"I imagine everyone here has some sort of ace up their sleeve, more or less. Otherwise, you wouldn't have made it this far." The speaker was a woman with a gray birthmark covering half her face. She stared at Dana, who lay motionless on the floor, her expression grave. "She must have had more than just that golden light item on her. But…"
Though unspoken, everyone understood the implication.
Until the very end, none of them had seen Dana use any other item.
Too stingy to use it? Impossible.
"Perhaps she did use it, but it was just too subtle for us to notice," the woman wearing long sleeves and trousers spoke up. "Or perhaps, she was indeed about to use it at the critical moment, but simply didn't have time."
Neither possibility was good news.
The former meant that the invisible entity was so formidable it could even disregard what the players considered their precious trump cards. The latter meant its attack was so swift it didn't even allow time to react and activate a trump card.
"If she could have used her trump card the moment it started…" Saha began, but was interrupted.
Polina scoffed. "If it were you, would you have used it immediately?"
He definitely wouldn't. Saha closed his mouth.
"Did any of you notice that towards the end, she seemed to see something that shocked her profoundly? That might be why she didn't have time to use her trump card," the brown-haired, blue-eyed man, Buriman, mused thoughtfully, stroking his chin.
"And 'retreat or die'… does it mean we should withdraw from the competition, or else we die?"
After muttering to himself for a moment, Buriman suddenly turned to another man who had remained silent from start to finish, a man wearing a suit and tie. "Sir, don't you have any thoughts to share?"
The man was not tall, and was one of the few East Asian faces among the players.
He seemed somewhat reclusive. Even when singled out, he just lowered his voice and said, "My apologies, I have no opinion."
"Given the situation we're in now, surely there's no need for further secrecy, right?" Daisy's gaze swept between Winifred and Polina.
Winifred remained silent. He only knew that Polina and Dana had been attacked, and that he had seen the bluish-gray eerie shadow following Dana. Beyond that, he genuinely knew nothing about what the two women had experienced in the room.
Polina pursed her lips, but ultimately gave a brief account of what happened last night.
There was no point in hiding it anymore.
This was no longer just a simple matter of information.
She and Dana were the only two players who had been attacked. In fact, last night, she had been attacked before Dana.
She didn't know if she would be the entity's next target.
After hearing Polina's description, everyone fell silent for a moment.
"As for why we were targeted… I don't know," Polina said flatly.
She wanted to figure it out too.
"Sounds pretty grim," Buriman forced a stiff smile. "Can appear anytime, vanish anywhere, capable of both physical attacks and mental control. Most importantly, our items seem ineffective against it… or at least not very effective?"
"What's the point of playing then? Wouldn't it be easier to just wait for death?"
"It can't be that hopeless. There must be limitations," Daisy calmly listed possibilities. "Perhaps it has fixed conditions for attacking. Perhaps it needs a long cooldown period before it can strike again. Or perhaps… it's not completely immune to item damage. Maybe its condition isn't great right now after launching the attack."
At that moment, the show's production team staff finally arrived, albeit belatedly.
——
Monitoring room.
Seeing the contestant with the artistic air peacefully eating breakfast, then suddenly standing up and inexplicably dodging something, Xu Xi instinctively leaned forward, his eyes fixed intently on the screen.
Had that invisible thing come again?
And most importantly, he suddenly realized—it wasn't just him and the production team. Judging by the wary yet confused expressions of the other players, they seemed unable to see it too.
Was it not a difference in perspective between the two sides, but rather that only the person being attacked could see the entity?
He immediately shook his head.
No, that wasn't right. He remembered the look of deep apprehension on the bearded man's face last night when he looked behind Dana.
He was certain that guy had seen something.
By now, the footage on the monitor had reached the point where Dana collapsed limply to the floor and Winifred called for help.
At this moment, Xu Xi's thoughts aligned perfectly with those of the man in the trench coat.
Could the first player death have just occurred?
The slovenly man suddenly sprang to his feet, shouting to the side, "Quick! Where's the medical team? Get them in there to check!"
A staff member nearby hastily picked up a walkie-talkie to relay the order.
Xu Xi had no intention of going to check personally. Instead, he dragged the progress bar back a short segment, pausing it right at the moment Dana opened her mouth as if saying something.
…What cheap, low-quality surveillance equipment did this production team install? Couldn't even pick up sound.
Xu Xi casually complained to himself and began trying hard to decipher what she had said.
A few minutes later, Xu Xi silently put down the mouse.
Alright, he really wasn't good at lip-reading.
At this moment, staring at the surveillance screen before him, Xu Xi couldn't help but run his fingers through his hair.
As expected, free stuff is never any good.
This god's-eye view handed to him on a platter might seem impressive, like having total control over the situation. In reality, it was more like some kind of trial pass—all surface features, no core functionality. Flashy but useless.
Tch.
——
The arrival of the medical personnel prompted the players to wordlessly shelve their ongoing discussion.
They stood to the side, quietly observing as the medical team attended to Dana.
After a series of checks, the person in charge couldn't help but frown.
Seeing this, Winifred instinctively asked, "How is she? Is she…"
"Vital signs are stable," the medical team leader interrupted him, his frown deepening. "No external injuries, no internal bleeding. All physiological indicators are normal."
He removed his stethoscope, his tone puzzled. "From a medical standpoint, this contestant is simply… asleep. But strangely, her brainwaves show fragmented characteristics. There's almost no effective connection between the various brain regions, as if they were forcibly torn apart by some kind of force."
Hearing this, everyone immediately recalled how she had seemed possessed just before collapsing.
"So she's still alive?" Polina felt a slight sense of relief.
"Her physiological indicators indeed show she is alive," the medical team leader affirmed with a nod, then changed tack. "However, it's highly unlikely her consciousness will regain clarity at this moment."
Two medical personnel lifted Dana onto a stretcher.
"This contestant is unconscious and unable to continue the competition. She is eliminated." After saying this, the medical team leader turned to leave.
He urgently needed to get back and conduct a more detailed examination.
At that moment, a male voice suddenly spoke up behind him.
"Wait. I think… I should withdraw from this competition."
Everyone immediately looked over.
The speaker was Buriman.
