Chapter 144: Future Station
The waiting hall fell silent for a moment.
Then Bill suddenly exploded.
"What the hell does that mean?!"
"What does that mean?!"
"You’re discriminating against me, aren’t you?!"
"Why do all three of you have photos displayed while I don’t have a single one?"
"Why?!"
Crack.
Crack.
Crack.
Bill clenched his fists angrily.
But just as he was about to continue complaining, the screens flickered again.
A new face suddenly appeared.
It was a woman wearing a kimono.
She looked terrified as she sat inside a train carriage.
Matsumoto Kika.
The woman who had left the train at the beginning had inexplicably appeared on one of the wall-mounted televisions.
However, because Shen Yu and the others had lost their memories, none of them knew what had happened to her.
Shen Yu frowned.
"If I’m not mistaken, this woman also appeared among the human-head balloons, right?"
"Is she also a contestant?"
"But why can she appear on the television even after disappearing?"
"What does appearing on the television mean?"
Shen Yu stared at the screen.
The others did the same.
For several seconds, no one spoke.
Snap!
Suddenly, an LED light in the center of the waiting hall illuminated.
A gigantic neon sign instantly caught everyone’s attention.
FUTURE PRIVATE 3D CINEMA
The dazzling sign illuminated the entrance.
Beneath it stood two faceless human models, bent over unnaturally while continuously emitting distorted electronic sounds.
"Welcome."
"Welcome."
Bill’s eyes immediately lit up.
"Could the transfer card be inside?"
He scanned the entire waiting hall.
There were no ticket machines.
No obvious counters.
Nothing else that looked useful.
So Bill excitedly walked toward the Future Private 3D Cinema.
The private cinema wasn’t large.
In fact, it was bizarrely small.
There wasn’t even a front desk.
Instead, there were seven narrow individual rooms.
Each one was roughly the size of a small bathroom stall.
Other than that, there were no instructions.
Menloa looked toward Shen Yu.
"What should we do?"
"Shen Yu."
"Should we go inside?"
Shen Yu didn’t answer immediately.
Menloa looked at him expectantly.
Finally, Shen Yu nodded.
"Menloa, you go in first and take a look."
"If there’s any problem, activate Golden Hero."
"Randomly choose one of us and bring them back."
"Okay."
Menloa had no objection.
Among them, he was the only one capable of instantly protecting himself with Golden Hero.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
He walked into the private cinema.
After entering, Menloa casually selected Room Two.
He opened the door.
The moment he stepped inside—
A wave of darkness suddenly surged from the seemingly short and narrow room.
It instantly swallowed him.
"Menloa!"
Shen Yu’s expression changed.
He rushed forward.
Clang!
The door to Room Two slammed shut.
Words appeared across it.
[Room Occupied.]
Shen Yu pushed against the door.
Nothing happened.
He struck it.
Still nothing.
The seemingly fragile door didn’t move at all.
"Damn!"
Shen Yu’s voice echoed outside.
But inside the room, Menloa seemed unable to hear him.
Above the narrow corridor inside Room Two, a television flickered.
Images appeared across the screen.
Picking mushrooms on a mountain.
Wrestling with a bear.
Drinking happily.
Giving flowers to his mother.
Menloa stared at the images.
They looked familiar.
Extremely familiar.
Yet he couldn’t remember them.
"How strange..."
"These are all my old photos."
"Has my memory really been erased?"
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Menloa instinctively continued walking.
The narrow corridor suddenly flashed white.
The next moment—
He found himself standing in a snowy landscape.
Snowflakes drifted through the air.
"What the hell?"
"3D imagery?"
Menloa raised his hand.
A snowflake landed on his fingers.
A chill immediately spread through his skin.
His pupils widened.
Just as he was about to speak—
A deep voice suddenly shattered the cold silence.
"Who?"
Menloa froze.
"What the hell?"
"What the hell is here?"
"Is there really someone here?"
Startled by the booming voice, Menloa stared ahead.
Within the swirling snowflakes stood a gaunt figure.
A crimson aura radiated from its body.
It stared directly at Menloa.
Then—
"Heh heh."
A strange laugh escaped the figure.
Layers of scabs fell from its shriveled skin.
The creature looked like a dried corpse that had somehow come back to life.
It slowly walked toward Menloa.
Hiss.
Hiss.
Hiss.
With every step it took, the blood surrounding its body seemed to evaporate.
A trail of bloody mist lingered behind it.
Even from a distance, Menloa could feel a burning sensation against his face.
"Who are you?"
Under the monster’s gaze, Menloa felt enormous pressure.
His heart raced.
He instinctively retreated.
One step.
Two steps.
Three steps.
The narrow corridor eventually ended.
Thud!
Menloa’s back struck something.
He immediately turned his head.
His thoughts raced.
There are seven compartments.
Does that mean they correspond to the seven players?
No.
If each person enters alone, the monster inside must be stronger than the monsters we encountered in the tunnel.
"What the hell...?"
"There isn’t even anywhere to run."
Menloa gritted his teeth.
"I still don’t understand what those televisions are showing."
"But I feel like those images are trying to tell us something."
"The difficulty of this level has suddenly skyrocketed."
"The first level was the disappearance of past memories."
"The second level was the disappearance of present memories."
"So what about now?"
"The disappearance of future memories?"
"No way."
"SS-Rank dungeons really are terrifying."
While the barrage was going wild, Shen Yu continued knocking on Room Two.
Tap.
Tap.
No response.
His expression became increasingly troubled.
Finally, he looked toward the seven individual rooms.
"I can’t take this anymore."
"Perhaps this level is designed to separate us."
"Everyone choose a door."
"Maybe if we can escape on our own, we’ll be able to help the people trapped inside."
After hesitating briefly, Shen Yu walked toward the innermost Room Seven.
Malin tightly held his hand and stood in front of Room Six.
Bill, meanwhile, wore an unhappy expression.
"I’ll take Room One."
Clang!
The three doors opened almost simultaneously.
The moment Shen Yu stepped into Room Seven, Malin tried to rush in after him.
But her body was suddenly pulled into Room Six as though the doorway had become a powerful magnet.
Buzz!
Buzz!
Buzz!
Room Seven
The room was just as narrow.
Shen Yu continued down the short corridor.
Light beams flickered above his head.
A television displayed strange images.
One showed him being chained inside a bathroom, leaning against a bathtub.
Another showed him sitting inside an airplane.
Another showed him being intimate with Sandy inside the train compartment.
There were many glamorous scenes.
But the more Shen Yu watched them, the stranger his expression became.
Something was wrong.
He couldn’t remember any of them.
Not even a little.
Even though he had lost his memories, there should have been some faint emotional response.
Just like when he had crawled out through the rear door of the train.
He might not remember everything clearly, but there had been vague traces.
Yet these images gave him nothing.
No familiarity.
No emotion.
Nothing.
Shen Yu frowned.
He continued walking through the dark corridor.
Then—
A pitch-black building suddenly appeared ahead.
It was more than ten stories tall.
Shen Yu slowly raised his head.
The building seemed to stretch endlessly upward.
And from somewhere near its highest point—
He felt as though a pair of eyes were staring directly at him.
"Oh."
"So it’s this time."
A melodious, playful voice suddenly came from the top of the building.
Then—
Crack!
A shadow appeared across the dark building’s wall.
It was grotesquely distorted.
A thick tail protruded from its lower body.
Its arms began shrinking.
Its limbs became alarmingly short.
At the same time, its body elongated.
Layers of purple light flickered across the shadow.
Thud!
Thud!
Thud!
Part of the building wall suddenly collapsed.
The figure emerged.
It had transformed into a gigantic crocodile.
The enormous creature moved rapidly along the building wall.
Straight toward Shen Yu.
"What the hell?!"
Shen Yu was shocked.
He stumbled backward.
His instincts told him to run toward the entrance.
But he remembered that the door couldn’t be opened.
So instead, he turned and sprinted into the darkness behind the building.
Thud!
Thud!
Thud!
The eerie giant crocodile continued leaping across the walls.
It rapidly closed the distance.
When it finally caught up with Shen Yu—
Its enormous jaws opened.
And while still flying through the air, its body suddenly split.
One giant crocodile became two.
Splash!
The heavy impact echoed through the area.
Two enormous crocodiles landed on opposite sides of Shen Yu.
They had completely surrounded him.
A dark, hostile aura poured from their mouths.
Shen Yu couldn’t move forward.
He couldn’t retreat.
He looked around nervously.
"Damn it!"
"Not only can this giant crocodile climb buildings..."
"It can also split into two?"
"Isn’t the difficulty here insane?!"
Shen Yu stared at the creatures surrounding him.
His expression became serious.
He hesitated over whether to activate Perfect Timeline.
But there was a reason for his hesitation.
Even if he returned to the moment before entering Room Seven, he would still have to find the transfer card.
If he restarted and chose another door—
Would the opponent inside be easier?
Or would it become even more dangerous?
One of the giant crocodiles suddenly spoke.
"What?"
"Are you scared?"
Shen Yu’s eyes narrowed.
"Who are you?"
"Hehe."
"You’ll know soon enough."
Whoosh!
A chill suddenly came from behind.
Shen Yu hurriedly turned around.
One of the giant crocodiles stomped against the ground.
Its tail swung violently.
Then—
It leaped nearly half a meter into the air and pounced directly toward him.
"Damn!"
Shen Yu immediately dropped down and rolled.
The crocodile narrowly missed him.
Shen Yu looked toward the place where it had landed.
The creature flickered strangely in the air.
Then—
It disappeared.
"You fell for it, didn’t you?"
Boom!
Before Shen Yu could react, the giant crocodile suddenly appeared again.
It leaped forward.
Its enormous body slammed down onto him.
The heavy weight crushed Shen Yu against the ground.
He was pinned beneath the creature.
Unable to move.