Kaidan Game Train: Abide Rule or Die!-Chapter 2202: The Goddess Is Hospitable

"Don’t look at me like that." Huang Mao scratched his head and said, "I had no choice, anyone in that situation couldn’t hold back. Besides, even though I was running and jumping with every trick in the Inquiry Hall, I barely moved from my place. Since everything’s fake, suicide must be fake too, right?"

"Friend, your thinking is quite dangerous." Xu Huo said, "How can you distinguish when it’s real and when it’s fake? What if the fight with the Cannibal Player is fake, but your suicide ends up being real?"

"That’s exactly what worries me, which is why I haven’t dared to act." Huang Mao sighed, "It’d be great if there were some resurrection items."

"Even if there was, would you dare use it?" Xu Huo continued, "Didn’t you say you couldn’t even use any items? Are you sure a lifesaving item would work?"

Huang Mao nodded, "Even if there really were resurrection items, I wouldn’t dare use them outside of an illusion. Who knows if the item would work every time? What if it failed just when I tried to use it after a suicide attempt? Life and death are too important to gamble with luck."

"However, I heard from other players that non-ticket players who enter instances fare much better than those who clear them," he glanced at Xu Huo, "Make sure no one finds out you’re not here to clear the instance; otherwise, you’ll be in trouble."

"Unfortunately, they already know." Xu Huo smiled slightly, "Someone’s come to invite me over several times."

Huang Mao was first surprised, then realized and gave a thumbs up, "You’re impressive; it looks like I worried for nothing."

He finished speaking, walked to the window, and gestured toward the Divine Temple, "Holy Land City is bustling; I wonder if they’ll actually start a fight, or if it’ll just end up as thunder without rain."

"Who knows?" Xu Huo followed his gaze.

Players from the Outer Zone within the city seemed to have caught wind of something, so very few of them entered the Divine Temple in recent days, choosing instead to observe it from both near and afar.

Only Xu Huo, who would visit once in the morning, have lunch inside, and go again before sleeping at night.

This behavior not only annoyed the temple staff but also frustrated the players who had cleared the instances.

According to logic, the dungeon venue should be capturing non-ticket players; otherwise, there wouldn’t be claims that non-clearance players wouldn’t be targeted by the instance. Yet Xu Huo entered multiple times and always came out safely, making people question the validity of those claims about non-clearance players.

Of course, some players insisted that there had definitely been non-clearance players entering the instance. As for Xu Huo freely wandering the Divine Temple as if it were a garden, it’s either he has incredible luck, or the temple genuinely has issues, too tied up to deal with the non-clearance players.

With such thoughts, two or three players decided to test their luck, but once inside, they never came out. Judging by the intermittent garbled messages sent out, they’ve likely entered the instance and are now stuck.

Since the instance remains, continuing to absorb players who’ve cleared it, others dared not attempt it again.

The closer it got to the Sacred Day, the more mentally tense the clearance players became. Even Huang Mao would worry every time Xu Huo went into the Divine Temple, "Aren’t you afraid of not making it out once you enter?"

Xu Huo didn’t say much and just smiled, "Trying my luck, I feel my luck isn’t bad."

However, he wasn’t as calm as he seemed, because instances are uncontrollable. If the Goddess became whimsically interested, anything could happen. Yet, as his visits to the temple increased, the calmer he felt, gradually sensing that the instance didn’t plan to drag an unrelated person in.

Frequent in-and-outs of the temple allowed him to adapt to its pressures, and observing the complex patterns long enough revealed some patterns. Sometimes, he could even faintly see some shadows.

The temple’s patterns might not just originate from instances; they could be items that underwent special processing.

Xu Huo once received an item gifted by the director from the Art Museum instance, suggesting that bosses have the right to dispose of generated items and can even interfere with them.

Projecting psychic power outward and preserving it indefinitely is a direction that intrigues him. Although he knows the role of "anchors" in the Spiritual World, using such anchors requires a certain level of evolution, or the help of advanced items.

Despite this, "anchor" usage is limited to small scales and individuals, while indiscriminate attacks like those in Flower City or the temple’s main gate seem more convenient.

While in an instance, he’d heard that some plants growing in certain zones could emit psychic power. While the plants themselves didn’t think, their effects were similar to the temple’s main gate, perpetually maintaining a state of mental interference, seemingly inexhaustible.

"Here we go again." A few days passed, and on the eve of the Sacred Day, there were fewer believers coming to the temple as they prepared overnight for the needed items. So when Xu Huo visited, the temple was nearly empty, with players responsible for maintaining order monitoring his every move.

"Doesn’t it tire you to come like this every day?" Today, the leader was a female player. She asked, "The patterns in the temple can make those who look at them long-term feel overwhelmed. What do you hope to see?"

Who would endure daily psychic attacks unless they were a masochist?

Xu Huo was in a good mood today, "Depends on what’s up there. I always feel there’s something there, but I haven’t seen it clearly, so I keep coming back."

"Working in the temple, haven’t you noticed anything special about these patterns?"

The female player subconsciously glanced at the walls but quickly averted her eyes, "Traces of the Goddess, I dare not look directly."

Of course, this was just a formal excuse. Although believers are protected from the patterns’ attacks, staring at them long-term is also a bad idea, especially certain specific patterns, like the eyes that usually need to be covered in the temple—when in use, even then, they try to avoid looking at them. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Xu Huo had tested this on his first visit.

"You are all believers of the Goddess but dare not even look at her traces," Xu Huo chuckled, using a cane to walk slowly onward.

"Looking directly at the Goddess is inherently disrespectful." The female player followed, "You’re being disrespectful; if not for the Divine Envoy and the Saintess’ word, you’d never step through the temple’s main gate."

Xu Huo paid no heed to her hostility and said, "Since there’s no issue with me looking directly at these patterns, doesn’t that mean the Goddess isn’t opposed to what I’m doing? Could this represent the Goddess’ will?"

"Moreover, I find the Goddess ought to be quite hospitable."