My Online Wife Turned Out to Be an Eldritch God 72

Chapter 72: Infinite Game 5

Next up was, naturally, cognitive distortion.

First, implant the self-awareness of “I have countless eyes” into the players, so that when they look at other players or in a mirror, they see that their faces are indeed full of large eyeballs, including on their bodies and hands. All exposed skin would have strange protrusions and a circle of black eyelashes. And then, every time they could see themselves, ensure that all the eyes the players saw were open.

This was considered cognitive contamination, but Wen Ying didn’t plan to actually modify the players’ bodies, so what the players saw were all illusions. Then how to achieve fear? Of course, it was to gradually reduce the degree of distortion. When a player self-discovered and realized that they were contaminated, it was believed that they would definitely contribute a very considerable amount of emotional value.

Of course, such contamination traps could also be set in places where players would search—for example, a huge eyeball perched on a bookshelf, which would burst into countless eyeball monsters with two tentacles that could move after being disturbed. These eyeball monsters had to be both small and dense, and the eyeballs had to be full and bulging. When a player was discovered, the pupils had to be locked on the player’s position at all times.

After that were the more conventional illusions, such as facing the fear in one’s heart. Tan Qingqiu was very good at this. It was not difficult at all for It to mobilize the fear in a human’s heart and present it directly. In fact, if It really wanted to extract fear, It just had to show a little of its main body, but the players might be scared to death directly… this was not the result that Wen Ying wanted to see.

Facing the fear in one’s heart was not something this system could easily imitate. If it wanted to learn in the future, it probably had to ask the main god for some authority.

As for other cognitive contaminations, there were also, for example, setting the cognitive distortion to “humans have four hands, eight legs, and a pair of wings” or “humans only have one hand, one leg, and one eye,” so as to induce the contaminated players to grow more limbs or to cut off their extra limbs themselves. To be more specific, it could also scramble the players’ facial features and pile them on their faces, which could also achieve an unexpected and terrifying effect.

The lower-level ones were jump scares, such as suddenly turning off the lights, a jump scare around a corner, or oneself smiling in a mirror… Wen Ying felt that these three players were of extremely high quality and probably wouldn’t be particularly afraid of these. But to enrich the dungeon’s gameplay, she still set up a few for show.

“Actually, a cockroach tide is also very scary. Besides the big flying cockroaches, there are also those insects with many legs. But some people are afraid of insects with many legs, while others are only afraid of soft-bodied insects that will burst… everyone’s fears are not the same,” Wen Ying touched her chin and sighed.

“Yes! I know what you’re talking about. We have a survival dungeon of a bug tide hell next door, where all kinds of insects that humans fear the most are gathered!” The system answered excitedly. “If we want to introduce some insect employees, it’s not a big problem. The ancient castle… it’s normal for an ancient castle in disrepair to have insects. By the same token, can we add some more flower spiders and black rats in the basement? Maybe we can add a little bit of a mild hallucinogenic poison, and then set up a new medicine room and put the antidote there. And by the way, we can set up a big spider guard or something to let the players experience the combat part.”

“That’s a good idea,” Wen Ying nodded and couldn’t help but ask, “But these are all just small horror easter eggs. How do we advance the plot? Will a big fire burn everything down on the last day?”

“Oh, that can also be changed. Change the family’s dramatic love and hate to a heroic sacrifice… perish together with the bug tide and the twisted, contaminated creatures and directly burn down the ancient castle, only to find that the contamination can’t be eliminated at all. The heroic family not only failed to end the contamination and the curse, but was forced to collect the lives of one round after another of players in an endless loop,” the system said in one go. At the end, it thought for a moment, and the ball of light flashed and slapped the table. “In that case, we can set the ancient castle as a source of contamination and twist it into a ‘living’ thing. If the players repeat the actions of the ancient castle’s family and set fire to it and escape, it will be a normal pass. The hidden perfect pass will be to solve the entire ancient castle after understanding everything… but that seems a little too difficult. Uh, maybe we can apply for funds to open a hidden world, enter from the basement. As long as we understand everything and go back to the formation in the basement, we can find the entrance to the crack. In the hidden world, the ancient castle will have a materialized form, so that we can trigger a boss battle and eliminate it.”

“But in that case, we still have to add some new guide clues for the players…” The system got more and more excited as it spoke, and the entire ball of light had already started to plan the plot of the updated dungeon.

“Not bad, so smooth.”

“It’s all thanks to your guidance,” the ball of light tried its best to shine.

Tan Qingqiu stood behind Wen Ying the whole time, just silently staring at this noisy ball of light. It didn’t release any aura, pressure, or even a single bit of energy, because Wen Ying would find out. Her wife was in a good mood, and Tan Qingqiu didn’t want to spoil her wife’s fun.

But this ball of light was really too tactless! How could it chat with Wen Ying for so long and so happily?!

*

It was strange. From just now, Jiang Yun had felt strange and uncomfortable all over her body. She couldn’t help but touch her arm, but she felt a pile of protruding round balls. She looked down: oh, so they were my eyes.

How did I have so many eyes? Why were they all looking at me?

Jiang Yun looked down and met her own eyes, but she didn’t have the feeling of looking at herself. Strange, were these eyeballs blind? She couldn’t help but raise her hand to touch those eyeballs. They had a slightly wet feel, and were soft and bouncy when she pressed them—

With a squish, it actually burst. But no blood flowed out. Instead, it was an indescribable mucus. Jiang Yun rubbed her fingertips and then went to touch the place she had accidentally poked… a dent was left on her arm. She pulled open the eyelid but didn’t see any blood, only a hole.

Was she sick? Would the eyeballs grow back? But her eyelashes were really black and long. When she flattened her palm and placed it above her arm, and those eyeballs blinked together, the long and curly black eyelashes gently brushed against her palm, like countless small brushes.

Hmm, why did it seem like there were also eyes on her neck? Jiang Yun was a little dazed and very naturally touched her skin, and found that she couldn’t touch a smooth place at all. Oh my, she had so many eyes. Then she must be a very powerful human.

Let’s continue to look for clues. Although there was no hurry on the first day, she had no clue at all now. Fortunately, she had collected a lot of food, enough for everyone to last for a while… where were the other players searching for clues? When it was time for lunch, she would find them, gather, and share the food and exchange clues.

*

“You! Are you still human? Who are you?” In an instant, Zhu Sheng, who had been affectionately holding Long Yu’s arm a second ago, suddenly jumped back. She pointed at Long Yu with great vigilance. “Heavens, you, how do you have four hands? Eight legs? What’s that behind you? You’ve mutated! You’ve been contaminated!”

“Wait, I-I’ve also been contaminated by you?! I should only have one hand and one leg!” Zhu Sheng looked at her own hands as if she had been greatly hit. She took out a blue pocket watch in horror and pressed it hard. This had preserved her original state, but no matter how she pressed, no matter how she pressed, she was only clear-headed for a moment. The next second, she fell into a cognitive contamination again, but she was not aware of this at all. So in her eyes, the pocket watch had not worked.

“Wait, calm down,” Long Yu’s two right arms raised at the same time. She looked at her own four hands and was also in a daze for a moment. The most fatal thing was that she seemed to be able to really control the opening and closing of the fleshy wings behind her. Hmm, wait? Why was Zhu Sheng so horrified? Wasn’t it normal for a human to evolve to have so many limbs and wings?

No, no, that didn’t seem right.

Long Yu felt a burning sensation in her chest. She raised her hand and touched it, and only then did she find that the heart-protecting mirror hanging on her chest was glowing and hot. So now… was something wrong?

“I’m a human, I’m a normal human!” Zhu Sheng shouted in a breakdown, and suddenly took out a chainsaw and pulled it hard. The roaring sound instantly attracted Long Yu’s attention.

“Wait, you—” Long Yu’s vision went black. Before she could stop her with her words, she directly threw out a golden rope and locked Zhu Sheng. When she was about to use the chainsaw to cut her own thigh first, she tied her up completely. Then she threw out a talisman and it exploded by her hand, knocking down the chainsaw. “Calm down. Something’s not right now. Look at me, take a deep breath, and chant the Heart-clearing Mantra with me.”

“I’m a human, I’m a normal human! Let me go, I want to go back to normal! I can’t be like this, I can’t be like this…”

Seeing that Zhu Sheng still couldn’t calm down, Long Yu had to take out a peach wood sword and place it on Zhu Sheng’s neck. “Can you calm down now? No matter what a real human looks like, they definitely have a head. The Heart-clearing Mantra, I’ll say a line and you say a line, understand?”

Zhu Sheng: “…Understood.”

*

Jiang Yun’s head was a little dizzy as she walked up the stairs. She felt that she seemed to have forgotten something. The faint, strange feeling was always lingering in her heart, but she couldn’t identify what was wrong. What was wrong? She touched the soft eyelashes on her arm and found that the feel of her eyelashes was particularly good. She couldn’t help but keep stroking them back and forth… from the eyelashes on her wrist to her elbow.

She walked up to the second floor and finally heard a faint sound. Was it a teammate? Jiang Yun thought and quickly walked towards the source of the sound.

—It was Long Yu and Zhu Sheng.

But how did they only have two eyes?!

Wait, wait!!! A human only had two eyes!

Then what had she been touching all this way? What the hell was growing on her body? —No wonder she couldn’t see the world through those eyes. It turned out that she wasn’t blind. These were not her eyes at all!

The clear mind instantly reacted to all this, but Jiang Yun’s fragile spirit couldn’t bear such a huge blow for a moment. In an instant, the touch of the eyeballs, the burst of liquid, the countless eyelashes like small fans… when those black pupils were staring at her, what were they thinking?

Jiang Yun’s vision went black, and she just fell to the ground.

On the other side, after calming down with the Heart-clearing Mantra, Long Yu and Zhu Sheng talked and found that they had both been affected by some unknown cognitive contamination. However, the moment they realized that they had been contaminated, the contamination disappeared. The extra limbs and wings all disappeared, and Long Yu and Zhu Sheng were back to their normal human appearance.

They hadn’t figured out what was going on, or why they had triggered the curse, when they saw Jiang Yun, who had not yet come close, just fall to the ground, unconscious.

…It couldn’t be a ghost trap, right?