Rules-related weird stories: 4016

Chapter 386: Extraordinary Creation, Sequence 101 "Ouroboros Ring"

At a crucial moment, he saw something flickering with a dim light before his eyes.

The appearance of that light subtly smoothed the panic and fear in his heart.

He was slightly stunned, subconsciously forgetting the fear brought by the chains and black viscous liquid. He tried to find the light, only to discover that the source of the light was right in front of him.

He opened his palm.

During dream-weaving, he couldn't see himself, but as the "palm" opened in his consciousness, a small snake appeared before him.

The snake was forged from some unknown metal, with plaster-like gemstones inlaid in its eyes, floating with a layer of dim yet colorful light in this layer.

It opened its mouth, biting its own tail, forming a thumb-sized ring, with a dark golden rope tied to it, now quietly floating in front of Lin Yi.

"Ouroboros Ring".

Almost subconsciously, Lin Yi knew what it was.

It must be his body that opened the stone box containing the "Ouroboros Ring".

The Night Watcher said that the "Ouroboros Ring" could enhance his willpower during dream-weaving, allowing him to enter deeper dream layers.

As soon as the "Ouroboros Ring" appeared, those dim lights, like cold fire, dispelled the black viscous liquid attached to Lin Yi's body, and also caused the almost static walls and well walls to move again.

【…You will…come back…】

【I will…wait…for…you…】

【Wait for…you…to come…and beg…me…personally…】

【…Lin…】

【…Yi…】

The voice slowly faded away, but unlike the decisive disappearance of the usual "hallucinations", this time the dissipation seemed particularly slow, as if someone was reluctantly twisting the volume control knob until it was completely muted.

When the voice completely disappeared, the changing walls around him finally completely replaced the well walls, and steps appeared under his feet…

He opened his eyes—

He hadn't closed his eyes, but at this moment he had the feeling of opening his eyes.

He heard the faint sound of wind echoing in the stairwell, the sound of water seeping through the cracks in the wall bricks, felt the slightly humid air, and reached out to touch behind him.

Behind him was the backpack containing Old Mo's heart and tomatoes.

He deeply breathed a sigh of relief. Only at this moment did he finally confirm that he had returned to reality.

He glanced at his watch. The current time was 3:07.

But at the same time, he also felt that he was holding something in his hand.

He turned around and opened his palm, and sure enough, he saw the "Ouroboros Ring".

“I thought it was just an auxiliary tool, but I didn’t expect to use it so soon… It just saved my life.” Looking at the "Ouroboros Ring" in his palm, Lin Yi had a sense of relief after surviving a disaster.

Looking at the "Ouroboros Ring" in his hand, Lin Yi suddenly felt that it was quite different from what he saw during dream-weaving.

Compared to the rough appearance in the dream, the main body of the ring in his hand was obviously much more refined. It was forged from some kind of dark golden metal with built-in textures, exuding a low-key and steady luster, like an ancient treasure that had been caressed by the years.

Its shape was not realistic at all, only with a rough linear shape, looking almost the same as the Tushan Dragon Jade unearthed in China, just a little smaller in overall style.

Its ends were connected, with no beginning and no end, as if symbolizing an eternal cycle.

The surface of this "Ouroboros Ring" did not have scale marks, but was engraved with countless large and small secret patterns. It was magical to say that when these secret patterns were put together, they looked very messy and chaotic, but if you pulled away and looked at them, you would find that they were born of virtuality and reality, and they happened to form the texture of the "Ouroboros Ring" scales.

Its snake pupils were made of plaster-like material, looking like they were dotted with white paint, but when Lin Yi observed the snake pupils, he had a terrifying feeling of being swept over in a certain instant.

In those snake pupils, a gleam of gold seemed to flash.

He was so frightened that his hand shook, and he almost didn't hold the ring.

He re-examined the "Ouroboros Ring" and felt a strange feeling, as if this ring was a mysterious microcosm, and now it was quietly entrenched in the palm of his hand…

He shivered and quickly put it back into the stone box.

He originally wanted to put the stone box back in his backpack, but on second thought, he put it in his pants pocket instead.

His school uniform was already tattered. The impact of the air wave almost annihilated his body, and the school uniform he was wearing was naturally also doomed. Now only some strips of cloth were left, and many places were faintly exposed…

Now his school uniform was not as good as a beggar's. It seemed a bit luxurious to describe it as ragged. Fortunately, several pockets were still very strong, protecting his student ID very well.

After putting away the "Ouroboros Ring", Lin Yi walked down some more steps, and then came to the corridor in a few steps, seeing the closed iron door not far away.

He left the stairwell and stepped onto the flat stone floor.

Before leaving, he looked back at the steps that were still rotating downwards in the Fibonacci sequence, his brow slightly furrowed, lost in thought.

“…

But he didn't think too much about it, but decisively pushed open the iron door.

He pushed it, but it wouldn't budge.

He was stunned for a moment, and then realized that the door opened inward, so he pulled the door.

"Creak—"

In a sharp metal friction sound that made people feel sour in their teeth, the heavy iron door was pulled open by him.

The iron on the door clanged, and the quiet passage behind the door was presented in front of him, exactly the same as the road he came from.

But out of caution, he still glanced at the back of the iron door, that is, the opening side when he came.

He saw the iron piece on the door. The iron piece hung quietly there, as if the clang just now was not made by it.

The iron piece was covered with corroded secret patterns, writing the proverbs in the "Night Watcher Iron Law": "The Tower Without a Bell, the Bright Netherworld Illumination, the Loud Sound Vibrates the Nine Seas and Eight Desolations."

Lin Yi reached out and touched the iron piece.

"Ding…"

Familiar taste, familiar formula, familiar image in his mind like a cutscene CG of a thin figure wielding a hammer to forge objects, and then the figure quickly disappeared.

“The taste is right… The road is not wrong!”

Lin Yi stepped into the iron door without hesitation.

Just as he was about to turn around to close the iron door, as soon as he turned around, a surge of surging power rushed out towards him, like a dump truck made of air suddenly appearing, hitting him unpreparedly, knocking him directly out.

Lin Yi couldn't avoid it and was directly knocked to the ground. Before he could react, the heavy iron door closed automatically.

The terrifying momentum was like catching a white blade with bare hands with 100% accuracy. If he was still standing there, he would probably be directly turned into a mass of flesh and blood.

"Boom!"

The iron door slammed shut, the powerful impact even causing the surrounding ground to tremble slightly.

Looking at such a door, Lin Yi couldn't help but be a little dumbfounded, and even more dumbfounded was that he heard a rush of wind behind the door, the wind wrapped in moist water vapor constantly seeping through the cracks in the door, and when it blew on Lin Yi's face, it was accompanied by a fishy and foul smell…

This scene was exactly the same as when Lao Mo brought him to the door and then opened it.

And later, when he was walking down the stairs, he often felt that uncomfortable breath and the damp, cold water vapor, but thinking back carefully, he found that he didn't seem to feel anything similar during the entire process of going down the stairs.

He came to the iron door and gently touched it with his hand.

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This iron door seemed still, but in reality, it was vibrating at some terrifying frequency. As soon as his palm touched it, the center of his palm was already a bloody mess, but because he had already been ravaged countless times by the 'Sanctuary's' aura, he had become accustomed to this kind of pain.

He felt the shattering and reorganization of the flesh on his hand, the tearing and repairing of every inch of muscle fiber, as if capturing some kind of rhythm, the fluctuations caused by the howling wind blowing on the other side of the door…

He seemed to understand something.

"The other side of this door is not a stairwell, but… a well?!"

It was that well!

That bloody, turbid aura, wasn't it the smell from the well?!

Lao Mo's "screw theory" suddenly appeared in his mind. That deep well and the stairwell were two screws moving against each other!

"This is the truth behind why Lao Mo had so much trouble opening the door!"

"What Lao Mo opened was not a door, but a field with the 'door' attribute, layer transition! Yes, layer transition! That was the feeling back then!!"

"Moreover, when I went to the clock tower, I was initially walking 'down,' but when I came back, I was still going 'down'!"

"Left side and right side…"

"Layer interaction…"

Lin Yi seemed to have captured some inspiration. His eyes flickered, and a massive amount of calculation seemed to be generated in his mind.

But he immediately stopped this calculation.

"Now is not the time!"

"Now is not the time!"

He rationally suppressed the constant thoughts, then took out the notepad from his pocket, hurriedly flipped it open to a random page, and recorded it in hasty handwriting:

"Screw… Down…"

"Stairwell is a well…"

He simply wrote down a few keywords, then immediately put the notepad away back into his pocket, reached into his backpack and grabbed two tomatoes, eating them while hurrying to the end of the passage.

This passage was the only safe area throughout the entire process, and he could use it to replenish his consumption and get rid of two tomatoes.

While eating the tomatoes, he glanced at his hand.

The palm that had been bloodied by the iron door had already recovered as before.

Looking at such a hand, he suddenly felt a little strange.

"I… Have I already gotten used to that kind of pain?"

It was really strange…

How could a person easily get used to the pain of their body being severely injured and then recovering?

Lin Yi himself felt it was a bit absurd.

Recalling the scene when he was washed away by the "Sanctuary's" aura, leaving only a skeleton, he realized that he had relied on some kind of strange will and instinct to persevere, but now looking back, he found it completely unreasonable.

His flesh and blood were gone, how could a person still be alive?

Could it be that the power of will is really that strong?

Or is it that…

"The changes happening to my body are becoming less and less like a 'human'?"

He helplessly shook his head. He found that he had unknowingly upgraded from accepting that he was "different from ordinary people" to accepting that he was "different from humans."

He quickly shook his head. In this regard, he didn't know why, but he was a little afraid to think about it…

He had already defaulted that there was a problem with his memory. Now if he was told that there was a problem with him as a person, he felt that the span of his cognition couldn't keep up…

He suppressed these thoughts, but as soon as this thought was suppressed, another thought arose, so he could only run and think: "But speaking of which, that deep well, '02' said that a part of the 'First Apostle' was buried inside… Could it be that what was pulling me just now was the one buried there?"

The 'Lawmaker' killed several of the 'First Apostles' and then buried their bodies in various parts of the Black Moon Outpost. Coupled with what he had just experienced, it was difficult not to associate these things together.

It seemed that he had always thought that he was successfully surfacing, but in fact, he was being infiltrated by the pollution emanating from that "corpse," affecting his cognition and passively entering a "dream-building" state.

Even the hallucinations he had just experienced were very likely because after seeing that chain hanging down into the sea, he imagined something locked up, and then that scene was substituted into himself during his dream-building.

Living people are still constantly absorbing pollution, let alone inanimate dead objects.

"As long as it is within the scope of transcendent power, it will continue to be polluted…" Lin Yi sighed and muttered self-deprecatingly, "Sigh… After these seven days, I don't know what I'll become…"

"There are only three days left. I hope nothing ominous happens…"

Lin Yi thought of a certain fantasy novel by Emperor Chen Tian that he had read, which often had plots where the corpse of some powerful creature underwent various mutations after death, re-opened its intelligence, and then the domain formed a forbidden area. Could it be that the "corpse" in the deep well had also undergone similar changes?

"Could that 'corpse' really have mutated… And then, because of some special mechanism, such as the characteristics of that chain or some characteristic of the Black Moon Outpost, or some restriction set by the 'Lawmaker' when he buried it, it cannot leave, so it keeps calling for creatures in its perception to rescue it?"

This speculation gave Lin Yi a strangely familiar feeling. On second thought, wasn't the "Lawmaker" who was "exiled by time" calling dream-builders in this way?

"This Black Moon Outpost, the Art Building… It's really too terrifying."

Buildings built before the birth of human civilization, when you usually look at them, they don't seem like much, but when their heavy heritage and deep, dark history brush past you, it really makes people feel a sense of suffocation.