After the Evil God Pretends to Be a Player [Infinite] - Chapter 14

At that exact moment, the music gradually came to a halt.

The lights in the banquet hall remained bright, but as everyone stopped moving and the atmosphere fell into a heavy silence, a wordless sense of the macabre began to spread.

In a time like this, finding one’s teammates first was critical.

Li Zhu and Lalai looked toward the positions where the others had been standing just moments ago, only to find that those people were turning their heads at the same time, gazing back at the two of them from a distance.

They looked like total strangers.

Despite them wearing masks identical to his teammates’, Li Zhu’s heart skipped a beat.

In the next second, every student in the hall turned their head to look in their direction. They were packed densely together, appearing as if they had been copy-pasted. Because of the masks, their expressions were hidden.

However, their countless pairs of eyes stared at the duo without blinking through the two holes in their masks.

The two of them were like the only two anomalies in the entire banquet hall.

Lalai suddenly realized that, at some unknown point, their other three teammates had already ceased to be there. The “Wang Kai” and “Zhou Wen” dancing and the “Meng Luo” studying the desserts were nothing more than illusions meant to deceive them.

Snap!

The chandeliers and wall lamps around the banquet hall extinguished all at once, leaving only a single desk lamp on the reception table by the door. It emitted a hazy glow amidst the pitch-black darkness.

Creeeeak—

The heavy doors of the auditorium banquet hall quietly opened a sliver, but the gap closed again an instant later.

Lalai and Li Zhu heard no footsteps entering, as if the door had merely been blown open by the wind. However, under the pale yellow light of the lamp by the door, a massive, dark shadow abruptly appeared. The edges of the shadow fluctuated between rough and smooth, vaguely bristling with countless fine, dense spikes like a gargantuan monster.

The monster stood silently at the door.

Li Zhu and Lalai could see its enormous shadow and faintly feel its cold, slimy gaze, yet they could not see its actual form.

Lalai knew full well that this was the game’s way of protecting ignorant, innocent humans. If the Evil God truly manifested His form, they would have gone insane the very second their eyes touched Him.

But wasn’t the Li Zhu beside her a bit too calm?

He even tugged on her sleeve, gesturing for her to look at the tentacles on the head of the shadow cast by the Evil God.

A female voice rang out in the dead silence. It was hoarse, sounding like a recording from an old, rusted machine: “Congratulations to everyone for passing the first stage of the trial. Now, there is only one step left to unlock your formal admission to Pretty Middle School.”

Meanwhile, on the other side, Wang Kai and Zhou Wen also noticed that their real teammates had vanished. Hearing those words, Zhou Wen said dubiously, “Why does this sound so much like a ‘Refer a Friend’ scam on Pinduoduo?”

Then, they heard the female voice continue: “Are you willing to submit to me, obey me, and become my believers? Like moths chasing the light, like ants craving honey?”

The moment she spoke, every student staring at them opened their mouths in unison. Male voices, female voices, young voices, and old voices intertwined in the hall. The tone was mechanical and devoid of inflection, creating a series of echoes that rippled through the auditorium.

Wang Kai and Zhou Wen stood back-to-back, their palms simultaneously breaking into a sweat.

The sound of a ticking clock drifted from somewhere. Wang Kai could even hear the heartbeat thumping in his own chest. The two sounds merged into one, growing louder and louder, as if pressuring him to make a hasty decision. Wang Kai seemed to see the monster at the door impatiently extending a long, scale-covered tentacle, about to seize his neck.

The word “Yes” was on the tip of his tongue, but in the next second, Zhou Wen clapped her hand firmly over his mouth.

Zhou Wen was terrified, but she finished her sentence with a tremble: “If we become your believers, will we end up like the streamer and the Punk?”

The moment Zhou Wen covered his mouth, Wang Kai blinked. He realized then that there was no tentacle reaching for his neck—it was merely an illusion!

The Evil God was unexpectedly good-tempered: “Are you speaking of those low-quality companions of yours? They merely provided a bit of trivial nourishment for my power.”

“But you two are different—”

Countless slender shadows slithered inward from the doorway, ballooning suddenly when they reached the pair!

Wang Kai blinked frantically, but this time, he discovered that what was before his eyes was truly no longer an illusion!

Seductive whispers delved into their minds, as if trying to brand themselves into their brains: “Become my believers. Offer up your purest faith, and I shall grant you peerless beauty!”

Compared to the pairs of Zhou Wen/Wang Kai and Lalai/Li Zhu, the predicament Meng Luo faced was much more perilous. After all, she was alone.

When she snapped back to her senses, she saw all the student NPCs staring at her as the hoarse female voice asked the question.

The moment the voice ceased, Meng Luo blurted out: “No way!”

Hearing her answer without a shred of hesitation, even the Evil God beneath the shadow seemed to freeze for a second.

Meng Luo’s words came out like a machine gun: “Prosperity, democracy, civility, harmony; freedom, equality, justice, the rule of law; patriotism, dedication, integrity, and friendship! I’m sorry, I’m an atheist.”

If this had happened before, Meng Luo would have been scared to death facing such a scene alone. But when she thought of how a girl as fragile-looking as Lalai faced such situations without fear, she… well! She had to hold up the sky on her own!

A question mark slowly rose above the shadow of the Evil God: “?”

However, His shadow seemed to pale for a second under her verbal assault.

In the next second, the Evil God lost His patience and erupted in a roar of fury: “Then all those who do not believe in me shall die!”

A sky-blotting black mist surged toward Meng Luo!

After hearing the question, Lalai countered: “Do you truly wish to recruit more believers?”

“What do you mean? You only need to answer whether you will submit to me…”

Lalai interrupted her, looking at her with a trace of pity in her eyes: “Do you truly believe that beauty is the most important thing?”

She ignored the massive shadow the monster cast on the floor and walked toward the door, step by step.

“You…”

Li Zhu tried to call out to her, but he choked on his words just as he made a sound.

Lalai’s voice was calm and devoid of emotion. Though she didn’t sound aggressive, she gave off an air of looking down from a great height: “On the surface, the values of this school are very clear: beauty is the most important thing. But if you truly love beauty, why does beauty in this school only bring misfortune?”

“Excessive beauty leads to being maliciously chased by NPCs. The streamer used a Charm skill and ended up flayed. The Punk likely met his end because he did something related to beauty on the first night, leading to him being doused in white foundation.”

“No matter what you say on the surface, to you—the boss of this instance—beauty is not a reward in your value system; it is a curse.”

The female voice became even more hoarse and raspy, sounding somewhat exasperated: “So what? You just need to tell me if you have faith in me…”

As He spoke, Lalai had almost stepped into the massive shadow cast by the Evil God’s true body. She let out a soft sigh: “Let me take a look at your past.”

In the next second, she thrust a hand into that massive mass of shadow.

Immediately, the world spun. Lalai and Li Zhu felt as though they had been thrown into a black whirlpool at the same time. It was a long while before the world before them finally brightened.

Lalai recognized the scene; she and Li Zhu were standing at the main gate of “Pretty Middle School.” However, the plaque hanging over the familiar gate read “Canglan Middle School.”

They were standing in the middle of the road, yet not a single person noticed them or gave them a strange look. All of this pointed to one fact no one could see them.

Li Zhu looked at her searchingly. “What did you just do?”

Lalai replied expressionlessly, “Nothing.”

Li Zhu: “…I thought I heard you say something.”

Lalai looked at him with confusion and said, “I don’t think so. He said He wanted to test us, then my vision went black and I was in here.”

At that moment, they both saw it.

At the school gate, a girl was locking her bicycle and parking it to the side. The wind blew back her hair, exposing her profile.

It was that very face the first one placed on the second floor of the School History Museum.

Compared to the lifeless mask, the living version of her was more beautiful, more vibrant, and full of youth. In any school, her looks would be considered “School Beauty” tier.

The girl finished parking, put on her backpack, registered at the security booth, and skipped into the school.

As a girl who had just transferred to Canglan Middle School, she was full of expectations for her new life.

Li Zhu and Lalai watched her sign up for various clubs and student organizations, use snacks to build good relationships with her classmates, and study late into the night to catch up on the new school’s curriculum.

She was even voted the “School Beauty” of her grade.

As the days passed, the smiles on her face grew more frequent. Everything was peaceful and natural, as if she were heading toward the brightest of futures.

Until an anonymous post was published on the school forum.