Chapter 221: End, Instance Collapse
The final performance finally drew to a close.
The Circus Troupe Leader stood at the center of the grand stage, gesturing for the rest of his bizarre ensemble to line up and take their bows. As the audience erupted, his piercing gaze cut through the cheering crowd, sweeping past the rows of seats until it locked directly onto Haruto.
Haruto simply offered a faint, unbothered smile.
The Troupe Leader's brow furrowed. He watched closely as the young man's lips parted, silently mouthing two simple words.
"Do it."
The Troupe Leader raised an eyebrow, entirely unsure of what this arrogant Tourist intended to pull.
In the very next second, a deafening crack echoed through the massive tent.
The ceiling above the spectator area splintered open in a dozen different places. A massive pig plummeted from the rafters, slamming into the bleachers with a heavy, meaty thud. A chaotic rain of monkeys, rabbits, and various other animals followed, tumbling out of the sky one after another.
The players sitting in the stands didn't even flinch. As if they had rehearsed this exact moment, they calmly averted their eyes, completely ignoring the bizarre animal downpour.
The Troupe Leader's frown deepened into a harsh scowl.
Before he could even begin to process the meaning behind this stunt, a massive commotion erupted at the main entrance. A tidal wave of Red and Blue Staff Members flooded into the spectator stands. They completely ignored their assigned duties, abandoning their posts to engage in sheer, unadulterated vandalism.
All the surviving players sprang into action.
Some hoisted heavy mallets, ruthlessly smashing the wooden chairs to splinters. Others kicked over the prop racks, sending colorful juggling balls and heavy iron hoops clattering across the floor. A frenzied group of Red Staff Members even drew their weapons, charging forward to slaughter the fallen animals and launch unprovoked attacks on the Circus performers.
Even though the staff members were technically ghosts, the sheer volume and ferocity of the players' coordinated assault made casualties inevitable.
The Troupe Leader swatted away a barrage of attacks from a handful of players, his eyes darting frantically across the ruined tent. His signature painted smile melted away, replaced by a boiling, murderous rage as he watched his beloved Circus facilities being reduced to rubble.
A thick, suffocating grey mist began to bleed from his skin, rolling out in heavy waves that rapidly swallowed the front rows and crept toward the back.
Just as he raised his hand to unleash a devastating strike, a gloved hand clamped down on his wrist. It was the Clown.
"They haven't violated the rules."
"Not violated the rules?!"
The Troupe Leader whipped around, pointing a trembling finger at the absolute carnage unfolding around them. He forced the words through gritted teeth, desperately trying to suppress his surging fury. "Are you blind? Are you sure this isn't a violation?!"
"They haven't violated the rules of their own identities," the Clown replied, its voice eerily calm.
The Troupe Leader snarled, driving a brutal kick into the Clown's chest and sending it crashing into a pile of shattered props.
The grey mist surged outward with renewed violence. Wherever the fog touched—whether it was a Tourist or a rogue staff member—their bodies violently twisted. Thick fur sprouted from their skin as they rapidly began to mutate into animals.
The animals could not all die.
And the Circus facilities absolutely could not be destroyed.
He would never allow anyone to tear down his life's work.
However, a wave of pale red mist suddenly billowed from the wreckage, clashing against the grey fog. The crimson vapor neutralized a massive portion of the animalization effect, forcefully dragging several players back to their senses. At the same time, it mercilessly erased the few players who had actually crossed the line and broken the true rules.
Bloodshot veins bulged against the whites of the Troupe Leader's eyes.
"Do you really think I don't dare to kill you?!" he roared at the Clown. "The performance is already over!"
"The performance time, according to the rules, has not yet ended."
The Clown slowly climbed to its feet, its joints popping as the red mist expanded even further to protect the crowd. "Unless they step out of the performance area, or the designated time completely expires, the rules dictate that you cannot take action."
"Then you die first!"
The Troupe Leader's jaw unhinged, dropping open impossibly wide as if preparing to swallow a giant elephant whole. But just as he lunged forward, a young man's lazy, crystal-clear voice echoed through the chaos.
"Boundary of Light and Heavy—"
The Troupe Leader's body violently slammed into the floor. His skin, his internal organs, and every single cell in his body suddenly felt as though they were being crushed beneath a hundred times their normal weight. The sheer gravitational pressure caused the stage beneath him to cave in, layer by splintering layer.
He ground his teeth together, straining every muscle in a desperate bid to stand, but his body refused to obey. It wasn't just the crushing weight—he felt as though he were frozen in amber. The very flow of time around him had been artificially slowed down by hundreds, perhaps thousands of times.
Straining against the immense pressure, he rolled his eyes upward, glaring toward the spectator stands.
Haruto and Kaguya stood casually among the ruined seats, looking down at him with matching, amused smiles.
"Ha... Hahaha...!"
A manic laugh tore from the Troupe Leader's throat. It was the sound of a man pushed past the brink of absolute fury, or perhaps someone who had just discovered something incredibly, morbidly fascinating.
Up in the stands, Kaguya tilted her head, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Has he gone mad?"
"Probably," Haruto replied casually. He reached into the fleeing crowd, grabbing Chen Qin by the shoulder and pulling her close, entirely prepared to evacuate the dimension at a moment's notice.
Beside them, Lin Que's eyelids twitched uncontrollably.
She looked around at the collapsing environment, a deep shudder running through her spine. The world was literally falling apart. Frame after frame of reality was dissolving into harsh, buzzing static. The vibrant colors of the circus tent bled into a blurry, pixelated mess, like a cheap simulation that could no longer sustain its own code.
"Interesting... truly interesting..."
The Troupe Leader forcefully sucked the grey mist back into his own body. With a sickening crunch of bone and tearing muscle, he violently shattered the strange gravitational binding holding him down.
Assuming the monster had given up its resistance, the Clown slowly retracted its red mist, turning its painted face toward the spectator stands—
In the very next second, the Clown's world plunged into absolute darkness.
The Troupe Leader lunged forward, his massive jaws snapping shut as he bit off the Clown's head in a single, gruesome crunch.
As the severed head slid down his throat, the Troupe Leader's body began to rapidly mutate and swell. The Clown's colorful, eerie makeup patterns surfaced on his own face, twisting his features into something utterly hideous.
A torrent of dark red mist erupted from his pores, exploding outward like a shockwave. In an instant, it didn't just cover the performance area—it swallowed the entire Circus dimension.
The speed of the animalization effect skyrocketed.
Even though Kaguya had blanketed the surviving players in a shallow layer of Eternity and Moment, the sheer density of the corrupted mist was too much. The mutation process violently accelerated. Several players screamed as their bones cracked and reshaped, transforming completely into mindless beasts right before their eyes.
"Then let's just clean you all up at once," the mutated Troupe Leader sneered, his voice echoing with overlapping, demonic tones. "Tourists, Blue-clothed Staff, Red Staff... it doesn't matter anymore."
He curled his lips into a grotesque smirk and snapped his fingers, attempting to trigger the Clown's absolute erasure ability.
Nothing happened.
He froze, his twisted smile faltering. He slowly turned his massive head, glaring directly at Haruto.
Haruto simply pointed a finger at the row of semi-animalized players trembling beside him.
Is it because of them?
How is that possible?
According to the rules, as long as they hadn't completely transformed into animals and hadn't entirely lost their sanity, the system still classified them as Tourists.
Suddenly, a horrifying realization struck the Troupe Leader.
From the very moment those specific players had entered the tent, they had been hovering exactly one step away from full animalization. And considering they had been marinating in his corrupted mist this entire time, they absolutely should have transformed by now.
It's their time.
The flow of time around those ten specific people had been completely frozen. They were locked in a perpetual state of stasis, trapped at the exact critical threshold between Tourist and animal, technically belonging to neither category.
"Damn it... damn it... DAMN IT!!"
A long-lost, explosive rage warped the Troupe Leader's face, entirely shattering his usual bright, theatrical smile.
The world around them violently distorted. His vision was swamped by deafening white noise and tumbling television static, the dimension resembling an old CRT monitor that had completely lost its signal.
"Run! To the Kiosk!"
Haruto peered through a freshly opened Gap, spotting the familiar shape of the Kiosk materializing in the distance. He snapped the Gap shut and barked the order. The surviving players didn't hesitate for a fraction of a second. They dropped their makeshift weapons and sprinted for their lives.
Lin Que and her group, who had wisely positioned themselves in the very last row, immediately rallied their people. Following Haruto's trio, they bolted toward the exit with everything they had.
"Don't run! Die! You all must DIE!"
The Troupe Leader roared, preparing to launch himself after the fleeing humans. But just as he took a step, a pair of cold hands clamped around his ankles in a vice-like grip.
It was the Clown's headless corpse.
The Troupe Leader kicked and thrashed frantically, shattering the floorboards beneath him. But the headless body refused to let go. It wasn't until the very last player crossed the threshold of the Grand Performance Area, officially leaving the protection of the rules, that the Clown's grip finally went slack, the corpse collapsing into a lifeless heap.
Haruto, Kaguya, and Youmu led the frantic charge.
Lin Que, Chen Qin, and the remaining players sprinted desperately toward the Kiosk, keeping their eyes glued to the trio ahead. The surrounding dimension had completely dissolved into blinding static and thick mist. Visibility was zero; if they lost sight of Haruto now, they would be erased along with the collapsing world.
To the right of the cafeteria ruins, the Kiosk stood waiting.
Ghost Granny was nowhere to be seen. The only thing left inside the small booth was the old television set, its screen glowing brightly. The image on the glass was crystal clear, displaying a perfectly normal, pristine Circus—a stark contrast to the crumbling, pixelated hellscape around them.
"Everyone, get in!" Haruto ordered decisively.
Even though the System hadn't issued a single prompt confirming this was the exit, the players' trust in Haruto was absolute. Without a second thought, they threw themselves headfirst into the glowing television screen, vanishing into the glass.
Haruto suddenly sensed a massive shift in the air pressure. He glanced over his shoulder. The Troupe Leader had fully mutated into a towering, grotesque behemoth, several sizes larger than the Kiosk itself, bulldozing through the static directly toward them.
"You are not allowed to leave!" the monster bellowed, its voice shaking the very fabric of the dimension. "Stay! You must stay! The Circus cannot disappear!!"
"Before I go, I'll give you one last gift," Haruto said, his tone entirely too cheerful for the situation.
He whipped out a Talisman Card. Across the paper surface, countless hideous, bloodshot eyeballs rolled lazily, oozing an aura of pure, concentrated dread.
"Is that Yakumo Yukari's Talisman Card?" Kaguya asked, her eyes lighting up with genuine curiosity.
Haruto shook his head. He aimed the grotesque card directly at the distorted, mountainous face charging toward them and flashed a shameless grin.
"Take this!"
A blinding blast from a Magic Cannon erupted from his hand, slamming directly into the giant Troupe Leader and kicking up massive shockwaves of mist.
But a split second later, the colossal monster burst through the smoke, completely and utterly unharmed.
"This must be your own useless Talisman Card!" Kaguya yelled in exasperation, turning to complain—only to find empty air.
Haruto and Youmu had already completely vanished into the television screen.
"Dammit! You didn't even call me!"
Cursing his shamelessness, Kaguya immediately dove into the glowing glass.
Almost simultaneously, the Troupe Leader's massive, mutated palm slammed down from the heavens, crushing the Kiosk into flat rubble with a deafening boom.
And then, the world snapped back to normal.
Haruto blinked, finding himself standing in the dead center of a very real, very mundane Circus. The surrounding area was completely desolate. The only sound was the cold wind whistling through the tears in the dilapidated, rotting tents.
Directly in front of them sat an old television set, its screen buzzing with dead static.
Behind them were rows of dusty, decaying chairs. Sitting in those chairs were dozens of human skeletons, their bones draped in the rotting, faded uniforms of Circus members. They sat perfectly still, facing the center ring, as if they had been silently watching a performance for a very, very long time.
With a sharp crack, the television screen shattered into pieces.
In the next moment, a familiar, cold mechanical voice echoed in their minds.
[Instance: The Never-Ending Circus — Concluded]
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