This corpse is too violent; if it's locked up with the others, they'll probably start a mass brawl.

Gu Mian casually tossed this corpse, the one who had bravely hacked off his colleague's head, into the empty room 503 next door, so it wouldn't suddenly corpse-jump back up and run around hacking people again.

After finishing all this, he glanced at that unlucky Strangled Ghost who'd lost its head, then turned to look at the big screen.

On the screen, there really was a change: the little cartoon figure whose neck had been strangled by a rope had now turned into a little headless figure. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Now it could help the people downstairs make a three-in-a-row.

But the situation on floors 1–2 and 3–4 was too exciting; everyone's attention was on that side, so for the moment nobody noticed this tiny change on Gu Mian's floor.

"We've already helped the people downstairs clear their burned corpses; now the folks downstairs should move those headless corpses up to help us clear ours." At this moment, Old Liu was staring at floors 1–2 on the screen, staring at those headless ghost corpses on 1–2.

Sure enough, after just a few seconds, one of the headless corpses on floors 1–2 started to move—specifically, the one in room 104.

The headless corpses on floors 3–4 had been placed in 304 and 404; as long as the one in 104 moved up one room, it could link up with their two headless corpses and be cleared.

Very simple—just move that headless corpse up…

Old Liu stared at the screen, his eyes growing wider and wider.

He saw that the people below had absolutely no intention of moving the headless corpse upstairs.

All the corpses on floors 1–2 were displayed on the screen; there were four headless corpses downstairs in total. Old Liu watched helplessly as the people below kept shifting those four headless corpses around, eventually lining them up into a four-in-a-row on the first floor and clearing them.

The instant those four headless corpses vanished, Old Liu's head buzzed; a deep, suffocating sense of despair surged up in his chest.

For a moment, he didn't even think about why the people downstairs hadn't helped them; his mind was filled only with the thought that he was done for.

It took him several seconds to recover enough to think of anything else: "Why… why wouldn't they help us, when we clearly helped them…"

He rubbed his eyes hard and stared at the corpses on floors 1–2, hoping he'd miscounted earlier, hoping there was still one headless corpse left on floors 1–2.

But after checking three or four times, he still couldn't find what he wanted.

"It's over, this time it's all over." Old Liu couldn't stand anymore; he collapsed onto the floor with a thud, his face full of despair.

"Hahahahaha—" Renle Mountain hadn't laughed like this in a long time. He clutched his stomach, feeling it twitch from the laughter.

Qi Tian, beside him, looked at this Renle Mountain who seemed like a different person from usual and didn't dare say a word for the moment.

Only after he'd laughed enough did Renle Mountain straighten up and look mockingly at the screen. Go against me? No matter who's up there, they're all gonna die.

As he stared at the screen, he suddenly felt that something was off.

A wave of unease surged up in his chest.

Renle Mountain quickly swept his eyes over the entire screen and immediately found what was wrong.

His eyes widened slightly, fixing on the squares representing rooms 108 and 208, which were now completely empty.

There were supposed to be two strangled corpses in those two rooms.

He immediately bolted toward those rooms.

By the time he staggered to 108, he discovered that the corpse that should've been inside had vanished at some unknown point.

Renle Mountain, unwilling to give up, climbed up the ladder to 208, only to see that the strangled corpse in this room had also disappeared.

Now even an idiot would understand that he'd been screwed over by the people upstairs.

"They were cleared… cleared by the people upstairs…"

The people upstairs had been prepared all along. When they realized he wasn't planning to help them, they placed a strangled corpse they'd prepared earlier into 308 and cleared it together with the corpses in 108 and 208.

And the one they used upstairs was a strangled corpse that hadn't been shown on the screen, to avoid arousing his suspicion.

Renle Mountain gnashed his teeth in hatred.

His floor had originally had four strangled corpses that could've been self-cleared; now, after the people upstairs cleared two of them, he only had two left, not enough to make a triple to clear themselves… These two couldn't be cleared; once the countdown ended, they'd probably turn into Evil Ghosts.

Qi Tian also understood the situation now; he blurted out anxiously, "Big Bro, I see there are still two strangled corpses upstairs, and we've got two here. We can connect them up and make a four-in-a-row between floors!"

If the people upstairs were still willing to help them, they'd still have a way to live. The words were about to leave Qi Tian's mouth when he swallowed them back down. Why on earth would the people upstairs still help them?

If they hadn't just cleared those four headless corpses, that'd be another story. Maybe they could've cut another deal with the people upstairs—first provide the headless corpses the upper floors needed as a goodwill gesture, and the people upstairs might've been willing to provide the strangled corpses they needed.

But now the headless corpses were gone; they had nothing left to offer as a gesture of goodwill.

Qi Tian was completely dumbfounded. He knew that because of them, the people upstairs had been forced into a corner; there was no way they'd help them again.

As if to prove his guess, they saw the people upstairs quickly move those two strangled corpses into rooms 403 and 303, then clear them together with the strangled corpse in 503, without a shred of hesitation.

Qi Tian slumped to the floor, his expression dazed, unable to say a single word.

Just moments ago, he'd been overwhelmed with joy, thinking he'd managed to survive this terrifying special instance; yet within just a few minutes, he'd fallen from the clouds straight into the abyss.

"We're not gonna make it… we're not gonna make it…" he muttered.

There was absolutely nothing they could do.

Renle Mountain, beside him, didn't react as dramatically as Qi Tian; instead, bloodshot veins spread through his eyes, and his hands hanging at his sides clenched tightly into fists.

"So you played me once? Fine. I've got two extra strangled corpses left here, but you've also got two headless corpses you can't clear. Floors 5–6 can't help you. Even if you screwed me over, when the time's up you still have to die with me." Renle Mountain didn't want to die, but at this point, self-comfort was all he had.

But that self-comfort didn't last long; soon, he was just as dumbfounded as Qi Tian.

They saw that, at some unknown point, floors 5–6 had actually produced a headless corpse out of thin air.

"Th-then… where did that corpse on floors 5–6 come from? It clearly wasn't there before!" Qi Tian had also noticed that extra corpse.

During this time, nobody had completed a task, yet a headless corpse had suddenly appeared on the display for floors 5–6 out of nowhere.

And that headless corpse was currently being moved; Renle Mountain watched as it passed through room after room, finally arriving in 504, where it linked up with the two headless corpses on floors 3–4 to make three in a row, and was cleared together with them.

Watching the headless corpses upstairs get cleared, the mental state Renle Mountain had barely been holding together finally snapped. "Impossible!"

He rushed up to the screen and stared fixedly at the spots where those two headless ghosts had originally been on floors 3–4, practically boring a hole into the display.

But no matter how he looked, those two corpses were gone; they'd been cleared by the headless ghost that floors 5–6 had conjured out of nowhere.

Now he was the only one left who would die.

Behind him, Qi Tian was already half-mad. "What the hell is going on! Floors 5–6 suddenly got an extra beheaded corpse that wasn't there before—how the hell did he pull that off… If he can do that, then we definitely can too; maybe we can also conjure a strangled corpse out of thin air;

"How did he do it? How the hell did he do it!"

Qi Tian clawed at his own hair in agitation, occasionally looking up at the countdown that was steadily ticking down.

Less than ten minutes left. In less than ten minutes, they were going to die.

Renle Mountain forced himself to calm down and seriously analyze the situation.

Right, nobody had completed any tasks during this period, yet floors 5–6 had suddenly gained a headless corpse out of thin air.

It had to mean that someone on floors 5–6 had discovered a clue that no one else had noticed; he'd found another route to clear the instance.

What exactly had he discovered?

Renle Mountain's brows furrowed tightly.

A corpse suddenly appearing out of nowhere—how had he done that… how could you produce an extra corpse…

A cold chill suddenly shot down Renle Mountain's spine. He seemed to understand something, and his bloodshot eyes shifted to look at Qi Tian, who was sitting on the floor.