Chapter 350: Return to the Truth Layer: Survivors in an Ancient Temple Deep in the Mountains

In a remote mountain temple, Qi Suian had no idea which ghost’s truth layer he had entered.

But he did see other survivors.

There were three men and two women. Two of them had a pollution level of around ten percent, confirming they were from the first batch of survivors to make it through.

They arrived about three seconds after Qi Suian, so they hadn’t noticed him.

’Looks like good news. The Doomsday Game is likely the primary reason I was pulled into this truth layer.’

Of course, the Doomsday Game wasn’t the only force at play. It probably also involved certain protective, anti-malware mechanisms from the Ghost World.

Otherwise, Qi Suian wouldn’t have felt that drowsiness and forceful pull.

As for this being the Doomsday Game’s teleportation technology? He’d experienced that before. There was no phantom pain of being struck on the back of the head, so it couldn’t be teleportation.

’But there’s bad news, too. This means the Doomsday Game might have been exposed, and I could get dragged into the mess.’

Qi Suian watched the five survivors chattering among themselves. The two ’veteran’ survivors were sharing information with the newcomers.

They were actually playing the part quite well.

From their conversation, Qi Suian also learned that every survivor’s initial talent was a D-rank Pollution Resistance.

However, each time they survived, they could use the exploration score from the final tally to either acquire a new talent or evolve their D-rank Pollution Resistance talent.

Of course, they had to meet the score requirement. If they didn’t, the score wouldn’t disappear but would accumulate instead.

"The settings were forcibly changed. I have to say, people change, and so does the Doomsday Game," Qi Suian muttered.

Furthermore, Qi Suian learned that not even one in ten from the previous batch of survivors had completed the mandatory mission, leading to punishment for many countries.

A portion of their survivors had been wiped out. Then, when the second round of survival began, the number of participants exploded from the hundreds to the tens of thousands.

It had also introduced a team-based, national-fate survival mode.

After listening, Qi Suian felt like something wasn’t quite right, and then it suddenly hit him.

"Holy shit, the live broadcast!"

"It’s missing a public live broadcast, that’s what." Qi Suian had pinpointed the Doomsday Game’s flaw.

Platforms for those national-fate survival stories always had live broadcasts, cranking the emotional drama to the max. They had it all, from clashes between nations to protagonists putting their detractors in their place.

But the Doomsday Game? For its own selfish reasons, it hadn’t made arrangements for its protagonists to have their moment in the spotlight.

That was why the survivor death rate was so high.

If it had set up a broadcast, he could guarantee that a handsome protagonist with an overpowered talent would be mocked, only to then spectacularly slap down his mockers and become humanity’s representative, triumphantly paving the way forward.

Qi Suian could already picture him, using his cheats and looking like he had it all figured out.

’The Doomsday Game probably can’t do it. It’s not that I’m looking down on it, but given its pathetic state, how would it dare show its face?’

’If it really held a public broadcast, someone would probably follow the trail and snuff it out.’ Qi Suian didn’t know what the survivors’ world was like, but he knew his own Ghost World was no pushover.

A live broadcast would require a connection. Once that trail of breadcrumbs was found, one could easily imagine what would happen next.

"Splitting up? Aren’t they afraid of losing their heads? So confident. I like it." Qi Suian watched as the five survivors began to separate.

The logic was marginally sound—it was to avoid a team wipe.

Another reason was that exploration scores weren’t shared.

Bringing along a freeloader could not only slow you down but also get you backstabbed.

They were all complete strangers. You couldn’t just trust someone because you were fellow sufferers. These were people they didn’t know at all.

And as for the ’veteran’ survivors leading the ’newbies’? Calling them veterans was a stretch; in reality, those two had only barely scraped by themselves.

"Let’s pick an unlucky one to be my test subject." Qi Suian made the cheerful decision.

He completely pushed aside any thought of what might happen at the Exorcism Bureau now that he had suddenly vanished.

’I’ll deal with future problems in the future. Focusing on the present is what’s important.’ After all, it was a question of whether he could even replicate his previous escape from a truth layer.

Besides, he had no idea which regional Exorcism Bureau Sealing Vault he would end up in upon leaving. There was no point thinking about it.

Qi Suian casually picked a survivor, and the Tai Sui God shot out and snatched the person away.

The man’s face was filled with terror, thinking he had been caught by a ghost.

Fortunately, Qi Suian was quick. He knocked the man unconscious before he could scream or struggle.

’The fifth batch of survivors have really low base stats, similar to the first batch, but their talents are much worse.’

’The first batch had a wide variety of talents. But the fifth batch, in order to adapt to the ghost system, have all been guided toward the same foundation.’

Qi Suian circled around and stopped in a secluded corner of the remote mountain temple before injecting the survivor with an anesthetic.

’The area of effect for this remote mountain temple is much larger than the previous mansion, but the details aren’t that different.’

’Perhaps it’s a matter of cognition.’

The Hanged Ghost, Wang Qin, was a rich man’s daughter, a very traditional lady from a prominent family.

She never stepped out of the house. Her entire world, from childhood to adulthood, was the Wang Family estate.

This remote mountain temple, on the other hand, was likely related to a monk, which would explain its broader cognitive scope.

Qi Suian was also puzzled. The Ziyue Dynasty’s development was truly bizarre. How could these strange ideologies exist? Logically, given their living conditions, the foundation for such things shouldn’t have been there.

But, whatever exists is rational. Qi Suian had no intention of questioning it.

Instead, he focused his attention on the survivor before him. He skillfully shaved the man’s head and opened his skull with a scalpel formed from polymorphic energy.

Then, using Fei to perform a spiritual analysis, he employed a two-pronged approach and extracted the miraculous gaseous structure.

"An untainted, original version of the gaseous structure." Qi Suian’s eyes lit up with joy when he saw it.

The survivor he’d captured was, naturally, one of the ones with no pollution.

He’d leave the two polluted ones for later. After all, they had some experience and were unlikely to be killed right at the start.

"Cerebrum, assist me with recording."

"The gaseous structure is rooted in the body, meaning it can affect physical attributes. At the same time, it is derived from the Spirit, so it can also enhance spiritual attributes."

"It also has extremely high compatibility with rule-based data, which means it can better host ghosts."

"However, deep contact with ghosts consumes it. This means there might be a backlash after containing a ghost, such as the ghost reawakening..."

"Wait, why do these settings sound a bit familiar?" Qi Suian suddenly paused.

"I suspect the Doomsday Game might have plagiarized these settings from somewhere."

Qi Suian couldn’t help but complain, "Containing a ghost, then gaining the ghost’s power through balance, and using that power comes at a price."

"Even the Ziyue Dynasty’s Ghost Control Technique isn’t as brazenly plagiarized as this..."

"Next, are you going to introduce professions like Demon Tamers?"

"But you really know how to pick them. The gaseous structure is a perfect fit. While it’s like quenching thirst with poison in the early stages, once the pollution level gets high later on, various corresponding talents can completely compensate for it."

"A group of survivors who use rules... They shouldn’t even be called survivors anymore. Wouldn’t it be better to just rebrand as invaders?"

Based on this clue, Qi Suian suspected the Doomsday Game might be trying to change its strategy.

Its previous model was more like theft: throw survivors into a Doomsday World, then collect the harvest when the time was up.

But thanks to Qi Suian, the Doomsday Game had never once been able to wait for the harvest. It was always being harassed into making a hasty retreat.

Having lost so much profit, it was natural to think about changing its approach.

"It’s gone from free-range farming to a Gu-style battle royale."

"This is it going full villain, isn’t it." While dissecting the gaseous structure and the survivor, Qi Suian’s mind raced, predicting the Doomsday Game’s next moves.

’This won’t do. This is just asking for death. I have to find a way to stop it.’

’Like giving it a powerful, toxic beatdown.’

Qi Suian couldn’t do anything to the Doomsday Game, but could he not handle mere survivors?

’I can court death, but the Doomsday Game can’t. I’m still counting on it to run away for me.’

「

」

Ye Rui was walking halfway up the mountain. The temple at the summit didn’t seem to change in his vision at all, which made him more and more confused.

"Have I run into a ghost wall?" Ye Rui wondered. He sent his guess through the Doomsday Game’s team chat channel.

He soon received replies from the other three. In their vision, not only had the temple not gotten smaller, but its orientation hadn’t changed either.

They were approaching the mountain from different directions, so the temple should have been facing them differently. Yet, for all of them, it was facing them head-on.

’Strange, why is one person missing?’

At that moment, Ye Rui felt a little uneasy. The newcomer named Li You hadn’t replied at all.

He quickly @’d him in the chat channel, but there was still no response.

’His avatar is still there, so he’s not dead.’

’Looks like something definitely happened to him.’

This irritated Ye Rui. The quality of newcomers was really inconsistent. How long had it been, and he was already dead?

The mandatory mission this time was to survive for three days.

Yet he couldn’t even make it through the first day.

’It seems we’ll need to cooperate to survive this time. It’s just that the other veteran... he gives off a bad vibe.’

’If I work with him, I’m afraid I’ll be sold out before I even know what happened.’

’I can only approach the two remaining newcomers.’

’That’s assuming they can even reach the temple at the summit successfully.’

There were standards for cooperating with him. He wasn’t about to babysit some dead weight.

If it really came down to it, he could still work with the other veteran. He would just have to be extra careful.

"To hell with the Doomsday Game! To hell with these ghosts!" Ye Rui couldn’t help but curse viciously.

Resource depletion was a slow death. Being chosen by the Doomsday Game to survive in the Netherworld meant you could die suddenly at any moment.

He would rather choose the former; he didn’t want to die so soon.