"Dong——"
A heavy bell toll reverberated in Liam's ear.
To his astonishment, he realized he was no longer in the "void-like" darkness.
What took its place was a spacious yet dimly lit room.
The entire room was decorated in medieval Baroque style—ornate yet dilapidated.
Thick carpets, exquisite oil paintings, crystal chandeliers, wrought-iron candlesticks…
Every item was covered in dust and cobwebs, with faint black-red stains resembling dried blood visible upon closer inspection.
One side of the room featured floor-to-ceiling windows, their wooden frames adorned with lunar phase relief carvings.
Moonlight slanted through the windows, barely illuminating the space.
From these clues, Liam deduced this was likely a room in a long-abandoned Western-style ancient castle.
At the center of the room stood a wooden conference table.
Liam currently sat at the head of this table.
Six other people were seated around the table and near his position.
Six people…
Including himself, that made seven.
Exactly matching the number of "players."
So, these six people must be the other players in this game!
Liam quickly composed himself and calmly swept his gaze over the six individuals.
Four men and two women, with no commonalities in age or temperament.
The only similarity was the varying degrees of bewilderment and confusion on their faces.
"It seems not only are they all 'players,' but they also have no clue about this game."
As a "method actor," Liam had dabbled in psychology to better understand the inner workings of character psyches.
While he couldn't read minds at a glance, observing facial expressions to gauge others' general states came naturally to him.
Meanwhile, Liam noticed another detail.
A brown envelope lay on the table in front of everyone present, including himself.
However, Liam chose not to vocalize this observation.
Since it was still unclear what the rules of this game were, he didn't want to speak up under such circumstances and become the center of attention.
Especially since his ability was "Deceiver"—a profession that required "deception" to take effect.
A few seconds later, someone couldn't hold back and spoke up.
"Everyone, I want to ask—are you all like me? After dying, did you arrive in a pitch-black space and see some strange elements like text or games?"
From the crowd, a bespectacled middle-aged woman spoke softly, "What does all this mean?"
Hearing her words, Liam understood clearly.
Although he had quickly grasped the situation...
But Liam knew that this wasn't just because he had calmed down quickly.
More importantly, he was a contemporary college student who frequently surfed the internet and had seen many fictional works of the battle royale or death game genres.
Among the seven people present, some appeared to be the type who would never engage with such fictional works.
Yet Liam still had no intention of speaking up to remind them at this moment.
Because someone was already about to do so.
On the other side of the table,
A chubby boy wearing thick glasses and a white printed crewneck shirt couldn't help speaking up upon hearing the middle-aged woman's question:
"I think this situation resembles some anime and novels I've seen... It's like a group dying accidentally but being chosen by some deity to survive cruel games using their abilities... Though brutal, this is our chance to change our fate!"
"Thud!"
A fierce-looking, lean-built man with a facial scar suddenly slammed his fist on the table.
"F*ck, what kind of bollshit deities are these? I died without even knowing why, d*mn it... And now I have to endure this insane f*ck*ng place after death too."
The scar-faced man seemed to recall the final moments of his life, his expression turning extremely grim.
"I think this might not be entirely bad," a gentle and shy young woman tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, timidly blushed, and whispered, "As the bespectacled young man said earlier, at least we still have a game to play here instead of being truly dead."
"Hmph, you'll believe whatever that fatso says?" The scar-faced man glared at the woman and sneered, "What if that so-called god is just f*ck*ng with us?"
The young woman pressed her lips together under the scarred man's gaze, clearly too intimidated to argue with this dangerous-looking individual.
Receiving no response, the scarred man snorted coldly in contempt.
After merely exchanging a sentence or two, Liam had already formed preliminary judgments about their personalities.
The bespectacled, chubby guy appeared somewhat simple-minded—a naive high school student inexperienced with society.
Scarface seemed ferocious, hot-tempered, and eager to project an "unapproachable" aura to those around him.
As for the two women... The middle-aged one appeared rather stern and serious, while the younger one seemed more delicate.
Liam analyzed these personality traits using psychological knowledge because, regardless of the game's content, interaction with the other six participants was inevitable.
They might become either adversaries or allies.
Every additional insight gained meant slightly better odds of winning this game.
Regarding the two who hadn't spoken...
Liam's gaze shifted to the remaining silent ones, who like himself had kept quiet.
Sitting across from him was a short young man, in his early twenties, with shifty eyes that kept darting around to examine others.
He kept licking his lips nervously from time to time.
The other was the tall man who had been sitting beside Liam all along.
With a square-jawed, resolute face and a sturdy build, he appeared powerfully robust.
Like Liam, he listened attentively to everyone's statements.
After the scar-faced man finished speaking, he knocked on the table and began.
"Enough. Stop quarreling. Whatever that 'deity' intends, since we've all appeared in this game, we're grasshoppers tied to the same string..."
As the square-jawed man spoke, Liam immediately rejected this notion internally.
Are grasshoppers tied to the same string?
That wasn't necessarily true.
Just as Liam conceived this thought as if to prove the square-jawed man's claim flawed,
A spine-chilling, rustling noise suddenly emanated from the wall beside the group.
They turned to look and saw massive, glaring blood-red characters emerging on the wall.
Row after row of bloody text rapidly appeared, soon covering the entire surface:
"Among the seven of you lurk two outsiders. Find them! Drive them out!"
"Among the seven of you lurk two outsiders. Find them! Drive them out!"
"Among the seven of you lurk two outsiders. Find them! Drive them out!"