SAN

SAN

The attempt just now felt to Mu Sichen as if it had lasted for ages, but in reality only a few seconds had passed. Doors opened all around him, and people in cloaks began walking out one after another.

Enduring the sharp pain in his left eye, Mu Sichen quietly observed his surroundings.

Their rooms were strange.

Judging by the room layout, Mu Sichen guessed he was living in an apartment building. After stepping out, he should have seen a stairwell, an elevator, and the other apartment doors on the same floor of the same unit.

Yet the moment he stepped through the door, he arrived in a place like a plaza.

There were no buildings around him at all, only a broad plaza and dense fog glimmering with points of light. Visibility was under a hundred meters.

The surroundings and the sky were all blocked by fog, yet the light source came precisely from that fog. Specks of light drifted inside it, illuminating the area. It was as if, without the fog, he would be standing in darkness.

Fighting through headache and nausea, Mu Sichen thought back to the glimpse he had just caught. Countless white feathers had fallen from around that eye, dissolving into fog flecked with light.

Clearly, the fog in the town's "Night" was made by Big Eye. During "Night," Big Eye would close its eyes and should be weaker than when its eyes were open. To protect itself, and to make managing the Town of the Eye easier, It had created a fog large enough to cover the entire town.

The eye he saw had appeared when Mu Sichen looked up at the sky. Big Eye must have placed one eye in the air to look down over the whole town.

Now, when he lifted his head, the sky was filled with fog. A normal person should have seen nothing at all, but as soon as Mu Sichen closed his intact right eye, an image surfaced in his mind: a giant, tightly shut eye hanging in the air.

That act of gazing upon it seemed to have given him some indescribable ability.

The System still had not provided a description of the ability, probably because he still could not actively control this power.

Big Eye's power manifested as eyes and lines of sight. Mu Sichen believed the ability he now possessed came precisely from Big Eye.

Mu Sichen sincerely felt that his ability should be called "Fleecing," not "Undermine."

The nickname Big Eye and his optimistic mindset kept Mu Sichen's SAN extremely stable. If he became afraid of Big Eye now, the moment he remembered that eye, his SAN would plummet at high speed until it fell past any hope of recovery. But after Mu Sichen had given the Great Being the name Big Eye, his dread receded and gained a trace of teasing instead, which stabilized his emotions.

More and more cloaked people gathered around him. Using his cloak as cover, Mu Sichen silently observed them.

Most moved stiffly, their expressions numb. Their SAN probably fluctuated between 50 and 60, below passing level but not especially terrible. They should be ordinary townspeople: they had not become followers of Big Eye, nor were they as terrified of life in town as the diary owner had been. They were merely living in numbness.

A few people's SAN was between 60 and 90. Mu Sichen quietly studied their expressions and found them odd. In a town like this, their fear actually carried a hint of excitement, as if they were visiting a haunted house and were both eager and worried about being scared.

These people... could they all be closed-beta players like him? A thought rose quietly in Mu Sichen's mind.

He had thought he was the only one who had been tricked into coming here.

After all, as soon as he crossed into this world, he had been trapped in a sealed, dark room. It was only natural for him to have the illusion that he was alone.

Thinking back now, My Ideal Town had an official website and a forum. He was not the only one who could see them. A few of Mu Sichen's clients had also complained in their game group chat that the test version of My Ideal Town was terribly made, and that the game definitely would not be fun.

This guess filled Mu Sichen with limitless hope.

If there were other players, that proved there had to be a passage connecting this place to the real world. Maybe he still had a chance to go home.

Of course, Mu Sichen did not let his guard down just because other players existed, or truly treat this place as a game where people could respawn.

Everything he had encountered so far exceeded the scope of the modern world's understanding, beyond the control of game rules, morality, and law. Under these circumstances, anyone who approached this world with a gamer's mindset would definitely have a miserable time.

Mu Sichen did not try to identify himself to the players for now. He watched and waited, continuing to observe the environment.

SAN above 90 was extremely rare. On the other hand, there were quite a few at -90.

SAN status bars appeared white, while status bars for negative SAN were black.

Some people without cloaks stood at the center of the plaza. Their SAN ranged from 0 to -100, and from their clothing, they looked much like the Follower Mu Sichen had soundly beaten. They were probably the same kind of people.

At the sight of them, Mu Sichen's eyes brightened slightly.

He was currently facing the danger of his SAN going into free fall. If he could take down a few more Followers, he could obtain more Self Stickers and stop his SAN from continuing to drop.

Unfortunately, the radio had been left in the room, so he temporarily could not help Qin Zhou Undermine anyone. Nor did he know whether frantically chanting Qin Zhou's name into a Follower's ear would be useful, Mu Sichen thought to himself.

Even if chanting the name was useless, there should be Fallen from Xiangping Town inside the Town of the Eye. Otherwise, objects like the radio and flashlight would not have appeared in town. If he got the chance later, he needed to look for these Fallen. Who knew where the Fallen might be hiding...

Mu Sichen was still thinking when an extraordinarily eye-catching SAN interrupted his train of thought.

A cloaked person had "+528" floating above their head as their SAN number, and the white status bar was giving off a faint holy light.

Mu Sichen: "..."

What an incredibly reassuring number!

Without making a sound, he shifted his steps and slowly moved behind "+528."

At this moment, several players seemed to have recognized one another's identities too. They gathered excitedly and chatted in low voices, unexpectedly treating this place entirely as a full-dive VR game.

Mu Sichen stopped moving toward "+528." He wanted to give those players a small warning, to tell them not to be so completely defenseless.

But just then, a person with white wings appeared from the fog and landed in the center of the plaza.

The chattering players instantly fell silent and stared at this person with the gawking wonder of people who had never seen anything like him.

Shock appeared in Mu Sichen's eyes as well, but not because this person had a pair of white wings. It was because the "-1067" SAN above his head was truly horrifying to see.

SAN was not combat power. "+528" might not necessarily be weaker than "-1067." It was only a mental state, showing a person's current sanity.

The higher the number, the more rational the person and the firmer the will, but also the more heartless. The lower the number, the more frenzied the person and the more chaotic the thoughts. Yet when things reach an extreme, they reverse; after dropping below 0 into negative numbers, the mind instead reached another stable state, rational on the surface but mad underneath.

This "-1067" was exactly like that. His face was extremely serene and calm, even giving people the illusion of holiness.

As soon as the Followers saw him, they immediately lowered their heads in respect and called out, "Feather-Eyed Apostle."

The townspeople with SAN between 50 and 60 dropped to one knee, pressed their left palms over both eyes, tapped lightly, and said, "Feather-Eyed Apostle."

Mu Sichen was not one to draw attention. He copied the townspeople, dropped to one knee, made the gesture of pressing his eyes, and pretended to be a town resident.

It was not just Mu Sichen. Even "+528" did the same.

Only the few players were still watching the show. When they saw everyone kneel, three finally went down on one knee, leaving four with no reaction at all.

Mu Sichen even heard someone say, "Why kneel? It's just a game. What's there to be scared of?"

The Feather-Eyed Apostle looked toward those people.

He had delicate features, and his eyes were perfectly normal. His eyelashes were not the wriggling worms Mu Sichen had seen, either; they were normal eyelashes.

His gaze was calm, without the slightest trace of madness. He only looked quietly at the players.

"Bring them here," the Feather-Eyed Apostle said softly.

Dozens of Followers surrounded the four players. One of the players laughed, pulled out a pistol, and shouted, "Let's form a party, guys. These mobs are all experience points!"

With that, he raised the pistol, aimed at the Followers, and pulled the trigger. His marksmanship was excellent; one shot hit one Follower.

The Follower who was shot fell. The other three players also grew excited and took out rope, a sledgehammer, and scissors, attacking the Followers around them.

The Pistol Player moved extremely fast. Clearly, after choosing a starter tool, the player's speed had improved accordingly based on the tool attributes.

He nimbly wove through the Followers, saying, "The mobs are weak. Everyone, attack!"

The Followers seemed not to know how to dodge, letting the players' attacks carve wounds into their bodies.

The four players quickly knocked down the dozens of Followers around them and rushed up to the Feather-Eyed Apostle.

The Pistol Player raised his gun and aimed at the Feather-Eyed Apostle. "I have one bullet left, and I saved it just for you!"

As he pulled the trigger, the Feather-Eyed Apostle smiled faintly too, parted his lips, and uttered, "Fall."

At the same time, the wings behind the Feather-Eyed Apostle spread open, and an eye grew on every feather.

Mu Sichen hurriedly closed his eyes and lowered his head, using the cloak to cover his face. He absolutely could not be caught in the Feather-Eyed Apostle's line of sight.

Even though his eyes were closed, images of the players' battle still appeared in Mu Sichen's mind.

The Pistol Player's last bullet struck the Feather-Eyed Apostle squarely between the eyebrows, leaving a bullet hole. Pleased with himself, he blew across the muzzle.

The Feather-Eyed Apostle did not fall. The Rope Player rushed forward and said, "He's hurt. I'll bind him. Sledgehammer, back me up!"

The Sledgehammer Player rushed up as well.

Just then, the spot where the Feather-Eyed Apostle had been shot suddenly split open into a wound. An eye appeared out of thin air inside it, pushing out the bullet lodged between his eyebrows and dropping it to the ground.

The other Followers who had been shot also stood up one after another. An eye had likewise grown from each of their wounds, and countless lines of sight locked firmly onto the four players.

"Fallen, Fallen, Fallen!" the Followers said in unison.

Panic appeared on the players' faces. Their SAN, originally maintained around 90, kept falling at a rate of "-2, -3, -5."

"What the hell is this? This game is way too scary. How did it even pass review?" the Scissors Player shouted.

"Purification," the Feather-Eyed Apostle said calmly.

The eyes on his wings burst with countless rays of blood-red light, and the Followers' eyes also released pale red light.

The players shrouded in the light saw their SAN drop at a rate of "-10, -10." When their SAN fell to 0, the players let out piercing screams.

Wounds kept splitting open across their bodies, and countless eyes grew out of the wounds, multiplying inside them.

In the blink of an eye, the players' bodies completely collapsed into a pile of eyeballs. In the red light, they turned into faint white mist and dissolved into the fog.

The Feather-Eyed Apostle's wings released white light that enveloped the injured Followers. The wounds on the Followers' bodies slowly healed, and the eyes that had appeared in those wounds closed as well.

"We are grateful for the Feather-Eyed Apostle's grace," the Followers said in unison.

The Feather-Eyed Apostle folded his wings and, still smiling faintly, said, "The Fallen have been purified. We remain bathed in the gaze of the Eye of the Sky."

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Author's Note:

Qin Zhou: Someone thinks of me every day, chants my name, yet does not believe in me. Does he have a crush on me?

Mu Sichen: Big Eye is so scary. Qin Zhou's fleece is much easier to shear.