Ita Era

Chapter 91 Ghostly Power
At exactly six o'clock in the evening, the radio announced from the housekeeper: "11 guests remain."

Wow, 11 people died like that. Think about it, killing isn't difficult. If you consider Yu Yuan an enemy, you can just shake hands and kill him. Even more ruthless, consider Yu Yuan both an enemy and a friend; one handshake and you've got 5000 yuan.

The housekeeper added, "After fierce competition, three prisoners were ultimately awarded the opportunity to escape from the dungeon. From 6 PM to 7 PM, they will have one hour to escape. We have specially prepared televisions for all guests to watch their performance live. While watching the performance, guests can call 000 at any time to place bets."

Many people were caught for violating the theft rules, but through a mini-game, only 3 prisoners were ultimately granted the right to escape.

The housekeeper explained the rules of the escape game: reaching the restaurant signifies a successful escape. If no one escapes, at 19 PM sharp, the survivor who is closest to the finish line wins. If everyone dies, the escape fails.

The television picture is undeniably crystal clear, clearly indicating the use of 21st-century live streaming technology. The three escapees are a tiger, a mouse, and an eagle. Real-time odds are displayed in the upper right corner of the television screen; currently, all three have odds of 10.

At 6:05 PM, the escape began. The first to move was the rat, who took out a poorly made key from the item slot.

The phone rang. After answering it, Ding Shi opened the door, and Wang Meng and Yu Yuan came in together. Yu Yuan said, "It's more fun to watch the live stream together. We can also learn more while we're at it."

"Sit wherever you like," Ding Shi said. The room was a safe zone once the door was closed, not just for the homeowner.

Yu Yuan saw the mouse's key and asked, "Where did he get the key?"

Ding Shi said, "It seems to be homemade; it should be a metal key that he tinkered with in the villa."

Wang Meng said, "It's very rough; it probably won't be able to open the cell door."

Ding Shi said, "Just because it's hard to open doesn't mean it can't be opened. This guy is very cunning."

Yu Yuan asked, "Why isn't the tiger moving?"

Ding Shi said, "He's betting that the other two will die on their way to escape."

Ding Shi picked up the phone: "207 bet on rats, 4 yuan."

Wang Meng and Yu Yuan both stared at Ding Shi as if he were a madman. Ding Shi explained, "If throwing away 4 can kill Sha Bi and kick him out of the instance, I think it's worth it. If Sha Bi manages to escape, I can get 40." Strictly speaking, Sha Bi was his only true enemy.

Wang Meng immediately picked up the phone: "Bet on the rat at 213, two thousand yuan." Because Ding Shi placed the bet, the odds for the rat had dropped to 1:6.

Yu Yuan did not make a call immediately, but continued to observe.

A few minutes later, Eagle was the first to leave the cell. Eagle was a sword-wielding class; he could condense sword energy in his fingers. Although it looked cartoonish and harmless, and unsuitable for picking locks, the sword energy could penetrate the keyhole and wreak havoc inside.

After the lock was broken, the odds for the Eagles immediately dropped to 1:5.

The mouse then successfully opened the cell door, and the odds dropped to 1:4.

The odds for a sitting tiger have dropped to 1:8.

Yu Yuan said, "Tiger is a new friend I made, a very interesting person. It's a pity that we are about to be separated forever."

Ding Shi asked, "You don't think he's a good candidate?"

Yu Yuan said, "We can understand it this way: now that the eagle and the mouse have both left the prison, if one of them dies, the other doesn't need to challenge anymore and can stay where he is and wait for the time to run out. Since this person survived and is closer to the exit than the tiger, the tiger will be eliminated."

Yu Yuan said, "The tiger's strategy of sitting still basically means it's out of the game. Unless the eagle and the mouse are not very bright and one of them dies, he will continue to challenge.

The eagle and the mouse have now reached the second challenge. They must dive into a stinking pool and choose one of five pipes. Some pipes are long, and some are short. If they don't hold their breath long enough, or if they choose a pipe that is too long, they will drown.

Yu Yuan observed the change: "If the rat and the eagle don't choose the same pipe, they won't know if the other is alive or dead, and they will continue to try to pass the test."

Wang Meng said, "You underestimated the shamelessness of some scoundrels."

Ding Shi laughed: "Haha, I thought you didn't know he was a villain."

Wang Meng ignored Ding Shi and asked, "Yu Yuan, which do you think is better, the rat or the eagle?"

Yu Yuan: "A rat."

"why?"

Yu Yuan said, "Ding Shi is very strong. If he can be Ding Shi's opponent, he must be quite good."

Wang Meng: "You flatter me. Ding Shi often has mental lapses, but most of the time he can get through them, though there are exceptions."

Ding Shi: "Thank you for being modest on my behalf."

After thrashing around in the pool for 10 minutes, the eagle chose pipe number 2, and the mouse followed suit. Those involved are often blinded by their own involvement; even onlookers could see that the mouse was merely going through the motions, expending very little energy. The eagle, on the other hand, was seriously exploring the pipes, only surfacing when it was at its limit.

Pipeline No. 2 is 25 meters long. There are no images inside the pipe, only images of the pipe's outlet and inlet.

The rat was inside the pipe for almost a minute, and no one appeared on screen, but observant people noticed blood at the pipe opening. The water was stagnant, and as the person inside struggled, streams of blood gushed from the pipe into the pool.

At one minute and thirty seconds, the eagle appeared at the pipe exit first. He was pushed out by a rat. The rat crawled out of the pipe, holding the metal key, stepped on the eagle's corpse, and stabbed the eagle's neck repeatedly before spitting out a wad of phlegm and leaving.

The rat didn't go far; he found clean water to wash himself and didn't seem to intend to continue the game. His odds had dropped to 2:1.

Half the time had passed. The rat washed itself clean and sat down in a dry spot. Inside the cell, the tiger began kicking the door. Its powerful kicks were evident; after a few blows, the door was on the verge of breaking down.

Yu Yuan asked, "Isn't this a clever tactic? Let others go first, then go yourself. If you see two corpses, you rest where you are. If you only see one corpse, you continue forward. If the rat has already escaped, you will not see the rat's corpse and will continue on your way."

Ding Shi thought for a while: "This choice is still relatively conservative. He is pinning his hopes of winning on others. As it stands, the tiger's choice is wrong. If the tiger chooses pipe number 2, he will encounter a rat that is full of energy after resting. The rat has been guarding the vicinity of pipe number 2. As soon as the tiger shows his face, the rat will definitely attack him."

Yu Yuan said, "The tiger's chance now is to go through the other four pipes. I think it's possible. There's a lot of blood in pipe number 2, so the tiger won't choose pipe number 2."

Wang Meng disagreed: "The eagle spent ten minutes scouting before choosing pipe number 2. The tiger doesn't seem to have much time to scout; he has to choose the pipe with blood."

Ding Shi, unusually, did not object to Wang Meng, saying, "I think the tiger's only way out is through Pipe No. 2, where it can suddenly emerge from the exit and fight the rat to the death."

Wang Meng asked, "What do you think is the profession of Sha Bi?" Ding Shi thought for a while and said, "Sword Qi, I guess. At least it has the word 'cheap' in it."

Five minutes later, the tiger reached the edge of the stagnant pool. Observing the water, he noticed a pool of blood at the entrance of pipe number 2. Without hesitation, he went straight for pipe number 2.

As soon as the tiger entered the pipe, the rat saw the ripples in the water at the exit and immediately stood up. He walked to the eagle's corpse, put the eagle's hand into the mask, and after a while, the eagle's hand came out, missing a little finger. The rat had actually bitten off one of the eagle's fingers.

As the rat chewed, a dark shadow emerged from its body and disappeared into the eagle's carcass. The eagle's carcass rose from the water, staring intently at the exit. The rat had retreated ten meters, returning to the dry area.

This scene stunned everyone, and it also disgusted them.

“Ghostly power,” Ding Shi said.

Yu Yuan: "How eerie."

Just then, the tiger emerged from the pipe. The eagle swooped down on it; it was incredibly strong, grabbing the 80-kilogram tiger and throwing it three meters, slamming it against the wall. The tiger instantly turned into a splash of water upon impact.

Ding Shi said, "Water Substitution Technique, the tiger is a ninja."

The next second, the real tiger emerged from the pipe, pulled out a ninja kunai resembling a dagger, and quickly pounced on the eagle, the kunai accurately piercing the back of the eagle's neck.

A dark shadow struggled to fly out of the eagle's body and into the mouse's body. This change startled the tiger, who didn't understand what was happening for a moment, but he turned around and faced the mouse on the shore.

The mouse stood upright, and a dark shadow detached from his body and approached the tiger. The tiger had never seen such a bizarre scene before, and faced with the shadow's relentless advance, he retreated step by step.

Suddenly, the mouse punched the air, and the shadowy figure simultaneously threw a punch. The tiger dodged, the wind from the punch ruffling his hair.

The tiger seized the opportunity to stab the shadowy figure under the armpit with the kunai in its hand, but the figure felt nothing. The rat threw a right punch, and the shadowy figure's right fist struck the tiger's abdomen, causing the tiger to spit out a mouthful of blood. The rat made a grabbing motion, and the shadowy figure lifted the tiger up, slamming it down on its knee.

This is not a professional wrestling performance.

A cracking sound rang out as the tiger collapsed painfully into the water. The rat made a strangling motion, and the shadowy figure gripped the tiger's neck. The tiger struggled desperately, stabbing at the shadowy figure's arm with its kunai, but it couldn't harm it at all.

The rat maintained its strangulation, while the shadowy figure gripped the tiger's neck tightly. After a while, the tiger stopped struggling and went into shock.

It takes a relatively long time to kill someone by strangling, similar to drowning; it takes about five minutes of suffocation to cause permanent brain damage.

The shadowy figure grabbed the tiger's head and slammed it against the wall repeatedly. After a dozen or so slams, the figure threw the tiger's carcass aside.

What happened next was something no one had ever heard of or seen before: the dark figure's head was sucking air into the tiger's corpse, and a wisp of black air was drawn away from the tiger's body by the dark figure.

Yu Yuan stammered, "This...this...this absorbed my soul?"

Ding Shi's expression turned serious: "It's really eerie. Is Sha Bi using this method to strengthen the shadow? Killing people, absorbing souls, and making his ghost stronger."

Ding Shi said, "I think if Sha Bi knew there was a live stream, he probably wouldn't have shown up like this. With his own strength, he could still kill two people. Sha Bi didn't know there was a live stream, and he used the shadow to kill and absorb energy. He only had one purpose: to strengthen or train the ghost."

Wang Meng agreed: "That's right. The system said that although ghost power is strong, it has side effects and can backfire on its master. I don't know why."

Yu Yuan said, "Have you noticed that if the mouse eats the eagle's finger just to control the eagle's corpse, why would it use this trick? It could easily kill the tiger by directly controlling the shadow."

Ding Shi nodded. He believed in Sha Bi's mutated nature, but he didn't believe Sha Bi would enjoy eating human fingers. The eagle possessed by the shadow, though powerful, was killed by the tiger, forcing out the demon within it.

Ding Shi said, "So eating the eagle's fingers wasn't to make a ghost possess the eagle's corpse."

Wang Meng said, "Eating fingers should be the prelude to casting a spell. Only by eating the flesh of a person or a corpse can the ghost within be activated. The more you eat, the longer the shadow lasts?" He wasn't sure.

Yu Yuan said, "Then he'll have to keep a thigh in his inventory, so he can take it out and bite it whenever he needs to summon a ghost. Damn, that's disgusting." Yu Yuan looked away from the TV screen, his stomach cramping, and he tried hard to control himself.

Ding asked curiously, "Is there a rule that you have to eat raw food?"

Yu Yuan finally couldn't hold it in any longer and ran to the bathroom to vomit into the toilet.

Ding Shi spread his hands and looked at Yu Yuan with sympathy, saying, "But the ghost's power is really strong."

Wang Meng asked, "Do you have any ideas?"

Ding Shi replied, "No, because I have my bottom line. I also have to admit that Sha Bi is more ruthless than me."

The shadowy figure on the television screen had returned to the rat. The rat began rubbing its head, seemingly in great pain, even banging its head against the wall, blood streaming down its forehead through the mask. Three minutes later, the rat calmed down, sitting cross-legged, appearing utterly exhausted.

Ding Shi added, "But no matter what, I have to thank him." Ding Shi currently has 40 yuan in cash.

Wang Meng only earned 12,000, 2,000 of which was his initial investment, and he started to feel resentful again. How could he be constantly at a disadvantage against Ding Shi?

The prison break game ended, and it was dinner time, with 12 guests remaining.

When the silly rat appeared in the restaurant, everyone looked at him. As he walked, everyone gave him a wide berth, which puzzled the silly rat. So he reached out and grabbed someone's shoulder, pulled them in front of him, and asked, "What's going on?"

The man who was being captured was holding a steak knife in his right hand. He casually stabbed Sha Bi in the abdomen, then kicked Sha Bi three meters away. One step later, the man who was being captured was in front of Sha Bi.

That's right, Silly Bone was just that unlucky; the person he caught happened to be Ding Shi. After all, the rules say, don't get close to the duck, or you'll suffer misfortune.

Just as things were about to get out of hand, the housekeeper teleported in front of the two and stopped them, saying, "Fighting is not allowed during mealtimes."

Ding Shi complained, "There's no such rule."

The housekeeper said, "We have it now." Foolish Dagger is her profession, and she still owes her main body 200 points.

Sha Bi leaned on the table to stand up, his voice trembling with pain: "Ding Shi?"

Ding feigned ignorance: "Who are you?"

(End of this chapter)