The young man’s face went deathly pale. He stood rigid in place.

People around him gradually moved past him, inching their steps toward the demoness.

The demoness turned her head again.

Everyone stopped.

Because they were cautious enough, this round passed again with no casualties.

If things continued at this rate, clearing the game would likely take only a few minutes.

Shen Mo hung at the back, maintaining a certain distance from the others. If he wanted to overtake them, he could do so at any time—but misgivings still nagged at him, a persistent feeling that something about this game was wrong.

After those golden vertical pupils surveyed everyone for a minute, the ugly face turned away and the hauntingly beautiful one returned. The demoness smiled and asked: “Person in front, do you have a question for me?”

She kept asking players questions—could the true trap of this game lie in these questions?

Shen Mo watched the silhouette of the person at the front and frowned, waiting for their question.

“I… I want to see how my wife and child are doing!” a tall, heavyset middle-aged white man asked.

He was the second person whose question had nothing to do with the game.

Shen Mo couldn’t help but frown.

Then again, thinking about it, he could understand. These people probably felt, given their numbers, that victory was within easy reach. Compared to a victory they were bound to achieve sooner or later, they cared more about what was happening right now with their family and friends.

The reason they had come to fight—beyond wanting to share in the king’s spoils of victory—surely had some belief or emotional tie driving them from within.

The demoness generously waved a hand, and an image immediately materialized in midair—

It showed an ordinary residential apartment. A blonde woman and a little girl were nestled together on a sofa; the woman was holding a book, apparently reading a story to the child.

The middle-aged white man who had asked let out a long breath, murmuring: “They’re fine… they’re fine…”

Others looked at him with expressions ranging from envy to something sharper.

In a world overrun by the doll game, for one’s family to be safe and unharmed—this man was truly lucky.

The game continued.

…

Whether because two consecutive rounds had passed without casualties, the pace picked up noticeably. The people at the front especially seemed to be competing.

Racing to be first in order to ask the demoness a question?

Shen Mo frowned, keeping his eyes on the demoness, and moved forward two or three steps.

A sudden sharp pain in his calf.

He bore it without looking down—a snake coiled around his leg had bitten him, no doubt.

Sure enough, cries erupted among the people ahead:

“These snakes bite!”

“What’s happening? Didn’t she say they wouldn’t harm us?”

“Damn! They’re climbing higher!”

The front fell into chaos. Some people still remembered the game rules; others couldn’t restrain themselves and swiped at the snakes on their bodies.

At that very moment, Medusa silently turned her head—those vertical eyes appeared!

In an instant, another four or five people turned to stone.

The demoness had clearly done this deliberately—catching them in a momentary panic to eliminate them all in one sweep. Truly vicious.

When those golden vertical pupils turned back, the man at the front, not waiting for the demoness to ask her question, erupted in furious protest:

“Why?! You just said those snakes wouldn’t harm us!”

The demoness asked: “Does it hurt very much?”

The man paused.

If he were being truthful… it was about as painful as an injection. The panic just now had come because it was sudden, and because of humanity’s deep-rooted instinctive dread of slithering creatures.

The demoness said with a smile: “A snake that small—its fangs are tiny too. How much could it possibly hurt? If you’re going to count a needle-prick wound as harm, then I have nothing to say… You can’t be so delicate that you’d complain to me about a mosquito bite, surely?”

Everyone glared at her with suppressed fury, not daring to voice it.

“Alright, that question just now counts as your question,” the demoness said with a smile. “Now then, let the game continue.”

—