Rules-related weird stories: 4016

May 10, X023, 2:23 AM, the clock tower of the Art Building. Beneath the quantum giant clock "Sanctuary," endless torrents of air surged downwards from the clock's mouth, engulfing Lin Yi's body like the flames of a rocket's exhaust.

Under that terrifying blaze, Lin Yi was reduced to a charred silhouette, his body seemingly nothing more than a skeleton…

… …

May 10, X023, 2:23 AM.

The same moment.

Lin Yi felt his consciousness shatter into countless fragments. Washed by the "Sanctuary's" torrent, the world before him resembled scenery viewed from a speeding train.

He saw super Nightstalkers as dense as ivy, covering entire walls, along with twisted cracks in the walls and those wicked Nightstalkers within the crumbling structure. Their viscous bodies seemed to have formed insect-like limbs and reptile scales, yet bore the teeth and eyes of beasts…

They crawled and leaped through this collapsing space, emitting shrill, piercing cries that stabbed directly into his brain, pushing his sanity to the brink…

He also saw a deep, secluded corridor that appeared to stretch endlessly, transforming into a bottomless abyss. Each step forward felt like treading in place, yet also like traversing vast distances. The door in the distance would be close one moment, impossibly far the next, as if space were constantly folding and stretching…

He saw many things overlapping, saw cold, torrential rain pouring down, as if permeating the Art Building and landing in some corner…

Suddenly, he saw a group of art students!

In a tiered classroom resembling an opera house, a large number of art students slumped to the ground, their hair disheveled like withered grass, their faces covered in grime and dried tomato sauce, their eyes sunken into their sockets, transitioning from tenacious struggle to an empty void as life ebbed away, ultimately resembling two dry, barren wells…

Their lips were cracked and dry like stone carvings, their bodies still trembling slightly. Their dark green robes were tattered and torn, constantly seeping tomato sauce from within…

The classroom was filled with "hissing" sounds. Fragments of Nightstalkers and some active super Nightstalkers were visible everywhere—on the ceiling, the walls, and the floor…

“This… this place has fallen?!” Lin Yi felt a mix of shock and heartache. Such scenes were commonplace as the torrents pushed onward, showing art students defeated everywhere, some even being devoured by super Nightstalkers…

He also saw some art students still fighting fiercely, each wielding a paintbrush, creating art in the void with their will. The Nightstalkers stirred up gray mist, hovering around them, yet unable to break through their rewriting of space…

However, pure Nightstalkers and super Nightstalkers continued to invade the Art Building, and with the gray mist constantly replenishing their extraordinary power, the art students struggled to hold on but were always at a disadvantage.

Only when the torrents swept through did the Nightstalkers' aggression lessen somewhat, allowing the art students to breathe a sigh of relief.

He also saw the constantly flickering candlelight in various areas. In his current perception, the flickering candlelight presented a different picture.

The candlelight swayed in the wind, but instead of being about to extinguish, it was actually the torrents providing them with extraordinary power!

Lin Yi seemed to understand something. Although the gale blended with the torrential rain, it wasn't a case of "wind and rain lashing together," but rather internal friction?!

The torrential rain was an abnormal weather phenomenon brought about by the gray mist, but the gale—was it perhaps a manifestation of the "Sanctuary's" power intervening in the layers?!

“‘Wind’?!”

“Could it be…?”

Could the whistling wind in the elevator car also be a manifestation of the wind stirred up by the "Sanctuary"?

His vision continued to expand, not slowing down with the sudden flash of inspiration in Lin Yi's mind. He soon saw the "Obsession Sculptures" hidden in certain corners. Some Obsession Sculptures constantly tore apart the incoming Nightstalkers, but others, like giant beasts drained of their life force by the passage of time, had turned into sculptures…

The walls in some areas of the Art Building were mottled and peeling, the window glass shattered and broken, revealing endless desolation, permeated by a desolate aura, with piles of debris like mountains, as if it were a corner forgotten by the world…

He saw the artwork "Born from Death" in the center of the Art Building's lobby. It seemed eternally unchanging, standing there, with no Nightstalkers, or even super Nightstalkers or Grinning Angels, daring to approach, as if its existence were an absolutely inviolable domain.

His vision further expanded…

He then saw the art gallery again. The artworks in the gallery were arranged haphazardly. There seemed to be traces of moss on a dark yellowish-brown wall, like scars left by time. The aura of decay echoed in the gallery, and a thick gray mist permeated the entire gallery, flowing like the gauze of a ghost…

As soon as he saw the gallery, those voices began to reappear in his ears.

The notes of the music box chimed and danced.

A little girl sang a somber nursery rhyme.

【Children, hide-and-seek~ One, two, hide away…】

【Little courtyard, a good place~ Brothers and sisters hide themselves…】

【Dig, dig, turn, turn…】

【… …】

He knew she was coming.

“Tap… tap… tap…”

She stepped closer to Lin Yi, her little leather boots treading on the flowing black, turbid mucus.

“Are… you… looking… for… me…?”

The little girl held "Amon's Music Box" in her hands, appearing in a dim corner. On the wall beside her hung a painting in a rich, dark style, depicting an endless wilderness with a black sun hanging high in the black sky. At the end of the wilderness seemed to be a castle, and the boundless wilderness was filled with tombstones scattered haphazardly…

The mist lingered on the ground, coiling around his ankles like a spiritual snake—even though it was only consciousness, he felt like he was going to be trapped here. The surroundings faintly exuded a putrid smell, as if hiding some long-dead secret…

“Retake kid! Get out of there!”

Just as he was drawn in by the little girl's nursery rhyme, and the thought of “I’m going to be left behind” was about to form in his mind, the Night Watchman's voice rose several octaves, transforming from a narrator-like voice into a booming sound wave. His vision underwent a bizarre change, and his consciousness seemed to be interfered with by a brutal force, forcibly dragged away from the gallery…

“‘02’? Did you save me?” Lin Yi was both surprised and delighted, breathing a sigh of relief as if surviving a catastrophe.

The Night Watchman's voice quickly faded away, with no further response, and Lin Yi's vision expanded again with the sound wave…

He saw another painting. The colors in the dim light looked especially eerie. One depicted a desolate graveyard with tombstones askew and a blood-red sky. The clouds resembled the claws of a demon. The painting was empty, but Lin Yi felt watched. That feeling of being watched moved with his consciousness. No matter where he went, he felt that gaze fixed upon him...

The paintings were surrounded by black shadows, shadows that seemed to be alive, constantly wriggling and expanding in the mist...

He saw a winding, twisting passage. As his consciousness moved through it, it felt heavy. The wooden floorboards creaked eerily underfoot, like moving on a piece of rotten coffin wood. Each step felt like awakening a sleeping demon beneath the ground.

Sculptures lined both sides of the passage. Their expressions were twisted and deformed, some as if screaming in pain, others as if emitting hideous laughter...

At the end of the passage, or rather, at the end of his vision, stood a colossal humanoid statue. It should have been an elegant human form, but in this bizarre atmosphere, it resembled a cursed soul, its body covered with strange纹路, as if scarred by some evil power...

His vision flickered between blurry and clear. He saw the depths of some unknown place, which seemed to be a separate small room, and with a thought, his vision seeped into the room...

Lin Yi was dumbfounded when he entered. It was an incredibly warm and lovely bedroom, a world apart from the gloomy and terrifying corridor outside.

The entire bedroom was filled with warm colors and cute decorations. The walls were painted in soft pinks and sky blues, like flowers blooming under a blue sky in spring. A small bed stood in the center of the room, covered with a fluffy white blanket embroidered with many cute rabbits or bears.

On a chair beside the bed sat a large white plush bear, placed squarely facing the door.

However, before he could take another look, an indescribable sense of unease crept into his heart. At the same time, the Night Watcher's voice echoed in his ears, somewhat hurried, but very faint, as if separated by a thick layer of soundproof glass...

At the same time, he noticed a cute photo frame on the desk in the bedroom. The photo in the frame...

It was a cartoon-like dark forest, very cute, but with an indescribable, chilling feeling...

"Repeating kid!"

"Repeating kid!!"

The Night Watcher's voice grew louder and louder, finally pulling him out of the bedroom just as Lin Yi's consciousness was about to approach the desk.

As Lin Yi was pulled away, countless threads seemed to appear in his consciousness. These threads clung to the bedroom like藕丝, as if deeply attracted to it. Even his consciousness seemed to be stretched into a long, rubbery shape...

But in the end, his consciousness was perfectly extracted from the bedroom.

He tried to call out to the Night Watcher several times, but the Night Watcher, as always, did not respond to his calls.

His vision continued to change. He saw a deep well, ancient and mysterious. The inner walls of the well were covered with slippery, cold moss, like green clothes deposited by the years, emitting a mixed odor of decay and saltiness...

The well opening extended into the endless darkness, like a greedy mouth opened by the earth. Looking down from the well opening, one could only see a thick darkness, a darkness that seemed to be alive, slowly wriggling, as if it could devour any creature that approached.

From the depths of the well, a low and continuous sound of waves came, "哗——哗——哗——", wave after wave, constantly beating against a certain stone wall of the deep well. The sound was low and suppressed, mixed with some wailing wind, like roaring, like howling, making his soul tremble.

A cold feedback arose in his consciousness. He could not see the seawater, but the surrounding sounds seemed to show everything in his perception. He found that in the dark and misty depths, there seemed to be a turbid black liquid with mud and decay, slowly wriggling and spreading upwards like mucus along the well wall and moss, leaving a sticky trail on the stones, like the trail of some giant sea monster.

"哗——哗——哗——"

The sound of the waves continued, and in the mist, there seemed to be the sound of clashing metal, as if something was entrenched at the bottom of the well, part of it sunk into the sea, and the other part remained in the well. It rubbed its body against the inner wall of the deep well, occasionally emitting a teeth-aching "squeak" sound, mixed in the wind and spreading up...

He seemed to hear some kind of summoning, a voice that was low and hoarse, like a throat that had not drunk water for many years, stretching out a dry and瘪声线 as soon as it opened, like the rustling sound of a rattlesnake crawling, or like the sound of wind rolling up dead leaves on a cement floor...

Just as the summoning was about to touch his perception, he was pulled away again, and his vision changed once more.

This time, he saw an endless staircase, with some art students moving in it. Among the countless figures rushing past, he spotted Mao Feiyang's figure...

"Maozi!"

Lin Yi was overjoyed. Maozi had appeared in the vast gymnasium before, but now he was here.

He observed the surrounding environment and realized that this passage was extremely similar to the passage Maozi had taken before.

"Could this passage be the route connecting the art building and the gymnasium on the图层级?"

"Is this the road that老大 mentioned for支援 the art building?"

Just as he called out to Maozi, Mao Feiyang's body suddenly shook, as if he had heard his voice!

Seeing Mao Feiyang's reaction, Lin Yi was overjoyed. He knew that this was the first time Maozi had heard his voice since they got separated after entering the school!

Realizing this, he immediately reacted. This might be one of his few moments to pass information to Maozi!

"Only a second or two, quickly think of something to say!" Lin Yi suddenly became anxious. At a time when the vision was unstable and could switch at any moment, he had to convey the most critical information to him!