Chapter 029 - Eerie Night Fair 01

  The moment the second round ended, I barely had time to react before I was pulled—no, yanked—back into that vast, empty space.

  I staggered, regaining my balance, and looked around.

  White.

  A seamless, unbroken void of stark, unblemished white. No walls. No ceiling. No horizon. Just an infinite emptiness stretching in all directions, swallowing everything in its sterile silence.

  I took a breath. It felt hollow, as if even the air lacked substance.

  Then I called out.

  My voice cut through the silence like a blade.

  No echo.

  No response.

  No way of knowing if there were boundaries or if this void went on forever.

  A sealed-off world.

  I forced myself to move. With no landmarks to guide me, I picked a random direction and started walking, my mind automatically dissecting the game, sorting through the fragments of logic I had left.

  First—**I had watched myself die.** I had felt death, had succumbed to it. And yet, I was here. Alive.

  That meant the game’s creator wielded a power that defied science, logic—reality itself.

  Second—the system’s messages had been clear. The first round was a qualifier, cutting the contestants down to 128 survivors, each assigned a number.

  By the second round, we all understood one thing: this was a game. We were players, whether we liked it or not.

  It was nothing like the first round—the endless train where we had been surrounded by those empty-eyed, NPC-like passengers. Those people had been trapped in a stupor, moving like ghosts through a cycle that had no end.

  Here, everyone knew the stakes.

  And lastly—this game gave us no time to think, no time to communicate.

  Every round was relentless. There was no pause to exchange information, no chance to strategize. Even when a round ended, there was no respite—no moment of analysis, no opportunity to piece together the rules of this so-called Nirvana Game.

  The game wasn’t just about survival.

  It was about control.

  Lost in thought, I kept walking. I don’t know how long I wandered before—

  I hit something.

  A wall.

  Except—I couldn’t see it.

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  My fingers met smooth, cool resistance. A solid, invisible barrier.

  And the instant I touched it—

  The white void erupted in blinding red light.

  ERROR!

  ERROR!

  The mechanical voice came from nowhere and everywhere at once, cold, metallic, and deafening.

  “CROSSING THE BOUNDARY IS PROHIBITED. CROSSING THE BOUNDARY IS PROHIBITED.”

  A chill raced down my spine. My muscles locked.

  I took an instinctive step back.

  Then—

  A barrage of laser beams rained down from above, slicing through the space where I had just been standing.

  No warning. No hesitation.

  If I had reacted a second too late, I would have been cut to pieces.

  The mechanical voice repeated, its tone utterly devoid of emotion:

  “CROSSING IS PROHIBITED. NETWORK ACCESS IS PROHIBITED. CROSSING IS PROHIBITED. NETWORK ACCESS IS PROHIBITED.”

  I stood motionless, staring at the now-empty space in front of me, my face unreadable.

  The flashing red lights pulsed wildly for a few more seconds before they finally faded. The voice went silent.

  I exhaled slowly. Then, without a word, I turned and began tracing the perimeter of the invisible wall.

  Testing its limits.

  I stayed dangerously close, my fingers brushing the unseen surface. A few times, the red lights flared up again, and the lasers fired without mercy. One even grazed my arm, leaving a sharp, searing pain.

  I ignored it.

  Instead, I ripped off a cufflink, dropped it at my starting point, and began measuring. Step by step, I mapped out the boundary of this unseen cage.

  The space was massive.

  I hadn’t even completed a full lap when—

  A voice rang out.

  A child’s voice.

  Soft. Clear. Singing.

  A song.

  Let’s paddle our oars—

  As the little boat glides through the waves—

  The sea reflects the beautiful white tower—

  Surrounded by green trees and red walls—

  The melody floated through the air, light and carefree—a jarring contrast to the suffocating atmosphere of this place.

  Then, as if responding to the song, the mechanical voice spoke again, crisp and unwavering—

  “Congratulations, Contestant No. 32. You have cleared Round Two. Would you like to continue?”

  I lifted an eyelid lazily.

  “Continue.”

  The voice responded without hesitation—

  “Acknowledged. Contestant No. 32, initiating Round Three.”