Chapter 1 The teammates this time are very unfriendly...

Li Ang thought to himself, took out his phone and looked at the time. It was already 11:40, only 20 minutes away from midnight.

He cleared his throat, and just as he was about to say something, he heard the system prompt ringing in his ears.

All players have arrived. The next task prompt is now released.

At 12:00 AM, players will play the role of security personnel in the Longheng Shopping Mall, search the entire mall, and find six different paper talismans scattered throughout.

At the start of the game, each player will receive a cinnabar brush. This brush is a plot item and cannot be placed in the backpack. It cannot be taken out after the task is completed.

Players need to use the cinnabar brush to imitate the patterns on the talismans and copy them on the floors of the shopping mall.

During the game, ghosts will patrol the mall. Once a player makes a sound or emits light, it will immediately attract the attention of the ghosts and be chased.

Players need to maintain a certain distance from each other. Once they get close to each other, they must separate immediately, otherwise, they will attract the attention of the ghosts and be chased.

Players need to keep moving and cannot stay in the same place for a long time, otherwise, they will attract the attention of the ghosts and be chased.

Ghosts cannot discover or destroy the talismans.

The task is considered complete when all six talismans have been copied.

If the six talismans are not copied by 3:00 AM, the task will be considered a failure.

Task Reward 1: Additional 300 experience points

Task Reward 2: 500 game coins

Task Reward 3: Random quality random item *1

Task Reward 4: One free attribute point

Failure Penalty: Obliteration

Li Ang gasped.

Before this, all the tasks he had received were extremely simple and crude: kill possessed ghosts, kill zombies, find out the truth, etc.

Even if there were reasoning and puzzle-solving elements, it depended on the player's individual performance and was not a necessary part of completing the task.

This game of hide-and-seek, however, was completely different.

The requirements for completing the task and the task prompts were equally cumbersome and detailed.

This is not only a kind reminder to the players but also a malicious hint—hinting at how difficult and dangerous this task is...

One careless move and they might all be wiped out.

"Everyone,"

The figure wearing a motorcycle helmet clapped his hands, attracting everyone's attention. "It's 11:42 now, 18 minutes before the task starts.

The difficulty of this task is quite high. The purpose of the system giving us this time is probably to allow us to exchange information in advance, get to know our teammates, and formulate a rough plan to clear the level.

Only by working together can we get out alive. I suggest we start by announcing player IDs."

After saying that, he proactively revealed his ID,

Miaoshou Huichun · Yi Yi Lv6 (Miraculous Healer · Plague Doctor Level 6)

Miaoshou Huichun? Most likely a title related to medical first aid. Li Ang thought to himself.

On the player forum, there were many tutorial posts on pre-war mobilization, and the players present were not newbies. After the Plague Doctor took the initiative to express goodwill, they announced their IDs and levels.

Aoyong, the burly man, Rongjia Weishi (Armored Guardian) Lv6

The aloof skater in the supermarket employee uniform, Mishi Feiting (Lost Airship) Lv5

Liu Wudai, Gong Ru Pili (Bow Like Thunder) · Wudai Lv5

Li Ang, Kuangzao de Kaitangshou (Manic Ripper) · Li Risheng Lv5

The five players looked at each other's player information and felt a chill in their hearts.

The team tasks released by the Killing Game are all formulated based on the overall strength of all players. Everyone present is above Lv5, and the levels are not much different.

This also means that their respective strengths will not exceed the average line by much, and they do not have much advantage.

The Plague Doctor exhaled a breath of turbid air and said loudly, "Time is limited, so I won't waste any more words. According to the system prompt, we are going to play the role of security personnel. When I entered the mall, I found that all the security guards in the mall were gone..."

Ao Yong raised his hand and said, "That's me. I was the first one to arrive here. To prevent my identity from being exposed, I packed all the security guards together in advance, knocked them unconscious, and threw them into the flower bed outside the mall. They definitely won't wake up before three o'clock."

"Is that so..." The Plague Doctor nodded, walked to the door, and reached out to pat the glass door,

But found that the front glass seemed to be welded to the space, no matter how hard he patted, it remained motionless, and the passers-by outside did not seem to see these strangely dressed people inside the door.

As a senior player, the Plague Doctor naturally understood that this was a manifestation of the system automatically setting up a barrier and shielding external interference after the game started.

"I triggered the task this morning,"

Ao Yong remembered something and said, "After the task was triggered, I collected some information about Longheng Plaza through various channels. Since you are all veterans, I believe you have made various preparations, right?"

The Plague Doctor nodded silently, while Lost Airship grinned and said nothing.

This is the good thing about cooperating with veteran players; you don't need to spend too much effort explaining your ideas.

"Very good." Ao Yong nodded. "Longheng has had a total of five deaths in the past ten years. The first was an engineer who fell to his death from a three-meter-high架子 (jiazi - scaffolding) during the measurement process in the early stages of the mall's construction.

The second was a beggar who tried to enter the mall to beg for alms. He died of a sudden heart attack while being driven out of the mall by security guards.

The third was a four-year-old girl. While her mother was lying on a massage chair playing on her phone, the girl climbed onto the handrail of the escalator next to her. As the escalator ascended, the girl fell from the fourth floor to the hall on the first basement floor.

The fourth was the girl's mother. Although the mall gave a large amount of compensation, the mother's spirit was still severely affected. She often came to the first basement floor of the mall alone and squatted on the ground sobbing.

After the security personnel repeatedly dissuaded her, the woman finally stopped coming to the mall. Three months later, the woman jumped from the place where her daughter fell.

The fifth was when the mall's construction fence was blown over by a strong wind, and an advertising sign crushed a male pedestrian who was passing by.

According to the task description, the ghosts that continue to chase us are likely to be one of the deceased in these abnormal death incidents."

Li Ang had also obtained this information through the information broker Mule. He scanned the body movements of the other players and found that everyone was not too surprised, obviously having done their homework.

"It's not necessarily one ghost," the Plague Doctor said. "If we make the worst-case scenario, it's very likely that five ghosts are patrolling the mall together."

"Hmm..." Ao Yong frowned and said, "That's definitely possible."

Lost Airship snorted and said, "Five vengeful ghosts correspond to five players. The system also reminds us to conceal sounds and light.

In other words, the system assumes that the five of us cannot rely on teaming up from the beginning to defeat and eliminate all the ghosts head-on, and can only take hidden measures."

Facing them head-on will lead to death. This is not good news.

Ao Yong took a deep breath. "In short, our task is to search the mall, find the talismans, and copy the talismans on the floors of each floor."

He scanned his teammates and took out five small tablet computers from his backpack, distributing them to his teammates.

"These tablets are all installed with software that can invade the mall's monitoring system, which is on the desktop.

In addition, we can also contact each other in real-time through the WeChat group to determine each other's location so as not to approach each other and trigger the ghost's chase.

According to the setting that ghosts will track sounds and light, I suggest that you only use the tablet in silent mode when you can ensure your safety. Communicate with each other through WeChat, and only use typing to communicate."

Yo, so well prepared.

Li Ang took the tablet from Ao Yong with some surprise.

After inspecting it and feeling that there was no problem, he added WeChat friends with the others and formed a WeChat group.

He didn't intend to really use the tablet given by Ao Yong. People's hearts are unpredictable, especially when dealing with players he met for the first time. He would still use his own mobile phone after separating.

It's a pity that players can't use the Killing Game system's friend private chat during the mission, otherwise, it wouldn't be so troublesome.

In the next few minutes, the five players adapted to the tablet's monitoring software. Until the clock struck 12:00 AM, Li Ang's eyes blurred. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself wearing a blue security uniform, holding a flashlight, and a rubber baton hanging from his waist.

Standing in a dead silent, dim corridor.

Five ghosts, five players, six floors, six talismans.

It's really... interesting...

Li Ang turned off the flashlight and crouched down, sticking to the wall.