The big NPC seemed to react after speaking. He scratched his head strangely, "Hey, it is strange. Why do I think this is a very normal thing?"
The others silently exchanged looks.
Now it was already obvious that the disappearance of NPCs in Room 1103 in this instance was indeed a default, allowed occurrence. It wasn't the first time this happened. Even if the NPCs had no relevant memory of it, they still instinctively felt 'used to it.'
Chi Ting waved his hand to signal to the NPC that he couldn't stay longer. the NPC immediately nodded goodbye and hurriedly closed the door.
Xiang Xianwan was a novice who didn't undestand anything, but veteran players like Li Tao, who had cleared a few instances, knew it was always the players who had been chased by NPCs. He had never seen NPCs eager to tell them to stay away.
He looked at Chi Ting again and his eyes became more and more adoring. "Brother Chi, what should we do now?"
Chi Ting was quite content with the situation. "If the NPCs are gone then they aren't here. In any case, there is no harm to us. The time is still early. Do you want to continue going downstairs to see?"
Xiang Xianwan asked, "Do you want to call that Li Hou?"
Chi Ting replied, "No need. If he can go to the 9th floor to find someone, it means he has gained enough favorability on the 10th floor. There is no point in going down together. Let's call him when we are going down from the 9th floor.
The others nodded obediently. "Okay, Brother Chi!"
Thanks to Chi Ting, today's progress was quite smooth. If possible, everyone naturally hoped that they could go all the way until the instance was cleared…
Just as the group were preparing to go down to the 10th floor in high spirits, they turned the corner of the stairs and were attracted by the blood stains on the rails. Their expressions became subtle.
The traces looked to have the shape of a human hand and spread down the handrail of the stairs little by little.
The first half was relatively sporadic. Further down, it transitioned to bloody footprints before finally gradually disappearing at the corner of the 10th floor corridor.
Everyone instinctively stopped.
The game had been going on until now. They had been frightened for a while, but so far, it was mainly on the psychological level. For the first time, they faced these possible substantial injuries in an unguarded manner and this made the three people instinctively turn their heads to look at Chi Ting.
They turned around and happened to see that Chi Ting had already moved to the side of the dried, bloody handprint on the railing in the blink of an eye. He sniffed it very seriously before saying, "Good news or bad news. Which one do you want to hear?"
Li Tao wondered, "…What is the good news?"
Chi Ting stopped and pointed to the railing in front of him. "This is cat blood."
Li Tao was slightly relieved. "The bad news?"
Chi Ting looked downstairs. His gaze fell on the door of Room 1002 directly opposite the security stars. "But the puddle over there should be human blood."
The moment his words came out, there was silence around him for a moment.
After a long time, Xiang Xianwan laughed dryly. "Brother Chi, don't scare us."
"What am I scaring you for?" Chi Ting asked, and everyone's expression became even weirder. He didn't care and asked Li Tao directly, "That Fang Pengyue in Room 1002 hasn't spoken in the group for a long time, right?"
Li Tao was forced to pull himself together. He took out his phone to take a look and confirmed it. "He hasn't appeared for a while even before we gave the reminder in the group."
Chi Ting nodded. "Then he was probably killed."
The more understated the conclusion, the more unacceptable it was.
None of them had any intersection with each other before being involved in this game, but they were players after all. If someone could be killed, did it mean that the same thing could happen to the other people present?
This was probably the legendary effect of having sympathy for a like-minded person in distress. Gong Jing felt numb for a while, but he still held onto the last glimmer of hope. "Brother Chi, could it be that you are thinking too much? Maybe the puddle over there is also cat blood. Perhaps Fan Pengyue was assimilated by the instance like Chang Hefeng?"
"Alas," Chi Ting muttered a bit helplessly. "What type of work did I do before that I can't tell what type of blood it is?"
At these words, the other people stared at him in unison. Their curiosity temporarily overcame their fear.
The performance along the way did make it difficult for everyone to not be curious about the nature of Chi Ting's previous work.
It was okay to fight, but he could actually know what type of blood it was just by smelling? Was he a policeman?
Chi Ting didn't seem to notice the questioning eyes. He waved his hand to signal for the three people to follow him. "In fact, it doesn't matter whether it is assimilation or murder. We will know after confirming it."
"Confirm? How to confirm it?" After hearing Chi Ting say that the puddle over there was human blood, Li Tao felt a bit repulsed and didn't want to go over. Then when he looked up, he found that Chi Ting had walked to the door of Room 1002. Such a familiar picture made him instantly react. "Hey, Brother Chi, you don't mean to—Okay, you just kicked it in again."
In the end, he found that he was subconsciously a bit numb to such a picture.
Chi Ting kicked open the door and stood there without moving, as if carefully examining the scene inside.
Soon, he turned slightly sideways and showed the scene inside in front of everyone. "Just see it for yourself."
At this time, a gust of wind passed by. The smell from inside the house was pushed straight into the hallway along with the wide open door.
Such a strong smell of carrion, accompanied by the visual impact of the bloody flesh, made the three people still standing at the entrance of the stairs clearly had dilated pupils. After a few seconds, they all bent over and vomited helplessly.
Perhaps they only saw some blood at a glance and the rest of the picture was instinctively blocked under the body's protective mechanism. Even so, the floor that had been stained by the pool of blood was engraved too deeply into people's hearts. Just imagining what might've happened in this room made all the cells in their bodies resist.
Chi Ting stood in front of a scene that was like a large-scale murder case and his expression remained unchanged.
Chi Ting stroked his chin thoughtfully, and observed every detail in the room calmly. Finally, he gave a statement. "Fan Pengyue should've been chased by something, and it wasn't just one. I ran back to my own home. Unfortunately, it seemed that it was useless to run back. It might be a curse or it might be the system judgment you mentioned. In short, there was no corpse left in the end."
He paused for a moment when he said this. Finally, he sighed slowly. "It is a bit miserable. If there was even one finger left, I could help save him."
The others originally calmed down a bit after throwing up. Then when he heard Chi Ting say 'curse' and 'no corpse left', their faces suddenly turned white.
Li Tao put on a mask of pain the whole time. This was until he heard Chi Ting say the last sentence. Finally, he couldn't hold back, "Brother, are you thinking about how to let people go into the ground in peace?"
Chi Ting wanted to tell him that 'religious ceremonies to help the soul find peace' and 'rest in peace' were two different concepts. Then he turned around and realized something when he saw the faces that were completely drained of blood. "Oh yes, you guys are from peaceful times… you can't see this."
As he said that, he closed the crumbling door very neatly and stopped after making sure that it was tightly sealed. He pointed to the blood on the ground and reiterated. "Do you believe it now? It is human blood."
"I… believe it, I believe it." Li Tao didn't dare touch the bloody railing and weakly supported himself on the wall. "This floor is really problematic. Why don't we stop here today? Go back and examine it. See if we can know what death rule Fan Pengyue triggered.
Chi Ting asked strangely, "Why must it be because of a death rule?"
Li Tao was stunned by the question. He was obviously surprised about how an old player like Chi Ting could ask such a question.
He immediately thought of some other things downstairs that were mentioned by Chi Ting, and his attention was distracted. He couldn't help smiling bitterly. "In non-survival and confrontation type instances, there are very few hard indicators of combat effectiveness. Knowing the death rules and avoiding violating will often leave a way for ordinary players to survive. If Fan Pengyue didn't encounter an accident due to triggering the death rules, it can only be said that the designer of this instance… doesn't want people to go out alive from the beginning."
He exhaled deeply and sounded a bit helpless. "After all, people who can awaken a combat talent are rare."'
Chi Ting was new to this world. He wasn't very clear about the situation in this unlimited flow world, but he understood what Li Tao said.
In the apocalypse world where he lived, except for a small number of people who awakened various abilities, most of them were still ordinary people struggling to survive in a desperate situation. It was precisely for this reason that those with special powers were called the last hope for protecting humanity.
It was a pity…
By the time Li Tao's senses returned, he found that Chi Ting had walked to his side at some point and gently patted his shoulder.
The moment their eyes met, the light that fell into his eyes was still dazzling. It added a bit of unprecedented tenderness.
"Don't worry. Even if the instance designer you mentioned really doesn't want to leave a way for ordinary players to survive, I will protect you and allow you to leave safely." Chi Ting's eyes smiled slightly, the corners of his mouth as indifferent and gentle as ever. "It isn't a secret. My greatest wish is world peace. I might've failed once, but at least this time—"
He stared blankly at Li Tao. His slow words fell into the silent space, causing the surrounding temperature, which had already dropped to freezing, to drop several more degrees.
His words were like the devil's raving. "At least this time… everything that gets in my way will die."