The Night Waiter

Time flowed slowly, and the night, like thick ink, completely enveloped the entire Anomaly space.

Silence hung like an invisible net over the hall and the five corridors stretching out from it. Only the occasional night wind whistling through the cracks in the windows broke the hush, its faint whimpers making the atmosphere feel even more sinister.

In the darkness, a massive figure moved slowly. The sharp scraping of something sliding across the floor—skreeee, skreeee—echoed through the deathly silent space, a small but clear sound that sent chills down one's spine.

It was a blue-black monster, its frame so tall it bordered on deformity, far exceeding the height of a normal human. Its body was covered in coarse, hard skin that shimmered with a dull luster in the gloom.

Its head was encased in a heavy metallic mask that completely obscured its face, save for a narrow slit at the eyes. Within that slit, a ghostly blue light flickered—cold, hollow, and devoid of emotion, like two dancing wisps of soul-fire piercing through the dark.

It slowly emerged from one of the corridors.

As everyone had noticed before, the layout of the hall and the rooms resembled the shape of a sun.

The spacious hall was at the center, with five straight corridors extending in different directions. On either side of each corridor was a single room.

Tonight, the number of rooms had not decreased. There were ten rooms in total, each housing a participant.

This meant that whenever an Anomaly went out to hunt, if their target was not in an adjacent room, they had to cross their corridor, return to the central hall, and then head toward the target's corridor and room.

Tonight, this blue-black monster had clearly not chosen a neighbor as its target.

The terrifying creature slowly moved into the hall. The blue light on its metallic mask wavered slightly as it scanned the empty space, finally settling on the dining table in the center.

Surprisingly, someone was sitting there.

Moonlight slanted through the hall's windows, painting a circular bright patch on the floor.

The passage of time at night seemed abnormal here. The moon moved with unnatural speed, causing the white patch on the ground to crawl along like a pool of liquid light, slowly climbing onto the table and illuminating half of the person's face.

It was Player 11.

She hadn't returned to her room. Instead, she sat alone at the dining table, her hands resting beneath it with fingers slightly curled. Her eyes were fixed on the monster before her, refusing to look away.

The blue-black monster slowly lowered its head, its massive frame looming over Player 11's small figure. The ghostly blue light from the metallic mask's slit met Player 11's gaze. A bone-chilling aura washed over her, making her shudder involuntarily.

"I thought you'd say something like, 'I can't believe you're waiting for me here,'" Player 11 said, her voice carrying a trace of a tremor she couldn't quite hide, yet she forced herself to speak.

"You were so talkative during the day. Why are you so silent now that it's night?"

Her gaze shifted slightly, glancing toward the corridor the monster had come from, and she asked slowly, "So, are you Player 7 or Player 8?"

Each corridor corresponded to two rooms. Player 11 had seen it clearly: this monster had emerged from the corridor housing Player 7, Zhang Qiuqiu, and Player 8, Lu Zihan.

In other words, the Anomaly before her was inevitably one of those two.

"It's probably Player 8," Player 11 murmured to herself, as if confirming it for her own sake as much as the monster's.

"If Player 7 were the Anomaly, she's currently in the position of the leader. Keeping her there would be a better way to confuse everyone; there would be no need for her to risk coming out herself..."

In her view, Zhang Qiuqiu had been playing the role of the leader. If she were an Anomaly, she wouldn't need to kill in person. She could simply guide the votes during the day and reap the rewards safely.

Player 8, on the other hand, had lacked any real presence throughout the game, making him more likely to be the hidden Anomaly taking the initiative to carry out the kill.

At this thought, Player 11 took a deep breath, suppressed the fear in her heart, and slowly raised her hand to bring a bottle out from under the table.

The bottle was completely transparent and exquisitely crafted, engraved with fine patterns. It looked far more sophisticated than the water bottle Ren Yi had used earlier; it was clearly no ordinary container.

This was only natural. To fake being a Poison Apprentice, Ren Yi had been forced to add special effects to a mineral water bottle just to fool Player 4. The bottle in Player 11's hand, however, was the standard equipment for a Poison Apprentice.

In this Anomaly game, the Poison Apprentice actually possessed a unique advantage—the capital they needed to contend with the Anomalies.

Their poison had no usage time limit; it could be used during the day or at night.

During the day, they could use the opportunities provided by speaking and interacting to safely apply poison to someone they suspected without worrying about retaliation. After all, the day was the Anomalies' period of weakness, during which they could not actively attack.

Just like this morning, when Player 11 had taken the initiative to test Ren Yi. If Ren Yi had shown even the slightest flaw, she could have used the poison on the spot. Ren Yi would have had no way to resist and would have been forced to succumb.

However, if they were willing to take a bit of a risk at night and use the poison correctly, they could ensure it hit an Anomaly with absolute certainty, making it impossible to poison the wrong person.

The method was simple: use it while facing an Anomaly in the night.

For example, using the poison for self-defense when an Anomaly came to kill them.

Player 11 had chosen an even more dangerous path. She hadn't hidden in her room to save her life; instead, she had stayed in the hall to intercept the hunting Anomaly.

She was gambling that an Anomaly would definitely move tonight, and that she could deal with it using her poison before it could strike.

Looking at the monster before her and remembering it might possess teleportation abilities, Player 11 didn't hesitate. Her fingertips pressed down, opening the potion bottle in her hand.

In the next second, the potion inside vanished into thin air, leaving no trace behind as if it had never existed.

At the same time, a rust-red flower-shaped mark suddenly appeared on the blue-black monster's chest.