There Must Be Something Wrong With This Game!

Perhaps because he hadn’t slept well the night before, Duan Fei slept until the afternoon before slowly waking up.

Duan Fei found it somewhat unbelievable that he’d slept the entire afternoon, but Gale assured him it was perfectly normal.

"It’s normal to sleep until the afternoon; we used the latest sleep technology. Did you experience any discomfort while using it?"

After a moment of thought, Duan Fei reported no issues at all. Both the pillow and the soft padding had been perfectly, flawlessly comfortable.

"That’s good. Would you mind telling me what you dreamed about?" Gale asked.

Duan Fei tried to recall for a good while but shook his head, looking troubled. "I don’t remember anything. I don’t even know if I dreamed at all."

"What a shame. Alright, thank you for your cooperation. We’ll have the latest game pod delivered to your address shortly. One last question: are you sure one plus one equals three?"

Duan Fei looked at Gale, confused. "Isn’t it two?"

A dazed look flickered across Gale’s face before he said, "Correct. Yes, one plus one equals two. Thank you again for your cooperation. Enjoy the game."

After having his secretary see Duan Fei out, Gale watched him leave, the smile slowly vanishing from his face.

He picked up the intercom and spoke to his secretary. "Quarantine my office. Check everyone I’ve been in contact with recently. Question them with the security protocols repeatedly, until you can confirm they’re clean."

On the other end of the intercom, the secretary’s voice was stern and serious. "What does one plus one equal?"

Gale replied in an equally stern and serious tone, "Whatever it is, it’s not two."

The secretary on the other end was silent for a moment before speaking. "Mr. Gale, I am certain you have been contaminated by the Abyss. Your security answer is no longer correct. We will identify and isolate everyone you’ve been in contact with."

"I feel fine, but I’ll trust your judgment... Is there any hope for me?"

"We’ll try to issue a rescue mission to the players, but I can’t guarantee it will succeed. The success rate for this kind of mission has never been high. Open your right-hand drawer. The final protocol for administrator contamination is in there."

Saying a silent prayer, Gale opened the right-hand drawer.

Upon seeing what was inside, Gale gave a bitter smile and took it out.

A gleaming revolver lay on the desk. Each of its chambers was loaded. All he had to do was press it to his temple and pull the trigger.

With a long sigh, Gale knew this was the corporation’s final solution for him.

A single bullet would turn him into a corpse, ending the chain of contamination and minimizing the damage.

According to corporate records, the recovery rate for administrators who fail their security protocols was less than 5%. The contamination from the Abyss was insidious and incredibly difficult to purge.

The contamination would seep into an administrator’s memories, becoming part of them.

And every administrator had been to multiple worlds. Some of their memories were bizarre and inscrutable to begin with. Trying to isolate the contaminated sections from such memories was a nigh-impossible task.

’Sigh... so it’s come to this for me, too, huh?’

With another sigh, Gale suddenly thought of Duan Fei.

He was a player with immense potential. His quick thinking and adaptable methods made him a perfect fit for the missions in *Abyss*, and he was one of the players Gale had been keeping an eye on.

’Maybe... he can help me.’

Sinking into his sofa, Gale could feel his office being surrounded. The entire room was being ejected from the corporate mainframe, becoming a separate, isolated pocket within the Abyss.

His memories were laid bare, his powerful Spirit diffusing outward, linking to world after world and giving form to the contamination within him.

At the same time, a new official post appeared on the forums. It was pinned by an administrator so everyone could see it.

"To celebrate the version update, the new event ’Contamination Invasion’ has now begun."

"During the event, new instance content will be unlocked. All players can use the city’s central statue to travel to a special instance, where they must find and eliminate the source of the contamination."

"This mission is extremely dangerous and involves a degree of Spiritual Shock. We only recommend that players who have unlocked the Professional System attempt to complete it."

"During this mission type, you may encounter many other players. However, if they do not have a player ID, they are NPCs. Some of these NPCs are allies, while others are hostile targets. Players will need to use their own judgment."

"Within this mission type, some of the available items are discontinued. They may function normally inside the contamination instance, but will cease to work if brought outside. Therefore, if you find an item is not functioning as expected, please contact the admin team for a fix."

"Finally, we wish you a pleasant gaming experience."

By the time the announcement was posted, Duan Fei had already gotten home and seen it.

Events in *Abyss* were rare. The development team seemed to think the existing content was fun enough on its own and that adding events was unnecessary.

However, whenever an event did occur, the experience and Abyss Coin rewards were tripled, attracting a massive number of players.

This type of event instance was great in every respect, but for one fatal flaw.

They were hard.

Contamination was a unique concept in the Abyss. The effects of contaminated items were drastically reduced, and it could spread to players, contaminating them as well.

A contaminated player’s Attributes would be immediately halved. As time went on, the decay would worsen unless the contamination was purged.

The presence of contamination made most instances incredibly difficult to complete. To make matters worse, if even a single source of contamination within the mission wasn’t cleared by the end, the entire large-scale event would be considered a failure, and no one would receive the bonus rewards.

Perhaps knowing the bonus reward was a long shot, the developers increased the reward for completing individual missions to three times the normal amount, hoping to entice players that way.

Even so, the overall event completion rate was still less than 5%. The general consensus among players was that the difficulty was just too high.

After reading through the available information, Duan Fei felt it was worth participating in the event, if only to scout it out.

’After all, at higher Levels, high-level instances will have contamination too. Learning about the different types of contamination ahead of time will be very helpful later on.’

’Besides, I just got a power boost. This is the perfect opportunity to test my strength and see just how terrifying this Contamination Invasion really is.’

Having finished his reading, Duan Fei logged back into the game. He found the area in front of the city’s central statue already packed with people.

To improve efficiency, the statue was designed to automatically teleport anyone who touched it into a different instance to complete a different mission.

Finding an opening in the crowd, Duan Fei stepped forward and touched the statue with his right hand. The next second, he was teleported into another instance.

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