Romantic Hotel, Level Completed

The manager's illogical roar completely tore away the pretense.

The office's rules began to crumble; the walls and floors peeled away like fragile pieces of paper, revealing writhing flesh and shimmering fragments of chaotic rules beneath. Terrifying energy materialized into a tangible suction force, threatening to drag them all into an eternal abyss.

"We can't win." Bai Xu quickly assessed the situation amidst the suffocating pressure, his eyes flashing sharply. "We must retreat!"

He abruptly pulled a palm-sized, cold-to-the-touch, cracked black metal disc from the innermost layer of his tactical pouch—his most prized survival item, a reward from an extremely dangerous A-rank mission: [Gate of Impermanence]. A one-time use item, theoretically capable of forcibly opening a passage out of the current instance space in a near-certain death situation.

"I need ten minutes to start it up, and I can't be interrupted!" Bai Xu growled, his voice still clear amidst the monster's shrieks and the sound of space cracking.

He knelt on one knee and slammed the disc onto the liquefied black "floor," placing his hands on the edge of the disc and unleashing a torrent of mental energy. The cracks on the disc gradually glowed with a faint blue light, slowly and steadily converging towards the center.

"Understood!" Hong Yuan gritted her teeth, her twin blades in hand, and instantly formed a triangular formation with Youying, Yingyan, and the doctor, protecting Bai Xu tightly in the center.

"Trying to run?!" The manager's core, composed of fragments of rules and distorted light and shadow, trembled angrily. Countless broken strips of culture, transformed into sharp spears and viscous tentacles, mixed with shattered spatial fragments, and attacked them like a storm.

The next ten minutes were hellish.

Red Kite's twin blades danced into an impenetrable curtain of blades, shattering the incoming spears of rules, sparks flying everywhere.

The shadowy figure was almost a blur within the narrow protective circle, precisely parrying or deflecting attacks from blind spots, the dagger colliding with the sticky tentacles with a tooth-grinding corrosive sound.

Hawkeye, wielding a uniquely shaped energy pistol, calmly fired at the distant core of the threat that was attempting to coalesce, each shot temporarily annihilating a fragment of the rules.

The doctor continuously threw out small runes that flickered with healing light and disruptive energy fields to maintain the injuries and condition of the group so that they would not collapse immediately.

New wounds kept appearing on their bodies, blood soaked through their tattered uniforms, and their breathing was heavy like bellows, but no one took a step back.

"Hey, Captain, you owe us a huge favor this time!" Hawkeye grinned as he shot and blew up a shadow that was trying to bypass the defenses and pounce on Bai Xu, despite blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

"Remember to treat us when we get back, and make sure it's the most expensive thing!" the doctor shouted without looking up as he temporarily stopped the bleeding from a deep, bone-revealing wound on Hongyuan's arm.

"I'm afraid he won't have a chance to invite him!" Shadow parried a heavy blow, grunted, and the ground beneath his feet cracked.

The attacks grew increasingly violent; the backlash from the collapse of the rules, coupled with the manager's madness, turned the entire space into a churn.

Hawkeye's energy gun suddenly overloaded and misfired. Before he could switch weapons, he was entangled by several suddenly thickened tentacles and slammed hard against the writhing wall. The sound of bones cracking could be clearly heard.

"Eagle Eye!" Red Kite's eyes widened in horror.

Hawkeye coughed up blood, but managed a strained smile at them: "...I'm going first...Remember...make sure the tombstone is cool..."

Before he could finish speaking, more tentacles and fragments completely engulfed and devoured him.

Almost simultaneously, the doctor, in order to shield Youying from a fragment of rule that was sneaking up on Bai Xu's vest, was pierced through the chest.

He staggered a step, looked down at his chest, then looked up at Hong Yuan and You Ying, who were still struggling to hold on, and at the increasingly bright and nascent doorway in the center.

"Go for it, Captain..." he whispered, then fell backward, turning into specks of light and dissipating in the chaotic spatial currents.

Tears streamed down Hong Yuan's face, mingling with the blood, but her grip on the knife tightened, her voice hoarse with grief and despair as she roared, "Come on! You beast! Come on!"

Shadow remained silent, his eyes as cold as ice, but his movements became even more ruthless and precise, trading blows for blows, desperately guarding the fan-shaped area he was responsible for.

Bai Xu knelt in the center, clearly witnessing the sacrifice of his teammates. Veins bulged on his forehead, and he poured his spiritual energy into the device at almost the limit, biting his lip until it bled. The eerie blue light on the disc had already gathered most of its energy, and a blurry, extremely unstable gray door-like phantom was struggling to condense and take shape.

Nine minutes... nine minutes and thirty seconds...

In the last few seconds before the door was about to completely solidify, the manager let out a dying scream. All the remaining power of the rules, flesh and blood, and resentment suddenly converged, transforming into an extremely thick torrent of black energy with a drill-like tip. It carried an aura of destruction and ignored the interception of Red Kite and Shadow, piercing straight towards Bai Xu's back!

This is its final, desperate strike, aimed at completely disrupting the process!

Red Kite and Shadow were tightly entangled by attacks from other directions, and there was no time to rescue them!

At this critical moment—

A figure suddenly lunged out from the side; it was Stone, the random participant who had been silently following along and was now equally wounded.

No one expected him to act at this time.

He wasn't a well-trained seventh-sequence warrior; he didn't possess powerful abilities or gadgets. He simply used all his strength to shove Bai Xu aside, spread his arms, and used his own body to block the terrifying black torrent!

"Stone! No—!" Red Kite's scream changed tone.

The black torrent of energy instantly engulfed the stone's gaunt figure.

There was no earth-shattering explosion, only a chilling annihilation.

At the last moment, Stone looked back at them. There was no fear in his eyes, only a kind of peace that was almost a relief, and a faint longing for the ordinary morning light in the distance.

With the flesh and blood of an ordinary person, he secured the last and most crucial moment for that door that was about to open.

boom!

The Gate of Impermanence has finally opened completely! Inside the gate is a swirling gray vortex, exuding an aura of detachment from this world.

Bai Xu's eyes were bloodshot. He suddenly stood up, grabbed Hong Yuan and You Ying, who were closest to him and almost exhausted, and threw them into the doorway with all his might: "Go!!"

He then jumped in as well.

The instant their figures disappeared into the gray vortex, behind them came the manager's silent shriek, filled with resentment and bitterness, a final, devastating shriek, and the terrifying sight of the entire Romantic Hotel collapsing and annihilating.

……

Listen quietly to this gift from the abyss...

……

The contract is complete; what you desire awaits you outside the door.

……

In the real world, on a deserted alleyway corner.

The gray fog churned and expanded violently, then with a "poof," it vanished as quickly as a deflated balloon.

Three figures tumbled out of the crowd, landing heavily on the cold concrete.

Bai Xu knelt on one knee, his hands supporting him on the ground, breathing heavily. Each breath brought on pain in his lungs. His eyes were filled with an overwhelming weariness, and a lingering tremor.

Red Kite and Shadow slumped to the ground, their backs against the cold wall, their bodies covered in blood, dust, and strange scorch marks left by the collapse of the rules, greedily breathing in the murky yet incredibly precious air of the real world.

They turned their heads with difficulty to look behind them. The gray mist that had led them out of the nightmare was twisting and fading in the air, eventually disappearing completely like morning mist blown away by the wind, leaving no trace.

Romantic Hotel, A-level dungeon, cleared.

The price was that everyone except the three of them, including the four elite members of the seventh sequence and Stone, the random participant who used his ordinary life to open the door to life for them at the last moment, were forever left in that twisted hell of rules.

Silence enveloped the three survivors in the alleyway, with only their heavy, suppressed breathing and Hong Yuan's barely suppressed, blood-stained sobs echoing softly in the empty street.