I Forged the Myth of the Ancient Overlords
Chapter 757 - 757 756. The Monster in the Wardrobe_1

Chapter 757: 756. The Monster in the Wardrobe_1 Chapter 757: 756. The Monster in the Wardrobe_1 Lu Ban’s bed was immaculate.

There were no miscellaneous items, no trash, not even dust—a trait consistent with people who are slightly off mentally, similar to someone who could murder while listening to the “Ode to Joy.”

There were no spiders under the bed, and no dolls either.

He opened his wardrobe, which contained very simple clothing. With one glance, you could see everything. Attractive people don’t need fancy clothes to enhance themselves; a plain T-shirt can be just as trendy.

Among the clothes, Lu Ban spotted a doll and picked it up.

The doll was made up like a clown, with garish and yet faint makeup; its mouth curled up in a comical and eerie smile.

Nowadays, such a doll definitely wouldn’t be as beloved as a Psyduck, but ten or so years ago, kids quite liked them. What exactly had changed in aesthetic tastes, Lu Ban couldn’t say.

“Why did you appear under my bed?”

Lu Ban inquired of it.

But the doll did not respond, simply lying there quietly.

Lu Ban remembered that his initial exploration rate was only 30%. Utterly common, just completing the task without anything special.

In the Silent Lands’ quests, reaching around seventy or eighty percent exploration typically unveiled the outline of events, creeping past ninety percent generally meant touching upon the truth, and any score above one hundred suggested glimpsing at the trace of some indescribable, great existence behind the event, or it denoted a decisive impact on the development of the Foreign Domain.

So, what could he have gained if his initial mission had attained a higher rate of exploration?

Even though the mission couldn’t be restarted now, Lu Ban could still play the supernatural game.

Of course, before trying it, Lu Ban had already roughly contemplated what he might gain.

Firstly, the Lu Ban of that time had no idea that anomalous objects like those in the Midnight Cinema existed in this world, that these distorted rules were present in every corner of human civilization. Clearly, the game that counted heartbeats was among them.

“No-Return Alley” and [Travelers] clearly were also physical manifestations of similar anomalous objects.

If Lu Ban’s exploration rate had been a bit higher, he probably would have grasped this layer, at which point he conservatively estimated that the exploration rate would have already hit seventy percent.

Digging deeper would likely reveal the doll’s true nature, as well as the origin, rules, and methods to counter these anomalous objects.

What Lu Ban needed to explore was this very aspect.

As it appeared, the game didn’t lead to death; those toys, even if they failed the mission, would only wake up halfway and be scared for a while.

Possibly because it was a game world constructed by Lu Ban, where reality aligns with his perceptions—he hadn’t died playing the game, so the players wouldn’t either.

Alternatively, maybe the supernatural game itself isn’t highly dangerous. After all, it was a [Mortal]-level game; perhaps even in failure, one would just be haunted by evil spirits and suffer a drop in sanity.

Therefore, Lu Ban decided to give it a try himself.

Nighttime.

This time, Lu Ban didn’t prepare garlic or salt; he watched the latest horror movie as a pre-sleep entertainment. Regrettably, whether it was because his influence on the film industry was too substantial, recent horror films lacked something essential, prioritizing special effects over atmosphere, leaving Lu Ban unsatisfied.

Approaching midnight, he turned off the lamp and lay down on the bed.

As the moment for the bell to ring arrived, Lu Ban closed his eyes and began counting his heartbeats.

Having experienced it once already, he found it easy to enter that fleeting state.

However, Lu Ban was now able to detach his consciousness. He could perceive something enveloping him as he counted the heartbeats. It was like flowing water seeping over his body, seemingly extracting memories from his consciousness.

In this state, Lu Ban’s perception of the outside world grew significantly weaker. The noises from the night-life in the neighborhood could hardly reach his ears, and he couldn’t control his own body. His consciousness was severed from his body by these things.

At that moment, Lu Ban’s detached consciousness saw his wardrobe quietly opening.

From within the wardrobe, a dark creature slowly crawled out.

It was taller than the average human, but slender, as if it was all skin and bones. When Lu Ban looked at its head, there were only two black hollows where eyes should be, not so much a skull, as it did not resemble a human’s; it looked more like a humanoid creature.

It made its way to Lu Ban’s bedside and bent down to look at him.

With its head lowered, the monster got closer and closer, its upper body nearly forming a right angle.

The creature reached out towards Lu Ban, gently brushing over the invisible layer enveloping Lu Ban. Suddenly, Lu Ban saw a distortion in the space around him as the creature seemed to be devouring the invisible substance, sucking it into those two large hollows.

Lu Ban saw his breathing even out, his expression settling somewhat. The creature straightened up, preparing to sneak back into the wardrobe.

At this moment, Lu Ban’s hand suddenly lifted, grabbing the other.

“Wait a second,”

Lu Ban opened his eyes, he saw the eerie creature emit a deflating ‘puff puff’ sound, then quickly wither away. In the space around, it appeared as though an invisible force was circling, before it dove back into the wardrobe.

Slam—

The wardrobe doors made a loud noise, and Lu Ban, glancing at the skin that was turning to smoke and dissipating in his hand, decisively opened the wardrobe door.

But there was nothing inside the wardrobe, only Lu Ban’s usual clothes.

He searched but found no dolls or spiders, or any other things designed to scare people.

“Gone?”

Lu Ban frowned slightly.

He began to understand that this thing was likely triggered by the counting of heartbeats, an odd entity. As for what it had just been doing…

Lu Ban recalled that while the creature was absorbing him, he had thoughts of fear and anxiety surface, tense emotions, and due to the ambiguous external stimuli, it triggered an even stronger stress response, like the panicked consciousness when experiencing sleep paralysis and hearing unsettling sounds that shouldn’t be there.

These negative emotions, drawn out by the invisible substance covering Lu Ban, became fodder, swallowed by the creature.

“So, this is a creature that feeds on human fear?” Lu Ban speculated.

“By playing this game, it is summoned forth, and then, the creature creates fear, feasts, and leaves?”

“Then, are the images seen by the person playing the game just hallucinations?”

At this point, he recalled a key element of the game was to look under the bed, but the creature obviously hadn’t crawled under there. What was the connection then?

Lu Ban looked under the bed and found a pristine, dust-free space, with a Lulu the Clown doll lying there, bearing a ridiculous smile.

Clearly, this was a sign of the creature’s visit.

Or rather, was this what the creature left behind after it devoured Lu Ban’s fear… its excrement?

Lu Ban looked at the doll in his hand and immediately threw it to the ground.