Li Xiang’s words undoubtedly hit the key point. If an oddity organization could so easily control any important member of the Special Strategy Department through consciousness manipulation, then whether they chose Deng Yuqi or Liu Jiayi, who had access to more confidential, or used it to “assassinate” important officials, either option would be much better than choosing him, a researcher who only dealt with studies.
Unless… the other party’s goal was precisely to steal some important research data from the Research Department, or they were directly targeting Li Xiang himself.
The first possibility seemed less likely, because the surveillance footage showed that after controlling Li Xiang, the entity didn’t access any confidential research data. It only casually flipped through the reports on his desk, more like it was checking what he was currently working on to confirm its next course of action.
So, compared to the other, the latter possibility seemed more likely.
But what was the point of controlling Li Xiang? Just for that copy of the Oddity Sample Data that Shen Ge sent over?
If so, how did the other party know that Cheng Shengnan would receive that information yesterday afternoon, and choose such a precise time?
So, was Shen Ge being monitored, or were the people on their side being monitored?
Deng Yuqi felt this was an issue that needed to be investigated and clarified as soon as possible, because it determined whether the oddity organization’s capabilities were as truly “terrifying” as they imagined.
At least for now, neither Deng Yuqi, Li Xiang, nor the others believed that the oddity organization possessed such powerful abilities that they could completely toy with the Special Strategy Department.
Remember, this wasn’t the Special Strategy Department from two years ago, when they had to borrow anti-strangeness equipment from each other. This was the largest and strongest anti-strangeness department in the Great Celestial Dynasty! If even the Special Strategy Department fell, that would mean the entire world had already fallen into the hands of the oddity organization.
Obviously, that wasn’t possible.
Deng Yuqi rubbed her forehead, a bit troubled. Looking at the situation, there were many questionable points, and every aspect seemed strange and unreasonable.
Since she couldn’t figure it out for the moment, she decided to stop thinking about it. As for whether to let Li Xiang go to Dajing for the Asian Conference on Anti-Strangeness Research, that still needed to be discussed.
However, Li Xiang made one very good point. The mastermind’s timing was so precise that it was very likely intentional, meant to raise the Special Strategy Department’s alertness, thereby keeping Li Xiang at the branch, making it easier for them to carry out their behind-the-scenes plan.
And although Shen Ge was currently out of contact, he should be able to show up before the Asian Conference. So bringing Li Xiang to him might actually be safer.
Even if something went wrong on Shen Ge’s end, Li Xiang would still have Deng Yuqi and two captain-level anti-strangeness agents with him, which wasn’t necessarily more dangerous than staying in Dajing.
After thinking it over, Deng Yuqi finally nodded in agreement with Li Xiang’s plan.
Over the next few days, the Rong City branch was under full alert. Besides the “person of interest,” Li Xiang, being under 24-hour protection, Deng Yuqi also had Yang Yuxin provide close protection for Cheng Shengnan as a safety precaution. After all, someone was fighting on the front lines against strangeness; if their home base got compromised, the Special Strategy Department would be incredibly embarrassed.
A few days later, the day before the Asian Conference on Anti-Strangeness Research, Deng Yuqi arranged a private plane to head to Dajing. Besides herself and Li Xiang, the Rong City branch delegation included two team leaders, Tu Doubi and Yang Yuxin, four deputy team leaders, Wang Han, Ma Chao, Zhang Hu, and Zhao Long, Cheng Shengnan and Xiao Zhang from the Logistics Department, and an entire combat team.
Originally, Cheng Shengnan wasn’t on the initial list, but as the head of the Logistics Department, many things in the Rong City branch required her handling, and there was also a lot of work needing coordination with the headquarters. It didn’t make sense to keep her protected in Rong City just because of her connection to Shen Ge.
Furthermore, Shen Ge had been out of contact for several days. Although Cheng Shengnan didn’t want to go to Dajing and cause trouble for him, she was still worried about him.
And as Li Xiang said, given the recent sudden move by the suspected oddity organization, which seemed intended to “stir up the grass and scare the snake,” clearly aiming to make trouble during this Asian Conference, it might be safer to be in Dajing with Shen Ge than to stay in Rong City.
Additionally, to ensure Cheng Shengnan’s safety, Deng Yuqi arranged for a very special “bodyguard” for her, leaving no room for error.
If even this lineup couldn’t protect Cheng Shengnan, then staying in Rong City would be even more dangerous.
On the plane, Cheng Shengnan’s seat was next to Deng Yuqi. After she sat down, Deng Yuqi turned her head and asked, “Has Shen Ge contacted you these past few days?”
Cheng Shengnan frowned and shook her head. “No. I sent a few messages, but it said they weren’t delivered. He’s probably in a strangeness space, or… that world.”
The “that world” Cheng Shengnan referred to was naturally the Dream World, but not many people knew about it. Counting her and Cheng Shengnan, the total number of people in the entire Rong City branch who knew could be counted on less than two hands.
Deng Yuqi nodded. She had also tried to contact Shen Ge these past few days and, not getting a reply, guessed that he might be trapped in the Dream World.
Because for Shen Ge, investigating the Dream World had become his biggest concern. Apart from the strange connection between this mystical space and strangeness space, the most important thing was that the Dream World was intricately linked to Shen Ge’s “origin story.”
And after these few journeys into the Dream World, Shen Ge had clearly discovered that his “life trajectory” seemed to be controlled by an invisible pair of hands. It’s just that Deng Yuqi and Cheng Shengnan didn’t yet know about the truth of the “1/2 world” he had seen with his strange eye; they thought he was actively entering the Dream World to investigate.
However, the reason Shen Ge was trapped in the Dream World for several days was indeed because he was actively investigating something.
When faced with two level-6 monsters, Shen Ge took a different approach. While the level-6 oddity distracted the level-6 monster for him, he tried to go deep inside the level-6 strange entity’s body to find its heart. He planned to destroy the strange entity’s heart just before the level-6 monster was about to be tortured to death. That way, in the end, he could at least guarantee getting the reward from one level-6 entity.
But as Shen Ge ventured deeper into the level-6 strange entity’s body, he found it was like a giant “oddity breeding nest.” Everywhere he looked, there were meat jars hatching oddities, cultivation eggs for parasitic-type strangeness, and all sorts of other things related to oddities.
It was like the specimen room of the director of Rongshan Mental Hospital, magnified a hundred times. Everywhere were bugs that could turn people into oddities.
Then, recalling the massive amount of wriggling worms that had poured out of the walls in the strange entity’s stomach and the level-4 oddity in the corridor, he felt something was off about this level-6 strange entity. It was as if the sole purpose of this level-6 entity’s existence was to “feed” the things inside its belly.
And at that moment, he was standing in front of a huge “heart room.”
In fact, as a frequent visitor to strange entities’ stomachs, Shen Ge had seen heart-like doors like this more than once, but this time was different, because this was already the seventh “heart” he had found.
“Is there no end to this, buddy? Are you a octopus monster or something? How can you grow so many hearts?” Shen Ge looked at the heart room in front of him, feeling utterly helpless.
A level-6 strange entity! The enormous maze inside its body felt like an level-8 entity, making him wander lost in its belly for several days.
Of course, you can’t feel day or night inside a strange entity’s belly, making it hard to judge time, but Shen Ge was carrying a super AI. Something like timekeeping was naturally no problem for Little Qi.
“Master, this door has similar strangeness energy fluctuation to the previous ones. No strangeness energy fluctuations from oddities detected nearby for now. It’s probably similar to before.”
“By the way, Master, you haven’t rested for seventy-seven hours.”
“I suggest you find a place to rest briefly. I can control the Red Mist Battle Armor to buy you some rest time.”
Shen Ge refused, saying, “I’m not tired yet, no need to rest for now. Don’t forget, since the Dream World appeared, whether I’m tired or not isn’t really up to me anymore. While I’m still conscious, let’s try to find a way out first. If I get sleepy again, you can handle it then. That won’t be too late.”
“Understood, Master,” Little Qi replied.
The truth was, Shen Ge was also helpless. He hadn’t expected his Plan B, “sit on the sidelines and watch the fight,” to turn into a battle of patience between two turtles. The grand, exhilarating fight between oddity and strange entity never happened; instead, it became a war of attrition between their strangeness energies.
This reminded Shen Ge of the battle between those two level-8 strange entities on Sakura Island back then. That was terrifying and thrilling, even sinking Sakura Island.
Looking at these two… tsk, pathetic.
“Remind the Research Department to work overtime on developing a strangeness energy nuclear bomb… just go nuclear, uh, maybe not. Entities above level-6 can even feed on nuclear energy. Ah, so difficult.” As he grumbled, Shen Ge took out his strangeness energy rocket launcher and began skillfully blasting down the door.
The hate-transfer effect of the Strange-Vanquishing Revolver plus the explosion of the strangeness energy rocket successfully blew open the heart door. The firelight briefly illuminated the space inside and out.
“Gurgle.”
“Gurgle.”
Before Shen Ge could react further, the surroundings began shaking violently. Then, the building fused with the strange entity’s internal organs started collapsing.
Fortunately, Shen Ge was prepared. As the wriggling flesh on the walls on both sides gathered together to form a giant, bloody mouth lunging at him, he used “Collapse” first to go down to the next level.
“Master, based on previous estimates, this building should have between 30 and 40 floors. Our current position should be past the halfway point,” Little Qi reported.
“Sigh, it’s been days, and we’re only halfway down?” Shen Ge was speechless. Although he wanted to use the “Collapse” effect to go all the way down, the deeper he went, the stronger the strange entity’s strangeness energy defense became. A direct confrontation would deplete almost all his strangeness energy to clear a path using “Collapse.”
If the bottom was the very last floor, that would be one thing, but there were still over a dozen floors below. Shen Ge couldn’t break through one floor and then spend time recovering his strangeness energy. So, breaking through the “heart rooms” had become the optimal strategy.
But this time, something unexpected happened!
After Shen Ge used “Collapse” to go through the wriggling floor, unlike before when he would reach the next level in a few seconds, or even over ten seconds, he fell vertically for nearly two minutes this time, with no sign of reaching the bottom.
“Master, the intensity of strangeness energy around you is continuously increasing. Prepare for battle!” Little Qi reported promptly, constantly monitoring the surroundings as Shen Ge fell.
Shen Ge was puzzled. The complexity inside this level-6 strange entity had completely exceeded his imagination. It should be the most complex internal structure of any strange entity he had encountered.
This was only level-6 – it just didn’t make sense!
But Shen Ge didn’t have time to worry about whether this strange entity had falsely reported its rating. This endless falling was unsettling enough. Most importantly, if he did hit the bottom, at this “depth,” would he even have a chance to climb back up the way he came?
Five minutes.
Ten minutes.
Just as Shen Ge was thinking about what method to use to change the situation, there was a sudden “splat” sound. After falling for over ten minutes, he finally reached the bottom. But the sound of his feet landing in a sticky substance felt strangely familiar.
“Overlaid space?” Shen Ge suddenly thought of a possibility, and only that could explain why the inside of a level-6 strange entity’s belly was so ridiculously large.
And overlaid space wasn’t unheard of in the Dream World. Shen Ge had encountered it before – it was like a world where several different “endings” were fused together.
In this situation, when a world collapses, there are many “fragments.” Shen Ge hadn’t known how to deal with these fragments before, but now with experience, the more, the better.
“Tsk, I wonder if I can use ‘Materialization’ to condense a big net later and just scoop up ten or eight Dream World fragments in one go!”
Dream World fragments affect the range of the strangeness domain. The more Dream World fragments Shen Ge has, the wider his deployed strangeness domain becomes. Maybe when he collects enough Dream World fragments, he could directly control an “ending” world.
“Master, I think you’d better focus on your current situation first,” Little Qi said, extending several tentacles wrapped around a flashlight to scan the surroundings.
Everything around was blood red. The wriggling floor, the walls, the invisible ceiling – it was all nauseating.
The layout here could vaguely be recognized as a huge underground parking lot, but whether pillars or walls, everything was covered in a layer of red, wriggling rotting flesh.
Sticky, bloody liquid flowed on the ground. Shen Ge, wearing the Red Mist Battle Armor, stepped on it, and the sticky substance continuously absorbed the strangeness energy from the armor.
“Master, the rate of strangeness energy consumption is increasing. Strong strangeness energy fluctuations detected in the vicinity,” Little Qi warned.
Shen Ge also noticed movement in the distance. The strange sound was getting clearer and closer to him.
Poof!
Poof!
Just then, with sounds like bursting blood blisters, the sticky liquid on the ground slowly gathered together, forming a giant blood blister. When the blood blister burst, a bloody, humanoid monster stepped out.
One, two, ten, a hundred…
In the blink of an eye, hundreds of oddities resembling “blood people” stood densely packed in the open space around him, slowly walking towards Shen Ge.
Shen Ge wasn’t panicked at all facing the encirclement. He didn’t even plan to fight them – at least until he understood the environment, he didn’t want to waste strangeness energy.
So he activated the standard three traits: “Invisible + Soundless + Traceless.” Shen Ge swaggered through the crowd of monsters and walked deeper into the bloody red world.
