Giving Interstellar Players a Horror Ghost Game Shock - Chapter 81

An Zhi stared coldly at the few disgusting accounts, her gaze so frigid it felt like it could freeze the air.

【SendingYouPeace: @LiuMang Looks like I didn’t crush you hard enough last time.
You’re back here barking because you’re itching for another beating, huh?】

The other side immediately fell silent.
It took several minutes before a slow reply came.

【LiuMang: An Zhi, I’ll admit you’re strong. One-on-one, there’s no one at our level who can beat you. But on the battlefield, it’s never about individual skill—it’s about the team’s overall strength. The fact that you couldn’t lead your team to beat me during the last military academy joint exercise remains, no matter how strong you are individually.】

At first glance, his words sounded somewhat reasonable. The onlookers, drawn in by the cadets’ flame war, began to nod and like his comment.

An Zhi almost laughed out of sheer anger. Those First Military Academy scumbags loved playing dirty tricks like this!

She hadn’t even gotten a chance to refute him when other Central Military Academy students couldn’t hold back anymore.

【Qingguang: You #%&! Stop twisting the facts! Last time, if you guys hadn’t picked a training map that had never been open to outsiders, bribed our scout to feed us false information, and lured An Zhi away in advance, how the hell would you have won based on your own skill?!】

【Xiaofeng: Exactly! Pulling those kinds of dirty moves and still daring to talk about strength?!】

【Feixu: Give me a break. Even the referees ruled there was no violation. You’re the ones grasping at straws to excuse your own loss.】

An Zhi gritted her teeth silently.

She had to admit, as the second-year top student, she did bear responsibility for their loss at the last tournament.

Their primary scout’s older brother had a rare genetic disease and was in desperate need of money— something the First Military Academy found out about and easily exploited, bribing the scout to sabotage them during the match.

And she only pieced everything together after the tournament ended.

They had protested, accusing the First Academy of cheating through outside interference.

But since the tournament was hosted by the First Military Academy, their judges naturally ruled in favor of their own side. They argued that in real warfare, one must also anticipate the possibility of betrayal within their own ranks—thus, no rules had been broken.

As for using a home turf map rigged completely in their favor? Well, that was the unspoken, ugly norm.

The First Military Academy had slyly carved out an entirely new training ground within their campus, keeping it hidden until the tournament so opponents would have no time to familiarize themselves. They had truly mastered the art of shamelessness.

After Central Military Academy’s loss, the bribed student dropped out in shame. But An Zhi still couldn’t let it go.

In fact, not just her—the entire atmosphere at Central Military Academy had been heavy and strained these past few days.

It was the first time in the academy’s history that a case of student betrayal had ever happened.
And among classmates who had spent over a year slowly building trust, cracks had begun to appear.

An Zhi’s frustration lately was partly because of the suffocating mood at her own school.

She took a deep breath, and her eyes gradually sharpened with determination.

If you fall somewhere, you get back up from the same place. Everyone knew this simple truth.

【SendingYouPeace: @LiuMang Not joking. Let’s compete again.】

【Take my shot: Seriously, sis? You’re still not over it? Fine! No matter how many times you come back for more, First Military Academy will always be the winner!】

【LiuMang: I don’t mind. But for a private, student-organized tournament like this, getting a venue will be pretty difficult, no?】

【SendingYouPeace: Looks like you misunderstood me. I’m not talking about a team match—
I mean a competition in playing a horror game. Specifically, the one I’m playing right now: Campus Nightmare 2!】

“Huh? Has An Zhi gone crazy?”

Laughter burst out from Room 404 of the First Military Academy’s male dormitory.

“If it was a shooting game or a brawling game, sure, I’d get it. But she actually wants to compete in a horror game? Is it something like Zombie Rain: Night of the Maniac? What’s there to even compete about? I could send in a random freshman and he’d wipe the floor with everyone!”

Liu Mang was the second-year top student of the First Military Academy, and his family held significant influence in the Central System.

The bribe used to buy off Central Military Academy’s scout hadn’t come from the academy—it had been paid directly from Liu Mang’s private account.

At his side sat Wang Ke, a second-year logistics and tech student, who often styled himself as Liu Mang’s “strategist.” It was Wang Ke who had come up with the idea to bribe a Central Military Academy key member right before the tournament, painstakingly digging up information about the scout’s family’s desperate situation.

Wang Ke was also a fan of the ancient culture trend, wearing a pair of high-tech glasses perched on his nose.

Pushing them up with a practiced air of seriousness, he said, 

“Looks like An Zhi is the kind of person who acts fearless on the surface but secretly has her own Achilles’ heel. Who would’ve thought she’d be scared of something as fake as a horror game? And to think Central Military Academy picked someone like that as their second-year top student… how pathetic.”

“Mang-ge, I think you should accept the challenge. The more An Zhi runs around scared in that horror game, the more it’ll highlight your unshakable composure!”

“If we could livestream the whole thing, even better! Let the whole public see that Central Military Academy is full of cowardly weaklings— while our First Military Academy is where true warriors belong!”

The rivalry between the Central and First Military Academies ran deep. Originally, it had started as a battle over top students, but over time the hatred snowballed until it became a tradition to tear each other apart at every joint tournament.

So when a challenge came from an old enemy—even a seemingly ridiculous one—there was no way they would turn it down!

A little while later, An Zhi sent another message:
The game developer, Miss Ye, was officially inviting both sides to livestream the entire match.
The idea lined up perfectly with what the First Academy students were already hoping for.

Liu Mang reported it to the school, and sure enough, the school quickly gave the green light.
Their only instruction: Absolutely do not lose!

“Relax,” Liu Mang sneered. “We’re not like those timid Central kids. What ‘Campus Nightmare’?
We’ll turn it into ‘Campus Battle Night’!”

At this moment, these First Military Academy students still had no idea what they were about to face.

Even though “Miss Ye” and “horror games” had been trending hot lately, horror games were still extremely niche—especially among military cadets.

Maybe a few thrill-seeking students had dabbled a little, but for soldiers with high combat prowess and fearless temperaments, horror games weren’t scary at all—if anything, they found them less thrilling than hand-to-hand combat or gunfights.

After all, why slash it out with a fictional killer when you could go head-to-head against real laser fire?

As a result, military cadets in general paid little attention to horror games. More than half of them barely played games at all, because no game could match the adrenaline rush of a real sparring match.

In contrast, over at Central Military Academy, things were very different. They trusted An Zhi’s judgment completely— if she was treating this game seriously, then it had to be something extraordinary.

Determined not to repeat their past disgrace, the second-year students preparing to compete trained hard in horror games, even digging deep into research about Miss Ye and her works, swearing to reclaim their honor in this unprecedented gaming tournament.

And so, the days flew by, and soon it was November 29th— the day before the official release of Campus Nightmare 2!