AnalogHorror: Rule Kaidan 4016
Chapter 911 - 421 [I Saw Myself]_2

Chapter 911: Chapter 421 [I Saw Myself]_2

That head seemed to be caught off guard by Lin Yi’s sudden attention, freezing at first. Then, the eyes revealed a fervent, manic smile. Its lips slowly curled upward, resembling an inverted grin.

[Lin Yi, oh Lin Yi...]

[You’ve finally noticed me...]

[Take me away... You can, now!]

Above the severed head was a body riddled with fissures, like a shattered porcelain. It stretched out an arm, reaching for Lin Yi, though Lin Yi instinctively dodged it.

[Hahaha...]

[Hehehe...]

[Hehehehehe...]

Ethereal, eerie laughter: distant and close, encircling him like an invasive spell.

He shuddered violently. The hand stroking his back wasn’t Li Huiyuan’s—not remotely. It emerged from one of those grotesque, hanging, fractured statues!

Suddenly aware, he realized his surroundings had already metamorphosed. Somehow, he now stood inside that damned abandoned classroom once again. Its cracked window bore a horrific splintered scar, resembling the wound behind Class Teacher-040.

A piercing cold wind raged through the shattered window, tearing at the books on the shelves. Pages fluttered frantically, their "whirring" indistinguishable from crashing ocean waves or the tempest raging just beyond.

Suspended from the ceiling were countless broken statues, swinging with the fissures. Chains clanked and clashed, resonating like galloping warhorses.

[You said you’d come to take us away...]

[Lin Yi, oh Lin Yi...]

[You promised...]

[Take us away...]

[TAKE US AWAY!!!]

Lin Yi’s head throbbed painfully, spinning uncontrollably. The broken statues’ chatter filled his ears with a chaos that drowned out comprehension entirely.

In the haze, he seemingly heard the murmurs morphing into cryptic syllables—obscure, incomprehensible, and bizarrely intricate, much like the Iron Law of the Night Watchman...

[Ching-ching-ching... ching-ching-ching...]

Gale-force winds whipped through; chains swung wildly. The entire derelict classroom spun chaotically, spiraling in sync with Lin Yi’s dizzying consciousness.

The room seemed to have lost its equilibrium—a battered ship lurching amidst oceanic turmoil. Bookshelves slid askew, caught in the erratic motions.

Twisting, elongating, morphing, vibrating...

The abandoned classroom contorted grotesquely, stretching like melted caramel, its window cracks widening, spreading like gaping wounds.

The statues’ eerie hum—part chant, part call—twisted and stretched in an unimaginable auditory distortion.

Amidst his disorientation, Lin Yi squinted past the fissures and saw... countless similarly dilapidated classrooms!

The expanding window cracks began intertwining, their distortions linking. Somehow, they started forming connections...

And then, the voices seemed to transform...

["Når den svarte... månen vissner...kommer tilbake fra det... uendelige dyphavet..."]

["Når den svarte månen vissner...kommer tilbake fra det uendelige dyphavet..."]

[...]

["This is...!"]

["This is...?!"]

Lin Yi suddenly snapped into clarity. The auditory murmur charged him with adrenaline, pulling him from his stupor. He locked his gaze upon the abyssal fissure and saw it transform into... a pathway!

At one end of the gateway, the outline of that sinister book flickered faintly—**"Lawmaker’s Words"!!!**

But before Lin Yi could react with terror or awe, a spine-chilling surge ran through his body like lightning, sending icy currents stabbing his nerves!

He looked toward the other end of the passage—

On that side was...

**Himself.**

The version of him gripping the bookshelf, lost within the Library’s first-floor Dream Study Sector.

[I saw... myself.]

A complete spatial-temporal paradox imploded within his consciousness. The impossibility clawed at his psyche like a twisted metaphor—perhaps akin to shoving shredded radishes up one’s nostrils, then vigorously scrambling their brains inside out.

Confusion, bewilderment, absurdity, revulsion—they overwhelmed even fear, subduing its dreadful weight, perhaps in mercy to his cognition.

In that moment, he felt as though he had become one of the fractured statues himself.

This time, seemed to be that time.

He couldn’t ascertain whether he’d already drowned within the Library, and this was merely a hallucination spawned from encountering the broken statues...

["Time!"]

["Dream Building!!"]

["Lost within Dreams!!"]

Suddenly, awareness surged back!

["TIME!!"]

He instinctively looked down at his wristwatch.

Fortunately, it remained intact!

And the time was...

[8:36!]

["8:36! Excellent, it’s classroom time!"]

That confirmation from his Time Anchor shattered the surreal authenticity of the nightmare. The oppressive atmosphere rapidly receded like a tide retreating, dissipating entirely.

At that precise moment, Wei Liang’s voice boomed from somewhere incomprehensible. It resonated like a monumental bell, rattling Lin Yi’s mind to its core.

["Old Lin, don’t forget to grab a few books for me, yeah! You know what I mean!"]

Wei Liang’s voice delivered the final, decisive blow that snapped through Lin Yi’s dream-built despair.

Lin Yi jolted awake instantly. Blinked once, twice, and the distorted world evaporated like vapor, leaving him back in the bookshelves’ area.

["Huff... Huff... Huff..."] His breathing was ragged, and he hastily yelled back: ["Got it!"]

Beside him, Li Huiyuan—still on lookout—was utterly flabbergasted.

["Liang Liangzi wants... what books?! Books for... intimacy?!..."] Her expression shifted subtly, looking incredulously at Lin Yi.

Groggily recovering from his previous daze, Lin Yi burst into laughter as he saw her muttering, replying, ["Not ’books for intimacy,’ but ’grab some books.’ Geez, don’t get weird with it!"]

["Oh!"] Li Huiyuan blinked, gasping with widened eyes, her gaze sparkling.

Lin Yi froze momentarily, realizing something, and quickly turned away, presenting his back to Li Huiyuan.

["Hey! Don’t be like that! You’ve been seen already; don’t play coy now!"] Li Huiyuan grouched. ["Stop being stingy!"]

Lin Yi focused harder on adjusting his clothes, movements growing clumsier. He felt her heated gaze drilling through him, unsettlingly akin to some cinematic fixation—but with reversed genders between the roles.

As he tugged his shirt over his head, his eyes caught a peculiar sight—the sudden presence... of a ring on his finger.

["No way?!"]

["The Ouroboros Ring?!"]

["This...?!"]

["When did I even put this on?!"]

Chilled sweat streamed down Lin Yi’s face. Forgetting his half-worn shirt entirely, he delved into his backpack.

The stone box containing the Ouroboros Ring remained tightly sealed, its clasp still locked—but somehow, the ring had attached itself to his hand?!

["How is this happening?!"] For the first time, Lin Yi felt the true, palpable terror of confronting an Extraordinary Creation. His entire body stiffened as he felt the ring’s tangible coolness, unnervingly real, letting fear blossom into an ominous fog in his chest.

Removing the Ouroboros Ring, he shoved it back into the stone box and swallowed hard.

For the first time, his Dream Building had generated such chaotic, multidimensional imagery. It seemed as though the dream had permeated reality itself, revealing a glimpse of **his past self**...

There was a surreal déjà vu—similar to Zhuang Zhou dreaming of a butterfly—but thankfully, with his watch, he escaped the loop of [Is the butterfly dreaming of me, or am I dreaming of the butterfly?]

However, Dream Building doesn’t simply manifest without reason. Could it be that the abandoned classroom... truly had some connection to the Library?