AnalogHorror: Rule Kaidan 4016
Chapter 329 - 153: Phalanx of Sculptures Hits the Road_2

Chapter 329: Chapter 153: Phalanx of Sculptures Hits the Road_2

He realized that the entire world seemed elongated, and he had become just a tiny speck of dust in this vast spatial scale.

In his rapidly flickering vision, swirls of mist began to emit eerie green lights, which, astonishingly, all came from the Nocturnal species!

Countless elongated Nocturnal species hid beneath the green mist; they looked like bamboo rafts staked out there, casting their gaze down upon them.

In another layer of mist, there were figures with stiff limbs; they were the Phalanx of sculptures...

"Shh shh shh..."

"Shh shh shh..."

The sculptures within the Phalanx each stepped in their own rhythm, dragging their bodies, producing a "shh shh shh" sound across the uneven ground...

They lurked below the bamboo raft-like Nocturnal species and, like merging lanes while driving, slowly entered into the road they were on from an imaginary path parallel to theirs.

Lin Yi’s pupils shook slightly, momentarily unable to distinguish between reality and illusion.

He then realized that this skipping frame of vision was the same kind he had entered before, like an overexposed photograph turned black and white, only now the vision was not black and white due to the overwhelming contamination in his sight.

The green halos almost drowned out the black and white; the entire vision appeared as if he was amidst the Netherworld.

Combined with the ranks of the bamboo-like Nocturnal species and the sculptures marching as if accompanying a ghostly procession, there truly was a sense of decay reminiscent of "a netherworldly journey accompanied by a myriad of ghosts."

When Lin Yi noticed the Phalanx of sculptures, the "people" within it seemed to sense him too and stiffly turned their heads to look in his direction.

Lin Yi’s scalp tingled; he quickly averted his gaze.

In doing so, he fell out of that vision, the illusion of infinite extension around him rapidly regressed, retracting the fog that reached high into the sky, and the Teaching Building, which seemed stretched to the ends of the world, suddenly repositioned itself back among the thick mist, sneakily revealing its top floor.

His vision restored, Lin Yi breathed a sigh of relief.

But before he could relax, he suddenly noticed that Li Huiyuan was gripping his hand a bit tighter, as though very anxious.

And he suddenly noticed that, on the previously desolate and empty road, some sparse figures had appeared from nowhere.

These sparse figures were very close to them; some were even right beside them, stepping in rigid, fragmented strides on the cobblestone path that had yet to be lit...

Their zombie-like body shapes and eerie pacing instantly made Lin Yi realize something — "Did the human sculptures from the Phalanx enter onto this road?"

"No, it’s more like I’ve been forced into the Phalanx myself? God damn it..."

Feeling the cold aura emitted by the human sculptures around him, Lin Yi dared not even breathe loudly, his steps involuntarily restrained, like a passerby unwittingly blending into a team of mummies, struggling to act normal but the more he controlled, the more abnormal he appeared.

Rules regarding sculptures from the Art Student Rules slowly surfaced in Lin Yi’s mind, but the problem was he belonged neither to the Art Students nor was he in the Art Building, so he couldn’t use the Art Student Rules as a reference now.

The only thing he could do was to adhere to the most basic student rules.

The twelve-word survival mantra: [Do not look back], [Find streetlights], [Stay close to buildings].

"Li Huiyuan, are you okay, Li Huiyuan?"

Lin Yi whispered, turning his head slightly towards Li Huiyuan to check on her, but just as he turned, he caught sight of a pale human sculpture standing next to Li Huiyuan.

The sculpture was completely white, yet maintained a rigid posture, looking like someone who’d smeared plaster all over themselves for some performance art.

The moment Lin Yi’s gaze accidentally caught the outline of the human sculpture, he instinctively looked away.

"Don’t look at their faces!" Lin Yi told himself, one of the mechanisms of these damn sculptures was "Void Target Search". As long as you saw their faces, they would lock onto you in return and trigger some kind of killing mechanism.

"I... I’m here," Li Huiyuan’s trembling voice weakly responded.

"Keep your head down and focus on me, ignore these guys around us, and especially, don’t look at their faces."

"Okay..."

Lin Yi took a deep breath and then firmed his gaze, walking toward the gradually blurring Teaching Building.

He glanced down at his watch.

17:50.

"It’s 17:50 already..." Lin Yi’s heart gradually cooled down, slowly sinking to the depths.

As the mist thickened, he estimated the time it would take to reach the Teaching Building based on the time points when walking in the normal layer; it should also be around 17:50 at the latest, considering the mist obscuring the vision and slowing down the progress, but even if the actual situation differed from the calculation, there shouldn’t be the absurd situation of "walking for a long time with the Teaching Building still far away" like now.

The only explanation was that the campus’s layers had unknowingly dropped.

"Li Huiyuan, wait a second." In order to verify this suspicion, he called Li Huiyuan to stop and then crouched down, reaching his hands into the thick fog that had already covered his knees, touching the cobblestones laid on the road beneath his feet.

"Damn it... It really is so!"

The cobblestones his palms touched, where was there any smooth, oval regularity? They had been distorted and stretched into some kind of weird malt candy shape. Just by this touch alone, it was impossible to figure out what kind of torment these cobblestones had suffered, to end up mangled into this non-cobblestone, non-silicon putty ghostly state.

He sighed deeply and then slowly straightened up again.

Throughout the process, his vision always maintained the state of looking forward and locking firmly on the silhouette of the Teaching Building in the "distance" through the mist.

He was genuinely scared, afraid that in a "real blink of an eye", the Teaching Building would disappear completely, leaving them in a state where they couldn’t focus on the cobblestone ground beneath their feet, and where the streetlights were not lit, which is a real disaster.

What?

Focusing on the cobblestone ground under the feet?

Is this damn cobblestone even normal? Using such abnormally twisted cobblestones as an anchor to secure awareness seems like twisting the word "death" into a pretzel and slapping it onto your face.

Lin Yi’s expression grew even darker, he should have been able to sense changes in the campus’s layers, but because it wasn’t their layer that dropped but the campus’s layer they were in, and since most of his perception was used to guard against the phalanx of Human Sculptures around, he gradually neglected this type of change from the campus layer, thus falling into such a plight.

Li Huiyuan seemed to sense Lin Yi’s self-reproach and couldn’t help but speak, "Lin Yi... if it really comes down to it, just leave me behind and find a way back to the Teaching Building yourself?"

"Are you kidding?" Lin Yi interrupted her without hesitation, "I only have you as a piece now, can I possibly just hand it over to them to devour? Even if I have to, I’ll swap it for a chance to draw a chariot!"

"Relax."

Feeling the warmth from Lin Yi’s hand, Li Huiyuan pressed her lips tightly, saying no more, yet her heart was filled with warmth.

Li Huiyuan felt warmth in her heart, but Lin Yi felt coldness in his.

He might have comforted Li Huiyuan, but he couldn’t deceive himself.

Now, they were deeply trapped in a dire situation.

In 10 minutes, the campus’s streetlights would light up, but they wouldn’t need 10 minutes to be completely engulfed by the mist.

The worst part was, with the fog spreading, the campus’s layers had already fallen long ago.