Absolute Death Game

Xiao Buli didn’t feel panic or anxiety, he had entered that state from the past, able to calmly analyze the problem.

Could the exit really be at the center of the labyrinth? It seems like the exhaustive method is useless now, am I really going to be finished this time!

Xiao Buli tried not to let the fear of death affect his thinking and began to try to solve the labyrinth as an outsider. He took out the paper he had used to draw the map and listed the possible reasons for the current situation, one by one.

The problems with the labyrinth might include the following.

1, The labyrinth is alive or has a mechanism design, manually changing the routes, making oneself unable to find the way out.

2, The labyrinth is normal, but there are ghosts or something like that interfering, causing him to fall into a cycle repeatedly.

3, The labyrinth is normal and there are no ghosts, but some kind of special technology that exists in reality is being used to prevent him from getting out.

What would the former me have done?

He remembered the experience of going through the Stone Tomb Formation when he played the game "Legend".

The Stone Tomb Formation is a labyrinth made up of many similar rooms, each with four doors, and each time one leaves and returns, the room one comes back to is never the same. One must master the changing patterns of the rooms when shuttling through to successfully reach the next level of the Stone Tomb.

Initially, on his first attempt, almost everyone didn’t know the correct path and could only wander aimlessly. Sometimes one could wander for a day and still not find the way out, ending up having to use a town portal scroll to return to town. He was also trapped in the Stone Tomb Formation, but he did not easily give up.

To determine the correct path, he came up with a method of throwing Gold Coins. In each room, he would throw a variable number of Gold Coins and then determine whether he had been there before based on how many piles of Gold Coins were in the room. This is actually a method of elimination.

The current predicament could possibly be solved with this method of elimination as well. As long as he threw a certain number of copper coins at the entrance of each fork in the road he had passed, he would know if he had been down that road the next time he passed that fork.

Once all the paths he had taken were eliminated, the remaining path would certainly be the correct one—this is the so-called elimination method.

It’s just not clear whether one can throw things on the ground in this game.

He opened his inventory, clicked on money, and dragged it outside to find that he could indeed discard it.

Let’s throw a copper coin for a start.

He entered the Arabic numeral 1, chose to discard, and sure enough, a copper coin appeared on the ground; it was very small but still clearly visible.

Good job, he thought to himself, no problem then.

Then he started on his way. At the first fork, he chose the path on the right and threw a copper coin at the entrance of the path he had passed. This way, every time he reached a fork, he would look around to make sure he wasn’t going back the way he came.

After more than ten minutes, he found himself back at the square.

He never thought he would succeed on the first try anyway. The essence of the elimination method was to continually eliminate the routes that one had taken and proven wrong. Just as he was about to choose a different path and continue on his way, he suddenly realized something was amiss—the copper coin he had previously thrown on the ground had disappeared.

This discovery made him stop in his tracks.

What was going on? Xiao Buli fell into thought once again.

(Could it be that things thrown on the ground in this game are refreshed by the system? There was such a design in the former "Legend".) If that was the case, then it would really be a terrible pitfall.

He stared at the place where the copper coin had vanished for a full five minutes. If even the method of throwing things didn’t work, then he really would be...

Suddenly his pupils contracted sharply, noticing something slightly different. Behind that stone stele, a pale human hand was faintly visible, its fingers slightly curled as if beckoning him over.

What was this situation? He rubbed his eyes; no mistake, it was a hand.

Could there be someone else in this labyrinth? Or is it simply a monster guarding the labyrinth? He shivered involuntarily, almost instinctively placing his fingers on the hotkeys for several combat skills, activating Basic Swordsmanship, and slowly walked around behind the stone stele.

When he saw the scene behind the stone stele, he couldn’t help but inhale sharply. Lying there was a rotten corpse with nothing left but bones, and that hand belonged to this corpse.

Could it be that he picked up the copper coin? Was this a zombie or some other kind of monster? Xiao Buli waited tensely for the attack, but after a while, he found that the corpse did not move at all.

He clicked on the corpse with his mouse, and the name that showed up was ’Body of the Nameless Adventurer.’ It seemed to indeed be a dead person. Xiao Buli breathed a sigh of relief, scrutinizing the appearance of the corpse. It was dressed in shabby leather armor, clutching a rusty iron sword to its chest, and its boots were so tattered that several holes had formed.

He clicked on it with his mouse, and it showed that it could be searched.

After choosing to search, a loot window popped up immediately, showing that there were four items that could be taken from the body.

Rusty Iron Sword: A sword covered in rust, its original appearance unrecognizable.

Rotten Purse: Opening it yields a certain amount of coins.

Damaged Light Leather Armor: It has lost its intended defense capability and is nothing but valueless trash.

Damaged Light Leather Boots: So worn and full of holes, they are nothing but worthless trash.

What was this all about? How did an additional corpse suddenly appear? Staring at the body, Xiao Buli suddenly felt a chill as he realized that this corpse looked a lot like himself.

It was not a resemblance in features, as the rotting corpse was beyond recognition, but whether it was the weapon or the equipment, it all looked exactly like what he was currently carrying—iron sword, light leather armor, light leather boots—wasn’t this all his current gear?

His mind was a whirl of confusion for a moment. Could this corpse be predicting his own demise? Or had he actually already died in the game, and his actions now, just like Lu Jiang’s, were nothing more than repeats of his behavior while alive?

This thought broke him out in a cold sweat. To assure himself this wasn’t real, he pursed his lips—

A taste of sweet and sour pork ribs.

This taste calmed him down quite a bit. It seemed he wasn’t a ghost yet. So, what could the reason be? Pondering, he opened his equipment window and when he looked at his weapon, he froze. He wasn’t equipped with the iron sword but with the Butcher’s Bleeding Knife. He remembered now, after getting this weapon, he had sold the iron sword.

This corpse could very well be another player who died here or perhaps just the body of an NPC, and it was unexplained why it would suddenly appear in the maze.

It seemed that because he had searched it, the body that had originally been leaning against the stele suddenly bent over, revealing a dark mark on the backside. Seeing that mark, he felt as if he had grasped something.

The body had definitely not been recently moved; otherwise, it wouldn’t have left such a mark. So, if the body hadn’t been moved, it surely couldn’t be that the square was moving... or could it simply be—his mind flashed with insight, and he suddenly understood everything.

Xiao Buli suddenly felt like bursting out laughing, having completely figured out the secret of the maze, and he couldn’t help but feel a wave of emotion. He was clever, but his cleverness had led him astray. He had been fooled by such a simple illusion; indeed, the saying held true—the observer sees clearly, the participant is confused. Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Clearly, this maze must have many identical stone steles and little squares containing them, and the layout of these little squares with the steles was also identical, each with four roads leading to the east, west, south, and north.

These squares were actually nodes connecting the entire maze. No matter if players believed the poem’s guidance or not, no matter which road they chose, they would always end up at another little square—the intruders would think they had returned to the starting point, but in reality, it was not the case at all. They moved from one node to another.

If they believed the guidance on the stele, they might have been getting closer to the exit.

However, at this time, the intruders wouldn’t know this and would feel that they had chosen the wrong path earlier. They would try a different way, but this would lead them into the maze’s trap. Once intruders switched paths, they deviated from the initial correct route. No matter how they walked, they would end up in an identical square, even if it was only a short distance from the entrance.

Since the intruders no longer believed the stele’s guidance, they would never find the right path and would end up trapped in an endless loop until they died in the maze.

The real method to get out of the maze was clearly written on the stele: ’In the Mystic Hollow Palace’s manifold changes, one need not to fret. Doubting gods and ghosts, the dead find no rebirth. Wearing out iron shoes in fruitless searching; though pathways run in all directions, none leads to exit.’ No matter what happens, you must continue according to the records on the stele.

The more you overthink, the more lost you become, until you trap yourself and meet your end, with neither death nor life.

Now, as long as one follows the stele’s guidance—turn left at even and right at odd—one should manage to navigate through the maze, right?

Having understood this, he gave a slight bow to the corpse. Whether you are an NPC in the game or a player who once strayed into this maze and ended up dying here, thank you for your help—even though that wasn’t your intention.

Having thanked the unfortunate soul, Xiao Buli prepared to set off once again. He glanced at the three paths in front of him; turn right at odd, and the right path also happens to be towards the east. So that was the way to go.

This time, he followed the stele’s instructions, turning right at odd and left at even. After walking for more than ten minutes, he arrived at another little square with a stele. However, the square no longer contained the corpse. He sneered to himself, sure enough. But to confirm that the poem hadn’t deceived him, he threw the damaged light leather armor on the ground as a marker.

Moving on, ten minutes later, he reached another square, which was barren with nothing inside. This time, he dropped the damaged light leather boots.

The third time, he left the rusty iron sword behind. Then, after another ten-plus minutes of walking, the path he traveled seemed completely different from the ones he had taken before. At last, the view opened up suddenly, and sunlight once again appeared before his eyes.

Finally, he had made it out!

A feeling of being resurrected from a hopeless situation surged within him. As he walked through that door, he almost burst into tears—it was just too damned hard.

Before him was a bamboo forest that seemed like the Immortal Realm, a far cry from the harsh environment of the Misty Forest. A stone path through the bamboo led deep into the valley, where there stood a complex of ancient Chinese-style buildings. Not far away, on an archway, there were three soulful characters—Mystic Hollow Palace.