Illusion Report

In life, Li Stan had probably been an alert and agile man who cherished his own skin. He was always listening for the slightest sound, always noting the quickest escape route.

When the lizards showed up, he was the fastest runner of the group.

He’d put a two-story gap between himself and Robert. With that much distance, no one saw how he met his end.

In fact, Mai Mingle couldn’t even be sure he was truly dead.

They stopped on the landing below the floor where Li Stan had last cried for help. Cautiously, they craned their necks to peer upward. After the screams faded, all that remained was the pale light and grim gray concrete, pressing down impassively on their vision.

A few scattered, silvery-white antennae poked out from the edge of the landing, faintly glinting in the light.

When they first rushed up to this floor, the green of the emergency exit sign had been gone, replaced by a patch of white—as if the little figure was pressed right against the cover, about to climb out, its white body completely obscuring the sign.

But now, after Li Stan’s screams had vanished, the little figure was gone too. The sign showed only an empty field of green and the four letters: "EXIT."

"...We’ll have to go up and see sooner or later," Suo Beihua said, panting. She was completely exhausted.

Emily seemed unable to walk anymore. She had only managed to stay with the group because Suo Beihua’s snake tail had been pulling and dragging her the whole way.

Mai Mingle could also see that Emily’s condition was worsening. The nutshell was slowly losing its plant-like texture, gradually petrifying and growing heavier. It was so heavy that Mai Mingle didn’t dare try to push Emily up the stairs from behind—she was afraid that if her own arms trembled or Suo Beihua’s tail slipped, Emily would come tumbling down and smash her into the darkness below.

"Use your tail to rise up and take a look."

Robert ordered, glancing at Suo Beihua.

Suo Beihua clearly disliked being ordered around by him, but the situation—or rather, the balance of power—had shifted a few minutes ago. She could no longer afford to ignore him.

The five Hunter candidates had, until now, maintained a relatively balanced dynamic. Suo Beihua’s words carried a little more weight because of her snake tail, but on the whole, no one had the authority to give orders.

’Come to think of it, that was because all five of them originally had guns.’

’The root of power is violence.’

Not long after encountering the lizards, all five of them had run out of bullets.

No one having a gun created its own new kind of balance—and yet, amidst Li Stan’s final, drawn-out, terror-filled screams, Robert had opened fire on the lizards, who had also been listening intently to the sounds from upstairs.

It wasn’t Kai Jiafa’s pistol.

The object in Robert’s hand was small and inconspicuous, so much so that when he suddenly raised his hand, no one could even tell he was holding anything. Besides, the stairwell was in total chaos; nobody had even noticed him lift his arm.

Back then, Li Stan’s cries for help and Mai Mingle’s useless shouts had vibrated and echoed between the concrete walls. Suo Beihua had been yelling, "What’s happening?" over and over, getting no reply.

But even if you removed all the chaos and shouting, plunging the stairwell into dead silence, you still wouldn’t have heard a gunshot.

When Robert fired, there wasn’t the slightest sound.

By the time everyone—the two lizards included—realized something was wrong, the lizard resembling Tian Xi had already let go of the railing and was falling straight into the stairwell shaft.

It fell fast, but Mai Mingle and the others still caught a glimpse in the afterimage: it was no longer a flesh-and-blood, lizard-like person. It was a piece of splayed, lizard-shaped cardboard, a crack running down its middle just like the fissure they had chiseled in the wall.

"What in the—"

The lizard that looked like Chebri didn’t get to finish its sentence before it, too, turned to cardboard and fell.

The last one, a half-lizard that still retained a womanly form, seemed to finally realize the danger came from the five people before it.

It whipped its head around and leaped down the stairs. Robert lunged forward, raising his hand toward its back—and it was only then that Mai Mingle finally got a clear look at his weapon.

...A pistol made of cardboard, with a trigger as thin as paper.

"What are you standing there for?" Robert said to Suo Beihua. "You’re the only one who can rise up from here to take a look."

Suo Beihua bit her lip, slithered slowly to the base of the stairs, and began to rise, straightening her body on her tail.

Robert stared, unblinking, at the thick, dark green snake tail beneath her, his hand once again closing around the wind-up key.

’If this keeps up, he won’t be able to do anything but wind that key. No, in fact, it’s already surprising he can stop winding it at all.’

"Be careful," Mai Mingle couldn’t stop herself from saying, even though she knew the two words were useless.

For two or three minutes, no new wave of "rescuers" had appeared. But judging by the number of parallel realities, this brief respite could end at any moment.

’Our survival so far has been almost pure luck. What will we do when it runs out?’

’Li Stan’s luck had already run out.’

"Did you see him?" Mai Mingle asked, her tone almost probing.

"...No."

Poised high in mid-air, Suo Beihua looked up at the landing above. "I don’t see a body," she said softly, "but he’s definitely..."

She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t have to.

All Li Stan had left behind were the extensive, clear signs of a struggle.

Shattered antennae, like countless silver hairs, glinted as they rolled about the stairwell. The broken fragments had become blunt needles that must have cut or pierced Li Stan’s skin, leaving behind spatters of blood.

The bloodstains formed a trail marking the path of his final struggle as he was dragged away.

The chaotic signs of a desperate struggle started halfway up the stairs, continued across the landing floor, climbed the wall, and ultimately vanished inside the emergency exit sign.

The casing of the emergency exit sign was shattered, revealing an irregular, deep black hole.

Li Stan had almost certainly vanished into that black hole.

Large splatters of fresh blood coated the wall and ceiling around the sign. The blood hadn’t yet coagulated, remaining bright red as it dripped to the floor. Sometimes, a drop heavy with a shred of skin would land with a wet SPLAT.

...The smell was so thick it was tangible, almost obscuring their vision.

Suo Beihua clamped a hand over her mouth, desperately trying to suppress the bile rising in her throat. Robert froze for a second, his hand even loosening its grip for a moment.

Emily stood rigidly on the stairs, her reaction impossible to read.

"...That little figure on the sign," Suo Beihua said in a low voice, "it crawled out, and then it... it dragged Li Stan inside alive?"

"Looks that way."

Robert squeezed past her onto the stairs, his soles making crisp, hard crunches on the broken antennae. "Suo Beihua, go up and check. Is the little figure on the sign for the next floor?"

Though clearly reluctant, Suo Beihua held her tongue. She swept aside the broken antennae, glided halfway up the stairs, and rose on her tail again. "It’s gone."

"The emergency exit sign is empty?"

"Yes," Suo Beihua confirmed, tilting her head back. "Just a green sign. No little man. Strange..."

She glanced back at the emergency exit sign below the ceiling, the one with the gaping black hole.

"What’s back there?"

"What do you mean?" At her question, Robert also turned to look more closely.

"Where did that little man drag Li Stan to?" Suo Beihua asked, pointing at the sign. "This is a lightbox. Since it was shattered from the inside, we should be seeing wires, the housing, or the wall behind it. But it’s just pitch black... Can you see an end to it?"

She didn’t wait for Robert’s answer. As she spoke, she had already pulled out her phone, switched on the flashlight, and aimed a beam of white light into the hole.

As if in a dream, Mai Mingle stood frozen on the stairs, watching the beam of light penetrate the darkness. It crawled forward a few feet, illuminating an even denser, more crowded blackness ahead, before its strength gave out and it was completely devoured.

She remembered.

Information about the Nest, which refused to surface unless triggered by a keyword, always seemed to come a step too late, as if trying to prolong her ignorance just a little longer to see if it could create more opportunities to get her killed.

...Although what Mai Mingle now remembered was no help in their current predicament, the information had still taken its sweet time arriving.

"What’s wrong?" Suo Beihua called out to her. "Are you scared?"

Mai Mingle shook her head, her gaze dropping from the black hole.

She raised a hand and touched the cold, hard, mirror-like surface on her face.

"...I think I know what it is."

Suo Beihua started, her expression a mixture of belief and doubt. "You mean the black hole? What is it?"

"We need to get out of here, now," Mai Mingle said, pointing up. "Let’s head upstairs... I have an idea. It might lead us back to the floor of our original reality."