Chapter 159
Chapter 159 Same Old Story
Although Ling Mo didn’t have night vision abilities, once he was pulled up and seated next to her, he caught a whiff of a familiar fragrant scent in the air, and he knew it was Xinyan.
He hurriedly took out two flashlights from his space watch, turned them on, and looked around, finally getting a clear picture of their surroundings.
The vertical distance between each corridor was quite substantial, and he even spotted Murong Yue on the corridor just below them—if he wanted to, he could materialize a ladder to gather them all together, but it wasn’t really meaningful and would only be a waste of mental energy.
In the corridor where he and Xinyan were, besides the two of them, Liliya was also present.
After calming himself slightly, Ling Mo’s expression turned serious: “The figure we just saw… was it a ghost?”
Suddenly appearing and then vanishing, although it hadn’t caused them any actual harm, it still startled him for a moment.
He was still afraid of ghosts.
However, with Xinyan by his side, he surprisingly had this instinctive reaction—upon seeing a ghost, he wanted to kill it at all costs, so he could prove to Xinyan that he wasn’t afraid of ghosts.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t even had the chance to make a move.
But upon hearing his question, Xia Xinyan shook her head: “Not necessarily, that could also be the witch of this castle.”
“Oh, really…” Ling Mo murmured to himself, then stood up and effortlessly pulled Xia Xinyan up from the ground. He glanced at Liliya not too far away and chuckled, “Looks like we’re lucky, the task of escorting her is now on our shoulders.”
Xia Xinyan shook her head: “Hmm… I’m starting to dislike this dungeon.”
She really didn’t like the feeling of helplessness from falling.
If only she could fly!
Ling Mo fell silent for a moment, then whispered: “I will definitely protect you in the future.”
Xia Xinyan shook her head: “It’s fine, let’s first see if there are other ways out.”
Ling Mo looked down again, and as he made eye contact with Murong Yue below, she left on her own. Meanwhile, Haonan shouted from even lower down: “Are the brothers still alive?! Respond if you’re here!”
Murong Yue casually replied before leaving: “You still have the energy to care about others; take care of yourself first.”
“Wait! What about Liliya?! Has anyone seen her?! She better not have fallen to her death!”
Ling Mo raised his voice slightly in response: “She’s with us, you all think of a way to leave here; there should be a pathway to regroup ahead.”
Haonan fell silent after that.
Ling Mo retracted his flashlight from looking down and walked over to Liliya: “Are you okay?”
This girl hadn’t made a sound since she fell; it was only now that he got close that she seemed to react, perfectly playing the role of a competent NPC: “I’m fine, just take me out.”
Xia Xinyan followed behind Ling Mo, watching Liliya’s reaction with a furrowed brow.
She felt something was off.
As the game progressed, while various aspects were enhanced, the realism of the NPCs would also increase; even if they hadn’t hit the mid-point yet, NPCs would seem indistinguishable from real people— in some dungeons, players themselves might find it hard to tell if the person in front of them was an NPC or a player.
Even the character panels couldn’t be used to confirm; during the dungeon, if a player tried to open another’s character panel, the other player would first receive a request for permission. If they didn’t want to, they could outright refuse, and the attempting player would receive no notification whatsoever.
Instead, it would just alert the “snake in the grass.”
So within the dungeon, unless players were adding each other as friends, no one would attempt to do this.
Ahem, getting off track here.
Anyway, now that the game had been running for over two months, while it’s not a long time, the NPCs during this period shouldn’t be acting so… so stiff.
Ling Mo wasn’t aware of any of this and failed to notice anything off. After Liliya responded, he and Xia Xinyan set off towards the exit of the corridor while bringing Liliya along.
Leaving the corridor, they entered another hall filled with torches.
There were also a dozen corpses wrapped in black cloth hanging from the ceiling.
As they entered, the back door suddenly slammed shut, and all those corpses fell down suddenly, awkwardly rising from the ground as if resurrected, beginning to approach them.
Ling Mo immediately drew his Wind Cutter Sword: “Xinyan, stay here and protect her; I’ll handle them.”
Xia Xinyan nodded: “Okay, be careful.”
These bag-like monsters were a bit tougher than the ones they had encountered earlier.
However, under Ling Mo’s fierce attacks, they couldn’t hold up for long and were soon chopped into gory mush, disappearing into white light.
Ling Mo wiped the fine sweat off his forehead and said solemnly: “They’re getting harder to deal with…”
Xia Xinyan glanced at Liliya out of the corner of her eye.
This girl didn’t change her expression at all; she had been maintaining that blank look.
Since the game clearly indicated she was a pure girl, wouldn’t she be scared of such a bizarre scene?
Xia Xinyan felt puzzled.
“Let’s move on, the door ahead opened.” Ling Mo sheathed his sword and walked forward.
Seeing this, Xia Xinyan brought Liliya along.
Ahead, behind the door lay darkness, and the flashlight’s beam barely illuminated the surroundings. The only thing they could tell was that the space was quite large—likely another hall.
Ling Mo thought this Witch’s Castle was indeed massive.
And under Xia Xinyan’s night vision ability, she saw even more than Ling Mo did—on the wall facing the door, there was a painted ghost face.
By the time Ling Mo had stepped into that hall, Xia Xinyan still hadn’t figured out what that ghost face meant, yet she subconsciously followed him inside.
However, as she shifted her attention, she didn’t notice that Liliya, who had been following her, suddenly stopped in her tracks.
As she stepped into the hall, the large door behind them slammed shut at an alarming speed, not even giving her time to react, completely locking the two of them inside.
Ling Mo pointed his flashlight back, surprised: “Why did this door close so fast?”
Xia Xinyan turned to look at the door, her expression darkening: “Liliya didn’t come with us.”
“She was left outside?” Ling Mo asked, startled. “Isn’t that dangerous?”
“No…” Xia Xinyan shook her head. “What’s more dangerous is us.”
Just as the words left her mouth, that familiar rumbling sound suddenly echoed, and at the same time, the ground began to tremble.
Ling Mo instinctively looked around, focusing on checking if the ceiling was collapsing—then he noticed that the walls on both sides of the hall were slowly closing in.
“…Tsk, this witch really loves pulling this kind of stunt, huh.”
