Zhongli stepped from the tenth cycle's bloodied gloom into the eleventh, the corridor unchanged save for a dim red haze washing over the first stretch, a spectral tint that set his senses alight.
A baby's wails pierced the air, louder now, the bathroom door gaping wide, yet the far exit stood sealed, nudging him toward the shadowed room with unspoken intent.
He entered, peering at the sink's embryo—its shark-like maw silent—realizing the cries echoed not from here, but elsewhere, a dissonance that pricked his curiosity.
His gaze snagged on the wall's small hole by the bathtub, a nagging oddity he'd probed before, but even his flashlight's beam coaxed no secrets from its depths.
Stepping out, he caught a word scrawled on the left wall—hello—etched in an alien script, its translation flickering in-game as a simple greeting, a breadcrumb in this cryptic maze.
At the gate, the infant's sobs swelled from the dangling refrigerator, and a partial sentence glowed on the wall, its missing letters teasing a new layer of decryption to unravel.
Zhongli retraced his steps, flashing his light on hello, watching the l vanish, then another, until only o lingered—a game of light and loss he followed with measured calm.
Back at the gate, the pilfered letters completed the line—I can hear them calling to me from hell—a chilling summons paired with Lisa's eerie cackle and the click of the twelfth cycle's door unlocking.
The crowd gasped, their awe for Zhongli surging—where they'd faltered at cycles four and five, he'd cracked the eleventh in a blink, fear a stranger to his ancient poise.
"This guy's unreal—calm as a rock in that nightmare," one marveled, mistaking him for Keqing's grit, though Hu Tao's shadow loomed larger in their Wangsheng-tinged praise.
Hu Tao snorted, "He's no hall master—I'd be shaking; six thousand years trumps my nerve," her jest masking a flicker of envy at Zhongli's unflappable stride.
Liam slumped in his chair, half-resigned, half-admiring—Silent Hill: PT was a short demo, a half-hour sprint for the seasoned, yet Zhongli might conquer it today, a feat others stretched into days.
As the eldest of the Seven, his millennia honed a mind that danced through dread, collecting clues with the ease of a sage sipping tea amid chaos.
Zhongli entered the twelfth cycle, the clock ticking to 0:00—midnight's heavy yin, a ghost-friendly hour—its chandelier swaying, casting shadows that writhed like spirits on the walls.
The radio hummed, its tune not alien but ancient, a dialect from a fallen realm lost millennia ago, one Zhongli knew from dusty tomes, his ear attuned to its cadence.
He parsed five phrases—I whisper his name in a low voice, I stand still while I wait, that hand is cold, waiting for this to end, my body is trembling—their weight settling in his mind.
They echoed his earlier finds—as his fingertips run across my hand, I waited motionless, I believe I heard a call, through the fog of fading consciousness—a paired set begging for order.
His thoughts raced, arranging them into a flowing tale: Through the fog of fading consciousness, as his fingertips run across my hand, I waited motionless, I believe I heard a call, I whisper his name in a low voice, I stand still while I wait, that hand is cold, waiting for this to end, my body is trembling—a deathly plea, perhaps Lisa's last.
The sequence felt right, its logic smooth, but its purpose hovered just out of reach, a key he'd wield when the next puzzle demanded it, his patience unhurried.
He pushed into the thirteenth cycle, vision blurring as if drunk, each step lurching him forward double the distance, the wall's photo frames now wide, staring eyes tracking his sway.
The bathroom yawned open, its light starkly normal, the sink empty of embryos, a jarring shift from the red haze outside, hinting at a rift in this warped reality.
At the corridor's end, space twisted—the gate morphed into the first cycle's corner, a loop folding back on itself, his own footsteps echoing from both ahead and behind.
Liam's system purred, Zhongli's steady unraveling a slow drip of points—not the flood of Tartaglia's terror, but a stream rich with the sage's quiet triumph over dread.
The crowd leaned in, split between Mario's cheer and Zhongli's eerie quest, his calm dissection of hell's whispers a magnet for those craving the game's final truth.
Hu Tao glanced over, her plumber's romp paling beside this—Zhongli wasn't just playing; he was rewriting the rules, his courage a beacon she couldn't match.
Liam mused on Zhongli's pace—cycles falling like dominoes, a mind older than Liyue itself bending Silent Hill to his will, its ghosts mere footnotes to his ancient gaze.
This cafe thrived on such feats, Zhongli's march a quiet storm, and if that stoic wall ever cracked, the emotional deluge might flood Liam's coffers beyond a day's wildest haul.
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