AnalogHorror: Rule Kaidan 4016
Chapter 690 - 316 "Banquet" and "Guests"_2

Chapter 690: Chapter 316 "Banquet" and "Guests"_2

Lin Yi tried to focus and look, and then he saw the faint ripples under the grey mist at the edge of the stands on the first floor.

"Water?!" He exclaimed, "Why is there accumulated water?"

He looked towards Xia Lian, trying to find an answer on her face.

"Don’t look at me, I don’t know the principle either," Xia Lian shrugged, "I only know it’s part of ’the process.’"

"Don’t worry too much. Even if it’s the first floor of the stands, it’s still much higher than the ground; the water won’t spread up here."

Lin Yi, however, did not take in the comforting words from Xia Lian. It seemed he thought of something and hurried to the railing of the first-floor stands.

"Hey, what are you doing, eager to die?!" Xia Lian, with her quick reflexes, grabbed at Lin Yi, but just as she was about to catch him, she saw a blur of afterimages, and then Lin Yi’s figure disappeared.

"?"

Xia Lian froze for a moment and then found Lin Yi lying on the railing, his eyes fixed on the outer wall of the first floor of the stands.

"So it is this! Moss!"

Lin Yi muttered to himself, his gaze flitting.

’The inner walls of the Giant Dome also have moss...’

’I felt there were some irregularities earlier, I should have noticed it... I overlooked it...’

’So ’water’ really does appear in the campus area!’

’With this, the appearance of moss in many areas of the campus seems to also be explained!’

’Moss on the outer wall of the Teaching Building Corridor Bridge, moss on the steps of the Teaching Building, moss in the passageway of the Cafeteria...’

’Too much, too much... The moss in those areas seems to be similar to the situation here!’

’When the Grey Mist invades, it drags the entire campus into the ’water’ of a certain layer!’

’So, the Experience Students on the stands are not simply being used as bait to attract the arrival of the Angel Sculpture, but are also being used as a cognitive anchor, keeping the constantly sinking Giant Dome stable on the ’campus’ layer?’

Then if that’s the case... where exactly is the campus itself?

’Is the entire campus situated over the sea?!’

’Did I have the wrong idea from the start?’

’It’s not that the Art Building’s layer is abnormal, but the layer of the entire campus itself is odd, like an iceberg floating on water, and the campus is under the water. The so-called ’normal’ part that protrudes above the water is... the campus!’

’And when anomalies appear in the layer, the water level scale line fluctuates on the layer, so at times, ’seeping water’ phenomena occur on the campus...’

’If this hypothesis stands, then the ’moss’ would be another kind of ’coordinate’ within the campus!’

Just then, he noticed that there were some figures under the water...

He blinked, but then found that the figures under the water had disappeared.

"Is there something under the water?" Lin Yi said softly, his tone carrying some uncertainty.

"Under the water?" Li Huiyuan widened her eyes, constantly looking at the water surface shrouded in grey mist.

The water surface now had completely submerged the field and stood about an ankle’s height above it.

"No... are you sure you didn’t see it wrong?" Li Huiyuan looked at Lin Yi doubtfully.

Lin Yi fell silent for a moment: "Then perhaps... I saw it wrong."

Before the words finished, some commotion came from not far from the stands, and Lin Yi looked in the direction of the sound, only to realize that the disturbance originated from the safety passage.

No, not the safety passage, at least, not the one they had used when they came.

Inside the Giant Dome, there were numerous safety passages, and now a part of them was emitting strange noises.

Quickly, a dense crowd of people surged out from the passage. They were wearing green school uniforms, unmistakably—

"Art Students?!" Lin Yi involuntarily exclaimed, and what’s more, he also saw Yanjing Ming among those art students, and... Mao Feiyang!

"Maozi?!"

Lin Yi was both shocked and delighted, and he really wanted to shout a greeting from afar, but he quickly realized something was not quite right. After Maozi and the others came out, they didn’t start to take their seats like they were in the Giant Dome, but continued walking in a certain direction. After some time, they finally began to sit down.

"It seems like what ’Maozi’ is ’seeing’ is different from what I’m seeing, he seems to be unable to see me!"

"Wait!"

"Weren’t Maozi and the others just walking down those stairs, being chased by the Sneering Angel? They kept walking and walking, and ended up in the Gymnasium?"

Lin Yi felt his brain was having a hard time keeping up.

What’s going on, are the Art Building and the Gymnasium connected?

Or is it that the staircase that seems to be a "staircase" has actually become some sort of "passage" on a layer level?

Filled with doubt, Lin Yi decided to watch patiently.

"Are they the art students?" Li Huiyuan looked at Maozi and the others, her eyes full of curiosity.

Xia Lian nodded: "A meal that is too rich, it’s better to invite them to eat together, so as not to waste even a bit... It has begun."

Lin Yi perked up upon hearing this and quickly surveyed his surroundings.

At this moment, the entire Giant Dome, besides the stands, was enveloped by grey mist.

Under the grey mist, the Rage Angels have taken shape but were still wrapped in their wings, their forms slightly trembling, rhythmically undulating as if they were people deep in sleep.

Above the grey mist, the Pseudo-Human Sculptures that were strung together with iron chains, after absorbing the grey mist, became agitated. One after another, they struggled to free themselves from the chains, but on those cold, metallic chains gleamed faint symbols that seemed to fall between cuneiform, oracle bone script, or some kind of twisted numerals.

When these symbols appeared, the accumulated grey mist around them would collapse as if it had been scattered.

These symbol-like texts seemed to be some type of "font" with supernatural traits, akin to the magical talismans in Huaxia mythology or the spells in European magical civilization, containing an exceptionally special supernatural power.

"Time is up!" Boss’s cool voice echoed within the Giant Dome. She stood at a place higher than the second level of the stands, on a protrusion of the wall beneath the dome of the Giant Dome, holding an old kerosene lamp in her palm, like a female general heading out to war, "Form up! Lift the lamps!"

At a height similar to where she stood, numerous Physical Education Teachers each emerged holding old kerosene lamps, forming a ring of light above the Giant Dome composed of old lamps.

For some reason, Boss’s turn and the movement of opening her arms, coupled with her cool voice, strangely reminded one of Yellow Brows Great King in Little Western Heaven declaring "Having seen the future, why not worship," and together with a circle of Physical Education Teachers holding "Magic Artifacts," it didn’t look like a Gymnasium at all, but rather Big Electro Temple...

Moreover, with these people standing in that circle, for some reason, it also gave Lin Yi a feeling akin to a graveyard of the deceased...

The next moment, Boss and the Physical Education Teachers began to speak slowly, an ancient and mysterious chant slowly unfolding above the Giant Dome like an old scroll...

Their voices mixed with the rushing wind, blended with the rippling water, as if they had been brought forth from some fragment of a broken era, slowly echoing within the Giant Dome. That voice, however, was strangely both unfamiliar and familiar to Lin Yi...

All the Sports Students quieted down, taking their seats nearby, listening to that voice as if they were receiving ancient teachings.

Gradually, Lin Yi also picked up a familiar rhythm from it, what seemed to be the Cautions that both the Night Watchman and Mu Daxian often spoke of—Cautions from the "Iron Law of the Night Watchman":

"「De som jager lyset i tåke blir til slutt fantomer」!"

"[Those Who Chase the Light Through the Fog End Up as Phantoms]"