"Giggle giggle giggle..."
Under Lin Yiyi’s gaze, the "Angelo" that had risen into the air let out a crisp, baby-like laugh.
She had now regained control of her body.
Lin Yiyi knew it was the time to do something.
The flesh orb just floated in mid-air, looking at her expectantly, as if waiting for something.
Lin Yiyi called out tentatively.
After no response, she changed the keyword and continued to call out, "Elle?
"Angelo" waited for a long time but did not respond.
The surrounding baby’s laughter gradually became sparse as the seven-colored flame grew more intense. Lin Yiyi began to feel difficulty breathing, getting a bit dizzy...
Lin Yiyi panicked, trying new keywords incessantly: "My dear?
"Kiss-kiss my darling?"
"—Are you just filling in blanks here?"
"—It’s over, I think Sister Rod is done for."
"—You’re already dead (North Star face)."
"—It’s quite enough, many players wouldn’t be able to reach your level."
"—Sister Rod, that was a profitable life, rest in peace."
The barrage watching Lin Yiyi clearly starting to panic immediately took delight in her misfortune.
"...It must be missing something."
Looking at the unresponsive orb growing bigger and bigger, Lin Yiyi sighed, "I’m probably done for, bros.
"Remember to write down all the text from before! Someone go tell Old Goose that this path is a dead end, don’t come this way for now..."
Before she finished speaking, she suddenly saw Angelo dive down.
And swallowed her head in one bite.
Her vision did not darken because of this... because the moment she was swallowed,
Lin Yiyi could see a pair of green pupils inside the orb’s "belly," looking at her with a mocking face.
Then, she lost consciousness.
"This should be a guaranteed death ending."
Including Annan, the players who saw this had all realized by now.
This segment... should be the kind of "pre-endings" in multi-round decryption games that need to be played out once before heading to the true ending.
It’s a death ending designed to reveal certain key information. After obtaining this information, you can then start the route to the true ending.
—This was also normal.
After all, who knows how many layers this dungeon had; it wouldn’t be possible to place the ending passage on the first layer. That would be too much of a mockery.
But it was entirely possible that you first needed to get something or learn some information later on, and then restart choosing to leave something behind on the first layer... to enter the true ending.
"Truly worthy of a Twisted difficulty nightmare," Annan murmured, "To explore to such depth and still not trigger the main quest..."
He was now vaguely aware that the scale of this nightmare might be larger than he had initially imagined.
Not to mention anything else.
It seems to be directly related to the event forty-five years ago when Frostwater Harbor was cursed by the Skeleton Baron. It would definitely involve the reasons why Frostwater Harbor had been abandoned to this day... and why Tan Juan had come to this land.
At the end of this nightmare, you might directly encounter the Skeleton Baron himself.
—He needed to find Tan Juan again.
Of course, that was after he got more newspapers from Salvatore.
Annan made up his mind.
When he had time later, he wanted to re-enter the nightmare on the ship. This time he would try to ask Tan Juan and Wizard Benjamin clearly about why they had come to Frostwater Harbor at this time.
Their actions were very strange.
To call it seeking refuge,
would be less accurate than saying they sent a less important direct descendant... to find something here, or perhaps someone.
"Anyway, the first layer of the nightmare has a mechanism that leads to the minus first layer: the basement. After entering the basement, it will trigger a storyline related to ’Angelo’—afterwards, surely something must be done to overlap the events with what happened in history... or conversely, to change that unfortunate outcome?"
Annan mused to himself.
There’s less than an hour left until sunrise now... The players don’t have much time left.
Those who haven’t entered the dungeon have simply given up. Instead, they’re content to stay outside and watch the livestream.
They’ve probably realized that this dungeon isn’t something they can clear in just an hour or two.
—Of course, after they continue to explore for some time, Annan will give them the real "easy dungeon" to prevent them from losing their motivation.
It’s the nightmare transformed by Justin.
He is a bronze-ranked Transcendent. He can only transform into easy difficulty nightmares.
Just like the one transformed by Tan Juan.
Not only does it lack the various troublesome traits of twisted-difficulty nightmares, but it’s also short in length, almost zero in puzzle difficulty, and the combat process is simple with only one Transcendent enemy...
And maybe, just maybe, Annan will appear as an NPC ally to assist them.
—So wouldn’t that be a walk in the park?
This dungeon is the real training ground Annan had prepared for the players to level up.
As for the "Gallery".
...Annan just wanted to send players in to scout it out for him.
While the players are grinding for levels, Annan himself will go take a look at the nightmare transformed by Gerald.
The main purpose is to see if he would say anything he shouldn’t in the nightmare. To see how much he truly understands Annan Winter before deciding whether or not to open this nightmare to the players...
Annan let out a light sound of surprise when he noticed a sudden change in the traffic on the livestream interface.
In a short while, the Wandering Child had already entered the deeper layers of the dream.
Had it not been for the sharp increase in the number of viewers on his side, Annan wouldn’t have been aware of the new development here.
But his progress in the game was indeed fast.
"Let me see, which layer is this... Oh, still the third layer?"
Annan’s expression was somewhat odd.
The third layer of the deep dream, if he remembered correctly, was "Gallery: Elle Morrison", right?
So next, the Wandering Child will be playing as Elle?
He was somewhat eager and clicked on the livestream.
He caught the Wandering Child looking confused, along with the lively chat:
"—Oh! Princess Kai is so pretty!"
"—Your dad told you to smile!"
"—No offense, but if that’s really your dad..."
"—Rounding up, this counts as Kai cross-dressing, right?"
"—Wait a minute, if the kid looks this good in drag, I swear they won’t be able to get out of bed tomorrow..."
"—Hey, the one in front, could you pause for a second?"
"You bunch of animals..."
The Wandering Child muttered in a lowered voice, awkwardly smoothing down his skirt.
—It’s known that during live broadcasts, the audience’s view can rotate slightly.
In front of him, the artist Amos, however, was becoming increasingly dissatisfied.
Finally, he put down his brush heavily.
The sound of the paintbrush striking the wooden board startled the Wandering Child, who instantly focused his attention on Amos.
Amos’s eyes were filled with anger, "Elle, what’s the matter with you today?
"You fidgeting about... How am I supposed to paint your portrait? You’re just wasting precious paint!"
The Wandering Child hesitated, then stammered out a response: "I’m not feeling very well today..."
As he spoke, he actually made an appearance of feeling unwell.
He wasn’t completely without acting skills...
—This was the excellent acting he used back in school to get sick leave from the homeroom teacher.
But it seemed as if he had managed to fool Amos.
Amos hesitated for a moment, then suddenly said something a little strange, "Would you like to try...
"Other methods of treatment besides seeking fair trade from the Silver Baron’s priests?"