A dark cave—cold, damp.

Dense stalactites hung overhead; feet sank into puddles every few steps; a fishy, clammy smell permeated the air. Combined with the pitch-black visibility, it made progress extremely difficult.

Among those 25 people, some had brought lighting equipment. The beams of flashlights and emergency lamps swept back and forth, illuminating the path while also making eyes swim.

Occasionally a rock shaped uncannily like a human figure would appear, causing a fright followed by teasing and joking curses, which eased the tension.

There’s safety in numbers.

Shen Mo cast them a cold glance, said nothing, and continued forward.

Upon entering the game, he had found himself and those 25 subjects in a cave, with two pieces of information surfacing clearly in his mind:

【Mission: Retrieve the King’s Sword.】

【Rule: No killing.】

Because of the rule, neither side had erupted in conflict for the moment. Everyone coexisted peacefully, searching the cave for the King’s Sword.

The place was riddled with stalactites, making it very difficult to traverse—like teeth growing from the ground in every direction, leaving nowhere to plant your feet.

Still, the direction of advance remained constant: deeper into the cave.

After five or six minutes of walking, they vaguely arrived at an extremely open area. Flashlight beams swept forward, fanning out dimly. Besides the overlapping, interlocking stalactites, they could not make out what lay ahead—it was as though they were inside the belly of some enormous creature.

The group was sweeping their lights up, down, and all around when a woman’s voice drifted from ahead:

“Is everyone here? One, two, three, four… Ah, quite a few this time—twenty-six people.”

The voice was gentle, carrying a trace of languid seductiveness. Owing to the cave’s acoustics, it produced a faint, shallow echo.

In any other setting, the men might have imagined what kind of beauty the speaker must be.

But in a cave this gloomy and forbidding…

It only felt terrifying.

“Who’s speaking?” someone cried in panic. “Shine the light—flashlight, quick, shine it—”

“Can’t reach…”

“It’s all rock here!”

The woman seemed to have just woken from sleep; her drowsy voice sounded again: “Alright, alright… just stay where you are. Find your positions—the game is about to begin.”

The game was about to begin, yet they didn’t even know what the other party looked like.

Shen Mo frowned in the direction of the voice, thought for a moment, then reached into his bag and withdrew a firefly specimen. He rubbed it between his fingertips, then tossed it into the air. The firefly’s faint glow slowly illuminated the entire space.

The darkness was a disadvantage for those 25 people—but equally a disadvantage for him. He could not play this game under conditions that worked against him.

The firefly’s light, though far from daylight-bright, genuinely let everyone see: at the far end of this stone cave, amid the endless proliferation of stalactites, sat a massive grey-brown boulder.

And growing from the boulder was a woman.

Yes.

She grew right out of the stone.

Her white, smooth upper body was unclothed. Serpents writhed wildly through the long hair that draped all around her. If one ignored the dense, swarming mass of snakes, her face was alluring enough to bewitch all living things—beautiful to the utmost extreme.

Everyone froze in place, staring tensely at the woman, not daring to move.

Legend spoke of a serpent-haired demoness called Medusa.

Legend said that whoever looked at her would turn to stone.

Instinctively, the men looked around at the surrounding stalactites…

What they had assumed to be a coincidence—the stalactites resembling human figures—now seemed far less coincidental.

The silent cave grew even more silent.

There was no retreat.

The demoness rooted in stone spoke lazily: “Let’s get to the point. The rules are simple. There are some swords on the ground—you may pick them up and use them. Whoever can stab me to death will have their sword transform into the King’s Sword—”

She paused, smiled, then continued: “Of course, if you are seen by my other pair of eyes while attacking, you will turn to stone.”

—