Those Who Will Surely Die, and the Heroes Still on the Way

Li Mo vaguely remembered that the last time he had let Seele leave at night, he had triggered the "being alone" rule and entered a "dream," where he had witnessed a tragedy.

This time, entering the so-called "dream," it was countless times more real than the last time, as if... he had fallen into the inner world of the haunted house.

Li Mo quickly came to a conclusion: as Seele's age approached eighteen, the "dream" he fell into after "being alone" would become more and more complete, which was the same principle as the Bizarre rules. At that time, Seele was only twelve, so the "dream" was just an illusion, with incomplete characters, incomplete logic, and an incomplete cause and effect.

Now that Seele was about to turn eighteen, the "dream" had already become a complete world under the interference of the Bizarre power. So much so that anyone who triggered the "being alone" rule would directly fall into this world and live a completely real life.

"...Find her, and all the truth will be revealed," Li Mo sorted out his thoughts. It wouldn't be difficult to ask Seele directly before she turned eighteen, using his identity as her guardian to get the truth.

The problem was—where was Seele?

Li Mo stared at the black mist that was spreading under the rooftop and fell into deep thought. He turned back and asked, "Didn't you guys build an underground shelter?"

"We did before, but because we couldn't guarantee that the people who came in were all living..." the girl answered truthfully. "We had one six months ago, but it's been abandoned now. Some special ghosts can sometimes maintain a human appearance during the day, which leads to ghosts entering the sealed shelter and going on a killing spree. The people who are killed then become new ghosts... it's endless."

"Everyone was terrified, so they all fled the shelter and hid in places they thought were safest."

Li Mo asked again, "Why didn't you go home?"

"It's too far," the girl answered in a low voice.

After a moment of thought, Li Mo gave up on asking. He already knew all the information he needed.

Looking at the dim sky in the distance, Li Mo's eyes darkened slightly, and he murmured, "Is this your doing? Seele."

With that, under the astonished gazes of everyone, Li Mo jumped down from the rooftop.

"Hey! Wait!!"

The survivors on the rooftop walked to the edge and stretched out their hands, shouting loudly. A normal person would surely die from jumping from a six-story height. Even if they didn't die, there was no way they could survive in the face of the thousands of ghosts below.

Li Mo landed steadily. The moment he landed, all the surrounding ghosts were attracted to him, looking at him strangely. Surprisingly, Li Mo did not become the target of the ghosts' attacks.

Seeing this, Li Mo walked forward, into the black mist that exuded a fishy smell, and came to a group of ghosts. The black mist was like the Soul-Ferrying Passage on the fourth floor of the haunted house. The ghosts in the mist were lining up one by one, walking aimlessly forward.

After seeing the ghosts in the mist clearly, Li Mo decided to go to the next place. Because the ghosts in the mist did not have a familiar appearance.

"..."

After walking for a while, Li Mo was surprised to find that the ghosts behind him had not been shaken off. The relationship between him and the ghosts had become the relationship between a guardian leading the children of the orphanage to school and the children being led.

Li Mo walked in front, and the ghosts followed behind.

"..."

This couldn't help but make Li Mo recall what the knocking ghost had done when he first came to the haunted house. Wherever the knocking ghost went, black mist spread, and a hundred ghosts followed. On the second floor of the haunted house, the knocking ghost had broken the conventional rules and came to the side of the ghost bed, letting the surrounding ghosts crawl under the bed to kill Kanagawa Yume.

"Since the ghost crowd didn't target me, I'll take this opportunity to further find Seele's location."

"Where would Seele be at night?"

"..."

Li Mo pondered for a moment, and finally looked up, his gaze converging on a familiar position in the west. If Seele was really the witch who brought disaster, then the place she was in must be the most polluted place in this world—the haunted house.

Li Mo re-examined himself, "The bedroom on the third floor, the study on the fourth floor, the bedroom on the fifth floor."

"Only these three places. I can only reach the fourth floor at most, and can't go any further. The Soul-Ferrying Passage has sealed off the floors."

"I'm probably in the inner world now. It doesn't matter even if I trigger the 'being alone' rule, but in this situation, all the ghosts in the haunted house can attack me."

Li Mo glanced at the ghosts in the black mist, and a bold idea came to his mind. But this idea could not be practiced casually. The ghosts were not very complete, and the Bizarre handgun could easily resist them. Plus, Li Mo knew a safe place, so he dared to take the risk.

But if he replaced the ghost, a slight mistake would cause the Bizarre rules to backfire.

Countless facts told Li Mo that human consciousness was incomparably weak in the face of Bizarre rules. Even for the weakest ghost, and the strongest-willed person, once they were in a dispute, without external intervention, the outcome would always be the failure of the human.

Ghosts are immortal and indestructible. They never dissipate. In the process of controlling a ghost, the ghost is also polluting the person. Once the balance is broken, the one who dies will only be the person.

Li Mo unfamiliar took out the notebook in his pocket and said softly, "Long time no see. A dozen years may just be a moment for you. So, let's start the next transaction."

The notebook was opened, and a sinister and terrifying aura gushed out from the pages, with the faint low吟 of a demon. But even if it was a demon, it didn't matter as long as it could achieve his purpose. Because everything has a price.

Just as Li Mo was about to ask the notebook, a cold aura appeared behind him, very close! It was almost touching his back. The coldness instantly washed away all the temperature around him, as if he had fallen into an ice cave.

Li Mo suddenly turned back, but his left hand was raised uncontrollably, and he said uncontrollably, "Usurp, stop my body."

Is the ghost inside me? Is it controlling my body?

Faced with the sudden abnormality, Li Mo quickly analyzed it and soon noticed a clue. His current death state was one. "Usurp" required three death states to be used. In other words, the judgment of using "Usurp" did not depend on the external body, but on the user's state.

[This should be our second meeting. If you really try to recall, you should know who I am.]

"..." Li Mo was silent for two seconds and then said slowly, "You are that knocking ghost."

[Yes, and so are you. Knocking is just a habit. A living person's habit may become a rule after death. It's just a very superficial form of a rule. According to your definition, you should call me Bizarre Mo. I am you after you have fallen.]

Li Mo immediately retorted, "Impossible. It's impossible to maintain a living person's sanity after falling."

[That's right. Because a distorted human nature will affect the absolutely objective rules, but if we only have pure rules, we can maintain absolute clarity.]

[But everything has a premise. Even if there is a trace of human nature, it will become distorted over time and eventually fall.]

[Unfortunately, I have not reached the ultimate.]

Li Mo: "You caused this world to become like this?"

[This is an inevitable event.]

"Inevitable... event?" Li Mo repeated in a low voice.

[When the world is cut off by unknown rules, history no longer develops in a linear timeline. Everything done in the future will create the past, just like the quantum entanglement in quantum mechanics. Even if two particles are not in the same place, the same universe, the same space-time, as long as one particle changes, the other particle will also change instantly. The time of the two changes is absolutely simultaneous, without any difference. You can also understand it as cause and effect.]

[This world is the same. From the moment we arrived, its ending was destined to be destruction. Everyone will die.]

[There is only one way to change. In order to maintain the beauty and peace of the outer world, we can only enter the haunted house on October 14th and kill her on Seele's birthday on October 18th.]

[Only then will the tragedy end, and the source of the Bizarre will be silenced forever.]

"How do you know this?" Li Mo asked tentatively.

What he got was a cold ridicule, "Are you so stupid? You've even forgotten the important news that when a person and a ghost's consciousness are intertwined, they can see each other's memories."

[Do you remember the first dream we fell into? That wasn't a dream. That was what really happened in this world.]

Li Mo was stunned, "You mean when Seele was twelve, I sent the children to school and then..."

[Not at all. You think the inner world is a dream. In fact, the outer world is the dream.]

[The inner world is just a cycle of one tragedy after another.]

[Whether you believe me or not, now, we need to recall your experience of the first time you fell into a dream.]

[Do you remember? That memory of dying. In fact, we should have walked in the smoke of gunpowder. Many people chose to hide in the basement. We were originally one of them.]

[There is no doubt that after the shelling, the enemy went there and cruelly killed everyone.]

[We were lucky, or maybe, this is fate, that let us choose to move forward.]

[In the snow, we moved forward without stopping for a moment, never wanting to go back. The wind and snow would cover all the footprints. To survive, you could only move forward.]

[It seems that fate was destined from the very beginning, to deal with all kinds of bizarre Bizarre. To stop meant death, and to slow down was just to delay the arrival of death.]

[You chose to escape at that time, but in the end, you returned to the starting point. The knife that was inserted into your wound was the only thing that could prevent you from bleeding to death.]

[The thing that intended to kill you was the only thing that could let you continue to live.]

[So, there is only one thing we have to do now—find her and kill her.]

The three students on the rooftop were dumbfounded. They watched Li Mo standing in the mist, motionless, talking to himself. His expression was sometimes calm, sometimes shaken. Although they couldn't hear what Li Mo was saying, they could still feel a sense of incongruity.

"Indeed, you're right. Connecting all the clues, the outer world is more like a dream. The inner world is just a cycle of one tragedy after another. The former is the effect, and the latter is the constantly changing cause."

"This is a terrible hell full of endless pain. No matter how hard you try, you are just desperately fighting for a false happiness. No matter what, everything will return to the starting point, just like the very beginning. No matter whether I succeed or fail, the process is futile, the ending is futile, salvation is futile... everything is futile. I can't save her, nor can I save this world that has already been destroyed."

"This is a terrible fact."

Li Mo took a step forward, and the ghost behind him also took a step forward.

"I once heard a story. The hero's body turned into shining dust and was scattered on the land. People erected a huge monument, weathered by the wind and sun."

"The sea breeze and seabirds would occasionally rest on his arms and overlook the entire kingdom, as well as the heroes still on their way."

"I know, to regard the current state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. Laplace's demon knows the forces of all natural movements and the positions of all natural objects at a certain moment. If it can analyze these data, then the movement of the largest object to the smallest particle in the universe will be included in a simple formula. For Laplace's demon, nothing will be ambiguous, and the future will only appear before it like the past."

"I know, the essence of happiness and joy is actually a scam orchestrated by dopamine, endorphins, and phenylethylamine."

"I know, I will die one day. Unlike the past, my brain will become dull and slow, my behavior will become single and rigid. Everyone and everything around me will gradually reveal a plain and lacking side. I lost, I lost the emotions of a living person, which was my last weapon."

Li Mo walked forward step by step, straight towards the haunted house. There was no one around him, only the spirits behind him followed, like the children who had lived with him before, looking forward to Li Mo bringing better things. Or a cake, a new dress. Or maybe a tomorrow, an ending.

He spoke to the air in front of him, which was nothingness. But he was real, existing in his perception, a living person.

"I'm just a life that will die. I will think about nothingness, but I will never be trapped in it."

"You're wrong."

"I will have nothing, I can't keep anything, I don't need to prove anything, and there's nothing I must do."

"What I can do is to constantly try, gain, feel, and then let go, lose."

"Everyone is like this."

Li Mo came to the gate of the haunted house, took a deep breath, and with one hand, he grabbed the manor's gate and forcefully tore it off, throwing it behind him.

"I have someone I love."

"I also have people who love me."

"Before I die, I just need to be myself. No one can control a free will."

"Not even me."

"I just want to let things develop the way I want them to."

"As long as I think so myself, then everything has meaning."

Li Mo kicked open the gate of the haunted house. Such a barbaric and crude thing was very dangerous in a paranormal incident. Randomly destroying a Bizarre item would only attract gazes and backlash.

Li Mo was always cautious and would never do such a rash thing. Except that he was sure that these were not Bizarre items, there was another reason.

Just like the thin and young boy who picked up a small stone from the ground and threw it at an invincible beast. The small stone would not cause even a little damage. But the boy's action was very heavy, a sign of determination.

Li Mo calmly scanned the first floor. The ceiling was covered with spiderwebs, and countless small spiders hung from the webs, their scarlet eyes staring at the "guest" from outside.

Li Mo knew very well that these external things were just for show. The real enemy was lurking in the shadows. The haunted house should have killed many people. He had learned from the junior high school student that the contamination had already spread to the whole world. This was one of the cycles.

If the future could really change the past, then there was still a chance.

Li Mo blended into the black mist, emptying his body and thoughts. He could vaguely feel that he had a connection with the black mist. His consciousness connected bit by bit. Not long after, Li Mo opened his eyes again and was already able to control the ghosts in the black mist. Although he didn't know the principle behind it.

He had become the knocking ghost, and the voice of the other him in his mind had disappeared without a trace, as if... it had never been born.

From beginning to end, it was just him doing everything.

"This should be our third encounter. Unfortunately, I have no intention of fighting you."

Li Mo connected with the black mist and first walked to the stairs. Sure enough, the stairs were still there. As the master of the haunted house, his actions were within the rules. The ghosts on different floors of the haunted house could not go to other floors, but there was one exception, and that was the knocking ghost.

The knocking ghost had knocked on the door of the second floor on the first night, and then returned to knock on the door of the first floor. He had taken the place of the knocking ghost, so he could go up and down the stairs freely and would not be restricted by the five-night rules of the haunted house.

Ignoring the human-shaped spiders in the shadows, Li Mo went up to the second floor and came to the door of the first room on the second floor.

He raised his hand and gently knocked on the door.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Li Mo did not take the initiative to wave his hand. When he raised his hand and approached the door, his hand knocked unconsciously. Three times, proving that there were three ghosts inside.

Seele should not have completely fallen into a ghost yet, and she would definitely hide in a room without ghosts, so he just needed to see which room he didn't knock on.

Li Mo came to the second room, "Bang!"

Once, there was a ghost inside.

Unfortunately, all the rooms on the second floor had ghosts, and Li Mo did not knock on the ninth room. There was an elevator here, but he couldn't get close.

After that, Li Mo went to the first floor and knocked on the doors according to the original rules. All the rooms on the first floor still had ghosts, so Li Mo went to the third floor.

Seele originally lived in a room on the third floor with Bronya, but later Seele would always go to his room on the fifth floor to sleep when Bronya was asleep.

If he couldn't find her on the third floor, Li Mo would have to consider how to get to the fifth floor. The fourth floor was a Soul-Ferrying Passage, separating the third and fifth floors.

As the sound of knocking on the door rang out, Li Mo's face became very ugly.

"..."

"She's on the fifth floor, which is the room that was lit when I left."

Although he had expected it, Li Mo couldn't help but be stunned. The fourth floor was a place that living people couldn't pass through. So could he pass through now with the identity of the knocking ghost?

"Let's try."