Opening her eyes once more, Ye Shu realized—she’d been reset again.
The catacomb ghost hadn’t appeared yet. She needed to get moving… or, perhaps, she could try killing it first.
The beautiful patrol was stuffed back into storage.
Ye Shu sat beneath the rocky wall, deftly tending to her wounds as if the shadow drifting over her head was nothing more than a passing cloud.
A heavy thud echoed—
A boulder crashed down.
The catacomb ghost lunged and missed. It spun in growing agitation, searching, but found no trace of Ye Shu. Just as it was about to lose its mind, a peachwood sword shot up from the stone beneath, plunging cleanly through its throat.
Ye Shu sliced open her own arm, smearing blood along the blade. With grim determination, she hacked at the ghost’s limbs and, wary of further surprises, chopped its corpse into eight ragged pieces.
She exhaled heavily. “That should be dead for real.”
“Hard thing to kill,” she muttered, slumping against the wall. Blood loss sent her staggering, making her feet uncertain. She wiped the blood and grime from her face and tumbled to the ground.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the writhing mound of flesh on the cave floor—it was swelling, growing. An unpleasant realization crept over her.
It wasn’t dead… not yet.
A thunderous blast ripped through the catacombs as the chunk of meat exploded. The force shredded the cavern. Ye Shu, only a few meters away, had no chance to escape; she died, well and truly annihilated.
………
Yet again, she reset.
The taut string inside her broke at last. Two deaths in one day… One more, and she'd dissolve into the void or be booted from the game—she didn't know which would come first.
Like before, she summoned her ghostly companion.
Same time, same place, the catacomb ghost appeared as before.
With the grisly knowledge from her last two deaths, Ye Shu killed the ghost in a flash—chopping it to pieces, then slapping a teleportation charm onto the flesh chunks and sending them elsewhere. It was the best she could manage.
She had lost too much blood. Two deaths left her exhausted, her mind teetering on the edge, yet she remained eerily calm, her eyes scanning the nearby tunnel: "You coming out on your own, or do I need to drag you?"
“How’d you know I was hiding here, big sister?”
The voice arrived before the person. Hearing Lin Qing’s familiar tone soothed Ye Shu’s nerves somewhat.
She had always known someone else was here, just hadn’t expected it to be Lin Qing.
Rustling echoed from the tunnel. Ye Shu’s face grew tense—the catacomb ghost would be here any moment. Now wasn’t the time for conversation. Escape was the only priority.
“I always knew.”
She just hadn’t wanted to call it out.
As she raised a teleportation charm to escape, Lin Qing blocked her way: “No need to leave. My barrier’s up. Nothing can get in here.”
Ye Shu didn’t believe it. Not long ago, Lin Qing had claimed his powers were too weak, that his barrier could barely hold one person.
The raspy groans of the catacomb ghost were drawing close. In the blink of an eye, it loomed before her, circling like a fly gone mad, sniffing for any fading trace, screeching in fury.
On and on, the monsters stalked the barrier, clawing at the walls, howling at nothing as the scent of their prey dwindled.
“As long as you’re inside the barrier, they can’t sense you. But if you leave…” Lin Qing looked at Ye Shu, his voice laced with mockery. “Then it’s back to fleeing for you, big sister.”
“Is that so?”
“Then thank you, little brother. I’ll gladly accept your kindness.”
Only a fool refuses free goods. When it came to shamelessness, no one could best Ye Shu.
“Uh… as long as you’re happy, sister.” Lin Qing was caught off guard. He hadn’t expected Ye Shu to accept so openly. Maybe, as long as it wasn’t someone else… she didn’t mind.
Ye Shu settled cross-legged as if nothing had happened, finally noticing the translucent wall raised a meter off to her left, holding the ghosts at bay.
Inside the barrier, all was calm.
Ye Shu closed her eyes to rest, ignoring the feverish stare she could still feel. Standing guard, her companion insisted Lin Qing had never opened his eyes. Still, eating under someone else’s roof, she kept quiet, feigning indifference.
Until a mechanical voice chimed inside her mind:
[Ding! Inducer detected on player Ye Shu—unlocking bonus Survival System Shop.]
[Antidote for inducer: 10,000 points.]
[Would you like to purchase?]
[Survival Mall will keep the payment channel open!]
Ten thousand points?
Absolutely not. This was her last day in the game—the system must take her for a patsy.
Weren’t in-game purchases forbidden? What was going on now?
No trade. No way.
Ye Shu probed for another solution, wanting to save her points. “Lin Qing, how long can your barrier hold?”
“Till the end. No problem.” Lin Qing flashed a knowing smile.
Ye Shu felt exposed—but shamelessness won out.
She stayed in Lin Qing’s barrier the whole day. Eating spicy noodles, free from the chase—for the first time in forever, she felt truly at peace.
[Ding! Congratulations, Player 10096, you have survived 30 days.]
[Player Ye Shu, you have cleared the Catacomb Survival Instance.]
[Rank: SS.]
[You have exited this world.]
[Instance: Catacomb Survival—of 19,010 players, all who cleared gain 3 attribute points to assign at will.]
[Player 10096: Title acquired—Godslayer.]
[Final tally: 1,230 low-level catacomb ghosts slain, 112 mid-level, 78 high-level. Now #2 in the combat rankings!]
For a fleeting moment before teleportation, every survivor heard the system message.
Su Bai was glad Ye Shu had survived, even as he loathed Lin Shuya and her mother for their treachery.
………
As for the flesh chunk Ye Shu had flung via teleportation—it landed, unerring, right on Ye Wanwan.
“What the hell is this?”
“So filthy. Absolutely disgusting!”
Ye Wanwan brushed the greasy blobs from her clothes, face twisted in revulsion—the sticky texture and reeking stench intolerable even for someone without her intense cleanliness obsession.
More wet chunks rained down—
There wasn’t time to rage. The flesh quickly ballooned to ten times its size. With a deafening boom, the nearby catacomb pulverized; Ye Wanwan herself was buried beneath the earth, every bone shattered under the force, burning pain wracking every inch of her body.
She could barely whimper. Not enough strength to open her screen—her father was somewhere in this game. If only she could call for help.
But she couldn’t even move a finger. Only her wood-based powers churned at the edge of her consciousness, barely keeping her alive.
Now she could ponder, fleetingly: where had this ghost come from? Why did it explode? Why above her?
She couldn’t figure it out, clinging to consciousness by a thread, fighting to survive the game’s final minutes.
A few miles away, Lin Yaoyao flitted about like a headless fly.
At one point, she lost all sense of Ye Shu’s presence—almost as if someone had cut the connection. Even as the game’s clearing message sounded, she never saw Ye Shu again.