"- Unbelievable, how co it’s Defu going crazy this ti?"
"- Could it be because Defu can’t enter the city? Last loop she didn’t seem to stay in the city for long..."
"- Wait a second, stop chatting, isn’t that the Winter Reverser??"
"- Ah? Really? Is the Winter Reverser that young?"
"- Seems like it, right? Could this an that Captain Cesilia from the Ship in Stone has connections with the Icebreaker Army? Can this be used as evidence?"
Although Longjing Tea and the others couldn’t see the danmaku, the live stream was actually still on.
Annan and the players could see their perspectives - but they couldn’t contact them at all.
Not only the danmaku, but even private ssages from friends and ergency calls were also disabled; even when Annan tried to issue tasks to them, there was no response at all.
If one continued to deduce based on this possibility.
The Book of the Celestial Chariot - or rather, the currently incomplete Book of the Celestial Chariot, which still lacked even a "table of contents", was not enough to support the players’ resurrection in the Otherworld instance.
You may not be in the service area.jpg
In a sense, the players should count themselves lucky that this Otherworld instance operates on a "one-day reincarnation" mode, where everyone returns to the beginning after dying.
Otherwise, sothing might have already gone wrong...
Now, with Annan outside the instance, having a God’s perspective to observe all the players... He had roughly figured out the chanism of this instance.
The traps in this instance were actually very simple.
It was the "neglect for the commonly seen" -
When Longjing Tea woke up, he was in a bathtub and seed to have taken so dicine to commit suicide; when Defu just woke up, she was in the jungle, with a dead Hunter lying under her feet; when Delicious Goose woke up, indeed it was in the swordsman dojo... but her actual location was the study room inside the swordsman dojo.
In front of her were scattered bottles of liquor, her own body reeked of alcohol... and there was that letter marked "fail".
The Wandering Child did beco a rich man, but his ho was a ss - his wife was suspected of infidelity, one of his sons was the epito of a worthless, prodigal son addicted to gambling, and his daughter had beco an ATM for her boyfriends, with a highly chaotic personal life.
- These details hidden around each person, all the players had not ntioned to others.
If connected, they would imdiately remind the players of sothing.
Longjing Tea once thought about suicide due to pressure, Defu might have blood on her hands from the Australian jungle, Delicious Goose’s most unacceptable life event was failing her college entrance exam, and the Wandering Child’s constant matchmaking failures probably stemd from his concerns about life after marriage.
These were precisely their deepest fears - things that could happen in the future, or had already happened in the past.
Even if they were unaware, they instinctively neglected it. Even when chatting with others, they would not ntion it... or perhaps they dared not to, even trying hard to forget it.
Combining this with the surface starts of those from the silver brigade, the truth was self-evident:
A horseman is a very timid and cautious race if possible, that horse girl will definitely want to escape to an uninhabited place, far from the city and closer to nature - hence, she beca a ranger in an abandoned natural park.
And Arthur Burnfang, from a very young age, believed that he would inevitably beco soone important. His desire was very strong, his personal ability outstanding, considered to be the future gold rank.
But as he grew up, for various reasons, he neither beca a gold rank nor an important person... instead, he joined the silver brigade because of his infatuation with Captain Selicia from the Ship in Stone.
Was he really so infatuated with Selicia? Even willing to give up everything he’s had until now for her?
Perhaps he was just running away.
Ofelia beca a well-known singer sought after by people because in his heart he longed for "others to like him for himself, not to chase after his lineage"; the woman who played "Lily Rasputin", who even discarded her real na, just hoped to co to a place where no one cared about her, where no one recognized her.
Elle once adored and idolized her foster father, the renowned painter Amos - and she herself was particularly fond of music. So she was extrely torn between studying music and fine arts.
Of course, Elle didn’t get to finish her struggle before she was sacrificed by Amos.
So, in this nightmare, she beca both a musician and a painter. This was the vision deep in her heart.
This was even truer for Selicia.
The players lacked a crucial piece of information because they had not witnessed the "Wolf’s Kiss," the nightmare within the nightmare.
The one who steered the Ship in Stone through the rock layers, the legendary adventurer known as the "Captain" Selicia, was once the infamous escapee of Winter... the leader of the Icebreaker Army, Solomonik!
When Selicia was still "Solomonik," he was the most loyal disciple of the Winter Reverser, Vladimir. He even knew Vladimir earlier than any of the werewolves did.
Solomonik was the child of a murderer.
His father was an assassin, and his mother was his father’s accomplice as well as a murderer. His mother was killed by one seeking revenge because their ho address was exposed when Solomonik was very young.
At that ti, Solomonik watched his mother be killed from inside a cupboard.
And his father never returned after that—judging by the tiline, his father likely died before his mother did. He was killed on a job, which emboldened the enemy to seek revenge.
The ones killed along with them included children from the sa village who had co to play at Solomonik’s house.
They were mistaken for Solomonik and killed because he had hidden himself while playing hide-and-seek, thus narrowly escaping the sa fate. This sin was then angrily attributed to Solomonik by the parents of the child.
In fact, Solomonik started to beco twisted from that mont on.
He possessed great talent in swordsmanship and magic, but his background prevented him from passing the political review of the Hand of Winter and learning the Spell of Disabling; the Swordsmanship Instructors also refused to teach him because he was the child of a murderer.
"If you learn swordsmanship, you will surely use it to kill," was the Swordsmanship Instructor’s assessnt of Solomonik.
It has to be said, the old instructor’s judgent was as sharp and accurate as his swordsmanship—for after learning swordsmanship and magic from the Winter Reverser, Solomonik did not forget to return and kill him while on the run.
The old instructor’s prophecy was indeed fulfilled, and his own body served as the evidence.
But.
Although his background prevented him from learning the Spell of Disabling... Vladimir saw his potential.
Vladimir, against all opposition, took him as his disciple and in this manner brought him into the second-tier service of the Hand of Winter.
That was actually a form of indentured service.
The second-tier mbers of the Hand of Winter, also known as "Children’s Severed Finger."
They didn’t enjoy the benefits of the Hand of Winter, didn’t have access to high-level secrets, and didn’t even get a pension after death; they weren’t recognized as such. They rely sold their lives for a wage.
This type of special unit existed in almost every country.
Mainly because Transcendents were both precious and not easy to execute, these special organizations erged.
In other words, they were cannon fodder without prior knowledge of mission details. Generally, they were conscripted convicts, whose cris rited "exile" but did not warrant "public execution," who volunteered for a "deferred sentence squad."
In Winter, exile was a form of the death penalty.
Their whole purpose of existence was to use what was left of their lives to protect the Duchy of Winter by killing, making themselves "less wasteful."
But Solomonik did not care about that.
For the first ti since his birth, he felt needed and recognized.
Like a tad dog, he offered all his loyalty to his "ntor," Vladimir.
Indeed, his strength was enough to pass the Hand of Winter’s test long ago. However, because he carried deep fears and psychological shadows within him, he could never pass the Wolf’s Kiss ritual... Therefore, even though his skills in murder surpassed those of an ordinary Hand of Winter, he could still only stay in the "Severed Finger Squad" with other serious convicts, unable to beco an official mber.
Until Vladimir beca the "Winter Reverser."
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