Chapter 11 The Concept of a Circle

The surrounding monster army was a dense, black mass. Although they could see the edge of it, countermeasures like breaking through were obviously impractical. Five level-thirty players might consider charging out of the encirclement of a few hundred monsters, but their team, with an average level of 6.6, didn’t even need to think about such an idea.

“Brother Feng… they’re still getting closer…” Long Aotian reminded the thoughtful Feng Bujue.

“It’s alright, let me think some more.” Feng Bujue said, “Judging by the situation, retreating into the door is the last option the game provides us. There must be a pretty tough Boss inside, and after defeating it, we’ll get a normal ending, like ‘Although the players successfully escaped this space, Samadhi permanently occupies it’ or something like that.”

“Okay, but I don’t want to die at the very end. If they really pounce on us, let’s retreat into the door,” Long Aotian said.

Feng Bujue nodded. He simply sat down cross-legged on the spot, examining the two keys in his hand. The gradually gathering and approaching demon army didn’t seem to put too much pressure on him. He propped his elbows on his legs, lowered his head, and gently tapped his forehead with two fingers. After a few seconds, he slowly raised his head, his fingertip sliding down the bridge of his nose. During this process, his gaze moved upward until it touched the hazy moon in the sky. Suddenly, his eyes lit up, and something flashed in his mind.

“Do you remember what the plot description said when we first entered the script?” Feng Bujue asked.

Wang Tanzhi looked at the approaching monsters, less than a hundred meters away, his breathing becoming increasingly chaotic: “Didn’t it just explain that the location was a city, the time was night, and the characters were us few survivors?”

Feng Bujue recalled and repeated, “The second paragraph… Until one night, the sun set, but never rose again. The hazy moonlight, appearing intermittently behind the drifting dark clouds, illuminates this desolate, isolated city.” He said it word for word.

“So?” Long Aotian asked.

“This sentence is not to tell us that the time of the event is at night,” Feng Bujue said, “but to indicate the phenomenon of ‘circulation’.” He suddenly asked, “Until now, have you seen any clocks or timing devices?”

The other four were very confused at this time, and the visible fear was approaching. The closer the monsters got, the more vivid and terrifying their images became. How could they calm down and recall such trivial details? Lonely replied almost without thinking: “Who remembers that! What does this have to do with the current situation?”

Feng Bujue said, “The law behind this script… the so-called cycle, and that darkness… I understand it now.” He said, “If we regard the time of this virtual world as a straight line, with the two ends extending infinitely, this line cannot trace the source, nor can it see the end… Then, the time of this city extracted by Samadhi is like a line segment, with a beginning and an end, about thirty minutes long.” He stood up and made a gesture, “He bends this line segment, connecting the beginning and the end, becoming a circle. This city is forever running on this circle…” He said, pointing at the demons again, “These guys, and us, don’t belong to this city. We are all inside the circle, not on that line segment, so Samadhi's power can’t swallow us. He can only directly attack things running on the line segment.”

Lonely looked shocked, staring at Feng Bujue: “Brother! My own brother! I’m really not a science student! Mathematics depends on thirty percent talent, seventy percent effort, and the remaining ninety percent is destiny!”

“I’m not talking about geometry, I’m just using a figure to metaphorize this concept,” Feng Bujue explained unhurriedly.

“Brother Feng… no, Brother Jue! You don’t need to explain it to us, really, just understand it yourself, tell us what other methods there are besides retreating into the door!” Long Aotian became another person calling Feng Bujue “Brother”… and he was four years older than Feng Bujue.

“Actually, restoring the seal doesn’t require any special actions,” Feng Bujue said, picking up the two keys, still holding them in his hand, with no change from his previous actions.

“Hey! Isn’t this just waiting to die!” Wang Tanzhi shouted, the monsters were getting closer and closer, only twenty meters away.

“This is a challenge to our courage, to see if we dare to stand until the last second.” Feng Bujue could actually smile, “Heh… this system is really focused on creating this kind of last-minute escape from death.”

“Where’s the escape! You’re just holding the keys!” Little Lonely also shouted.

“When I was at the police station, I said the riddle of the Fire Key was too simple, I take back those words.” Feng Bujue’s thoughts jumped there again, “69185, it’s also another hint, combined with the element of ‘time’, we will know the answer.”

“Brother Jue… right now…” Long Aotian hadn’t finished speaking.

Feng Bujue interrupted, “The minute hand on the clock starts to rotate clockwise from 6, first reaching 9, which is fifteen minutes; then from 9 to 1, twenty minutes; then from 1 to 8, thirty-five minutes; and finally from 8 to 5, forty-five minutes.” He was still holding the keys, “Without the minute hand reversing, that is, without time going backwards, 69185, it takes a total of one hundred and fifteen minutes, and the game time from when we entered the script until now is…” He looked at the monsters that had revealed their sharp claws or opened their mouths wide and were already in front of him, but he still said calmly, “If my estimation is correct, at this moment, it is precisely…”

The flashing light of the keys interrupted his words. The bright light shot straight into the sky, and even the suppressed air in the night seemed to be a little clearer. The two keys flew up and embedded themselves in the missing pattern above the door. The divine pattern light array lit up, and the fire and wood magic arrays were restored. The pentagram reappeared, and the door began to slowly close.

Those monsters were extremely frightened, making heart-rending roars, and scattered in all directions. They were faster than when they came, almost charging away, fleeing away from the square…

“Wh-… what happened?” Long Aotian had already raised his shield, preparing to meet the attack, but he didn’t expect that in such a short time, the situation would reverse like this.

Little Tan, Lonely, and Lonely were completely in a state of brain shutdown. They had been a little annoyed by the pressure around them and Feng Bujue’s calmness in despair just now, but at this moment, they didn’t know what to say. This was understandable, as the joy of resurrection often took half a day to erupt.

“At the one hundred and fifteenth minute, bring the keys to the door, and the seal will be restored, that’s all,” Feng Bujue said, “As for the monsters, it’s very simple, the system will arrange for the encirclement to approach the door exactly at the last moment, to see if we will be forced into the door. The speed at which those monsters surrounded us was so slow, just to create this dramatic effect of escaping from a desperate situation when the seal is activated.”

“If gathering the two keys and coming to the Demon Gate is the trigger for the monster encirclement flag,” Wang Tanzhi asked, “What if we come early or late?”

“It’s probably difficult to gather the two keys and return here at an earlier point in time. The script is arranged according to the team’s strength. We have done a very good job. There are only a few minutes left until the time limit. Don’t forget that we first went to the police station and then discovered that there was a task, saving the time required for a round trip. Taking that road back and forth would have taken those few minutes. Later, we were indeed delayed for a while in the shopping center. If we found the flashlight and went down directly, instead of searching for equipment, we might have been able to grab a few minutes. However, it only took us less than a minute to deal with the phantom monster, which can be considered a compensation,” Feng Bujue replied, “In short, even if there are gains and losses in the total time, the dividing line set by the system is constant. Arriving here with the two keys before one hundred and fifteen minutes, we can play out the current plot.

As for the situation of arriving late… naturally, we will miss the seal time and end up being forced into the door.”

“Then what now? Have we cleared the game?” Long Aotian said, “Why isn’t there a system prom…”

[The current mission has been completed, main mission…] At this moment, the system prompt did sound, but unexpectedly, it didn’t finish speaking.

[Ants from another world, do you know what you have done?]

This sentence directly appeared in the minds of the five people, interrupting the system voice. The voice that spoke was precisely the clear whisper in the third darkness.

Feng Bujue vigilantly opened the menu to observe. Although the system didn’t finish speaking, the “Restore Seal” mission in the mission bar had already been marked as completed. A new mission was added below: [Survive Samadhi's Attack]

“Did you see the new mission?” Feng Bujue’s tone made it seem like it was nothing serious.

“Is that guy tangible?” Wang Tanzhi said.

“According to my speculation, Samadhi doesn’t have a physical body, or rather, according to its settings, its physical body exists in a higher dimension. If it wants to appear in front of us, it has to transform into some kind of matter that we can understand in this dimension,” Feng Bujue replied, “Just like how ‘Galactus’ shows the image of a perverted uncle in purple clothes, if Samadhi wants to deal with us personally, it has to create a physical form first, and then physically harm us.”

“Speak human…” Wang Tanzhi interjected.

“Look, like that…” Feng Bujue said, raising his hand and pointing to a certain place in the square.

At this moment, the dark clouds had dispersed, and the moonlight covered the stone road in the square like frost. The crowd looked in the direction he was pointing, and saw that on a piece of ground, there was a circular shadow with a diameter of about five meters, extremely thick, like a black abyss, even absorbing light.