"Creating an atmosphere, huh?"
Noticing that the surrounding windows were all affected, Feng Yuan’s eyebrows furrowed slightly. He glanced at the Little Green Snake beside him, shook his head, and chose to ignore the matter. Naturally, the others were startled by this change, especially when someone deliberately let out a scream, which scared those classmates who were already a bit frightened.
With his hands over his ears, Feng Yuan said speechlessly,
"I truly didn’t expect that we have such a person with bad taste in our class."
"Are you talking about yourself?"
"Me? I’m not that bored!"
Feng Yuan retorted to Qi Chen’s words discontentedly. Agunas, who was reading a book, lifted his head to take a glance at Feng Yuan and said,
"If you weren’t currently unable to use your powers, wouldn’t you create some strange things?"
"This..."
Feng Yuan looked around evasively and did not want to answer. By this time, everyone seemed to have identified the main culprit and was criticizing them. After a while, they grouped in twos and threes and continued to walk along the corridor.
"What do you think will be behind this door if we open it?"
As he spoke, Feng Yuan casually opened a door under the curious gaze of the other students. The expected locked door did not occur; Feng Yuan simply turned the handle and pushed the door open.
After making eye contact with a Blood Corpse, Feng Yuan quickly closed the door behind him, locked it, and said,
"Sorry for the disturbance."
Bang! Bang! The sound of door pounding echoed in the corridor. Then, the surrounding doors were pulled open one after another. Qi Chen pushed Feng Yuan and said annoyed,
"Look at the trouble you’ve caused!"
"Run!"
The more timid classmates couldn’t help but scream and ran deeper into the corridor. As people passed by, doors were pulled open one by one, and those Blood Corpses shambled out of the doors, slowly moving in the direction where everyone was.
Although some wanted to try attacking the Blood Corpses to see what would happen, Chen Xin had already taken some students to chase after those who ran deeper into the house. Therefore, everyone had no choice but to hurry and follow. Falling behind in such a place meant one would likely get caught and be given a good scare.
"Does the Ghost Series have such disgusting secret techniques?"
As everyone continued to run, more and more Blood Corpses emerged from the doors. Gradually, those Blood Corpses blocked the passage behind them. Although they seemed harmless, their appearance was frightening.
After glancing at Qi Chen, Feng Yuan explained,
"That’s not a Ghost Series secret technique; it should be a knockoff version of the Death Series’ Blood Legion."
"Blood Legion?"
"It’s a kind of Death Series secret technique that uses one’s power to generate countless Energy Bodies. I remember this is considered a special creation category? Or is it a summoning category?"
While running, Feng Yuan said as he recalled. Spirit Beasts had many secret techniques with similar effects that could summon a large number of special creations. Although these Blood Corpses didn’t look very impressive, they were actually Energy Bodies, and even if they were shattered, they would simply return to energy and dissipate.
"Get up here quickly!"
At this point, there were already many Blood Corpses following behind them. Standing on the stairs, everyone could see a large patch of blood-red behind Feng Yuan, who was at the end of the group. Those creatures might not be very strong, but their sheer numbers made them a threat. Except for Feng Yuan, probably no one else in the group could handle them.
Hearing the shouts from ahead, Feng Yuan scanned his surroundings. It seemed that the corridor only had guest rooms, and there was nothing particularly scary aside from the stairs at the end of the corridor. Feng Yuan couldn’t find anything else.
"Could it be..."
Although Feng Yuan guessed that there was probably something wrong with the stairs, it was just a game, and he thought it was unlikely to be dangerous. Thus, he didn’t bother exposing it. Chen Xin and the others were scared by the approaching Blood Corpses and did not think of this for a moment. Dou Yanlan also guessed it but, like Feng Yuan, she had no intention of ruining the game.
"Quite interesting."
Dou Yanlan observed her surroundings with interest. Currently, they were on the second floor corridor, which, in terms of style and doors, was no different from the first-floor corridor. Therefore, they did not dare to proceed further. As they dashed up the stairs, just as Chen Xin was about to signal everyone to continue escaping along the corridor, the doors began to make pounding noises.
"Go upstairs!"
After glancing at the stairs leading to the third floor, Chen Xin, fully engrossed in the scenario, gritted her teeth and said. She looked at the place they had just come from, and because the staircase’s turn obstructed the view, Feng Yuan couldn’t tell whether those blood corpses had followed them up the stairs or not, though he suspected they hadn’t, since he had already sensed something was off.
"Aren’t you coming up?"
Qi Chen looked at Feng Yuan somewhat puzzled. The latter was just standing there, pulling him, so Qi Chen suddenly broke free of Feng Yuan’s hand and watched him warily, recalling their experience in the kitchen.
"Hey! Stop looking at me like that, will you? Do you believe me if I say they will come up from there later?"
"From the first floor?"
Hearing what Feng Yuan said, Qi Chen glanced up at the staircase they were headed towards and then back down the stairs they had come up, his expression changing as he said,
"So all those people just now were fakes?"
"I didn’t say that."
"An infinite loop staircase?"
Dou Yanlan guessed the truth and looked at Feng Yuan. By then, some other students had noticed the commotion here and didn’t immediately follow. Although the sounds of doors being slammed continued unabated, there seemed to be no other abnormalities.
"What are you..."
Chen Xin, who was running up from downstairs, paused upon seeing Feng Yuan and the others. Pointing at the others, Feng Yuan said,
"Infinite staircase."
"Can’t be..."
Chen Xin stood rooted to the spot, then after a while leaned against the wall to rest, while Yue Bai watched over everyone present with suspicion, trusting no one. Some, skeptical, went down the staircase only to come down again from the staircase leading to the third floor after a short while.
"Since we can’t use the stairs, maybe we should move along the corridor?"
After a while, Feng Yuan suggested as it was clear that unless they intended to forcefully break the spatial loop, they had to move along the corridor.
Agunas furrowed his brow in confusion and said,
"Whether it was the corridor before or this infinite staircase now, there are ways to forcefully break it. If someone doesn’t play by the game’s rules, how will they deal with it?"
"What else can they do but switch tactics, or even directly opening the Ghost Domain isn’t out of the question."
Feng Yuan said nonchalantly, noting that if a Rare Level Nightmare Bell could once spread the Ghost Domain across the whole Maomu City--although that was related to its desperation--he truly wouldn’t believe there were no Legendary Level Ghost Series Spirit Beasts stationed here in this place.
"Opening the Ghost Domain would be cheating, right?"
Qi Chen said somewhat speechlessly. The Ghost Series Spirit Beasts’ Ghost Domain was very special, altering the physical laws within its range when opened. In the Ghost Domain, scaring people was easy because the domain could create many eerie phenomena that defied common sense, on top of suppressing other powers.
"If you break the rules, then that’s what you get. After all, no matter how much they rehearse, they can’t keep up with the speed of your destruction," Feng Yuan said, seemingly unfazed by the situation. To scare people with other tricks always requires coordination, like the current endless staircase, which wasn’t just a spatial trick, but also involved visual deception, shielding Divine Sense, and barely audible cries that required cooperation from other Spirit Beasts.
Moreover, Feng Yuan wasn’t optimistic that the group could force their way past the infinite staircase. Considering their strength, which was merely average among everyday people, if they could break through like that, the reputation of The Great Haunted House would be ruined, especially since there were plenty of tourists who didn’t play by the rules.
In that moment, one of the students, apparently not willing to proceed according to the haunted house’s design, commanded their Beast Tamer to attack a window. Red flames blew the window and the surrounding wooden walls to smithereens.
"Just follow this way down..."
The student hadn’t even had a second to feel smug before freezing in place. They could clearly see daylight through the window, but the gaping hole was consumed by darkness. Suddenly, the dark split open, revealing a blood-red eye that snapped open as though observing everyone in the corridor. Some of the more timid students screamed at this sudden development and ran deeper down the corridor with their Beast Tamers.
Strange roars came from the broken window, and it seemed the owner of the crimson eye wasn’t pleased with the destruction of the window, as the sound of claws scraping at the walls filled the air and plunged everyone back into terror.
"See, I told you it wouldn’t be that simple, unless there’s some special circumstance that requires extraordinary measures to leave," Feng Yuan said with an I-told-you-so look. Dou Yanlan was not too surprised by this, as Feng Yuan had said, if escaping were as simple as wrecking the house, then The Great Haunted House wouldn’t deserve its name.

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