Shen Ge’s punch, amplified a hundredfold, slammed into the doorframe of the black door. It felt like hitting a monster’s stomach, causing a violent spasm that shook the entire space.
In the next moment, the ceiling and walls began to collapse. The surrounding space rapidly contracted and compressed. Seeing this from not far away, Hu Tinglan immediately screamed in terror.
Fortunately, Shen Ge’s mind cleared considerably after that punch. The voice in his head that had been incessantly urging him to enter the room gradually faded.
With a stomp of his foot, he used the spring-like force of the Spectral Leather Boots to propel himself backward in a supine leap. Twisting his body mid-air, he flew past Hu Tinglan, scooping her up as he went.
“Ah—”
Shen Ge waited for Hu Tinglan’s scream to subside before asking, “Didn’t I tell you to wait outside until I finished here and then I’d come back for you? What are you doing running in here and causing trouble?”
Hu Tinglan was so upset she was nearly in tears. “Investigator Shen, I really didn’t come here on purpose… I was originally in that small room with the door locked. Suddenly, strange noises came from outside. I peeked through the peephole and saw the corridor was enveloped in a weird black fog. The view outside the window was the same.”
“I was terrified and hid under the bed, but then the whole room started shaking violently. The black fog seeped in through the cracks under the door, quickly filling the entire room. As the fog poured in, the room became distorted and shook even more. I tried my hardest to run towards the window…”
“Right then, I heard your voice… saying something like ‘found you’ and telling me to follow you. I was a bit suspicious it might be a trick of the eerie place, but the situation in the room was so bad I had no choice. I could only follow your voice and rush out the door.”
“And then, as soon as I rushed out, I saw that weird corridor and you standing there staring blankly at that black door…”
While explaining how she ended up in the spire, Hu Tinglan clung tightly to Shen Ge’s arm, which was clad in the putrid-blood armor, afraid that if she annoyed him, he might abandon her in this terrifying place.
The surrounding space continued to compress rapidly. Utilizing the high mobility of the Crimson Mist Armor, Shen Ge kept moving, fleeing from the tenth floor back to the eighth, while the collapse around them intensified.
“What’s going on… Just because I didn’t enter that room, the entire spire is collapsing?” Shen Ge was deeply puzzled, unable to understand why this was happening.
However, the spire’s collapse gave him no time to think. Thankfully, having climbed up floor by floor, Shen Ge was relatively familiar with the environment. He rushed all the way back to the lobby on the first floor.
But when he reached the main entrance, he was stunned. The world outside was completely shrouded in black fog. The main doors were wide open, yet no monsters entered. It was as if the terrifying creatures he’d encountered on his way to the spire didn’t exist at all. Something was clearly very wrong!
“Could it be… it’s not the spire collapsing, but the entire world collapsing?” A grim possibility suddenly occurred to Shen Ge. The collapse of the dream world meant that if he didn’t find a way out quickly, he could be buried here forever.
Of course, it was also possible that once the dream world collapsed, both he and Hu Tinglan would simply leave it. But clearly, Shen Ge wasn’t willing to gamble his life on that.
“Why is the dream world collapsing?”
“Is it simply because I refused to enter the room?”
“What exactly is inside that room?”
A series of questions flashed through Shen Ge’s mind. He felt there must be some connection between the dream world’s collapse and that room.
During his previous experience in the apocalyptic Rong City, Shen Ge had also only escaped the dream world after entering that strange room within the high tower.
But the difference was, back then, his consciousness had been asleep; only his mind had entered the dream world. This time, not only had his physical body entered, but he’d also brought an unrelated person along.
Although since Shen Ge discovered the dream world, there had been cases of the Freak Shen Ge entering too, that version, like him, had entered only through consciousness.
Therefore, after both he and Hu Tinglan physically entered this time, Shen Ge was hesitant to gamble on whether entering the room would guarantee their exit from the dream world.
Moreover, the situation at the time was too bizarre. It felt as if an invisible force was compelling him to enter that room full of eyes. Any normal person would be reluctant to take that gamble!
Just then, Shen Ge remembered something from earlier at the room’s entrance. When he had used the Crimson Mist Armor to supply spectral energy to “resist,” the clash of different spectral energies had created a strange, twisting, tearing effect!
“I have a bold idea!” Shen Ge suddenly declared.
Upon hearing this, Hu Tinglan nearly burst into tears again. “Investigator Shen, are we going to die here? Ah, I just got a promotion and raise… God bless, Buddha be efficacious, Bodhisattva protect, God of Wealth have mercy, the Jade Emperor be well… please let me leave this damned place safely. I’ll burn incense and worship every month from now on!”
“…” Shen Ge realized she hadn’t really heard what he said. Ever since escaping the collapsing, contracting floors, she had been neurotically muttering various prayers and incantations.
She’d invoked everyone from God to the Jade Emperor, from Buddha to the God of Wealth, essentially spreading her bets so at least one deity might answer.
Shen Ge didn’t bother asking her further. He deployed the Unyielding Spectral Domain, enveloping himself and Hu Tinglan. Then, he instructed Little Seven to continuously convert spectral energy for him via the Crimson Mist Armor, and charged out through the spire’s main doors.
The next instant, Shen Ge found himself engulfed in darkness filled with spectral-energy black fog. However, the intangible barrier formed by the Unyielding Spectral Domain created a defensive shield around him, preventing the spectral fog from getting close.
At that moment, Shen Ge felt as if the entire world were spinning violently. It was as if the spectral-energy black fog had coalesced into a giant hand, gripping his barrier tightly, trying to crush it!
Crack.
Crack.
Crack.
Shen Ge could even faintly hear glass-like cracking sounds coming from the intangible barrier, and fissures began appearing in the air around them.
His spectral energy plummeted rapidly. But at this point, there was clearly no turning back. He could only rely on mental apples for recovery and the Crimson Mist Armor’s supply to hold on.
Suddenly, within the pitch-black fog space, a scene appeared as if pieced together from countless fragments of glass, each showing different worlds.
Seeing this bizarre sight, Shen Ge thought of a possibility—if the dream world was truly, as researched by the Freak Association, a “spectral space” formed by the overlapping and twisting of countless potential outcomes for Earth-2, then perhaps the current situation meant one of those shards had reached its destined “conclusion”?
“Inv… Investigator Shen, where are we?” Hu Tinglan finally snapped out of her prayerful trance, realizing she and Shen Ge were trapped in a bizarre world.
“Distorted space,” Shen Ge explained in the simplest terms possible to Hu Tinglan. As he spoke, his eyes continuously scanned the different mirrored fragments in the sky, searching for clues.
Hu Tinglan stared, stunned, at the myriad mirror fragments filling the sky. It felt as if the sky were one huge mirror, smashed by a stone, with each piece reflecting a different image.
“This… how is this possible? I… Investigator Shen! I think I’ve seen this picture before!” Hu Tinglan said hesitantly, gazing at the mirrored fragments above.
Shen Ge frowned, puzzled. “You’ve seen it?”
“After the Great Capital Spectral Disaster, the Research Institute was rebuilt. Higher-ups thought putting all eggs in one basket would lead to huge losses again if something similar happened. So they decided to split the headquarters into three departments, each establishing labs for different research directions… roughly categorized as Freak research, Spectral Equipment, and Anomaly research.”
“Since rebuilding the Institute was a major undertaking and a lot of information needed to remain classified, they eventually assigned us, the support staff who had undergone rigorous screening and background checks, to handle ‘data reorganization.'”
“I was responsible for sorting and transferring data for Department One. While organizing archives, I came across a discarded file named ‘Haiya 1009320.’ Because it was scheduled for destruction, I needed to confirm its contents were ‘invalid’ information, so I read the materials inside.”
“There was an old, yellowed photograph in the file, and it showed a scene very similar to these mirror fragments in the sky now.”
‘Haiya 1009320’?
A file from the Haiya Research Institute?
Shen Ge’s brow furrowed tightly. One point confused him… The materials from the Haiya Research Institute were highly valuable secrets. The headquarters should be scrambling to hide them, so why discard it?
Hu Tinglan, not noticing Shen Ge’s expression, continued recounting the file’s contents. The reason for discarding it was quite simple.
The research had shown data deviations. The researchers believed the conclusion was erroneous; there was no such thing as a “mirror world”… Thus, the file had been left in a corner for ten years. After repeated “screening,” it was finally decided to be completely discarded during this reconstruction.
“However, that photo and the scene in the sky now… there are some differences…” Hu Tinglan said, staring at the mirrored fragments.
“What differences?” Shen Ge pressed. In his view, perhaps this very “difference” was the key to their escape from the dream world!
Hu Tinglan pointed to the sky. “That file mentioned the headquarters once planned to implement a project called the ‘Cloud Project.’ The gist was to use spectral-energy facilities to connect our world with the mirrors in the sky, establishing a ‘bridge’ from Earth-3 to Earth-2, or perhaps Earth-1.”
“So, in that old yellowed photo, it looked like someone had thrown a stone at a complete mirror, causing crack lines radiating from the center. But, Investigator Shen, look at the ‘sky’ here. It looks like it was struck in three places. The three fracture centers seem to form a triangle.”
Following Hu Tinglan’s description, Shen Ge looked further into the distance. Sure enough, within the distorted imagery, he could faintly discern a “triangle.”
Shen Ge immediately recalled the vision he’d seen through his spectral eye: three Earths connected, with the center being a vortex shrouded in black fog!
“Master, spectral energy is below 30%!” Little Seven had been monitoring the energy consumption. Seeing that the supply couldn’t keep up with the Unyielding Spectral Domain’s demand, she had to alert Shen Ge.
“Then we have no choice but to take a gamble!” Shen Ge solidified an intangible platform beneath his feet. Then, concentrating the Crimson Mist Armor’s spectral energy into the Spectral Leather Boots, he leaped with all his might towards the center of the mirrored fragments above.
The “mirrored fragments” in the sky gave an eerie feeling. They seemed as distant as the sky, yet, due to the influence of the spectral-energy black fog, the entire world was filled with these broken shards. It felt like they were impossibly far away, but with this one leap, Shen Ge was about to crash right into them!
Crash!
Clang!
Propelled by the intangible barrier, which moved with him, and powered by the Spectral Leather Boots fueled by the Crimson Mist Armor at full capacity, Shen Ge shot towards the sky like a missile.
Instantly, both Shen Ge and Hu Tinglan were surrounded by the whooshing sound of air rushing past at high speed. Then came the violent crash as they collided with the “mirrored fragments.”
Shen Ge felt as if his spectral energy was drained in an instant. Fortunately, the Crimson Mist Armor’s continuous supply spared him the dizziness of complete depletion.
Amidst the sound of shattering glass, Shen Ge controlled the intangible barrier to break through the “mirrored fragment.” It was like breaking through a dimensional layer of space. They sped through a torrent of time, while the images within the mirrored fragments flashed by like different endings playing in fast-forward.
All these endings had only one destination—
Annihilation!
Watching the Earth “explode” time and again, humanity destroyed repeatedly, even Shen Ge’s heart was shrouded in despair. It felt as if the conclusion had long been decided; all that awaited humanity was extinction!
Just then, one particular world, shimmering with white light, caught his attention. As the images within replayed at high speed, he realized it seemed to be his own world…
The real world!
Shen Ge mustered all his strength, reaching out to grasp that fragment. Amidst countless shattered gray shards, this one glowed with a faint white light, like a beacon of hope in the darkness!
“Ah—”
“AHHH!!!”
With every ounce of his strength, Shen Ge grabbed for that fragment, clutching it tightly in his hand. The next moment, with a resounding BOOM, he and Hu Tinglan seemed to crash through a pane of glass, followed immediately by the sensation of plummeting from a great height.
Below them was the high-rise of the Peace Hotel. They were falling rapidly, as if they had jumped from the rooftop terrace.
The dim night sky, streetlights fully lit, police cars and armored vehicles neatly lined up on the streets with flashing lights, the black mech units!
This is… reality?
Shen Ge had no time to think. He adjusted his posture mid-air, using the putrid-blood tentacles to extend, controlling the Unyielding Spectral Gloves’ “adhesion” to grip the building and slow their descent. Then, swinging with Hu Tinglan in tow, he landed precisely.
As soon as they touched down, Anti-Spectral Investigators and the Special Response Department’s mech troops surrounded them, ordering him to stay put and release the hostage.
Clearly, they mistook Shen Ge for a Freak, thinking he had taken Hu Tinglan hostage.
Hu Tinglan quickly raised her hands and shouted, “I’m Hu Tinglan, Deputy Director of the Internal Affairs Division, Department One! This is Captain Shen Ge from the Rong City Special Response Department! We’re on the same side!”
Shen Ge retracted the putrid-blood tentacles coiled around Hu Tinglan, setting her down. Then, with a leap, he headed back towards the Peace Hotel. He still had many questions, and he could only verify them inside the hotel!
