Rules-related weird stories: 4016

An idea flashed through Lin Yi's mind, and the secret纹 on his right hand flickered, once again conjuring up that pig-slaying knife.

He controlled the sky-blue aura as it burrowed into his arm, then gritted his teeth and sliced off a large chunk of flesh.

“Hiss…” Lin Yi gasped, the pain making him even more lucid.

“Don't you like to devour pollution?” He waved the chunk of meat. “Go ahead and enjoy!”

He mustered his strength and hurled the chunk of flesh towards the depths of the corridor, simultaneously suppressing his aura, allowing his flesh to become bait in his stead.

[Screech—]

As expected, the light-seeking Smiling Angel fell for the trap, chasing after his chunk of meat, while he quickly fled the corridor.

This back-and-forth had already taken him four minutes, but the good news was that he had indeed tricked and killed most of the Smiling Angels, living up to his title of Train King.

“I wonder what it's like outside… Without the interference of the Smiling Angels, hopefully, they can be more effective!”

…

May 10, X023, 3:40 AM, Art Building Lobby, Exit of the 「Obsession Sculpture Corridor」.

Lin Yi staggered out, dragging his bloodied arm. To avoid attracting the attention of more Obsession Sculptures and Smiling Angels with his own pollution, he suppressed the sky-blue aura within his body, preventing the flesh on his arm from regenerating immediately.

He glanced at the current state of the art student lobby. All the Smiling Angels in the lobby had been lured into the 「Obsession Sculpture Corridor」, and the art students were now capable of handling this crisis.

「Time to retreat…」

With that thought settled, Lin Yi quickly dragged his arm, which was still seeping thick blood, and began to move. This was the consequence of self-suppression, but even so, the blood would directly scab over after seeping out.

Seeing Lin Yi escape from the Obsession Sculpture Corridor with a “heavily wounded body,” some of the art students who happened to be facing the corridor gaped, as if they had seen a ghost.

The Obsession Sculpture Corridor was one of the forbidden areas of the Art Building. Unlike the gallery, where one could run to following the 「Art Student Handbook」 after encountering a Smiling Angel attack, the Obsession Sculpture Corridor was not mentioned in the 「Art Student Handbook」, nor even in the 「Art Building Handbook」.

Not only were they not mentioned, but even the wooden signpost did not indicate its direction, as if intentionally concealing it.

Yet, that "dorm manager" not only went in but also escaped. How could they not be shocked?

After escaping, Lin Yi glanced at his watch, confirmed the time, and also noticed the gazes of several art students. He looked at them, didn't say much, just nodded at them, and then took off running towards the exit of the Art Building lobby.

Watching Lin Yi's retreating figure, the art students' hearts were still filled with shock, but they said nothing, quickly adjusting their state to overwrite the wounds on the dome window.

…

The process of escaping from the Art Building lobby went very smoothly, almost exactly as Lin Yi had predicted.

However, as he approached the exit, a torrential amount of water vapor mixed with a raging wind began to sweep over.

Lin Yi remembered that there was an invisible barrier outside the Art Building.

That barrier was a field formed by the 「Sanctuary's」 surging aura. The existence of this field meant that the Smiling Angels could only break into the Art Building area by force or through this entrance.

But now that the dome of the Art Building lobby was shattered, many Smiling Angels chose to break through directly from there, and some were directly invading the clock tower from the outside. On the contrary, very few Smiling Angels were coming through the main entrance.

But Lin Yi wasn't considering this issue. He was considering the water vapor permeating the corridor.

This water vapor was naturally formed by the storm being torn apart by the raging wind.

In the Art Building layer, there were actually two sources of the raging wind.

One was the power formed by the materialization of the 「Sanctuary's」 aura. This aura indiscriminately attacked all nocturnal species, and the closer one got to the clock tower, the greater the destructive power. Those black, viscous, glue-like nocturnal species clinging to the outer wall of the Art Building were directly annihilated by the aura.

The other source was from outside the Art Building area, from the storms blowing in from the black sky and ocean. They tore the sea waves and rainstorms into countless water vapors, allowing them to seep into every corner of the Art Building area along with the gray fog.

The second type of wind and rain was most prevalent in the Art Building lobby, where the dome was now broken.

In addition, the wind pressure in the wind tunnel effect also originated from this.

But when Lin Yi came, the storm was originally blocked by that barrier, but now it had penetrated into the corridor at the entrance.

「The ‘Sanctuary’s’ domain has weakened?」 Lin Yi felt uneasy.

There were two possibilities for the weakening of the 「Sanctuary」 domain. One was that something had happened to the 「Sanctuary」, and the other was that something had happened to Night Watcher 「02」.

In the current situation, it was highly likely that Night Watcher 「02」 needed to mobilize more of the 「Sanctuary's」 power to fight against the 「Angel」. When the power was concentrated, the power at the edge of the diffusion would obviously become weaker.

Of course, this was Lin Yi's guess, and also the best-case scenario among all the emergencies.

Taking advantage of the absence of Smiling Angels here, Lin Yi tore off the scab on his arm. The sky-blue aura quickly regenerated the flesh, and the muscle fibers were woven out bit by bit like nanomaterials and covered his arm.

The whole process was tingling and itchy, and he could clearly feel the regeneration of each muscle fiber, but the texture of the muscle fiber didn't seem like flesh and blood…

「Could it be that my arm is also starting to transform in the direction of the ‘Golden Body’?」

Muscle Golden Body?

Why did this name have such a strange meaning, like a certain Muscle Golden Wheel from Wuhu?

His arm quickly returned to its original state, and then he walked towards the exit of the Art Building, braving the mist and water vapor in the corridor.

[fan…Tome… fRa… for…RidEn…]

Just as he was about to walk out of the Art Building, he heard that strange call in his ear. He ignored it and rushed out of the Art Building's door.

「Huff—Huff—」

The moment Lin Yi rushed out of the Art Building, it was as if he had crawled out of the cabin and reached the deck. He was greeted by dense raindrops the size of soybeans, and the whistling wind sounded like ghosts wailing.

The storm and rain curtain blew so hard that he could barely open his eyes. The gray fog and storm had enveloped the entire world, and the visibility was terrifyingly low. He only saw a small section of the stone bridge behind the stone arch before he could no longer see the situation behind it.

The stone bridge disappeared into the depths of the mist, and only a vague shadow of the watchtower at the end remained. Lin Yi couldn't even distinguish it from the shadow produced after overlapping with the fog.

「Rumble—」

A bolt of lightning tore through the night sky, its pure white light illuminating the world. The art building appeared ghastly white, but beyond the stone bridge and mist, things remained hazy. The light only seemed to solidify the shadow of the watchtower somewhat.

However, in that brief, fleeting white world, a residual image caught Lin Yi's attention.

He lowered his head to look at his feet—on the stone slab ground in that position, there was a pattern. This was originally a pattern from a window in the art building, projected onto the ground by the candlelight inside. But at this moment, the pattern seemed to come alive, emitting a faint, floating light.

How could it, a mere projection, shine like a light source?

"Wait, this is!"

Lin Yi looked at his watch. The time was 3:42, but his focus wasn't on the watch itself, but on the patterns and designs on the watch face…

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He suddenly realized that the patterns on his watch, at a certain moment, looked extremely similar to the pattern on the ground before him, except that the pattern in front of him was many times more complex, with countless more details.

That pattern… looked like a totem or secret inscription needed for some ancient ritual, or like an extremely complex star chart in the darkness, but now, in Lin Yi's eyes, it looked like a… watch face.

"Shasha… Shasha…"

As Lin Yi stopped, faint sounds immediately arose from all around. Those purebred Night Walkers who still couldn't break through the lowest level of the art building's shield were cautiously approaching Lin Yi from the dark corners, both afraid of the light and drawn to it, both wary and reckless.

Lin Yi shook his head, stepped over the pattern, and walked towards the stone arch and bridge.

Beyond the main area of the art building, under the mist, was not protected by the "Sanctuary's" domain. All he could rely on was his identity as the dormitory manager and the old kerosene lamp in his hand.

Passing through the stone arch, Lin Yi noticed that the secret inscriptions and hieroglyphs carved on the arch were all flickering with a dim light. These lights were weak and faint, like the light of fireflies on a summer night. They were the precepts imprinted on the Black Moon Outpost by the "First Apostles" countless years ago, still guarding this world after countless years.

Time seemed to become tangible at this moment. Lin Yi had the urge to touch those patterns, not to admire them, nor to commemorate them, but a very pure… desire for contact.

He didn't know where such a thought came from, like a kind of instinctive yearning.

But he suppressed this feeling and came to the stone bridge.

At the beginning of the stone bridge, he could finally vaguely see the lighthouse on the watchtower. In the storm and the snow-white mist, the searchlight flickered, like an anti-aircraft gun.

Lin Yi took a deep breath, tugged at his tattered school uniform and backpack, and stepped onto the stone bridge.

Now, some of the candles on the candlesticks on both sides of the stone bridge had been completely extinguished. They were like small animals trapped in the snow, and ultimately failed to survive that long, cold night.

The stone bridge was now covered with purebred Night Walkers. They huddled together like swarms of rats, writhing against each other, their forms causing nausea and disgust.

Not only on the stone bridge, but the bridge body and pillars were also covered with Night Walkers. The terrifying number seemed like a tide, enough to submerge the campus if they poured in.

Lin Yi slowly advanced with the old kerosene lamp. Wherever the boundary of the light reached, the purebred Night Walkers would retreat, not daring to invade the edge of the light.

And when they dodged, they pushed other purebred Night Walkers, causing some who couldn't grasp the bridge to fall into the sea.

The cold aura permeated Lin Yi's flesh, but this time it couldn't make him feel any stinging sensation. His body, having undergone the "Sanctuary's" baptism, was, to some extent, like Logan, whose bones had been injected with adamantium alloy, a "tough bone" with physical regeneration.

The Grinning Angels roamed in the mist, but few attacked Lin Yi. Logically speaking, the purebred Night Walkers were afraid of the light of the old kerosene lamp, so it was right not to attack Lin Yi, but why didn't the Grinning Angels pounce on him?

Lin Yi quickly found the reason—the Grinning Angels wandering around the stone bridge were all lantern-carrying angels, and some were holding hourglasses. In terms of pollution depth, they were the kind of dormitory managers who could still be saved, and they were also the kind of early-stage Grinning Angels who feared the light of the old kerosene lamp.

And those high-ranking Grinning Angels, it seemed, should have already invaded the art building or the clock tower.

"Hua—Hua—Hua—"

The sound of the waves came one after another, constantly impacting the reefs and pillars of the stone bridge. That terrifying vibration even transmitted to the soles of Lin Yi's feet, allowing him to vaguely feel the pulse of the black sea through this vibration.

As he continued to go deeper, the stone bridge behind Lin Yi was also shrouded in mist. The domain of the old kerosene lamp was very limited, struggling to break through the mist, casting a narrow field.

A putrid smell gradually mixed into the salty sea breeze, and the eerie chanting began to sound, like an evil priest holding a secret book and singing a ballad:

"I… AvgruNnen av… tKe og mrke… jaGer… forTa… pte Sjeler fanTome…"

Along with the whispering, the always steady stone bridge slightly vibrated, as if something was climbing up the pillars.

A strange wave surged like ripples, pushing past Lin Yi's body, followed by a desolate aura different from the eerie and cold feeling, slowly permeating the storm and enveloping Lin Yi…

"I AvgruNnen av tKe og… mrke jaGer… for… Tapte Sjeler… fanTome…"

The singing became closer and louder, and suddenly a huge shadow rose from the black tide in the mist, towering around the stone bridge like giants, like two rows of mountains.

Then, a terrifying pressure as if the world was splitting and the sky was falling slowly descended, pressing heavily on Lin Yi, making his spine unable to straighten.

"Huff—"

The mist seemed to be parted by an invisible force, and the terrifying shapes on both sides of the stone bridge slowly revealed themselves…