"Warrior! You must... you must be able to dismantle the human holes, right! Our curator said... people like you are the most likely to solve everything, capable of dismantling everything at its source."
"Your curator?" Wen Xishu suddenly realized something.
The curator knows about the existence of "warriors", could it be that the curator is a Collapser?
Warriors appear randomly in certain areas, and warriors can solve problems from the source... these descriptions seem to indicate awareness of being a Bunker player.
So he naturally thought, could the curator of the Pain Auction House be a Collapser?
"I want to meet your curator," Wen Xishu said.
"No, only if you dismantle the human holes will the curator see you... to be precise, only then can the curator recover enough to see you," said Xu04.
Wen Xishu was secretly surprised.
He had seen Collapsers being enslaved like dogs, seen Collapsers indeed wreaking havoc on the world, and seen Collapsers being redeemed...
But now, it seemed like Collapsers were being toyed with by bizarre sources in new ways?
He found it interesting, but right now, Xu04 had already slashed its stomach with a knife, so he couldn’t waste this portal.
So Wen Xishu stepped into the portal.
...
...
Human Hole Village.
When floating buildings appeared in the sky, Wen Xishu knew he had arrived at the Human Hole Village from the auction house.
There really were no living people around.
The sky over the entire Human Hole Village was a gloomy gray.
The floating buildings encircled the whole village, forming a ring.
It was like an ancient Roman arena.
But in the center of the arena, there were no beasts or warriors.
There were only static human shadows standing upright.
Of course, those weren’t shadows; the pitch-black outlines indicated they were holes.
Wen Xishu cautiously walked between the human holes.
When he got close to a human hole, he seemed to hear a boy’s whisper:
"Don’t come near, get away! Don’t come near, get away!"
Wen Xishu tried several times. Whether he approached a hole that looked like a woman or a man, he would hear the same voice.
"Don’t come near, get away. Is this a warning to me?"
There were too many human holes.
Some holes looked like children, some stooped over like old people.
Other holes were enormous, likely indicating a voracious eater.
These were all villagers living in District 19. They had died from the curse and turned into human holes.
"If I don’t enter the human holes..."
"Staying here for seven days would meet the requirement for surviving seven days, right?"
"In other words, the anti-AFK mechanism hasn’t fully completed after the two vortexes merged."
Wen Xishu finally found the grandson of the half-headed old man at the outskirts of the human holes.
It was in a very outer area.
The closer the holes were to the center, the darker they were.
Though all were black, Wen Xishu felt that the closer to the center, the deeper and more terrifying the blackness.
"People near the center likely know something."
"And the grandson of the half-headed old man is an outsider, so he is placed in the outermost area. Logically, the half-headed old man’s grandson shouldn’t know what’s happening here..."
"So I shouldn’t waste time going to his grandson’s human hole."
"But I promised the half-headed old man, and knowing his grandson’s past, maybe I can compare experiences and understand what’s inside the human holes."
Wen Xishu arrived at the grandson’s human hole of the half-headed old man.
Due to his grandson’s intellectual disability, even his limbs were uncoordinated, making his walking posture strange.
This was why Wen Xishu could quickly find this human hole among the multitude of shadow holes.
"Don’t come near, get away! Don’t come near, get away!"
The voice appeared again.
But Wen Xishu steeled his nerves and entered the human hole.
His figure was quickly swallowed by the human hole.
At that moment, if someone looked from the outside, it would seem like... Wen Xishu was dead, as if consumed by a black hole.
At the same time, a new human hole appeared in the outermost layer.
...
...
Wen Xishu was certainly not dead.
On the contrary, upon stepping into the darkness, he saw an astounding scene.
He had entered a tunnel radiating multicolored lights.
"Big brother, why didn’t you heed my warning? You shouldn’t have come here. Now... you’re about to become a human hole too."
A little boy dressed in a white kimono looked at Wen Xishu with a somewhat reproachful gaze.
The colorful light fell on him, making him look like a little angel.
Wen Xishu was stunned by the shift in scenery.
Outside was a group of eerie, pitch-black human holes; inside the human hole, however, was a dreamy tunnel of colors.
"Who are you?" Wen Xishu asked.
"The guide of the human holes, big brother. I’ll tell you some things about the human holes... Ah, it’s too late, you really shouldn’t have come here."
The little boy was very sad, seemingly upset that Wen Xishu was about to die:
"I really don’t want you to die..."
Wen Xishu was even more puzzled:
"Why are you so sure I’ll die?"
The boy’s eyes filled with tears, an emotion that seemed genuine:
"Because no one has ever left here alive, never."