possible," her hushed voice sounded remarkably steady in the darkness, without a hint of tremor, laced with calm urgency. "Keep an eye on the stairwell doors above and below. Get your weapons ready. If anything seems off, everyone must go all out, no holding back."

They were currently near the entrance to the thirteenth-floor stairwell. Chi Yan, walking at the front, was only a few steps from the door to the outside corridor. However, considering those *things* in the corridor might be attracted by light or sound, and might be confined to the corridors, naturally, no one was willing to risk moving just then.

But as Jie Ying had said, everyone was prepared to fight the Eerie Entities.

Su Bai heard the faint rustle of fabric and the soft rasp of metal being drawn. The tension in the air instantly spiked. Although everyone was trying their utmost to control their movements, the subtle sounds in the darkness were amplified with painful clarity at this moment.

There was the low ring of metal, the sound of cold weapons being gripped tightly, and even... the soft *click* of a gun being racked.

The longer someone stayed in the Nightmare World, the stronger a player's body and other aspects would become under the Red Moon's influence, though unconsciously. However, this game had no game store or game rewards. All so-called "items" had to be found and obtained by the players themselves in each game scenario. Even the term "item" was initially just self-deprecation by some players regarding their "player" status. In reality, acquiring items was just a bunch of people rummaging through boxes and cabinets in game scenes.

Many small, fragmented items couldn't hold much Red Moon power because of their material, so most had a limited number of uses, with some even being single-use.

In his previous life, only when players became relatively experienced, like Chi Yan, would they have more powerful items or weapons.

But this life... Su Bai thought of Feng Yan, whom he'd met earlier on Bus 666. The so-called Special Operations Teams that started developing from Honghuai City had expanded in speed and scale beyond his expectations across various regions.

After leaving Bus 666, Su Bai had logged into the Player Forum a few times using the new phone Qin Ge gave him. On the brand-new large-screen phone, Su Bai could see the number of registrations on the Player Forum was skyrocketing. Even the once-neglected trading section and trading stores were in a frenzy daily. It was worth noting that in his previous life, the Player Forum wasn't established until much later, and its influence was at most a place to chat and boast. There had never even been a trading section in the previous life's Player Forum.

Furthermore, judging from the discussion posts in the trading section, many had gotten into picking up "junk" from the Nightmare World and then using those "junk" items to earn points at a certain mysterious store?

As the owner of a certain mysterious store, Su Bai was feeling the pressure. The Red Moon power within "junk" items was extremely meager, but he couldn't stop the trend of players eagerly accumulating points bit by bit. The special items business at his store had even outpaced the business at his university district grocery store.

Some bored individuals on the Player Forum, based on how many points different items gave when fed into the vending machine, had even started trying to assign grades to different items... If those guys really reached a consensus on the grading system, Su Bai estimated he would soon see shocking titles like "Powerful SSS-Grade Item for Sale" in the trading section.

Even more pressing was...

If Su Bai couldn't produce items that satisfied those point-hoarding maniacs later on, things would become very troublesome for him.

Su Bai subconsciously touched the bead bracelet on his left wrist. Letting this thing continue to absorb the scattered Red Moon power around was certainly useful, but he still urgently needed to catch some big ones to fill his shelves.

Perhaps, entering No. 666 Hospital in this game wasn't entirely a bad thing.

...

In the darkness, Su Bai listened to the suppressed breathing of the players around him. Everything was terrifyingly quiet.

But soon, Su Bai's ears picked up some sounds from afar, precisely the strange scraping sounds they had heard before.

The initial noise was so faint it was almost imperceptible, like fine dust stirred by a passing breeze, but it quickly became clear and grating in Su Bai's ears, as if something was gradually approaching. Some rough, hard object was being dragged, crawling slowly across the cold floor tiles. Each scraping sound was unsettling, making one's scalp prickle.

Perhaps because they were now between the thirteenth and fourteenth floors, Su Bai could even hear that continuous, unpleasant scraping sound coming simultaneously from both the thirteenth and fourteenth floors. This meant the same things were lurking in the corridors of both floors, the same unknown things that appeared when the lights went out.

The sound was getting closer and closer.

Soon, the other players also heard the familiar scraping. Their breathing hitched for a moment, but the next second, they tried to hold their breath.

Le Shiya's hand unconsciously tightened, her fingertips digging into the back of Su Bai's hand. Her palm was slightly cool, betraying a hint of suppressed tension. Although she made no sound, Su Bai could feel the brief tremor in her fingertips.

This was arguably the most agonizing moment. Every passing second felt excruciatingly long.

It was impossible to tell how much time passed in this oppressive atmosphere before Su Bai and the other players could hear the dragging sound reach the outside of the thirteenth-floor stairwell.

At this speed, in a few more seconds, it would enter the stairwell.

It would face them across the darkness!

"Zzzzt."

And at that very moment, a blinding white light suddenly flared!

The entire Newborn Department corridor was instantly flooded with bright white light, like lightning splitting the night, instantly dispelling all shadows.

The darkness was torn apart without warning and without mercy.

Even though Su Bai's eyes couldn't see normally, he could feel the abrupt change in brightness, as if someone had ignited a high-powered flashbang before his eyes. Even though he couldn't capture concrete images, he could sense that intensely uncomfortable, drastic shift in light.

Simultaneously, that scraping sound vanished.

Completely, cleanly, and without a trace.

'That sound is gone again,' Le Shiya's voice entered Su Bai's mind almost immediately. 'There seems to be nothing outside the stairwell.'

The others must have noticed this too, but for a short while, they still dared not make a sound, remaining as vigilant as Le Shiya, observing the movements outside the stairwell.

A moment later—

"Should be fine now," Chi Yan, walking at the front, finally spoke in a low voice. Before his words faded, he had already taken a few steps forward.

His line of sight was now sufficient to see the thirteenth-floor corridor clearly.

"Nothing's there anymore," Chi Yan slowly uttered a sentence, his voice carrying an indescribable nuance. "Outside... there are only nurses."