Cyberpunk: Mysteries World

In the cool morning, John Smith walked slowly along the dirty path. The ground was littered with stinking sewage and various colorful household garbage. From time to time, rats scurried in and out of the corners, squeaking as they picked at the delicacies in front of them.

The surrounding buildings were crooked iron houses that appeared very cheap, many even patched with iron. The iron doors had only small windows, all of which were closed.

When he emerged from the path, he came to a slightly wider road. The neon lights on both sides of the road kept flashing, mostly purple and blue, creating a strong visual impact. However, compared to the gorgeous neon lights, most of them were dilapidated, and many of the words no longer flashed.

The projections on the street flickered constantly, seemingly ready to go out at any moment. This was the norm in most parts of the slums.

As John was walking along this street, a scream echoed from a small alleyway, but he didn't even turn his head. Such incidents were very common, as beatings and murders were frequent here.

"Bang!" An explosion sounded, prompting John to look towards the center of Slum Area 51. A man fleeing was blown into the air and fell motionless to the ground.

A bionic man, indistinguishable from a real person, folded his hands and walked closer to check. After confirming that the poor man who had stolen food from the supply station was dead, he picked up the bag of food from the ground, turned around, and left.

Witnessing this scene, John sighed slightly. Such situations occurred regularly. If one wasn't truly starving, who would dare risk stealing food from the supply station?

After leaving the street, he walked straight out of the slum. After a while, he reached his destination: a lonely brick house standing in the wilderness. No one cared when it appeared, and no one cared when it would collapse.

When he reached the front of the brick house, he took out a key, opened the rusty iron door, and walked in.

The yard was very clean, without even a single weed. In this severely polluted world, even the growth of weeds was a luxury.

John looked up at the sky. It was gloomy and very low, but it wasn't going to rain. This situation had persisted for hundreds of years, yet the factories showed no restraint because the conglomerates did not care.

He ascended the brick steps to the roof, sat on the eaves holding a diary, and gazed at the tall buildings in the distance.

Huge projections danced among these buildings. Some of the women in the projections were charming and attractive, while others were pure and lovely. They didn't look like bionic people at all.

There were some black and white spots shuttling between the buildings. They were flying vehicles that rarely appeared in the slums but were common in affluent areas.

Even though he had never been there, John could imagine the luxurious scenes: the most sophisticated body modifications, the convenient and fast-paced lifestyle, the orderly and clean streets, and the various delicacies he had never tasted.

These were all luxuries to him. Poor people like him couldn't even have enough food, let alone delicious meals. They could only work hard every day or rob others to barely fill their stomachs.

John touched the axe on his waist. There were too few hot weapons in the slums. Not only were they very expensive, but they were also illegal. Only gangsters had them. Some even had body modifications, but if they were found with hot weapons by the bionic patrol team, they would be shot on sight.

He didn't even have a hot weapon, let alone body modifications, so he made an alloy axe himself. Because the axe was too heavy, the handle had to be made of wood to reduce the weight.

The poor have always been the objects of exploitation, and such a life made John miserable. He longed for the life of the rich but hated the consortium that suppressed and bullied them.

Not only were daily necessities controlled here, but even food was controlled by the consortium, which hired people at low prices and then sold to the poor at high prices. Simultaneously, they used virtual games to induce escapism, making the poor sink into short-lived happiness and rendering them powerless to change their circumstances.

But now he had a chance to change his life. Before her death, his mother gave him an old diary that recorded the family's secrets.

He also learned why his father left when he was a child. The family curse meant that no one could live past the age of thirty, without exception.

The only way to lift the curse was to enter the dungeon recorded in the diary. At the end of the first level of the dungeon, there were clues to lifting the curse, as well as a chance to rise.

According to the diary, it was extremely dangerous in there. Almost no one had ever come out, and most died inside.

The dungeon was right under the brick house. John took another deep look at the tall buildings that people longed for and slowly stood up from the eaves.

After brushing off the dirt on his body, he went to the only room. After knocking on the wall in the corner several times in a regular pattern, an old wooden door appeared on the wall.

He hesitated for a moment, then opened the old wooden door. A creaking sound reached his ears, and at the same time, a lot of sawdust fell onto his hands.

John looked at the stairs leading into darkness behind the wooden door. The darkness was so deep that even the light seemed to be swallowed by it. Just staring at it made people shudder.

The wind kept blowing from the dungeon to the outside, and he could hear a whistling sound in his ears, but it also sounded like something was crying. The cool feeling made his hair stand on end, as if the wind was blowing from a grave.

He took a deep breath, and the smell of decay made him feel a little suffocated. He held his breath again involuntarily. The smell seemed to say that this was a burial place.

John gritted his teeth and tried to take a step forward, but his legs seemed to weigh a thousand pounds and he couldn't move at all. If he stepped in, he might not live for another nine years, but might die at any time.

He felt something salty and rusty in his mouth and then realized that his mouth was bleeding again, as if God was reminding him that he had no choice.

This firmed his determination and he stepped into the dungeon. To survive, he had no choice but to fight for his life.

The dull sound of footsteps reached John's ears. He could not see the stairs under his feet, but he could feel the hard touch of the stairs. However, this touch gradually became empty until he stepped on the ground again, and it felt real again.

Faintly, he saw a glimmer of light in the darkness, and then he walked towards the direction of the light. The light was getting closer and closer, but it was still faint.

When he got closer, he could see clearly that it was the light coming through the gap of a wooden door. Judging from the brightness of the light, the light behind the door was not very bright.

John slowly pushed open the wooden door, which also creaked. It seemed that the wooden door was very old.

After ensuring there was nothing dangerous inside, he stepped in and looked around the room. This room was built with blue bricks, and there were candles in the four corners. The faint light divided the shadows into four parts.

The room was empty except for a tattered rectangular wooden table in the middle, on which sat an intricate metal bow and a pot of arrows.

Everything else was very old, only the bow and arrows looked brand new, as if someone had placed them there just moments ago.

After observing for a while, John carefully picked up the bow and tried to pull it. He felt nothing special, as if it was just a powerful hunting bow developed by the consortium.

Then he picked up the pot of arrows again, and after observing them, he determined that they were just ordinary metal arrows, with very crude workmanship.

Just as he was feeling a little disappointed, a rectangular black block appeared on the wall opposite the wooden door. It appeared on the wall out of thin air, just like the wooden door that appeared out of thin air before.

John approached cautiously and found that it was still a staircase extending downwards. Only then did he believe that what was written in the diary was true.

In order to lift the curse on his body and avoid dying at the age of 30, nine years later, he walked towards the stairs with determination, stepping in without hesitation this time.

When John stepped onto the stairs, the candlelight in the room behind him swayed slightly, as if cheering for him or crying for him.

He didn't notice any of this; he just walked down step by step. With every step he took, candles would light up on both sides.

The staircase was not too long, and John quickly reached the end. When he walked out of the stairs, a musty smell filled the air.

What appeared before his eyes was a long passage. The walls on both sides of the passage were built with huge bluestone bricks, now covered with moss.

It was cold and damp here. From time to time, a drop of black water dripped from the top of the passage. The dripping sound was regular, and it was hard to tell whether the water was condensation or seeping in from somewhere.

Just as John was observing his surroundings, he heard a clattering sound at the end of the passage. This immediately made him alert, and he quickly pulled out an arrow and put it on the bowstring.

As he stared at the end of the passage, the sound stopped, and after a moment there was still no movement, as if it had never appeared at all.

John looked back, but it didn't matter. His heart sank immediately because there was no door behind him, only a wall.

Moreover, the wall looked very old and was covered with moss. He reached out and touched the wall. The touch felt so real, as if he had just had an illusion, and the door seemed to have never appeared.

"There is no way out..." John muttered to himself, then slowly walked towards the passage with his bow and arrow. His footsteps were very light, and he tried not to make any noise with every step.

He knew that this dungeon was not just scary in appearance, but was genuinely terrifying. Many ancestors had entered this dungeon in search of a way to lift the curse, but few had ever walked out, and only a very small number could reach the end of the first floor of the dungeon.

This did not include John's father, who entered here when John was still a child, and he had never seen his father since then.

John shook off the past events that emerged in his mind and slowly approached the end of the passage. At this moment, the crashing sound suddenly rang out again.

His whole body tensed up immediately and he drew his bow, aiming at the corner of the passage, while the sound gradually became closer and clearer.

John swallowed his saliva and pulled the bowstring with all his strength. The next moment, a metal skeleton with flesh and blood appeared in his sight, and red light flashed in the holes in the skeleton's eyes.

The skeleton's broken electronic eyes looked at John, which made him tremble all over. The taut bowstring could not be pulled again, and the arrow instantly shot at the skeleton.

However, what disappointed John was that the arrow actually passed directly through the skeleton's body without causing any damage to it.

At this moment, the skeleton stepped forward and rushed towards him. Although the enemy had no weapons in its hands, he still felt a chill down his spine as he had never seen such a scene before.

John did not attack the skeleton again but turned around and ran back, but there was no path behind him, and he could not create distance and shoot again.

The most important thing was that the skeleton rushed over very fast, and he could not outrun it at all. He could only watch the skeleton rushing behind him and suddenly pounce on him.

At this time he finally mustered up the courage, hurriedly pulled out the axe from his waist, turned around, and chopped hard. The axe immediately hit the skull's head and was deeply embedded in the skull.

Just when he thought he had dealt with the skeleton, the skeleton grabbed his neck and opened its mouth to bite him.

Seeing that he was about to be bitten by the skeleton, John roared and kicked the skeleton's leg, causing the skeleton to stagger and its bite missed.

He also took the opportunity to pull out the axe and chopped hard at the skeleton's neck. Just as the skeleton was about to raise its head, the axe chopped off its head and it never moved again.

John hurriedly pushed the headless skeleton away, then took two steps back. His body was now soaked with sweat. Although he had known that there was a monster inside, it was still too scary when he faced it.

At this moment, a strange wind blew up in the dungeon. The wind seemed to blow through his body and straight into his bones, causing him to feel excruciating pain as if he were being pricked by countless needles.

The severe pain made him fall to the ground. His eyes went dark, and he lost consciousness. He didn't know how much time had passed before he gradually woke up.

At this time, an ethereal voice sounded in the dungeon: "Affected by the wind of ether, you have gained a special ability: weapon enhancement; after use, it can increase the attack power of the weapon. It is currently at level 1. It can be upgraded after killing a certain number of ghosts."