Acai's Sky

Chapter 987: Embers of Night Corridor: Ghosts on the Stage 2

The moment Liu Fengqi's tactical boots rolled over the red ball of light, the whole world seemed to be rewound.

The sound of electric current drilled into the ear canal like a poisonous snake, and the dark red task interface tore out from the depths of the retina, dyeing the deserted theater square into solidified blood.

The shadow of Adjutant Qu in the holographic projection suddenly twisted into a strange smile, then turned into countless binary codes and dissipated into the air.

"This opening special effect..."

Wang Changming spun his mace in a circle in his palm. The sound of metal armor clashing mixed with his deliberately suppressed curses. "It's even more horrible than the death animation in the last Abyss dungeon."

The veins on his neck rose and fell slightly with his breathing, like a living creature sensing danger.

[Ding, the player's Swift Squad enters the Endless Continent (6980) Embers Corridor.]

[Current regional danger rating: SSS+]

[Environmental testing: Spatiotemporal turbulence concentration exceeded the standard by 320%, and radiation values ​​exceeded the critical value]

The suspended system text was like a burning spell, and each character left a charred mark in the air.

Liu Fengqi's interstellar glasses flashed wildly, and data streams weaved into a complex grid in his pupils.

The theater in the distance looked like a dormant giant beast, with purple arcs of electricity entwined between the beams and pillars with peeling vermilion paint. The dark liquid seeping from the copper bells at the eaves corroded honeycomb-shaped holes in the ground, and a pungent smell of sulfur rose from the sizzling sound.

He Xin suddenly pressed the electromagnetic rifle on his waist, and the ghost money in the equipment slot emitted a strange blue fluorescence: "Something is wrong! The energy reading is fluctuating according to the law of the Fibonacci sequence-"

His smart glasses suddenly emitted a string of garbled characters. In the holographic projection, the originally scattered red light spots suddenly formed some kind of ancient totem. Three dark red vortexes were devouring the surrounding space at a speed visible to the naked eye.

[Ding, player mission: obtain the Night Pearl Crown]

Mission Details: Break through the triple barrier of the theater and remove the seal on the Star Track core. This item is a strategic-level resource for regional warfare and can reconstruct the battlefield energy matrix.

[Task time limit: 168 hour]

[Failure Penalty: The entire team's level is forced to drop by 10 levels, and all unbound resources are deducted]

[Ding, I wish players prosperity in martial arts! ]

Qi Kai's alloy double swords burst out with lightning, and the whistling sound of the blades cutting through the air suddenly became hollow, as if they were chopping into a pile of cotton.

"168 hours?" He sneered, his expression twisted by the scar beneath his mask. "That's enough time for us to tear this place apart eight times."

Before he finished speaking, the ground suddenly shook like thunder.

Asphalt-like black mist seeped out from the cracks in the bluestone slabs and condensed into hundreds of phantoms dressed in judge's uniforms in mid-air.

The judge's pens in their hands dripped with scarlet liquid, and the tips left burning trails as they passed through the void.

Liu Jialiang immediately deployed an energy shield, and runes on the thick metal surface lit up, but the moment it came into contact with the mist, it emitted an unbearable buzzing sound.

[Ding, special reminder: This fragment has been reset five times, the difficulty has increased by 150%, upgraded to Nightmare (3).]

[Ding, notes:]

[1. At 12:30 pm, the "Yin and Yang Upside Down" mechanism will be triggered, weakening all external physical attacks by 70%.]

[2. The ghost money and gold and silver ingots you carry will produce a "soul bond resonance", and using them may trigger random events.]

[3. It is recommended to first search for the "Fragments of Colorful Clothes" in the theater, as this item is the key to breaking the barrier.]

Liu Fengqi's tactical gloves paused on the storage bag on his waist for half a second, and a slight electric current was transmitted through the cold underworld money, like the vibration of some ancient contract.

"He Youxing! Mark the weak energy points!"

His interstellar glasses suddenly emitted a dazzling blue light. "There are data flow faults at the joints of these phantoms!"

He Xin's electromagnetic rifle roared first, but the purple energy beam was swallowed up the moment it touched the formation diagram.

Wang Changming roared and swung his mace, but the weapon smashed into the ground as if passing through a phantom.

"It's a hollow!"

His roar caused strange multiple echoes in the square, and chains suddenly rose from the center of the formation and wrapped around the unsuspecting He Youxing.

Liu Jialiang's shield broke two chains, and the sound of metal collision made everyone's eardrums hurt.

He Xin suddenly ripped open his collar, revealing a neck covered in talismans. "Use ghost money! Disperse them like junk data in a flood of data!"

The moment Liu Fengqi threw out three ghost money, time seemed to stand still.

The fluorescent banknotes turned into streams of light in the air, resonating like quantum entanglement with the judge's pen in the shadow's hand.

The moment the purple energy ripples spread, all the phantoms screamed in high frequencies, and the judge's pens in their hands broke into pieces and turned into ashes.

[System prompt: The special effect of "Underworld Wealth" has been triggered, and the enemy spirit unit will enter a paralyzed state for 30 seconds]

"Charge! Maintain formation!" Liu Fengqi's command exploded with the noise of electricity.

The ten-man team rushed towards the theater like an arrow, and the soul-suppressing and soul-locking formation behind them collapsed in the storm of data flow.

But when they actually reached the theater gate, Wang Changming suddenly grabbed He Youxing by the back of his collar and said, "Wait—is this door... breathing?"

Dark red energy was seeping out of the cracks in the vermilion lacquer gate, like pulsating blood vessels.

Liu Fengqi's interstellar glasses scanned the surface, and his pupils suddenly contracted. "Soul Binding Barrier, equipment energy loss is 5% per hour."

Before he finished speaking, countless faces suddenly appeared on the door panel, and black mist poured out of the empty eye sockets, forming a distorted word "Welcome".

The moment the door was opened, the smell of rotten wood mixed with the scent of sandalwood hit me in the face, but it could not cover up the strong smell of blood underneath.

The four characters "Nichang Yuyi" on the plaque of the stage are disintegrating into pixels, and the bloodstains on the stone bricks in front of the stage are actually composed of constantly reorganizing red codes.

He Youxing's detector suddenly sounded an alarm. On the holographic map, the architectural structure of the entire theater began to show topological deformation like a Klein bottle.

Qi Kai's two swords slashed towards the void like lightning, and two shadows appeared in the sword energy - they were two children in costumes, with glowing dark energy wrapped around their necks.

Their eyes were two black holes, and they kept spewing out a nursery rhyme composed of garbled characters: "A piece of paper, two pieces of money, three souls and seven spirits return to the underworld..."

He Xin switched his electromagnetic rifle to shotgun mode, but found that the bullet burned scorch marks on the wall after passing through the shadow.

Wang Changming suddenly threw an ingot of gold to the ground. The moment the golden light exploded, the two children's figures trembled violently, and gray dark energy overflowed from their black hole-like eye sockets.

"These things are afraid of gold!"

As he roared, Liu Jialiang raised his shield and rushed towards the secret door on the right.

Behind the secret door is a dressing room filled with costumes, hundreds of robes swaying gently like upside-down corpses.

Suddenly, a sharp alarm sounded from He Youxing's headphones: "These costumes... are scanning us!"

Before he finished speaking, the eyeballs of a Zhengdan opera costume glowed red, and a skinny arm extended from the cuffs embroidered with flowers and birds, with glowing chains of underworld energy wrapped around the fingertips.

Liu Fengqi's tactical gloves brushed against the ghost money on his waist, and he suddenly remembered the "random event" prompted by the system.

He took out three pieces of paper money, folded them into a paper crane, and gently tossed them into the air. The moment the crane touched the costume, it transformed into a blue light. The bronze mirror in the dressing room began to ooze black water, and the shadow of a woman emerged in the mirror—it was Liu Rushuang, who was rumored to have died unjustly.

"She's singing... The Peony Pavilion?"

He Xin's voice was trembling, and the singing voice of the woman in the mirror mixed with the noise of electricity, which actually resonated with the ghost money in the card slot of his equipment.

What’s even more bizarre is that as the singing progresses, the layout of the dressing room begins to flip, the ceiling becomes the ground, and the costumes pour down like a black rain curtain.

Liu Fengqi's artificial eye suddenly received a fragment of memory: at a certain hour of Xu twenty years ago, Liu Rushuang was given a mute drug, and the rope that strangled her had turned into a Yin chain.

At this moment, the woman's gaze in the mirror suddenly penetrated the screen and fell on the gold and silver ingots on his waist, and the corners of her mouth curled up in a meaningful arc...