Chapter 11 Illusions

Feng Bujue wasn't worried about being shot and killed; with four Contra Medals, the first four deaths were merely a form of consumption. Currently, barring disconnections or rage quits, there were only two ways to fail this nightmare difficulty solo survival script: first, using up all the medals and being killed a fifth time; second, as the Boss in the broadcast had said, "Once the poison takes effect, you will be directly judged as a failure to clear the level," meaning failure would be declared the moment the ninety-two minutes ran out.

In short, no matter what awaited Feng Bujue in the first corridor, the worst outcome would only be one death. Factors that could directly lead to failure to clear the level simply didn't exist. Of course, if there really was one, that factor would be a completely unknown failure flag. But such a possibility was very slim and unreasonable. It would be like playing Super Mario, where the game instructions said you'd die if you fell into a pit or ran out of time, but then you went out the door and hit the first question mark, and that question mark exploded... Clearly, that would turn it into a different kind of game...

Feng Bujue raised his hands, striding forward steadily and firmly, turning his body to face the corridor, and stood at the doorway of the first door. Since he still hadn't heard any response after shouting, he had mentally prepared himself for a bullet to the face. But to his surprise, there was no one in the corridor.

No shooter, no weapon, the corridor was empty.

Perhaps the person who fired the shot was shooting from an extremely distant, unreachable place? And that gunshot traveled all the way through the corridor to this side? Feng Bujue thought.

If that were the case, the opponent definitely wasn't using a one-hit-kill handgun, because that gun couldn't work on targets beyond the user's line of sight. Otherwise, someone could just hold this thing and randomly fire it at the sky or into some empty corridor, and countless people far away would be shot without knowing what happened.

As for what weapon the shooter actually used... Considering the distance, a sniper rifle was highly suspected. But if a person's neck was really hit by a sniper round with a caliber of twelve millimeters or more, it definitely wouldn't have the effect of a penetration with a spray of blood; the entire head should have fallen off.

But how could a normal gun achieve that kind of range and accuracy? Could it be that the opponent had attached a long-range scope to a one-hit-kill handgun? Or did the shooter have a super long-range observation skill similar to Eagle Eye?

Another question was, if the opponent really was shooting from a super long distance, he definitely wouldn't have heard Feng Bujue's shout just now. So... what was he doing at this moment? Was he still standing in place, seeing Feng Bujue arrive at the door? Or had he put down the gun and started moving after killing the person? If he was moving, was he coming this way or leaving towards the other end of the corridor?

"If the opponent can see me, and he is me, then he should be able to notice that I and the previous one are not the same Feng Bujue. And if the opponent can't tell the difference, he might mistakenly think that the first shot didn't work, so he should have launched a second shot already, but he didn't... Could it be that his skill or weapon is on cooldown?" Feng Bujue pondered, "No... that's not it."

He lowered his hands and unhurriedly walked through the first door, carefully observing the floor, walls, and ceiling of the corridor in front of him as he moved forward, trying to find some clues.

Feng Bujue overturned the hypothesis of a long-range shot, although that hypothesis could explain why he only heard the sound of one person running away just now, and why there was no other sound coming from the corridor after the gunshot. But... this situation of the corridor being empty obviously had another explanation, a simpler one, and one that seemed more reasonable at this stage.

"Is it all just illusions..." Feng Bujue said, "The 'me' just now, and the gunshot, were just information I received visually and aurally. Now there's no corpse, no shell casings, even the bloodstains on the ground have turned into white light and disappeared..." He turned his head and looked at the fan-shaped space again. "The phrase 'all wrong' and 'don't you...' are suggesting to me that taking this path is wrong, and I shouldn't go forward?" He stroked his chin and said, "If I think about it the other way around, should I ignore this influence and just take this path?"

He really couldn't find any abnormalities around him. This corridor was the same as the one he had walked through before; there were no significant features, each section was the same, and footprints wouldn't be left on the floor. He quickly walked back to the fan-shaped area and stayed for more than ten seconds; there were no signs of any flags being triggered.

Looking at the four doors in front of him, the four paths, Feng Bujue pondered, "The usual thinking is that each of the four paths leads to a bottle of potion, but what if it's another situation... What if only one path is correct and can lead to the location of all four potions, while the other three are dead ends..."

He scratched his head, "Or... there are two paths leading to potions? And the other two are dead ends; or there are three paths that are correct, and only one is a dead end." He moved his gaze to the first door again, "Was the thing just now a hint or a distraction? Am I overthinking the phrase 'overlapping time and space,' or..."

"Heh..." Feng Bujue looked up at the ceiling, "In a script with such monotonous scenery and so few hints, what exactly do you want me to do..."

Although from the beginning of this chapter to this point, Brother Jue's thought process and actions had already exceeded a thousand words, in reality, he had only spent a little over two minutes. Simplified into one sentence: Flash to the door, brain supplement, advance a few steps, brain supplement, return to the fan-shaped space, brain supplement again.

Counting from the moment the plot synopsis was completed and Feng Bujue gained the ability to act, seventeen minutes had passed, and from the moment he heard the broadcast say the keyword "ninety-two minutes," sixteen minutes had passed. The difference between the two was not large, and regardless of which one was used as a standard, this one-minute difference could basically be ignored.

At the moment, it was possible to divide the time required to find the four potions equally, so ninety-two minutes could be divided into four segments of twenty-three minutes each. That is to say, on average, Feng Bujue had to find a potion every twenty-three minutes to ensure that he could synthesize the antidote before the poison took effect.

He hadn't even seen a shadow of the first potion yet. It wasn't a solution to delay here, so he turned his head... and walked into the third corridor.