absurd deduction game.

There are many mentally unstable people in the slums; alcohol, disease, and despair can all destroy a person's will.

However, the NPC homeless man who might be giving Qu Xianqing a quest did not seem like a simple case of madness.

She tentatively stepped forward, blocking his path, and asked in as calm a tone as possible, "Sir? Do you need help?"

Her voice seemed to disrupt some kind of balance.

The dazed homeless man jolted violently, as if pricked by an invisible needle. His unfocused gaze suddenly sharpened, but not to regain his senses. Instead, he was instantly filled with an extreme, indescribable terror!

"Ah—!" He let out a short and sharp scream, as if he had seen the most terrifying sight in the world. He suddenly raised his trembling finger and pointed wildly at Qu Xianqing, but dared not actually touch her.

"No, this isn't it!" he screamed incoherently, his body trembling violently. He shoved to the side, trying to push away Qu Xianqing, who wasn't directly in front of him, but he stumbled because he used too much force and his lower body was unsteady.

He lost his balance and fell forward with a scream—

Everything happened so fast.

Qu Xianqing's body had time to react, but her mind hadn't yet decided whether she should help him up. Then, she heard a very slight yet teeth-grinding "snap" sound—

The homeless man fell to the ground, but his head... his head was severed from his neck because of the fall!
Like an overripe fruit, its joints already rotten.

The sallow head detached from the neck and rolled forward, getting covered in mud and filth along the way, before finally coming to a stop with a soft "thud" against the corner of the wall at the end of the street.

The wide-open eyes on its head still held the frozen, extreme terror from before, staring blankly at the dim sky.

Qu Xianqing: ?

Is this how you send out missions?
She went forward to check.

The headless corpse lay on the ground, its severed neck unusually "clean," with no expected gushing blood, only some dark red, almost congealed, viscous substance seeping out slightly.

The streets fell into a deathly silence.

Only a few distant barks of dogs and the whistling sound of the wind blowing through the cracks of the dilapidated shack could be heard.

She looked at the headless corpse, then at the lonely head in the corner, and tilted her head.

This is not a fight, not even a murder.

She didn't even know how the other person died, even though they were still alive and breathing just a second ago.

The next day at the office, Qu Xianqing recounted the incident as the morning light shone through.

“...His neck should have been broken long ago.” Her voice remained calm, but the content of her narration sent a chill down one’s spine. “I checked him over, and apart from the head falling off, none of his bodily functions had had time to deteriorate. It was as if his body was perfectly fine just a moment before his head was severed.”

She paused, then added carefully, "Malnutrition doesn't count; he must have been starving for a long time."

Everyone listened attentively and almost immediately realized that this strange event was not recorded in the booklet distributed to them.

"And then?" Carlos asked.

Before anyone else could see what was going on, he explained, "Before you entered the instance, I investigated the slums quite a few times and didn't encounter anything similar. This is probably something that only happens in the second phase."

Therefore, he knew nothing about it and could not determine whether the phenomenon came from a monster or a secret religion.

Carlos looked at Qu Xianqing: "You only came back this morning, you must have gone to investigate this matter?"

"Of course." Qu Xianqing took a bite of bread. Although her body wouldn't die without eating or drinking, she would still take the initiative to eat some delicious food.

I have to say, this bread is really delicious; I'll buy some tomorrow.

Feeling the bread soften and break down in her mouth, Qu Xianqing smiled contentedly and then recounted what had happened the night before.

……

She stood there, her cold gaze sweeping back and forth between the headless corpse and the head in the corner several times.

An indescribable eeriness permeated the air, far more unsettling than the smell of blood. She carefully sensed the energy fluctuations around her, but neither the corpse nor the lone head showed any further changes, nor any sign of the monster's aura reviving.

It seems to have simply died, in a bizarre and illogical way.

Having confirmed this, Qu Xianqing did not linger. In the slums at night, a corpse was not uncommon. The church's cleaning staff would naturally find and dispose of it tomorrow. She only needed to report to the church when it was convenient to prove that this was a bizarre event she had witnessed, rather than an ordinary murder.

But the matter itself bothered her somewhat.

The key lies in the homeless man's bizarre state before his death and the manner of his death.

She didn't even sense any fluctuations in the monster's aura before the other party was decapitated in extreme terror. The reason behind this was far more valuable than the corpse itself.

Why was he so dazed? What was he afraid of? What led to his death? What happened before she called him back?
If we follow the direction he came from, we should be able to find clues.

Qu Xianqing's gaze fell on the dimly lit street from which the homeless man had just come.

The marks were more obvious than expected—the homeless man was barefoot, and the soles of his feet seemed to be covered with some kind of black coal ash or silt, leaving a series of faint but clear footprints on the dry, muddy ground, stretching into the depths of the street.

Without hesitation, Qu Xianqing followed the trail of footprints.

The owner of the footprints seemed aimless, his steps were disordered and unsteady, sometimes near the wall, sometimes swaying to the middle of the street, perfectly replicating his sleepwalking state.

Qu Xianqing followed the trail of footprints, passing through narrower and more dilapidated alleyways, and over mountains of garbage, where the stench in the air grew stronger.

Finally, the footprints disappeared at the edge of a relatively open space piled with discarded building materials. No, they didn't disappear, but rather stopped beside a rusty cast iron manhole cover half-buried in the mud.

Qu Xianqing squatted down, his fingers brushing against the cold cast iron edge of the manhole cover. A faint smell, mixed with sewage, rust, and some deeper decay, entered his nostrils.

Her face remained expressionless. Her blood sword slightly changed shape and easily hooked into the hole at the edge of the manhole cover. With a little force, the heavy manhole cover was silently lifted, revealing a bottomless black hole below, exuding a thick, damp atmosphere.

A surge of even more foul-smelling air rushed out instantly. Sure enough, it was here.

Without the slightest hesitation, Qu Xianqing leaped lightly into the darkness below. Her feet landed precisely on the protruding handrail of the well wall, making a barely audible sound.

She gently moved the manhole cover back into its original position and then completely blended into the dark underground realm.

The sewer system in Yolikef is larger and older than one might imagine.

Upon entering, an indescribable, chilling aura, a mixture of human excrement, rotting organic matter, rust, mold, and some other inexplicable substance, assaults the senses. The air is damp, cold, and sticky, and each breath carries a nauseatingly sweet, pungent, and putrid smell.

Beneath our feet was ankle-deep, viscous, icy sewage, with various unidentifiable pieces of garbage and flocculated matter floating on the surface. Huge, moss-covered brick pipes stretched forward, backward, left, and right, like the intestines of some giant beast, bottomless and interconnected.

Condensate dripped from the top of the pipe from time to time, making a monotonous and annoying "drip-drip" sound that carried far in the empty pipe.

In the darkness, rustling sounds were everywhere.

It was the sound of rats running and gnawing on something along the edges of pipes and in sewage; the sound of various unidentifiable centipedes crawling across damp walls; and occasionally, the sound of some larger, slippery object stirring water in the deep water.

The light here is extremely dim, with only a few slivers of moonlight filtering through the gaps in some distant manhole covers and a pale, eerie green glow from some luminous moss or fungi, barely outlining the twisted and grotesque contours of the pipes.

Qu Xianqing concealed his aura and used this body as a ghost.

Her footsteps landed almost silently at the boundary between the sewage and the solid ground, her figure moving nimbly through the intricate network of pipes, like a blood-red shadow in the dark night.

She knew all too well that in such a place, any extra sound or breath could alert lurking dangers—whether they were shadowy monsters that hunted by hearing and smell, or the possible surveillance methods laid out by the cultists.

After walking a distance, she discovered several bodies that had been carelessly discarded on the edge of pipes or in shallow water.

Most of the corpses were emaciated and ragged, clearly the poor from the slums who ultimately couldn't survive. Some were highly decomposed, exposing their white bones, while others were relatively "fresher," but without exception, all of them showed signs of damage from rats or other gnawed creatures.

However, Qu Xianqing keenly sensed the aura left by a strange monster on these corpses.

Following the faint trace of her presence, she continued her descent deeper into the pipe. The surroundings grew increasingly secluded and dark; the light filtering through the manhole cover had long since vanished, leaving only the unsettling green glow of the luminous moss.

Finally, after passing through a particularly wide, hub-like junction of pipes, she heard a heavy, slow breathing sound ahead, accompanied by a tooth-grinding, subtle gnawing sound.

She quietly pressed herself against the pipe wall and looked ahead.

At the end of the pipe ahead, an extremely large white monster almost filled the entire pipe space!
It was a giant rat.

Its fur was a sickly, pigment-deficient grayish-white, and its rat-like eyes gleamed with a greedy, scarlet light.

Its sharp, protruding teeth were covered in dark red flesh and blood residue. It was gnawing on a piece of bone belonging to some unknown creature that it was holding down under its claws. Its body was bloated, almost like a mountain of flesh, but the monstrous aura it exuded was far more stable than any it had encountered before.

[Side quest triggered: You have discovered the Gnawing Ones]

Gnawing creatures?
This monster was not recorded in the investigators' booklets, which means that it was very likely that no one, including the church, had ever discovered it, or that some deducers had discovered it but did not report it.

Strangely, this giant rat monster didn't seem to have any frenzied aggression. It just lay there, slowly munching away, even appearing somewhat at ease.

Even more striking is the heavy, rusty iron chain around its thick neck! The other end of the chain is deeply embedded in the pipe wall behind it, restricting its range of movement.

It was kept as a pet.

Qu Xianqing made up her mind and looked past the rat monster's huge body to the shadow behind it.

It didn't seem to be a dead end; the pipe continued forward, and a vague outline of an upward-facing exit could be seen.

The secret lies behind this watchdog.

Forcing our way in would inevitably alert the monster, even though it's something we can easily deal with, it would still make things worse.

Qu Xianqing held her breath, minimizing her presence as if she were blending into the shadow of the pipe itself. She observed the rat monster's habits; it was very focused when it ate, and its small, scarlet eyes did not constantly scan its surroundings warily.

It's now!

Taking advantage of the moment when the rat monster bent down and tore at the muscles on its bones, Qu Xianqing moved. Her figure was like a ghost, skimming over the rat monster silently at an almost impossible angle and speed, clinging to the damp and slippery arched wall above the pipe! Her movements were so light that she didn't even stir up a wisp of wind.

The rat-like creature seemed to sense something, pausing its munching motion. It raised its nose in confusion, sniffing the air, its small, scarlet eyes scanning the darkness with suspicion. But it found nothing, ultimately attributing it to its own imagination, and lowered its head again to focus on its "meal."

Qu Xianqing successfully infiltrated the passage behind the rat monster.

It was narrower here, but it did lead to an upward-facing iron ladder. Without hesitation, she climbed up to a similarly rusted but unlocked manhole cover.

She gently pushed open a crack and cautiously peered outside.

The outside seemed to be the interior of a closed building. Although the air was still not fresh, it no longer had the suffocating stench of the sewers.

The light came from a wall lamp hanging on the wall, burning with a ghostly blue flame, casting flickering and eerie shadows.

Under the light and shadow, a simple line drawing of an eye is clearly imprinted on the wall. The eyelashes are of different lengths, but when connected, they form an approximate circle.

...Establishment of Tantric Buddhism.

Qu Xianqing was taken aback, but then felt it was only natural.

Indeed, in the most chaotic slums of Yolikef, a place that can only be entered by using sewer pipes and monsters as double insurance, what else could it be but a cult gathering place?

She leaped silently onto it, her soul's perception extending beyond her physical form.

one two three four……

There were still over twenty living people gathered in that building at 2 AM. (End of Chapter)