AnalogHorror: Rule Kaidan 4016
Chapter 569 - 257: Shocking Change in the Passage_2

Chapter 569: Chapter 257: Shocking Change in the Passage_2

"That wind... It passed right through Liangzi?!"

"No, that’s not it! Damn—I’ve slipped through the layer!"

Lin Yi instantly came to his senses, but before he could react, the violent wind blew him backward, and at that moment, relying on his strong core strength, he twisted his body on the stairs and then fell to the ground, narrowly avoiding a dreadful blow to the back of his head.

However, before he could catch his breath, he found his hand pressing into splashing water...

"Whoosh whoosh whoosh—"

The fierce wind had moved away from him, but the sound of flowing water now reached his ears.

The stairs... the stairs were flowing with water!

His palm went through the splashing water to touch the submerged steps, only these weren’t ordinary stairs but rather stone slabs made incredibly smooth by the flowing water, yet pitted with countless tiny, uneven holes!

He tried to stand up, only to find that as he straightened his back a bit, he was immediately washed over by that powerful wind again!

The wind was still there!

Only, due to a difference in elevation, that layer of airflow was half a meter above his head!

As long as he lay down, the wind couldn’t touch him!

But... what kind of wind was this?!

This was supposed to be the Student Passage, right?!

"Student Passage...?!"

His pupils trembled violently, as if recalling something, he tried to anchor his position, but the environment didn’t afford him any chance to focus on himself.

The wind above his head rolled over like waves, similar to the machines that spray mist on hot days in tourist attractions, as if they’d been turned upside down by the wind.

Lin Yi heard more clanging of chains, that sound... right above his head!

It was the wind!

The wind blowing past the incandescent lights above!

It had to be the wind!

The space above the Student Passage was filled with incandescent lights, which, like a field of stars, would undoubtedly become his greatest anchor point at this moment!

Just dreaming in broad daylight might not be enough to anchor himself back, but with a light from a normal layer, it would be different!

At this moment, he felt like a person caught in a rapid who had just spotted a tree branch on the shore—overjoyed with the discovery, he swiftly looked up.

"Clang clang..."

Before his eyes appeared a broken Human Sculpture with its neck twisted, its gray stone eyes staring dead at him.

"?!"

Lin Yi was startled, his body unstable, nearly slipping and falling down.

His gaze drifted, witnessing a scene so terrifying that the term skin-crawling didn’t even do it justice!

The lights that were once like stars had completely vanished, replaced by countless broken Human Sculptures, their bodies locked with iron chains, hanging overhead in the passage like lamps. The chains clanked in the howling wind, the terrifying and strong gusts sweeping over their bodies like blades, occasionally stripping pieces from them...

"Clang clang... Clang clang..."

The entire passage was hung with an unknown number of Human Sculptures that seemed to exist somewhere between "life" and "death"!

[Lin Yi...]

[Quick, tell us where you are...]

[Hurry...]

That Human Sculpture closest to Lin Yi suddenly spoke in human tongue, smiling sinisterly at Lin Yi.

It seemed extremely eager for Lin Yi to anchor it away!

[Lin Yi...]

[Lin Yi... hehehe...]

[Take us with you...]

[Or—stay with us...]

[Hehehe...]

[Lin Yi... Lin Yi...]

[You can’t leave... You can’t leave now—]

The more feral the wind, the more rapid the water, the clearer became the sound of the chains, like some eerie music hammering against one’s bones, singing a dreadfully sorrowful dirge.

"No... no no no..." Lin Yi withdrew his gaze, refusing to look at them any further.

Yet when he pulled his gaze back, he discovered the environment around him seemed to have changed again...

The light in the passage was gradually diminishing, darkness pressing down on him as if it had substance, after the incandescent light vanished, it seemed as if even the light sources were disappearing...

He found that the entire Student Passage no longer existed, or rather, he had fallen out of the Student Passage’s layer, as if someone had pushed him from the surface of the water down below.

The walls surrounding him were no longer pockmarked yellow stones and bricks but almost smooth rock walls, filled with flowing water that seemed to have no source.

Thick moss covered where the steps met the wall, and the smooth walls occasionally bore cracks from which shadows emitted a faint green light, as if some luminescent algae was wriggling inside, but on closer inspection, there was nothing, though from the corner of one’s eye they flickered like will-o’-the-wisps.

The wind wailed from upfront, seemingly carrying with it fragmented droplets of water.

Lin Yi’s heart sank to the bottom, but he quickly rallied his spirit.

He knew the more real the scenery appeared, the deeper his resonance with this layer became; once he truly arrived in this layer, the hope of returning would become bleak.

"The anchor! I must find the anchor!" Lin Yi’s thoughts raced, this was no longer a simple case of Phantom Vision; the flowing water at his feet and the shattered droplets, the howling gale, everything was acting directly on his five senses, rather than just an illusion.

If it was an illusion, he simply had to daydream about Boss to divert his attention, but he had just been hit with a series of blows from the environment, missing the optimal moment to daydream about Boss.

He could actually use his Identity information for anchoring, but the problem was that he had not lost track of himself... anchoring would only allow those Human Sculptures hanging overhead to exploit him!

"There must be some other way!"

"The key is... I need an anchor!"

"So what can serve as an anchor?"

Lin Yi thought feverishly.

The so-called "anchor" was an element that could determine my "position."

"If the layer has a boundary, then two layers need to touch each other for me to transfer! So what I need now is... ’to go back the way I came’?!"

"The wind!"

"The wind is the key!"

Lin Yi took a deep breath, then slowly stood up.

Ferocious winds blew towards him like a spiral, constantly beating against his body, trying to break his spine!

He squinted his eyes and then faintly saw a figure in the distance...

It was Wei Liang.

Wei Liang was still ascending step by step, seemingly unaffected by the wind!

"It’s the ’napkin’!"

Lin Yi remembered what Tian Bufan had once said to him; he and Wei Liang were originally on the same layer of paper, but he had received, and even accepted, Contamination from another layer!

So this eerie place had overwritten his original layer and was attempting to use his attempt to establish an Anchor to follow him back to his layer!

He found his anchor; those battered Human Sculptures bound by chains, fluttering in the wind, had found their way back!

This was a dead end.

Either Lin Yi wouldn’t return, or... they would all return together!

[Lin Yi...]

[Hehehe...]

[Lin Yi... where are you?]

[Hurry back... Hurry back...]

[I’m called Lin Yi... I’m in the classroom... My name is Lin Yi...]

[Hehe...]

As if responding to Lin Yi’s thoughts, the Human Sculptures laid their cards out openly, jeering and stirring up trouble, like countless forlorn spirits hanging in the wild hills, their eerie laughter rising and falling like some demonic chant.

Lin Yi clenched his teeth, enduring the onslaught of the fierce wind, trying to block out the noise, but he couldn’t isolate it.

Watching Wei Liang’s retreating figure gradually disappear, he eventually slumped powerlessly onto the steps.

But just then, as he touched the steps, a burst of brilliant inspiration struck him!

He had thought of something that could serve as an anchor!

This anchor did not require knowing where he was, nor did it need Identity information; no, this might not even be an anchor, but it could take him out of here!