Hey?
Is this “room service” arriving?
This wasn’t the first time Shen Ge had heard this voice. Except for the very beginning, when his consciousness entered the dream world and he could only face things with his ten-year-old body, getting utterly thrashed, the “enemies” who said this line in his subsequent entries had all been dealt with by him.
Right now, Shen Ge was at “full strength.” Plus, he had mastered Manifestation and Hypnosis. Unless the enemy pulled off a plot-induced instant kill, even if he couldn’t win, escaping should be no problem.
So, Shen Ge didn’t hesitate to step into the passage and walk towards the direction of the voice.
The further he went in, the more the corridor gradually took on an eerie red glow. Although it was barely enough to see by, which was better than complete darkness, this kind of dark red light in a narrow passage gave one an intense psychological sense of pressure.
Deep in the corridor, there were many “heart-like” doors on the walls on both sides. Shen Ge walked up to one of them and tried to use “Collapse” by expanding his invisible ghost domain.
But strangely, this time, when the ghost domain collided with the wall, it produced a very strong spatial distortion. The entire wall was pulled out of shape, but the “door” wasn’t torn open.
“Has it completely merged with the anomaly’s body?” As Shen Ge pondered this, he raised his hand and knocked on the door.
“Hello?”
“Anyone home?”
“You said you found me, so come on out.”
“If no one’s here, I’m leaving.”
Shen Ge’s voice echoed through the corridor, like a shout bouncing back from a mountain valley, making the eerie red corridor even more terrifying.
Unable to open the door, Shen Ge had no choice but to continue deeper. This time, with no burdens around, he didn’t need to waste any extra ghost energy on defense.
After walking for about five minutes, Shen Ge reached the end. There, he saw a set of double push doors, also in the “heart style,” nearly three meters tall.
“Although I’ve seen this many times, every time I see this kind of weird stuff produced by you guys fusing with buildings, I find it bizarre,” Shen Ge said. He had his blood-rot tentacles wrap around his arms a couple of times, then pushed hard against the double heart doors. But the feeling under his hands was like pushing against a sponge.
Shen Ge tried using “Collapse” to pass directly through, but it just turned into a contest of ghost energy consumption against the door.
With no way to take a shortcut, Shen Ge once again became a demolition expert and directly used ghost energy explosives. With a huge BOOM, the “heart” shook violently. When the smoke and dust cleared, the large hole blasted by the ghost energy explosives was healing at a visible rate.
“Master, it seems to be consuming ghost energy for rapid repair,” Little Seven said.
Shen Ge replied, “I can see that.”
Although this type of “rapid-healing” anomaly wasn’t as combat-effective as special types, it was very troublesome to deal with. You had to either deplete its ghost energy or suppress its regeneration rate.
But either method was a significant drain on your own resources.
Shen Ge thought for a moment, then decided to look for weak points on the door and concentrate firepower on them. He asked Little Seven to monitor the ghost energy.
“Master, when you attack with firearms, it concentrates its ghost energy on the area you’re hitting for defense. I suggest a diversionary tactic,” Little Seven reminded.
Shen Ge was thinking the same thing. He first placed several delayed-detonation high-explosive ghost energy bombs, then used his anomaly-killing revolver to attack the periphery of the “heart.” While diverting its attention, he immediately detonated the ghost energy bombs.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
A hole nearly a meter in diameter was blasted out beneath the “heart,” but it healed very quickly. Seeing this, Shen Ge took a running start, executed a sliding tackle, and slipped through.
Inside wasn’t big, at most about ten or twenty square meters. The strange thing was, there was nothing there. The surrounding fleshy walls were still slowly undulating.
“Master, the space here seems to be compressing,” Little Seven said.
Shen Ge carefully observed the surrounding fleshy walls and noticed they were indeed “squeezing” towards him.
Shen Ge then expanded his invisible domain and used “Collapse” on the surrounding fleshy walls. As the ghost domain collided with the walls, visible distortions and tremors appeared in the air.
“Surely there aren’t more bugs inside these walls, right?” As Shen Ge continuously released ghost energy to strengthen the “Collapse” power, trying to break through the walls’ defense, he vaguely saw something seemingly trying to squeeze out from the fatty crevices of the wall. For a moment, he couldn’t help but think of those worms in the anomaly’s stomach.
Just then, the fleshy wall in front of him was twisted and torn open. A completely rotten monster walked out. This monster was at least two and a half meters tall, its skin had been peeled off, the red flesh beneath was already decaying, and it emitted a stench unique to anomalies from head to toe.
As the monster emerged from the flesh wall, it made a puchi puchi sound, sprouting bone spurs like a porcupine.
The monster’s blood-red eyes were especially terrifying, and below its nose wasn’t a normal human face at all, but a gaping, anomaly-like maw.
Gurgle.
Gurgle.
The monster opened its mouth and made a spine-chilling swallowing sound. Black, bloody fluid flowed from the base of each spur on its body, constantly dripping to the ground. Every drop that hit the floor made a zzzz corrosive sound, like acid.
【Detected a rank-4 anomaly ahead. With the host’s abilities, dealing with it shouldn’t be too difficult. End the fight quickly to avoid attracting more anomalies!】
“?”
The monster is right in my face, and you’re just warning me now? System, after your last upgrade, is your latency a bit high?
Shen Ge didn’t know what was wrong with the system again, but before he could complain, the monster stomped its foot, kicking up a gust of wind as it lunged at him.
Clearly, Shen Ge’s “invisibility” was useless against this monster. It could determine his position based on scent and ghost energy reaction.
The moment it pounced, the monster opened its massive maw and spat a large spray of corrosive liquid at Shen Ge, like a watering can.
“Master, the monster’s saliva has a strong ghost energy reaction, and its corrosiveness looks very potent. Please try to avoid contact,” Little Seven warned.
Shen Ge had noticed this, but it was hard for him to dodge completely because the room was constantly shrinking. The anomaly seemed to want to trap him here.
“Immovable Ghost Domain!”
Bullet Time!
The instant Shen Ge expanded his immovable ghost domain, he narrowly dodged the corrosive liquid attack. At the same time, he aimed his Butcher Knife and Anomaly-Killing Revolver directly at the monster’s chest.
Several bullets from the revolver easily pierced the monster’s body, but Shen Ge’s Butcher Knife was stopped by its hard muscles.
“Power Amplification!”
Fifty times!
Pfft!
This single slash went in from the monster’s left shoulder, sliced across half its body, opened its chest, and cut out its heart!
After advancing to rank-5, Shen Ge’s ghost energy capacity had increased significantly. In fact, a twenty or thirty times amplification would have been enough to kill it.
But Shen Ge always prioritized safety. Besides, with the Red Mist Armor continuously supplying red mist ghost energy, he didn’t need to be so frugal with his ghost energy. He was determined to achieve a one-hit kill!
After the monster’s body was cut in half, it didn’t immediately split apart and fall. Instead, thread-like, bloody rotting flesh quickly extended from the wound, trying to stick the body back together to heal.
But how could Shen Ge give it the chance? He sliced upwards with the Butcher Knife, simultaneously put away the revolver with his other hand, and reached for the heart, which had already healed after being cut.
Heart Rip!
Shen Ge grabbed the monster’s heart and, before its body could heal together, pulled it outward. With a fiftyfold power amplification, the monster was clearly no match.
Pfft!
As corrosive liquid splashed, Shen Ge successfully ripped out the monster’s heart. The corrosive liquid was completely blocked by the Red Mist Armor. Although it consumed a fair bit of ghost energy, he wasn’t injured.
【Successfully killed rank-4 monster ‘Corrosive Body’. Rewards: 2000 System Points, 1x E-rank Recovery Item, 3x F-rank Recovery Items.】
【Anomaly corpse can be sold – Value: 3000 System Points.】
“‘Corrosive Body’?” Shen Ge glanced around the room, now only half its previous size, wondering if there were more of these things in the other fleshy walls, and whether he should farm some more points.
“Master, detecting that the ghost energy released from the fleshy walls is getting stronger and stronger. It seems about to exceed the intensity of the previous ‘heart door’,” Little Seven said.
If the flesh walls exceeded the defensive strength of the previous “door,” escaping would consume a huge amount of Shen Ge’s ghost energy or explosives. For safety, he had to leave as soon as possible.
While the fiftyfold power amplification was still active, Shen Ge charged at the flesh wall. He used the revolver for a diversion, then threw a punch at one of the walls.
BAM!
The entire room shook violently from the punch, while simultaneously shrinking faster. Seeing the poor effect, Shen Ge directly released ghost flames at another wall.
After throwing several more punches, Shen Ge slashed repeatedly at the flesh wall with the Butcher Knife. Just as he was about to cut an opening, the wall rapidly healed again.
“Master, it’s speeding up the contraction!”
“I see it!”
Shen Ge transformed into a fleshy butcher, hacking at the flesh wall again and again. The anomaly’s healing speed clearly couldn’t keep up with his destruction speed, and he finally cut out an exit.
Shen Ge squeezed out of the flesh wall. Outside wasn’t the previous red-lit corridor, but a pitch-black area, and a nauseating stench of decay hit him in the face.
“Master, there seems to be a life form reaction ahead,” Little Seven said, extending a blood-rot tentacle to point towards the right.
Anomalies and monsters don’t have life form reactions. Besides, they were still inside an anomaly’s belly. It was very strange for a life form reaction to appear here.
“Could this life form reaction be the same one that made that eerie voice earlier?” Shen Ge thought for a moment, then decided to continue exploring deeper.
First of all, this dream world was very different from the previous ones. It felt more like the “ending” after the world was destroyed by anomalies.
But if this was the ending, Shen Ge wouldn’t be too surprised to encounter a rank-7 or rank-8 anomaly right away. Yet, this was only a rank-6 anomaly.
For a rank-6 anomaly to have this level of strength, wasn’t that too absurd?
Shen Ge continued walking deeper. The further he went, the clearer the “building” shape inside the anomaly became. Shops, a restaurant, a gym… the layout looked like a shopping mall.
As Shen Ge passed a row of collapsed shops, a dark red glow suddenly “lit up” in the open area ahead, just like the dark red corridor before—terrifying and oppressive.
Gurgle.
Gurgle.
The eerie swallowing sound came faintly from ahead. But it was hard for Little Seven to detect it. Unless they were very close, the aura of anomalies and monsters would be masked by the powerful aura of the rank-6 anomaly. So, there was no better detection method. Using his face to check the “bushes” was the only option.
When Shen Ge reached the open area, it looked even more like a giant stomach than the previous one. It occupied the location of the entire mall lobby.
The gurgle, gurgle swallowing sound echoed in the lobby, seemingly coming from all directions, or from the surrounding fleshy walls—the eerie sounds made by this area itself.
“Master, the sound seems to be coming from the right.” Just as Shen Ge was carefully listening for the direction of the sound, Little Seven had already located the anomaly’s position through sound detection.
When Shen Ge followed Little Seven’s instructions and approached the fleshy wall on the right, he saw, within the wide open area, a dense cluster of black, earthenware meat jars.
He had seen these things before on Cherry Blossom Island. In the basement of the building fused with the anomaly, the monster organization used this method to cultivate monsters.
“That’s not right. On Cherry Blossom Island, there were people from the Twelve Branches and the Heavenly Stems behind the scenes, so it wasn’t strange to find monster cultivation setups. But this dream world is the ‘ending’ where anomalies have already destroyed the world. Could there still be people from the monster organization here?” Shen Ge’s gaze swept over the dense, eerie meat jars, and doubt arose in his heart.
Most importantly, this was inside a rank-6 anomaly! What would be the point of the monster organization placing meat jars here to cultivate monsters?
Shen Ge couldn’t help but recall the white flesh worms that squeezed out of the stomach walls earlier, and the rank-4 monster in the heart. There must be some connection!
Just as Shen Ge was about to move closer to observe the meat jars, he suddenly heard the sound of bubbles popping. Then, the “lid” on top of one meat jar slowly opened, like the mouth of a Venus flytrap. From inside, a skeletal hand with fingers a full twenty centimeters long slowly emerged, followed by an arm covered only in a layer of skin, and then an entire, withered, pale-skinned monster.
The next second, it was like Shen Ge had stirred up a hornet’s nest. All the meat jars burst open, and countless monsters crawled out, converging on him.
“Tsk. Isn’t this ever going to end?” Shen Ge cursed under his breath. To deal with such large hordes of monsters, he had to use the simplest and most effective method—
Burn.
He waved his hand, had his blood-rot tentacles pull several boxes of Molotov cocktails from his blood-leather backpack, and scattered them into the monster crowd. Then he released ghost flames to intensify the fire.
“Found… you.”
Hmm?
In his daze, Shen Ge seemed to hear that voice again. He immediately asked, “Little Seven, did you catch the direction of the voice?”
“Reporting, Master. There are too many monsters around, the sound is a bit jumbled. Analyzing now!” Little Seven said.
“Analyzing——”
“Master, it’s behind the flesh wall at your 1 o’clock!”
Shen Ge’s power amplification had dropped to about thirty times by now, but that was still enough to handle the current situation. He stomped his ghost boots, leaped into the air, used the momentum of his descent to stab the Butcher Knife into the flesh wall, and then sliced sharply downwards!
Shen Ge carved a huge gash in the flesh wall. When the entire wall split open, it revealed the world inside. There, in the center of a dark, reddish space, stood a massive, black meat jar nearly ten meters tall!
