“On top of that, that aberrant rat’s mutation is seriously off. Higher-ups are worried it might disturb the sleeping Ghost King, so they’ve ordered us to team up with the Hunter Corps and lure the rat into a safe zone.” Deng Yuqi was directing the Exploration Corps soldiers and the arriving City Defense reinforcements to help evacuate the residents in the area, while also filling Fang Mingyue in on the emergency meeting the Council had held that night.
Fang Mingyue immediately responded, “I led the patrol at Defense Line 3 myself. Let me go activate the lure plan, then?”
“The problem now isn’t just about executing the lure plan—it’s also those New God Cult fanatics. They think this is a golden opportunity to awaken their ‘New God,’ and they’ve actually gone and started some kind of worship ceremony right at Defense Line 3. That’s what drew the attention of the surrounding anomalies. Now Defense Line 3 is complete chaos.” Deng Yuqi let out a weary sigh.
The moment Fang Mingyue heard that, her fury erupted. “Those idiots in the New God Cult! They’re useless at the best of times, and now they have to go and stir up trouble when it matters most.”
Fang Mingyue had previously talked with Shen Ge about the seventh-tier Ghost King. Although the world’s downfall had been caused by the anomaly disasters triggered by eighth-tier aberrations, those eighth-tier ones had fixed territories. There weren’t any roaming around the Dajing area.
But after the surrounding cities fell one after another, Dajing had become a new “cursed city.” Multiple high-tier anomalies devoured one another until eventually, a seventh-tier aberration emerged—and it was naturally dubbed Dajing’s “Ghost King.”
In truth, everyone in the shelter knew that if this “new Ghost King” were ever discovered by other eighth-tier anomalies, a massive battle would erupt, and that would spell the end of the shelter.
Yet, curiously, every time the seventh-tier Ghost King devoured a high-tier anomaly, it would conceal its presence and fall into a deep slumber, barely waking a few times a year. That was precisely why the New God Cult regarded it as their “New God,” believing this Ghost King had descended upon Dajing to protect them.
When humanity faces the apocalypse, faith becomes the crutch that keeps people going. That was why, in just two short years, the New God Cult had grown powerful enough to rival the very forces that had originally founded the shelter—a testament to just how terrifying “faith” could be.
But if it had been genuine faith—just a spiritual anchor—that would have been one thing. Ultimately, however, it was still “people” who controlled that power of belief.
As a result, the cult leader was no longer satisfied with merely controlling his followers. He wanted the entire shelter under his thumb. And naturally, that bred conflict.
“Deputy Commander! Deputy Commander!” Just then, a soldier in City Defense uniform came tumbling down the stairs and scrambled over to Deng Yuqi.
“Has Defense Line 3 fallen?” Deng Yuqi asked.
The soldier panted heavily. “The-the New God Cult—they, they did something! The Ghost King seems to have awakened! The whole city is now shrouded in aberrant black fog. There are frenzied anomalies everywhere on the surface—some found the entrance to Defense Line 3 and are pouring in. City Defense can’t hold them back anymore.”
“Dammit!”
Fang Mingyue cursed every single relative of the New God Cult’s members in her mind. She’d long known that keeping these lunatics around was nothing but harmful to the shelter, but they had powerful backers. And the Council, not wanting to see the Exploration Corps and Hunter Corps grow too strong and challenge their authority, had deliberately propped up the New God Cult as a counterbalance.
Shen Ge watched the soldier breathlessly report the situation outside to Deng Yuqi. From the look on Fang Mingyue’s face, he could tell how much she despised the New God Cult—and how powerless she was to do anything about them.
But this kind of thing was common throughout history—past, present, and future. Wherever there were people, there would always be this sort of scheming. In fact, it was even more common in peacetime than during the apocalypse.
“Does the aberrant black fog covering the city have any special characteristics? Are the rampaging anomalies absorbing the fog, or are they hunting down civilians?” Deng Yuqi asked.
The soldier paused, clearly unsure why she was asking, but he answered honestly: “They—they seem to be absorbing the aberrant fog.”
Deng Yuqi frowned at that. “Captain Fang, assemble Squad 13. You and I will head to Defense Line 3 to assess the situation. Something about this Ghost King awakening feels off.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Fang Mingyue immediately set about carrying out the order, while telling Shen Ge to wait in the evacuation zone.
Shen Ge had wanted to probe Deng Yuqi for information—maybe ask about Rong City—but before he could, more soldiers came rushing in with reports, and City Defense notified them that the Council had ordered the Hunter Corps, the Exploration Corps, and City Defense to join forces and resolve this anomaly disaster.
Fang Mingyue was quick about organizing the troops. In less than ten minutes, she returned with a fully armed squad, and she herself had changed into the gear Shen Ge had seen her wearing when they first met.
“These are newly issued supplies. You can use them for now.” Fang Mingyue walked up to Shen Ge and handed him a basic set of equipment.
“Thanks.” Shen Ge accepted it with a nod.
Fang Mingyue added, “As of today, you’re officially a member of the Exploration Corps. You earned these resources fair and square. Normally, new recruits would go through training first, but your situation is… special. We’ll worry about training later. And also… well, never mind. It’s nothing.”
Truth be told, Fang Mingyue still had her doubts about the video the New God Cult had shown her. In her understanding, no “normal person” could possibly display such terrifying abilities.
As for why she hadn’t reported what she’d seen to Deng Yuqi—well, she’d assumed that since even the New God Cult had the “evidence,” the Council would have forwarded a copy to the Exploration Corps. She didn’t know that the cult had deliberately suppressed the video in hopes of recruiting Shen Ge themselves.
Deng Yuqi led Squad 13 of the Exploration Corps through the narrow underground passages. But when they emerged above ground, they found that the already dim daylight had turned darker than night. The sky was an inky black, as if the entire heavens had collapsed. No light sources could be seen anywhere—it felt like stepping into a pitch-black void.
Fang Mingyue stood beside Shen Ge and lowered her voice. “Your visor has thermal imaging and night vision. This kind of situation doesn’t happen often. Stay sharp.”
Shen Ge hadn’t expected Fang Mingyue to be so considerate toward him. Sure, this wasn’t the first time he’d run into “old acquaintances” in a cursed space, but the Fang Mingyue of this world had no connection to him whatsoever. For her to look out for a newbie like this showed she was a genuinely good captain.
Deng Yuqi pulled out a device, ran a scan, and said, “Captain Fang, the Hunter Corps is holding off the anomaly incursion at Sector 2-2. You head to Sector 2-3 and rendezvous with City Defense. The rest of you, follow me.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Fang Mingyue acknowledged the order, then turned to Shen Ge and the others and said, “Follow me,” before heading right from the exit.
Shen Ge activated his night vision and followed Fang Mingyue from the 2-2 passage toward Defense Line 3. But the moment they reached an open intersection, they saw a group of City Defense soldiers writhing on the ground in agony.
There were no visible wounds on them, but they looked as though they were being devoured by wild beasts—screaming in pain, wailing, begging for help.
“Don’t eat me! Please don’t eat me!”
“Help! Somebody help me!”
“Save me! Monsters—so many monsters!”
“Run!”
Fang Mingyue immediately signaled everyone to halt, then raised her weapon and aimed it toward where the soldiers lay, scanning for any hidden anomaly.
Shen Ge furrowed his brow. He couldn’t see anything unusual nearby. He shifted his night-vision goggles, then closed his eyes and activated his Aberrant Eye to survey the area. He didn’t spot any anomalies, but the surrounding aberrant fog was unusually dense.
Oddly enough, according to his system scan and his own observation, the aberrant energy level didn’t reach seventh-tier. That left two possibilities—
First: The aberrant fog covering the city wasn’t actually released by the so-called “Ghost King”—a seventh-tier anomaly—but by something else entirely.
Second: The “Ghost King” worshipped by the New God Cult wasn’t actually seventh-tier at all. Maybe it wasn’t concealing its presence out of “cunning”—maybe it was just scared.
What surprised Shen Ge even more was that his system scan didn’t detect any sixth-tier or higher anomalies in the vicinity, though plenty of fourth- and fifth-tier ones were lurking around.
Normally, if a high-tier anomaly showed up—like those “Ghost Kings” he’d encountered in Sakura and the Stick Nation—the system would have been screaming at him to run. But this time, there was nothing. Not even a warning about the fourth- and fifth-tier ones.
Sure, the system often glitched in the dream world, but it wouldn’t just go completely silent. Shen Ge couldn’t help wondering: Has my power grown so terrifying that the system judges I can handle these anomalies with ease?
Obviously, he wasn’t that arrogant. But given that something unusual usually meant trouble, he had a feeling this situation was far from simple.
Fortunately, Shen Ge had his ace-in-the-hole combo—”Silent + Formless + Untraceable.” If things went south, he could always flee. And in a worst-case scenario, a single blast of “Misfortune,” backed by his domain, would make anyone think twice before crossing him.
While Fang Mingyue was trying to figure out how to flush out any hidden anomalies, she saw Shen Ge walking toward the nearest soldier and hurriedly tried to stop him. “Wait—it’s dangerous! Don’t go over there!”
But she was too late. Shen Ge had already reached the writhing soldier and crouched down to examine him.
“Ahhh—!”
Just as Shen Ge was checking on the soldier, he heard a scream from behind him—Fang Mingyue.
When she saw that Shen Ge hadn’t been affected by approaching the agonized soldiers, she told her squad to stay on guard and moved forward to help Shen Ge pull the wounded to safety.
But when she was just two meters away from him, Fang Mingyue saw a massive, pitch-black serpent suddenly burst out from the aberrant fog above, jaws wide, lunging straight at her.
She instinctively reached for her gun, but before she could pull the trigger, the fog-serpent bit off both of her arms in one snap.
Fang Mingyue collapsed in agony, trying to clamp down on her spurting wounds—but she had no hands left. The searing pain was enough to make her black out.
“Hey! What’s wrong?” Shen Ge crouched beside her, pressing down on her wildly flailing arms to restrain her.
Seeing her in such distress, the other squad members rushed forward to help, but Shen Ge quickly stopped them. “Stop! Don’t come any closer!”
But his warning came a beat too late. The two soldiers in front barely took two steps before they dropped to their knees, screaming and wailing in agony.
Shen Ge immediately realized what was happening—the fallen City Defense soldiers, Fang Mingyue, and her teammates were all suffering from hallucinations induced by the aberrant fog. He hadn’t been affected because his half-human, half-anomaly constitution automatically defended him against aberrant energy.
In other words, unless someone could break Shen Ge’s will and spirit or drain his aberrant energy dry, hallucinations just weren’t going to work on him.
“Shen Ge… Shen Ge! My hands—my hands—” Fang Mingyue struggled beneath him, her body wracked with pain, trying to thrash free. But she was no match for his strength.
Shen Ge expanded his domain and created an invisible barrier around Fang Mingyue. Then he tried to use his own aberrant energy to erode the fog inside the barrier. “Fang Mingyue! This fog is under the influence of a domain—it causes hallucinations. Everything you’re seeing right now is fake! Your hands are still here—look, this is your hand! They’re still there! Wake up!”
He grabbed her hands and waved them in front of her face, but she seemed unable to hear him. She kept screaming, wailing, arms flailing, legs kicking wildly—as if something was crawling up her body, devouring her bit by bit.
Her feet pounded against the transparent barrier with dull thuds as she shrieked “my feet”—clearly, in her mind, those had been consumed too.
Shen Ge knew that Fang Mingyue had strong self-control. She wouldn’t react this hysterically unless the hallucinations felt utterly real. The cold sweat pouring down her forehead and the bulging veins on her neck showed she was fighting with everything she had.
Seeing that blocking the aberrant fog wasn’t working, Shen Ge thought of a cruder method—using his own domain to influence Fang Mingyue’s mind and show her what he wanted her to see.
His two unique abilities in the dream world—”Hypnosis” and “Materialization”—were essentially manifestations of his own domain power.
Before he’d fully awakened his domain through dream fragments, those two abilities were basically a domain that only affected himself. But after awakening his true domain, he could project those abilities onto others within its range.
The hallucination zone created by the aberrant fog was, at its core, a domain effect—inducing hallucinations through “hypnosis.”
Shen Ge usually used “Hypnosis” to buff his own stats. This was the first time he was using his domain to control someone else’s mind.
He withdrew his domain with a thought, summoned his dream fragment in his left fist, and reactivated the domain—then immediately applied “Hypnosis” to Fang Mingyue.
“Fang Mingyue!” he called out in a low voice. The agony on her face suddenly froze. Her previously unfocused gaze slowly returned to normal.
“Shen… Shen Ge?” She blinked, clearly confused as to why she was pinned to the ground by him like… well, that.
The wails of her teammates nearby quickly snapped her back to attention. Recalling what she’d just “experienced,” Fang Mingyue instantly understood what had happened.
