Chapter 154: Just a Whisker Away

The first to snap out of her astonishment was Lucy.

She shook her head, seemingly filled with utter disdain for Uman’s behavior.

"Initially, I had no intention of killing any of you."

As she spoke, her facial features began to shift.

Her skin turned even paler, resembling that of a corpse.

Jet-black veins surfaced beneath her pallid skin.

In an instant, her pupils morphed into vertical slits.

An evil, bone-chilling aura emanated from the hearts of the three remaining people.

"Gulp!"

Uman retreated hastily, desperately trying to hide behind Jian Qi.

Yet the moment he lifted his foot, Lucy vanished from where she stood.

"Die!"

"Help—"

Uman tried to cry out to Jian Qi for help, but before the words could leave his lips, Lucy drove her hand straight into his chest.

When she withdrew her hand a moment later, she was holding a bloody, beating heart.

Having disposed of the person who annoyed her most, Lucy turned her gaze to the remaining two, Jian Qi and Irene.

However, she did not strike immediately.

Because by this time, Jian Qi had already doused himself entirely with the holy water he had been holding.

Seeing this, a seductive curve touched the corner of Lucy's lips.

"Although holy water can indeed cause me some harm, that is not how you are supposed to use it."

With those words, she strolled slowly toward Jian Qi.

It was as if she had already determined that the two of them were fish on her chopping board, entirely at her mercy.

"Can you tell me what the truth really is?"

Watching Lucy draw closer and closer, Jian Qi kept stepping backward.

Earlier, when he accused Lucy of being the murderer, her expression hadn't changed much, which made him realize his deduction had been wrong.

This only fueled his curiosity even further about what the actual truth was.

Yet Lucy merely smiled, showing no intention of enlightening Jian Qi or answering his question.

It seemed to be a secret she was unwilling to touch upon.

Seeing that Lucy was almost pressing against him yet stubbornly refusing to offer an explanation, Jian Qi let out a sigh.

His left hand, which had been hidden inside his clothes all along, pulled the trigger.

"Bang!"

Following a deafening roar, Lucy, who had previously worn a playful expression, lowered her head to look at the bloody hole in her chest.

A trace of sheer disbelief flickered in her eyes.

"How is it possible that you still had a bullet..."

Hearing her response, Jian Qi blew coolly on the wisp of white smoke curling from the muzzle of his gun.

"Guess."

Evidently, he wanted to give her a taste of her own medicine.

However, the scene that followed made his pupils contract sharply.

After swaying twice, Lucy stopped wobbling and steadied her posture as if nothing had happened at all.

She raised her head and glared at him with a ferocious expression.

Jian Qi swallowed hard and hastily reached out to grab the silver crucifix.

Yet...

Before he could make a move, Lucy's hand had already plunged into him, soaking her entire body in his warm fluid.

"Crack!"

Accompanied by the crisp sound of breaking bones, Jian Qi felt himself floating up out of his own body, much like a soul leaving its physical shell.

Simultaneously, the colors of the surrounding private compartment dimmed dramatically, resembling a display screen with its color contrast turned all the way down.

"Am I dead?"

"What a pity. It seems a necessary condition to kill that thing is two bullets."

Just as Jian Qi was feeling puzzled, a familiar voice suddenly sounded beside his ear.

Turning his head, Jian Qi saw it was none other than Roth, who had been stabbed to death by Uman earlier.

At this moment, Roth was floating in the air just like him, his body semi-transparent and resembling a ghost.

Seeing this, Jian Qi finally realized that all the players who had died earlier were observing the remainder of the match in this ghostly state.

Iron-Willed Man was currently chatting with Emotionless, speculating about the truth behind the instance dungeon.

Judging by their conversation, they must have already exited immersion mode and lifted the memory block.

"Hey buddy, care to spill what the truth actually is?"

At that moment, the player portraying Uman drifted over and draped an arm casually around Roth’s shoulders.

Clearly, he was feeling a bit regretful for having stabbed Roth to death in the game before he could finish speaking.

"You stabbed me to death, and now you expect me to solve the puzzle for you?"

Roth leaned back tactically.

"That was entirely immersion mode's fault, it had nothing to do with me!" Uman quickly distanced himself from the blame. "How about this, you tell me, and at worst, I'll carry you in duo queues afterwards."

"You stabbed me, and yet you still want to get a free ride and have me help you climb ranks?" Roth looked at him with utter disdain.

"Just tell us."

Jian Qi was also dying to know what the truth really was.

He felt as though he had practically exposed the whole mystery.

Roth chuckled upon hearing this, no longer keeping them in suspense. "At the very beginning, the shadow of the murderer we saw killing that man belonged to someone with a build similar to his own."

"That man clearly knew of Lucy's existence, yet he left his tool kit far away when he went to the restroom."

"Moreover, it was strange how Lucy knew every single detail about the man."

"And there's another clue: Lucy is a vampire, yet she suddenly killed Lena, who was hostile toward the Holy Light Church. Does that make any sense?"

"Obviously it doesn't. Therefore, the truth is..."

"Lucy was actually that man all along? So the one who died was Lucy, and that man used some sort of ritual to possess Lucy's body, transforming into a vampire!"

Hearing Roth's explanation, Jian Qi experienced a sudden moment of enlightenment.

The previously disjointed pieces instantly fell into place.

"Ugh..." Uman frowned. "I don't feel right about that."

"Based on my years of gaming experience, the sequence of events should go like this."

Seeing the two of them look over, Uman smiled craftily and then recounted in an utterly solemn tone: "This is a forbidden love story between a demon hunter and a vampire."

"However, the demon hunter strayed halfway through, and the other vampire used her own fangs as a token of eternal love."

"Lucy was consumed by hatred born of unrequited love!"

"And the root cause of this tragedy was the demon hunter himself, so naturally, the murderer must be him."

After hearing Uman's conjecture, both Jian Qi and Roth wore deeply expressive looks.

Because they suddenly felt that Uman's absurd theory actually sounded more reasonable than their own.

That was simply preposterous.

"You really are a talent, man."

That was the only phrase Jian Qi could muster to describe Uman.

After exchanging a few more insights about the game, the game space trembled violently.

A prompt indicating game failure appeared before everyone's eyes.

Clearly, this bizarre state could not be maintained indefinitely.

"Do you have to start all over from the first stage if you die in the game?"

After reading the prompt that appeared, Jian Qi decisively chose to exit the game.

...

"Hoo~"

Sitting up from the gaming pod, Jian Qi fell into a half-hour-long contemplation.

"The game design by Scum Dog is thoroughly innovative, and the quality is top-tier. Furthermore, because it exists in the form of infinite dungeon instances, players will never grow tired of it."

In Jian Qi's heart, if Infinity were rated out of a total of ten points, he would easily give it a score above 9.8.