“The data collection is complete. Beginning analysis now. A comparison with the monster samples you brought back earlier, Master, shows a similarity of 80%.”
“Beginning secondary comparison.”
“Comparison completed.”
As Little Seven reported the completion of the data comparison, a virtual screen was projected in front of Shen Ge, displaying a side-by-side comparison of the antibody sample just collected and the monster samples he had previously brought back from the dream world.
Theoretically, a comparison value of 60% is enough to confirm that two samples originate from the same antibody. The similarity here is even higher, indicating that even if the “Supervisor Chen” mentioned by Fang Yaori isn’t Doctor Chen, there is certainly some connection between this Special Policy Second Division research institute and the Monster Association.
“Agent Shen, this… what is it?” Fang Yaori sidled up next to Shen Ge, curiously eyeing the rapidly scrolling data on the virtual screen, and couldn’t help but ask.
Shen Ge thought for a moment, then said, “Describe Supervisor Chen in detail for me. His appearance, his usual attire, his daily habits. Tell me whatever you remember.”
“Huh?” Fang Yaori didn’t understand why Shen Ge had suddenly taken an interest in Supervisor Chen, but he followed the instructions and gave a detailed description.
Shen Ge, in turn, had Little Seven record Fang Yaori’s descriptive words and attempted to use AI image generation to sketch out what Supervisor Chen looked like.
Fang Yaori, unaware of Little Seven’s existence, was utterly amazed to see the virtual screen in front of Shen Ge constantly producing different AI-generated images based on his descriptions.
“Wait, Agent Shen, this one… this is about seventy or eighty percent accurate,” Fang Yaori said, pointing to an AI-generated image of a middle-aged man on the virtual screen.
This image was seventy or eighty percent similar to the Supervisor Chen in Fang Yaori’s memory, and at the same time, it bore a thirty to forty percent resemblance to the Doctor Chen in Shen Ge’s memory.
Although it was only a thirty to forty percent match, considering the timeline, over ten years had passed. Some changes would be perfectly normal.
Even if it wasn’t Doctor Chen himself, this person was highly likely to be related to him in some way.
“Do you know how to contact Supervisor Chen? Where does he live?” Shen Ge asked.
Fang Yaori shook his head. “Agent Shen, I was just an assistant they studied. I rarely even saw Supervisor Chen. How would I know anything about him? Oh! Right! His office is down here. Maybe we should get someone to dig this place up? We might find something?”
One had to admit, Fang Yaori, while inheriting his sister’s brains, also shared her knack for coming in handy at critical moments.
Whether it was the antibody samples or this office of Supervisor Chen’s, both helped save Shen Ge a considerable amount of search time.
However, getting someone to dig was out of the question. Shen Ge was certain they had been pulled into the dream world. Until they found a way out, this ‘world’ probably only contained the two of them.
Shen Ge planned to do as he did when searching for the antibody samples: use the Rotten Blood Tentacles and the Blood Spiders controlled by Little Seven to infiltrate the ruins and look for clues.
But after directing the Rotten Blood Tentacles to seep down based on Fang Yaori’s description, he found that Supervisor Chen’s office was likely the ‘epicenter of the explosion’. Not only was it the most severely collapsed area, but even the equipment and facilities inside the office had been destroyed, leaving no useful clues whatsoever.
“Agent Shen, actually, it’s okay if we can’t find anything. Let’s head back to the city and contact my sister. With her abilities, checking out Supervisor Chen’s background would be a piece of cake, right?” Fang Yaori sounded like he was offering a reasonable suggestion, but in reality, he was terrified in this bizarre space, constantly fearing a monster would suddenly pop out and gobble him up.
Once back in Dajing city proper, he could get his sister to team up with Shen Ge, and then he could slip away. After all, his sister enjoyed following Shen Ge around anyway.
Although Fang Yaori had only known Shen Ge for a few hours, witnessing his various abilities during that time had filled him with considerable admiration.
But admiration was one thing; risking his life to follow Shen Ge around was another matter entirely—he didn’t have that kind of commitment.
Shen Ge retracted the Rotten Blood Tentacles. He had spent half an hour getting Little Seven to probe as deep as possible downwards, but unfortunately, the yield was minimal.
Staying here any longer was a waste of time. As for returning to Dajing city… the Dajing out there now probably wasn’t the ‘normal’ Dajing anymore.
With the increasing frequency of his entries into the dream world, coupled with the dream world becoming more and more uncontrollable, this didn’t bode well for Shen Ge.
He feared that if he didn’t find a way to stop the dream world from spiraling out of control, he would be trapped in it forever and unable to leave!
“Let’s go. Let’s head back and take a look,” Shen Ge said.
They had pretty much finished investigating the research institute. It had the same issue as the military base—no monsters, no people to be seen. But without finding a way out of the dream world, staying here was pointless. They might as well retrace their steps and look for clues.
The two returned to the surface, got their car, and drove back towards the city.
Along the way, Shen Ge reviewed the chain of events starting from the hotel. He realized things began to feel off from the moment that octopus monster appeared at the outpost in front of the military base.
“Don’t head back to the city just yet. Remember that outpost where we found the octopus monster? Let’s go check it out,” Shen Ge said to Fang Yaori.
Fang Yaori nodded in agreement and casually remarked, “Yeah, it’s really weird, isn’t it? The only monster we’ve encountered this whole trip was that octopus one. The military base and the research institute had no people, but not even a single monster… This is different from the bizarre spaces my sister used to describe to me. Agent Shen, you’re experienced. Do you know what’s going on?”
“Stop the car!” Shen Ge noticed the watchtower by the small woods up ahead. He had Fang Yaori stop the car and immediately got out to approach it, instructing Little Seven to perform another anomalous energy scan of the surrounding area.
As a frequent visitor to bizarre spaces and the dream world, Shen Ge knew this current space was vastly different from previous ones.
Based on his experience, he felt there had to be a reason for the ‘disappearance’ of monsters in this space. This might very well be the root cause of the dream world’s out of control.
“Report, Master. The anomalous energy reaction in the vicinity is very weak, but still no bizarre space reaction detected,” Little Seven reported.
“Collect the bloodstains around the tent. Compare the data with the octopus monster we killed earlier. See if they belong to the same entity,” Shen Ge instructed.
“Understood, Master.”
“Collecting.”
“Now beginning comparison.”
“Report, Master. They are not from the same entity. Based on the analysis of the octopus monster’s blood sample, it appears to have been monsterized for a very long time.”
Shen Ge raised his hand and rubbed his forehead, recalling the report he had found in the Rongshan Mental Hospital in the dream world about the Monster Association activating the progenitor’s strange cells with strange energy, thus opening up the strange space.
Shen Ge then opened his system panel to check his attributes—
[Shen Ge]
Rating: Tier 4
System Integration: 100%
“System (Tier 4)”:artificial Anomaly Sequence 1, Special Characteristic: Devouring — Upon killing an anomaly, the anomaly’s corpse can be devoured.
System Integrity: 49% (Every 10% constitutes a stage. Advancing to a new stage triggers a brief dormant period for system ‘upgrade’.)
Special Characteristic: “Devouring”
——-
[Basic Attributes:]
Strength: 258% (Host Base Value)
Agility: 235% (Host Base Value)
Physique: 226% (Host Base Value)
Anomalous Energy Intensity: 487% (Host Base Value) + 4512% (System Attribute Boost)
After system attribute amplification, your anomalous energy comprehensive value reaches 4999%, exceeding the standard comprehensive value of 2000% for ordinary Tier 4 anomalies.
When the intensity of the strange energy reaches 5000%, it will undergo a 5 tier mutation.
——-
“Just as I thought!” Seeing the changes in his attributes on the panel, Shen Ge was suddenly enlightened.
His three basic attributes had each increased by 1%, and the system attribute boost for Anomalous Energy Intensity had increased the most, a full 121%, bringing the comprehensive value to 4999%, on the verge of entering Tier 5 mutation.
However, it’s important to know that in the past, when Shen Ge devoured the corpses of monsters and strange beings through the system, he either had to ensure either the “quantity” or the “quality”—that is, devouring high-level monsters—to increase his basic attributes and monster energy strength. Unless the monster or strange being he devoured contained ancestral monster cells, then the upgrade in grade would be irrelevant.
In other words, the Tier 2 octopus monster that he had previously defeated was a monster created by the progenitor’s bizarre cells, also known as the “key”.
It was precisely because Shen Ge had killed and devoured that monster that he and Fang Yaori had been pulled into the dream world without him even realizing it.
The fundamental reason Little Seven couldn’t detect any bizarre space reaction was that they weren’t in a distorted reality-based bizarre space; they were inside the dream world.
The entire dream world itself was one colossal bizarre space. It was like being on Earth and asking Little Seven to detect Earth’s reaction—naturally, there would be no findings.
However, the dream world was a world born from the chaotic convergence of countless ‘endings’. This particular world was different from previous ones; it was a world where ‘monsters’ did not exist.
“Could it be that in this world, humanity and anomalies annihilated each other? That would explain why there’s not only no bizarre space, but even the anomalous energy reaction is so weak,” Shen Ge hypothesized.
“If that’s the case, then in the future, if I actively have the system devour an anomaly or monster containing progenitor anomalous cells, I might be pulled into the dream world?”
“But then, how would I get out?”
Shen Ge figured testing how to enter would be simple enough. He had collected plenty of antibody samples and monster samples from the dream world. He could just have the system devour one when he got a chance to test it.
That left just one question: how to ‘actively’ leave the dream world!
The two drove back towards Dajing city. But after passing through the toll station on the expressway, the fog on the road grew thicker and thicker, severely impairing normal visibility.
“Agent Shen, w-why does this fog feel so wrong? It’s even thicker up ahead,” Fang Yaori said nervously as he drove.
He couldn’t help but slow down. If there was an obstacle hidden in the fog, crashing into it would surely mean death for them both.
The streetlights lining the road, the surrounding buildings—they were all pitch black, as if they had driven into a ghost town, not the bustling city of Dajing.
Fang Yaori could only rely on the car’s headlights to see. But now, the headlights seemed to be interfered with, flickering on and off, which only added to the terror of the gloomy street.
Boom!
Lightning suddenly illuminated the sky, followed instantly by a crashing thunderclap. A violent storm broke out, and Fang Yaori felt the car might lose control at any moment.
“Ag-Agent Shen.” Fang Yaori was freaking out. He had just left the city for a bit, and now it was directly the apocalypse?
“Head to the Special Policy Second Division,” Shen Ge said.
Due to the dense fog interference, it took them two hours to drive to the Special Policy Second Division. And like everywhere else, there wasn’t a single soul in sight.
“Th-this place isn’t haunted too, is it?” Fang Yaori had originally hoped that returning to the city would mean seeing his sister and sending Shen Ge, this ‘jinx’, back.
But now it seemed they had returned, just not in the way he had imagined.
Fang Yaori had never seen anything like this. He was on the verge of tears, silently praying to all the gods and buddhas to let him get ‘home’ safely, muttering about how terrifying bizarre spaces were.
“Ah—!”
Fang Yaori suddenly shrieked. Shen Ge, who had been intently focusing on their surroundings, was startled by the sudden yell and asked irritably, “What are you screaming about?”
“Ag-Agent Shen! J-just now! Someone, someone was talking right behind me!” Fang Yaori said with a miserable face.
Shen Ge frowned slightly and asked, “What did they say?”
“I couldn’t make it out.” Fang Yaori looked like he was about to cry.
“…” Shen Ge was speechless.
Although Fang Yaori couldn’t hear what the voice was saying, he knew how terrifying it was. It was an indescribable terror—hoarse, suppressed, and chilling to the bone. It was not a voice a normal person could make.
He described the voice’s quality to Shen Ge, practically swearing an oath, afraid Shen Ge wouldn’t believe him.
“Agent Shen…”
Just as Fang Yaori was about to say something else, Shen Ge made a shushing gesture.
Shen Ge had heard the voice too. But for a moment, he couldn’t make out what it was saying either; it sounded like someone muttering.
He tried to pinpoint the source of the voice, but strangely, it seemed to come from all directions at once, feeling both right in front of him and present in every corner simultaneously.
Following the direction of the voice, they traced it and eventually stopped in front of an office. Shen Ge distinctly remembered that this seemed to be Fang Mingyue’s office.
Fang Yaori, sticking close behind Shen Ge, said nervously, “Ag-Agent Shen, th-this is my sister’s office. Sh-she’s not in trouble, is she?”
“Your sister isn’t as useless as you.”
“…” Fang Yaori was left speechless.
You can compliment my sister, but why do you have to put me down at the same time.
“The sound seems to be coming from inside that cabinet!” Fang Yaori pointed to the filing cabinet in the corner of the office.
Shen Ge raised his hand. With a gesture, the Rotten Blood Tentacles extended towards the cabinet and opened it. Inside, they found a corpse with its head bitten off and its internal organs hollowed out.
“Organs eaten… looks like a parasitic anomaly,” Shen Ge observed immediately. This was reminiscent of the method used before, where anomalies were cultivated within human bodies. A parasitic anomaly would lay eggs inside a person, and the larvae would consume the internal organs to nurture the anomaly.
But the shell was here. Where was the anomaly?
Shen Ge spent some system points to scan again. But after a thorough scan, he found not a single red dot on the [Map].
Where had all the monsters gone?
