Shen Ge descended several floors in succession, finally arriving at what seemed to be the 37th floor. Starting from this level, the hallway had undergone a drastic transformation.
The overall appearance was like being inside intestines. Both sides were lined with soft walls piled with thick, greasy fat, emitting a faint, black Gui Energy, making it incredibly eerie.
The hallway was even narrower than the previous floors, and the smell of decay hung heavier in the air. Strangely, aside from some dried bloodstains, no corpses or rotting matter were found in the hallway or the surrounding rooms.
After searching around and finding nothing, Shen Ge intended to use “Collapse” again to move upward. However, this time, when he activated his Intangible Gui Domain, it was resisted by the intangible Gui Energy permeating the hallway, causing the Gui Energy consumption for maintaining the domain to increase severalfold.
In the past, such a drain would have emptied Shen Ge’s Gui Energy reserves in an instant. But now, on one hand, his Gui Energy upper limit was comparable to a Tier-4 Gui Entity’s. On the other hand, he had the Red Mist Armor as a backup, not to mention the Mental Apples and Gui Energy Cans he carried.
Therefore, after his Gui Energy was drained, Shen Ge immediately bit into a Mental Apple to recover.
“Master, upon using your ability, detection indicates the Gui Energy in the hallway rapidly converged towards your location, leading to the failure of your ability activation,” Little Seven reminded.
Shen Ge asked, “Can you calculate how much of the hallway’s Gui Energy I consumed in that instant?”
“Reply, Master: less than one-tenth.”
Only one-tenth?
Shen Ge had initially considered forcefully breaking through to the next floor by overwhelming the Gui Energy, but that level of consumption seemed rather extravagant. After all, his Gui Energy recovery relied on consuming Mental Apples. And since it was now almost certain the hotel had merged with a weirdo, they were likely inside the belly of the Eerie Hotel weirdo.
In other words, this Gui Energy was like the weirdo’s flowing blood. Even if some was consumed through Gui Energy counteraction, it would quickly replenish.
“Cough. Inv- Investigator Shen.” At that moment, Hu Tinglan’s voice suddenly sounded from behind Shen Ge.
After regaining consciousness, Hu Tinglan found herself bound into a dumpling by something resembling Gui Entity tentacles. Fortunately, her neck could still move, allowing her to barely see that she seemed to be “carried” by someone.
“Oh? You’re awake?” Shen Ge asked.
Hu Tinglan inquired, “Investigator Shen, where are we?”
“The hotel has probably merged with a weirdo. We’re likely inside the weirdo’s stomach. Currently… hotel floor 37?” Shen Ge replied.
With the help of Shen Ge’s sweeping flashlight beam, Hu Tinglan finally saw the hallway’s condition. The sight of the pulsating flesh walls nearly scared her into fainting again. Then, she suddenly remembered a report she had handled months ago and quickly relayed its contents to Shen Ge.
That report had reached the Special Investigations Department about three months after the South Korean Gui Disaster. According to it, a severe Gui incident had occurred in Europe. A high-rise building in a city center had “mutated,” rising from the ground like a stone giant.
Most terrifyingly, as the building pulled its mutated, leg-like structures from the ground, the entire block’s surface cracked, and a large number of Parasitized resembling rotten corpses surged from below.
Anti-Gui departments in Europe captured several “specimens” and sent them to research departments in various countries for study.
The Great Celestial Dynasty also received a corpse. Research revealed that the Gui Energy within these Parasitized possessed a certain “fusion” effect.
The research institute at Headquarters had attempted to extract this fusion Gui Energy and merge it with non-living matter. Unfortunately, all experiments failed.
“Failed?” Hearing this, Shen Ge couldn’t help but frown. Based on Hu Tinglan’s account, his suspicion towards Headquarters deepened further.
He felt it wasn’t as simple as the experiments failing. It was likely similar to the previous human experiments, merely using failure as a cover to continue research in secret.
So, was the appearance of this Eerie Hotel an experiment by Headquarters?
Conducting an experiment in their own territory, at the venue for the upcoming Asian Anti-Gui Research Conference… had Headquarters’ higher-ups all lost their minds?
Shen Ge couldn’t fathom any reason for Headquarters to do this. Moreover, trapped inside the Eerie Hotel, he was unaware that Headquarters was outside, exerting full effort to suppress the Gui incident’s spread, even deploying one of their trump cards, the “Gui Energy Mecha Unit,” to lock down the city district.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Suddenly, Shen Ge heard the sound of footsteps coming from the end of the hallway. From the sound, there were quite a few. He immediately signaled Hu Tinglan to be quiet.
Hu Tinglan quickly shut her mouth. But Shen Ge took an extra precaution, having Little Seven envelop her completely with Rotted Blood Armor, ensuring only normal breathing remained possible.
Then, Shen Ge entered “Intangible + Silent” state and stealthily moved towards the end.
Upon reaching the end, Shen Ge saw a group of “people” emerging from the stairwell at the corner. They wore uniform combat attire, but their heads were gone, replaced by various disgusting parasitic Gui Entity heads.
Judging by their clothing, they should be Anti-Gui fighters from Greater Jing Special Investigations. According to Hu Tinglan, no Anti-Gui troops had been stationed here before. Could they have entered after the Gui incident began?
Unfortunately, these people were already dead. Shen Ge couldn’t capture one to interrogate. Utilizing the “Intangible + Silent” properties, he made way for them. These Parasitized then walked through the hallway, seemingly searching for something.
After a moment’s thought, Shen Ge continued maintaining the dual-property state and followed behind them, wanting to see what the Parasitized were up to.
Shen Ge trailed the group of Parasitized through the dim, winding hallway. They entered a stairwell, went up two floors, then went down two floors through another stairwell. Under normal circumstances, they should still be on the 37th floor. But according to the floor numbers in the stairwell, they had arrived at the 44th floor.
The situation within the overlapped Gui Space was intricate, with the environment distorted, so normal directional thinking couldn’t be applied.
Just as Shen Ge wondered what the Parasitized were doing here, they passed through a long corridor into a spacious “room.” Hanging from the ceiling in the center was a heart at least ten meters in diameter, its outer surface covered in a layer of rock.
A rocky heart?
Shen Ge found this thing familiar, somewhat similar to the heart inside the New Gui King No. 2 cultivated by “Celestial Stem” in South Korea.
Could this really be Celestial Stem’s handiwork?
Shen Ge remembered the “heart’s” interior was vast, and this rocky heart was merely a protective shell; the true Gui King heart was inside.
He raised his hand, and the Rotted Blood Tentacle attached to his arm extended, coiled around a rocky protrusion on the heart’s outer shell, and pulled him up.
Soon, Shen Ge found a gap on the side of the rocky heart, almost identical to the one seen on the Gui heart in South Korea—a crack several meters wide, enough for him to squeeze through.
Entering the rocky heart again, the interior was filled with bloody filaments and vessels, crisscrossing like dense vines in a primordial forest.
At the center was a massive cluster of black Gui Energy mist, accompanied by the sound of a thump-thump heartbeat.
While Shen Ge was observing the heart, he saw the rocky outer layer slowly open. Thick, arm-like blood vessels extended from within, coiling around the Parasitized standing nearby, then feeding them to the heart.
Each time the “heart” swallowed a Parasitized, more bloody filaments would appear, winding around it and “growing” a new patch of rocky layer.
“Is this using the bodies of Anti-Gui fighters to cultivate Parasitized as nutrients to feed the heart and cultivate a Gui King?”
Shen Ge remembered Xin Pangzi mentioning that Celestial Stem used this method to cultivate the two Gui Kings in Japan and South Korea.
This time, it was the Great Celestial Dynasty’s turn?
So they chose Greater Jing as the location to create Gui King No. 3?
Shen Ge found this possibility very low. Firstly, unless Headquarters was in collusion with Celestial Stem, a time and resource-intensive plan like cultivating a Gui King couldn’t be carried out silently in Greater Jing.
After all, the Gui Kings in Japan and South Korea were the result of Celestial and Earthly Branches planning for years, gradually infiltrating their underground research bases step by step.
Although Headquarters had previously absorbed members of the Weirdo Association, as the “former employer” of Celestial and Earthly Branches, they couldn’t be unaware that the lunatics of the Twelve Branches aimed to become the shadow rulers behind humanity.
Therefore, as long as Headquarters wasn’t stupid, they wouldn’t allow a Gui King plan to unfold under their noses, especially since Greater Jing was the “heart” of the Great Celestial Dynasty!
Shen Ge felt the mysteries were piling up. But regardless, perhaps he could find answers once he got out of the Eerie Hotel.
Non-Ignition Gui Domain!
Shen Ge directly unleashed his ultimate move inside the “heart,” attempting to lower the heart’s ignition point through the Non-Ignition Gui Domain’s influence.
However, as the vital spot of the Eerie Hotel, its Gui Energy defense was naturally the strongest. After one round of Gui Energy consumption, he only managed to peel off a layer of the heart’s rocky skin.
“Master, the weirdo seems to have detected you damaging its heart. It appears to be mobilizing forces. Strong Gui Energy fluctuations are detected on the same floor,” Little Seven reminded.
Shen Ge wasn’t surprised at all that the “heart” would call for reinforcements when threatened. Back in the Deer Lake Water City’s Gui Villa, he had been surrounded by various Gui Entities and Parasitized summoned by Liu Zongrui.
At that time, he only had the dual properties of “Silent + Intangible,” and Liu Zongrui had a hard time locating him, let alone now when he had an additional “Untraceable” property.
To be safe, Shen Ge switched from dual properties to triple properties and continued attempting to activate his Gui Domain to find weak points in the heart for a breakthrough.
At that moment, the outer “rocky” layer suddenly opened. Two weirdos, one fat and one thin, each nearly three meters tall like the Fat and Thin Head Guardians, entered the heart. Their bodies were covered only by a layer of dark gray, hairless skin.
“Gui Energy intensity, Tier 4?” Seeing the two weirdos’ tier, Shen Ge was extremely surprised. His surprise wasn’t at the weirdos’ strength, but at how such powerful weirdos could appear silently in Greater Jing.
After all, Gui Entity “promotion” had strict Gui Energy intensity limits. Even if a Tier-3 Gui Entity swallowed a Tier-4 one, it couldn’t immediately mutate to Tier-4. It needed to absorb and convert that Gui Energy, turning it into its own to enhance its Gui Energy intensity before Tier-4 “mutation” became possible.
In other words, unless Headquarters was directing this play themselves, it was impossible for two Tier-4 weirdos to appear silently in the city.
Clearly, in Shen Ge’s eyes, even if Headquarters wasn’t a co-conspirator in this Gui incident, they couldn’t possibly be completely unaware of it!
The two Tier-4 weirdos entered the “heart” and began searching for the enemy threatening it. However, Shen Ge under the triple-property state of “Intangible + Silent + Untraceable” was undetectable even to these two Tier-4 weirdos, let alone Gui Entities or weirdos one or two tiers higher.
In other words, to detect Shen Ge under the triple properties’ influence, one would need a Tier-8 Gui Entity from the world four years later—one that could sink Japan with a stomp—to overpower him with sheer Gui Energy intensity and break his properties. Otherwise, mere Gui Energy counteraction could at most accelerate his Gui Energy consumption.
Unfortunately, these two Tier-4 weirdos couldn’t even determine Shen Ge’s approximate location to attempt Gui Energy counteraction.
On the contrary, Shen Ge took the initiative. Wielding the Pig-Slaughtering Knife, he approached behind one of the weirdos. First, he used the Intangible Gui Domain to consume the opponent’s Gui Energy, then executed “Heart Pluck,” creating an opening in the weirdo’s back, followed by the Pig-Slaughtering Knife to dissect it, assassinating it without a trace.
However, merely eliminating this one Tier-4 weirdo had already depleted Shen Ge’s Gui Energy. He had to retreat to a corner, eat a Mental Apple to recover, then target the second weirdo.
[Host displays unparalleled bravery, single-handedly slaying a Tier-4 Gui Entity. Reward: System Points x5000, E-grade Recovery Item x1, F-grade Recovery Items x3.]
[Gui Entity corpse can be sold—Value: 8000 System Points.]
“Sell it.”
Unable to counter Shen Ge’s “Assassination Triple Properties,” he was essentially in an “invincible” state, especially since Tier-4 weirdos were weaker than Tier-4 Gui Entities.
Even though they had completely mutated under the influence of Gui Entity flesh, losing consciousness and becoming utter monsters, their bodies were originally human. After fusing with Gui Entity flesh, they couldn’t perfectly integrate Gui Energy like Gui Entities. Therefore, neither their physical strength nor their special Gui abilities matched those of Gui Entities of the same tier.
Of course, the physical strength of a Tier-4 weirdo could withstand even Gui Energy rocket shells. Unfortunately, they encountered Shen Ge… a mage who relied on “magic penetration” skills.
The Intangible Gui Domain neutralized the weirdo’s greatest reliance, “invulnerability,” through Gui Energy counteraction, allowing direct attacks on internal organs.
No matter how tough a Tier-4 weirdo’s skin was, its internal organs remained fragile.
This resulted in Tier-4 weirdos capable of easily wiping out an entire Headquarters Anti-Gui squad being instantly killed without even seeing what Shen Ge looked like.
However, although Shen Ge instantly killed the two Tier-4 weirdos, the “heart” immediately realized its defenses were ineffective against him and entered a defensive mode.
The black Gui Energy mist floating around the heart converged, gradually enveloping it. As the heart contracted, corrosive green liquid resembling magma squeezed out from the rocky layer, surging in all directions.
Having witnessed the power of this corrosive liquid in South Korea, Shen Ge didn’t hesitate. Utilizing the high mobility of his Gui Leather Boots, he immediately retreated along the original path, fleeing the heart’s floor.
