Chapter 188: Inner World! (Fourth Update)

With the boss defeated, the water in the hallway receded, the doors unlocked, and all those uncanny phenomena vanished into thin air.

Only then did Fang Qi gather his gear and head downstairs.

Silent Hill was riddled with all manner of bizarre disturbances; many paths were completely sealed off, and in some places, massive, gaping chasms tore through the earth.

Thus, though the town was by no means small, the viable routes to one's destination were few and far between.

While the possibility of finding alternative passages remained, Fang Qi consistently followed the path etched in his memory.

After all, he was a purist dedicated to a flawless recreation of the original storyline.

The town’s mist seemed to grow thicker, the atmosphere shifting into something increasingly sinister.

It was a deathly, suffocating silence.

"Lakeside Park?" Nalan Mingxue murmured from the sofa, sipping her cola while her eyes remained fixed on the unfolding plot. "Has he finally found that 'special place' mentioned in the letter?"

"What special place?" Dong Qingli and Zhang Wanyu huddled close beside her, the large, plush sofa proving spacious enough to accommodate a crowd—mostly girls, of course.

"Isn't the protagonist here to look for his wife?" Nalan Mingxue analyzed. "His wife wrote in the letter that she would be waiting for him at their 'special place' in Silent Hill."

"...You actually remember the plot?!" Not just Dong Qingli, but the Royal Princess sitting a bit further away, Xu Zixin, and the girls from both the Shengjing and Xiyi Academies all turned their gazes upon her, faces painted with sheer astonishment.

One had to understand they were nearly frightened out of their wits; who among them had the mental clarity to track the storyline?

"He—the protagonist—gathered all those clues just to find a way out and reach this place since every other road was blocked," Su Tianji said, watching the screen where a figure seemed to materialize within the heavy fog, hands resting on the railing of Lakeside Park, appearing to be a woman.

"Did he find her?"

"Hmm?" A spark of animation returned to many in the crowd as they strained their eyes at the screen.

What appeared was a blonde, blue-eyed woman clad in a scarlet uniform—a rather well-featured foreign beauty.

The scene transitioned once more into a cinematic interlude.

"It's not her..." Upon hearing the male lead’s explicit denial on the grand screen, a collective wave of disappointment washed through everyone, as they had thought he had finally found her after enduring such arduous trials.

A shared sense of dejection took hold; at this moment, everyone yearned for the protagonist to find his wife quickly and escape this wretched place, deeply empathizing with his plight.

This place was too unnatural! Even they had no inkling of how to survive it, let alone a mere ordinary mortal like the protagonist.

"You look exactly like my late wife. It's unbelievable. You could be twins! Your face, your voice—everything is identical. Only your hair color and clothes are different."

Reading those words on the screen, the audience felt the atmosphere grow increasingly uncanny—first a corpse resembling the protagonist, and now a woman identical to his wife...

"Why must this game be so disturbing!" Xu Zixin pressed a hand to her forehead, feeling that as the exploration progressed, the shroud of mystery before them was slowly compounding rather than dissipating.

"Could it be an illusion?" Dong Qingli ventured. "A hallucination born of the protagonist's desperate longing for his wife?"

Yet they soon discovered that this woman was flesh and blood, not some ethereal mirage.

Maria—her name bore only a slight variance from his wife's name, Mary, but their temperaments were entirely distinct; the former was warm and provocative, while the latter had been far more reserved.

"Think carefully, is there any other 'special place'?" Just as James lamented why reaching this spot had still yielded no sign of his wife, Maria spoke, making the atmosphere stranger still, as though she intimately knew another "special place" ought to exist.

"Why does it feel like this woman appeared here specifically to prompt James?" Nalan Mingxue sat back on the sofa, her slender brows furrowing as her legs swung idly, lost in deep contemplation.

Over by the Shengjing and Xiyi Academy delegations, hushed discussions broke out.

Ye Fenghuo remarked, "If it were me, I would have left long ago. I wouldn't want to stay in this place for a single second."

Ying Zongxuan countered, "That's why you're not even equal to an ordinary man. Watch closely! If he can do it, why can't we?"

In truth, Silent Hill 2 was not merely exceptional in its rendering of a terrifying atmosphere; its narrative was equally magnificent.

All the players watching Fang Qi’s live stream felt as though they were viewing an epic film. From the very beginning, the letter from "heaven" established a suspenseful aura that compelled one to investigate further, and now, as events grew more bizarre, it only intensified their desire to see how the tale would conclude.

It was far more than a simple scare.

Of course, the journey itself remained terrifying, and as Silent Hill's most iconic tumor-headed nurses began to prowl, the spectacle grew even more spine-chilling.

By this time, Fang Qi had been streaming for over two hours.

When he first started playing, Fang Qi naturally felt little dread, but the longer he remained immersed in this ambience, the more he felt the hairs on his arms stand on end.

"The door is locked again!"

The audience watched as Fang Qi maneuvered James into a sealed room, only for the door to suddenly slam shut and lock.

Several bloated, contorted monstrosities, sporting hideous, gaping maws, hung from the ceiling by their limbs, crawling relentlessly toward Fang Qi along the rafters.

"What kind of monster is that?!" Dong Qingli cried out, shielding her face and refusing to look; how could such an abominable creature exist in this world?

Su Tianji also felt her scalp tingle with aversion; it was not merely frightening, but it evoked the image of vile insects crawling through sludge, a thing one wouldn't wish to touch under any circumstance.

To perish at the hands of such a creature was a chilling thought indeed.

Fortunately, Fang Qi’s skills were sharp enough, and he successfully dispatched the three monsters.

These particular creatures held a unique significance in this game, for they were the gateway through which another world would open.

The audience watched as the world on screen began to spin violently.

"What's happening?!" Dong Qingli felt her heart hammering against her ribs, even though she was merely sitting there watching in broad daylight.

"He seems to be pushed out on some sort of cart!" Nalan Mingxue kept her eyes glued to the screen, which now showed only a ceiling perspective; it was evident James was lying down, as if bound to a gurney.

Once James was wheeled out of the room and stood up, the gurney vanished, and his surroundings had completely transformed.

The previously clear weather had given way to a sudden downpour of rain.

Before him lay what appeared to be a dead end; as he pushed open the sole door, a pungent odor of rust and decay rushed out to greet him—this was no longer a normal world.

There was no fog here, yet it appeared far darker and more sinister than the world they knew.

A profound silence blanketed the internet cafe as the viewers watched the stream, seemingly terrified that a sound might disturb whatever lay in wait.

What had just occurred defied all explanation. It could not be rationalized by ordinary human logic, nor could it be accounted for by the theories of cultivators.

He had clearly watched the ceiling pass by as he was wheeled out, yet upon standing up, he was in an entirely different place.

Furthermore, the atmosphere here seemed far more surreal and twisted than Silent Hill itself.

An even weightier sense of oppression began to spread through the air.

"Where... where is this place?!" Fenghua and Yuexin wished for nothing more than to shrink into the very crevices of the sofa.

The Otherworld of Silent Hill had arrived.