Chapter 1

Opening his eyes, Gu Yuan found himself in a very peculiar place.

He was sitting on a tall black stone throne, with a thick stone backrest that was about two meters high, its sharp peak like a sword.

The stone throne was in the center of a spacious circular space, surrounded by layers of circular tiers that rose upwards, similar to the structure of the Roman Colosseum.

However, the four sides were not spectator seats but doors.

"Let me out! Let me out!"

"Die, die, die, die, die!"

"Kill, kill, kill!"

"Ha ha ha ha ha!"

A series of frantic and meaningless sounds mixed together, coming from all directions, forming a wave of madness.

"Bang, bang, bang!"

Many of the doors were shaking, the sound of collisions so loud that it almost drowned out the surrounding chaos.

"Wasn't I supposed to be dead? What is this place, a prison, a cage?"

Some vague information flashed through Gu Yuan's mind.

His gaze fell on one of the doors, which moved strangely under his gaze, coming to a stop right in front of him.

Furrowing his brow, Gu Yuan instinctively raised his hand and gently pushed forward.

The tightly closed door suddenly opened, revealing a pitch-black interior, as if filled with endless darkness.

Before Gu Yuan could see what was in the darkness, a massive arm, dark red almost to black, suddenly reached out, grabbing for him!

"This is..."

Gu Yuan instinctively moved backward, his back pressing against the cold stone throne.

The arm stopped in front of him, and thick chains appeared out of nowhere, piercing through the arm and locking it firmly in place, unable to move.

Gu Yuan extended his hand and made a pulling motion.

The chains dragged the struggling arm back into the black cage.

The cage door closed with a sound, isolating the original collision sounds.

"Is this the Demon Locking Tower? A cage for demons? Am I a jailer?"

Full of questions, Gu Yuan stood up and looked around. The sky was a chaotic blur.

Before he could figure out what was happening,

A flood of memories surged into his mind, and unconscious pain escaped from his mouth. Gu Yuan felt as if his brain had been thrown into a blender and was being stirred wildly.

All kinds of messy information were forced into his mind.

It was like watching hundreds of different types of mind-bending movies in five minutes, all jumbled together.

A few minutes, or perhaps a few hours.

When Gu Yuan was freed from the pain and could "open his eyes to the world" again, the scene around him had changed.

He was sitting on a sofa in the living room.

Gu Yuan had died, and Gu Yuan had come back to life.

He had soul-traveled into the body of someone with the same name.

According to the chaotic memories,

This world had a similar historical process to the one Gu Yuan had once lived in.

Until one day, monsters that should only exist in fantasies descended.

The monster wave disaster erupted, destroying the original social order.

Now, a new society had been rebuilt.

The old countries no longer existed, and people lived in "cities," multiple cities combined into "regions," and regions formed alliances.

In this world, humans were slowly regaining their dominant position.

Currently, humans were relatively safe, but beneath the calm, dark currents were surging, ready to swallow anyone at any moment.

This world was full of problems.

Gu Yuan was now in the Sakura Island region, in the capital city of Tokyo.

"Ring, ring, ring—"

The shrill ringtone interrupted Gu Yuan's thoughts.

On the sofa, his phone was ringing.

Glancing at it, there was no number displayed, only a string of strange question marks.

"What the hell is this?" With some doubt, Gu Yuan instinctively answered the call, "Hello."

There was no human voice in the receiver, only a faint, almost imperceptible static sound. If he listened carefully, he could hear a slight breathing sound.

A breathing sound like a broken windbox.

"Who is it?"

The pain had just subsided, but the aftereffects had not completely faded, making Gu Yuan somewhat irritable. "If you can't speak, send a text. What are you doing, performing a mime act?"

The faint breathing sound stopped, and the receiver was filled with a series of "beeps."

Gu Yuan looked at his phone in confusion.

His mind was still in chaos, but he still had basic common sense.

A phone call would have "beeps" when hung up, but a mobile phone wouldn't.

Before he could figure out what was happening, the sound disappeared, and the phone returned to normal.

Gu Yuan tossed the phone aside and began to examine his surroundings while further sorting through the chaotic information in his mind.

This was the living room, the home of his "original body."

The original body was dead, the cause of death—apparently from staying up late to watch a movie and dying suddenly?

Before Gu Yuan could fully understand, a faint "hiss" sound in the quiet of the night was unusually clear.

The black screen of the opposite TV flashed with a light and automatically turned on.

Snowflakes flickered, and the blurry image appeared and disappeared intermittently.

It was like an old CRT TV struggling to stay alive.

Gu Yuan's gaze was drawn to the TV screen, and he couldn't help but look.

The flickering snowflakes gradually disappeared, and the image stabilized.

The clarity was very low, probably not even 360P, worse than low-quality video.

But he could勉强 make out the scene in the image.

It was a dilapidated courtyard, with nothing but a well in the center.

As the image stabilized, the camera zoomed in on the well.

Gu Yuan felt a strange sense of familiarity, as if he had seen it somewhere or heard a related description.

The inside of the well was black and churning, rising.

The "black" that overflowed from the well was not water but strands of black hair.

They twisted like living things.

"..."

Gu Yuan's eyes were fixed on the screen.

The moment the black hair appeared, he felt a force of fear seize his body.

Fear is an interesting emotion.

It can make a person's limbs stiff, weak, paralyzed, or numb like a marionette with its strings cut, unable to move, watching everything happen helplessly.

It can also make a person suddenly burst out and fight back fiercely.

Gu Yuan was not a coward; on the contrary, he was bold to the point of being reckless.

It should have been the latter.

But this time, looking at the twisting black hair in the image, he couldn't move.

"This feeling..."

This feeling was strange. Gu Yuan did feel the normal fear, or rather, he was just a little short of being afraid, more of a discomfort that made him want to stay away.

Like a person instinctively avoiding a flying cockroach.

But this tiny emotional fluctuation was magnified throughout his body.

His limbs became stiff, and his whole body was rigid.

In the quiet environment, Gu Yuan could feel his heart beating faster and faster, like a drum.

His thoughts gradually became chaotic, and his reactions slowed down.

A minor wound on his palm, which could only seep a little blood, had the effect of a major artery rupture.

Gu Yuan had a sense of being torn apart.

On one side, he could still think as calmly and slowly as possible, while on the other side, fear controlled his body.

On the screen, the owner of the hair had emerged from the deep well.

The long hair hanging down completely covered the face, making it impossible to see the features.

Wearing a white long robe, the head was lowered.

Shaking, it slowly approached the "camera."

"Is this... Sadako?" Gu Yuan remembered why the image seemed familiar. It was the female protagonist from the "Ring" series. "It's indeed a world with monsters, and this is a warning."

On the screen, Sadako extended her hands forward, actually penetrating the screen, grabbing the edge, and crawling out in a highly distorted posture.

Gu Yuan tried to move but found that he couldn't even control his fingers.

As Sadako crawled out of the screen, fear completely took over his body.

The only thing he could do was to keep breathing.

Like a lamb waiting to be slaughtered.

After emerging, Sadako stood and slowly walked towards Gu Yuan.

The hem of her long robe barely touched the ground, and she moved as if floating.

The coffee table in front of the sofa cracked the moment it touched Sadako.

The cracks spread across the entire table, and in the next moment, it shattered into many pieces.

The top layer of glass shattered into countless fragments and fell to the ground.

Sadako stepped on them, making a scraping sound.

She came to Gu Yuan, bent down slowly, and raised her hands, palms open.

Her hands were extremely pale, with an abnormal bluish tint.

The two hands grabbed Gu Yuan's neck, bringing a bone-chilling cold and a burning pain.

Everything happened slowly, but unfortunately, Gu Yuan couldn't move, only watching as Sadako's hands grabbed his neck.

At the same time, he saw an eye through the gaps in the hair.

A wildly twitching, white-rolling eye.

The hands on his neck began to tighten, and in an instant, Gu Yuan felt suffocated.

Death approached.

"Am I going to die again?"

Madness flashed in Gu Yuan's eyes. In the moment between life and death, a force erupted.

"Boom!"

An intangible sound in his mind, as if something had been completely opened.

Gu Yuan saw a phantom building descend from the sky, "heavily" landing in the living room, replacing everything in it.

The huge cage he had seen before descended again.

Gu Yuan also regained control of his body.

His gaze shifted, and the other parts of the cage quickly disappeared, leaving only a door that became clear, floating behind Sadako.

Gu Yuan clearly felt the existence of the door.

And the thing behind the door.

Raising his hand, Gu Yuan "pushed the door"!

The cage door opened, and a massive dark red arm appeared, instantly grabbing Sadako's head, as if holding a walnut.

A piercing scream came from Sadako.

She released her grip on Gu Yuan's neck and was pulled back by the arm.

The hanging hair floated up, entangling the dark red arm.

The gaps between the fingers of the clenched hand were also filled with hair, wrapping the fist.

In just a few seconds, half of the arm was completely entangled by the hair.

The hair, like a constricting anaconda, continuously writhed and tightened.

A grating sound was heard, like wire cutting through steel.

The arm trembled slightly, resisting.

Gu Yuan's raised hand moved slightly, and the cage door opened a bit more, another dark red arm extended, with sharp nails visible on the spread fingers.

The second arm grabbed Sadako's feet.

The two arms held her horizontally in the air and tore her apart.

Rip!

A large amount of blood and a piercing scream splattered to the ground.