The Death Rule Only I Can Crack!

"Everyone, don't forget the description."

【Fail to find the ghost, and your head will fall】!

At this reminder, everyone's expression changed drastically as they recalled that ominous line from the Instance's description.

Could the ghost really be one of them?

"Although the Instance's objective is to find the Death Rules, it never said how we're supposed to escape after finding them."

Wu Wang's voice wasn't loud, but it seemed to hold a certain magic, compelling everyone to hold their breath and listen intently. The youth on the stage had a slight smile on his lips, looking like a carefree university student.

"The name of this Instance is【Hide-and-Seek】," he continued. "What we ultimately need to do is… catch the ghost!"

At his words, the entire classroom fell silent. So quiet you could hear a pin drop.

Gulp.

Someone swallowed subconsciously.

He's crazy! This guy is absolutely insane!

The ghost could kill so many people in this classroom without a sound. They could barely even hide, and he wanted to catch it?

Most of them jeered at the youth's madness in their hearts, while a small minority frowned in contemplation.

This youth seems to be able to ignore the Death Rules. What if he really can catch the ghost?

But while they struggled with this thought, they were oblivious to one crucial fact.

Wu Wang couldn't ignore the Death Rule at all.

His crazed behavior in the darkness was just to confirm one thing. He needed to know if his bizarre【Undying】trait was effective in this Instance.

The bad news was, it was. He hadn't managed to die as he'd wished. The Death Rule was just something he happened to discover in the process.

That rhythmic tapping wasn't a tap dance. It was the sound of Wu Wang being repeatedly killed by the Fierce Ghost. The pauses were the brief intervals of his revival, which made his footsteps sound intermittent.

To his surprise, when he sang and died his way to the lectern and stood before the microphone, the Death Rule stopped.

Afterward, no matter how he danced, made shadow puppets, or sang on the lectern, he didn't die again.

This meant that as long as he stood before the microphone, he could make sounds freely, even in the dark.

Therefore, Wu Wang was certain this microphone had another function. It protected whoever stood there, allowing them to do something while still alive.

For instance, catching the ghost.

"You… What nonsense are you spouting! Don't think you can treat everyone like a fool just because you know a little more! You think you're worthy of leading everyone by the nose?"

The woman in the long dress he had accused was flustered and exasperated, her outburst breaking everyone's train of thought. In a tense moment like this, if she were truly identified as the Fierce Ghost, she would face only one option.

The crowd would isolate and monitor her. Any abnormal behavior would arouse their suspicion or even provoke them to act. More likely, they would force her to trigger a Death Rule to prove her innocence.

No matter which path they took, the outcome would be the same.

A dead end.

She couldn't let Wu Wang continue his nonsensical rambling.

"Is that so?" Wu Wang said with a smile, his eyes narrowed. "Then why are you still alive? Is the Fierce Ghost a feminist who only throws punches at men?"

The woman suddenly realized her mistake. She had spoken!

If the Death Rule Wu Wang described was true, then speaking in the darkness was suicide.

Fear began to envelop her. The surrounding darkness felt like a tide about to drown her, and a strange feeling of suffocation welled up in her heart. It was the scent of death.

All she could do was stare helplessly into the ink-black surroundings, terrified that something would leap out and devour her.

But the ghost's surprise attack she imagined never came.

Instead, something even more bizarre happened.

"Ah! My feet!"

As she cried out, the woman suddenly lost her balance and fell. She looked down to find that her body below the knees was gone.

The line of disappearance was moving upward at a speed visible to the naked eye. In a moment, her legs had completely vanished.

Although the process was painless, the feeling of watching herself inexplicably march toward death was more terrifying than death by a thousand cuts.

From her legs to her waist, from her chest to her head. The woman in the long dress was being wiped away as if by an eraser.

Until the very last moment when her head disappeared, her curses still echoed in the classroom.

"You bastard! I won't let you go even if I die! You bitch, I'm gonna…."

The profanities went in one of Wu Wang's ears and out the other.

Thump.

He plopped onto the floor, narrowing his eyes to observe the spot where the woman had disappeared.

That's not right… She wasn't killed by the ghost.

Wu Wang's brain processed the situation at high speed. As the one person who had tested the ghost with his own body, he knew exactly what it felt like to be killed by it. This on-the-spot erasure was clearly something else.

The key is, why am I also disappearing?

The murderers in the classroom were still too shocked to make a sound. No one noticed Wu Wang glance down at his own pant legs.

There was nothing inside them.

His legs had disappeared too.

This was why he had so quickly sat on the floor, to prevent anyone from noticing his predicament. Thank goodness he wasn't a cross-dresser who liked to wear skirts. The problem would have been exposed immediately.

The disappearance continued its upward creep. In just a few seconds, Wu Wang could no longer feel anything below his navel, including his little brother.

Plop.

With no time to mourn his loss, Wu Wang suddenly lunged forward. He rolled off the lectern and fell heavily into the pitch-black darkness below.

After that, there was no more movement.

This time, no one dared to make a rash move.

That madman… is he dead?

The thought echoed in everyone's mind. The people near the lectern had no intention of venturing into the darkness to check.

Better him than them.

The dead-silent atmosphere lasted for a full three minutes before that heart-stopping sound finally returned.

Thud!

The spotlights flickered on, and the classroom was once again bright. Everyone let out a long sigh of relief. This period of darkness was much better than the last. Only two people had died.

If things continued at this rate, they should be able to find all the Death Rules soon. As for the "ghost-catching" Wu Wang had mentioned, no one wanted to, and no one dared to.

"Who's going to… check on him?" someone finally suggested, now that they could speak.

However, before anyone could respond, the corpse spoke.

"Even visiting a zoo costs money. It's not too much to charge ten bucks a person to see my corpse, right? First come, first served. Men aren't allowed to touch anything private, but ladies, feel free."

With that, the body everyone assumed was dead stretched its back and slowly stood up.

"Fuck! He was just playing dead to scare us?"

The others felt their eyelids twitch, and their clenched fists tightened. But given all his previous antics, they were almost getting used to it.

Habit is a terrifying thing.

Twisting his neck, Wu Wang acted as if no one else was there and began patting the dust off his clothes.

【Undying】!

Under the cover of darkness, he had been silently erased. No one discovered that he had died and come back to life. And no one knew what important information he had gleaned from this death.

A slight smile touched the corners of his lips, his earlier predicament forgotten. He walked back to the lectern.

"Everyone, you're all really lucky to have met me."

A large question mark appeared in the minds of the murderers below.

Lucky? Meeting you is the greatest misfortune of our lives!

Wu Wang simply smiled. Of course they were lucky. He had already discovered the most difficult part of catching the ghost.

The difficulty wasn't in finding out who or what the ghost was. It was what happened during the accusation at the microphone.

Both the 【Ghost】 and the 【Accuser】 would be erased.

This was one of the Death Rules.

【The ghost catcher will die on the lectern】

To truly catch the ghost, someone had to be willing to sacrifice themselves to make the accusation.

The irony was, this classroom was filled with murderers who treated human life like dirt. None of them would ever be willing to sacrifice themselves.

Except for Wu Wang, the monster with more than one life.

"By the way, are you guys really not considering giving me money?" he asked. "The saddest thing in the world is dying with money left unspent! Let me help you with that."

In his eyes, all the murderers in this classroom were already corpses.

No one paid any mind to his crazy talk. And no one noticed the mockery in his eyes.

They were also unlucky.

Because if his next deduction was correct, then regardless of whether the ghost was caught or not, this Instance never intended for anyone to leave alive from the very beginning…