absurd deduction game.

The moment Yu Xing's fingertips touched Liu Ying, scenes flashed around her like a revolving lantern.

Those were some of the few truly warm fragments of Edgar White's life: his sister, his parents, his friends, and the beautiful girl he caught a glimpse of while traveling...

These beautiful moments, buried by long-term pain and madness, were now being peeled away and revealed by Yu Xing in some incomprehensible way from Edgar's utterly chaotic consciousness.

The raging, dark shadows, washed over by these warm memories, trembled violently, like ice and snow exposed to the sun.

The resentment and despair contained within seemed to have encountered a natural nemesis, and began to rapidly dissolve and disintegrate.

Finally, with an extremely faint, sigh-like sound of annihilation, the dark shadow vanished completely, leaving no trace.

After doing all this, Yu Xing's face paled slightly for a moment, but her expression remained calm.

He lowered his hand and looked at the city monster that had been completely reduced to decaying remains, and the faint glow of the soul imprint within it, which was about to be completely annihilated along with the city.

He fulfilled the prayer he had sensed deep within his consciousness.

Through that almost "purifying" method, he not only dispelled Edgar's dying evil thoughts and retaliation, but also gave him a final, insignificant comfort before his soul imprint completely dissipated—allowing him to savor the warmth of being a "human" one last time before eternal slumber.

Perhaps this is the same as performing a ritual to deliver the deceased?

Yu Xing had never performed any rituals for others before. At most, he had only witnessed old and young Taoist priests performing rituals when he had some dealings with the Luo family. At that time, he could not understand the meaning behind it, but now he vaguely felt that it was probably a kind of compassion.

Despite this compassion, it is still built upon cold destruction.

A deep blue light flashed in Yu Xing's eyes, then slowly faded, a hint of weariness flickering deep within them, but she quickly returned to normal.

He glanced at the collapsing city monster and the gradually dimming gear-like eye at its core, and said softly with a slight smile:
"ended."

"...Let's go. This place is about to disappear completely."

As if to prove his words, the collapse of the entire space suddenly accelerated.

The sky shattered, the earth sank, and everything around us crumbled like broken glass, swept into a raging torrent of nothingness.

Qu Xianqing withdrew her gaze, which had been somewhat dazed from staring at Yu Xing with excessive focus, and darted back like a swallow. At this moment, only the small area where the three of them were located, barely maintained by the performer Qingtai, remained stable for the time being.

"Where is the exit?" She looked around, but all she could see was destruction; there was no structure resembling a portal.

“No specific exit is needed.” Yu Xing looked up. Half of the clock tower’s wall and top were already gone. He gazed at the collapsing, chaotic void. “The foundation is destroyed, and the record has ended. This ‘folder’ itself is being deleted. As ‘abnormal data’ that doesn’t belong here, we will naturally be rejected by the ‘system’.”

Although it's unclear why the Ancient Gods fit the host's operating logic so well... perhaps it's because although they are of the same element, they are still influenced by the system, that is, the [Book], in the instance and are given specific hidden rules. In any case, this is also part of the "knowledge" that Yu Xing obtained from the monsterized Edgar's soul.

Almost as soon as he finished speaking, a powerful and irresistible repulsive force surged from all directions, acting on the three of them.

The moss-covered domain maintained by the performer shattered instantly like paper in the face of this power!
The three of them felt a violent, dizzying pull, as if their entire being had been thrown into a high-speed centrifuge.

The surrounding scenery—the shattered sky, the collapsed earth, the chaotic flow of energy—all turned into blurry streaks of color, rushing backward and eventually fading into a pure, weightless darkness.

I wandered through this dark tunnel where even time seemed to have lost its meaning for an unknown amount of time—perhaps a moment, perhaps eternity.

Suddenly, the powerful repulsive force disappeared.

The feeling of weightlessness was suddenly replaced by a solid tactile sensation.

Plop, plop, plop.

Three thuds of varying intensity were heard as the object landed.

Yu Xing adjusted her posture in mid-air and landed steadily, bending her knees to cushion the impact. Qu Xianqing, on the other hand, nimbly flipped in the air and landed as if lightly.

Only the actor seemed to have no intention of putting in any effort, letting himself fall onto the cold, hard ground with a dull thud, before slowly and gracefully propping himself up to sit up, patting his dusty sleeves.

The light pierced my eyes.

What lay before me was no longer the oppressive, eerie green phosphorescence or distorted starlight of the city of terror, but a familiar, earthly, dim yellow light carrying a hint of dust.

Yu Xing quickly looked around.

They were in a spacious and solemn hall with a soaring dome and stained-glass windows overlooking the pitch-black night. Rows of dark wooden prayer benches stood side by side, and the air was filled with the faint scent of candles and incense.

Several priests and nuns who were on night duty in the prayer hall stared blankly at their sudden appearance. Then, some of them hurriedly left, as if they were going to report to someone.

This is... the prayer hall of the Harvest Church in Yolikev.

They are back.

They returned to reality from the ancient realm of gods, a realm built of madness, fear, and despair.

Outside the window, the night was deep and all was quiet, except for the faint sound of a dog barking in the distance, reminding them of the reality of the world.

Yu Xing subconsciously raised her hand to check the time, but instead touched the two completely dull, cold, and hard fragments of the Protection Badge in her pocket.

He took it out and laid it in his palm; the broken silver surface reflected a faint light in the candlelight.

Yu Xing slowly clenched the badge fragment in her hand, feeling the cold touch of the broken metal surface on her fingertips.

He raised his head, his gaze piercing through the dim light of the prayer hall, looking towards the solemn statue of the Harvest Mother Goddess holding a sheaf of wheat deep within the church, lost in thought. Qu Xianqing silently walked to his side, the blood sword already sheathed. She looked at the shards in Yu Xing's palm, then at the deep night outside the window, and whispered, "How long have we been gone? Judging from the feeling, it should have been half a day."

However, the true flow of time within the City of Terror is hard to say.

The actor had also stood up by this time. He carefully straightened his slightly disheveled clothes. Hearing Qu Xianqing's question, he chuckled and replied, "Why don't you just ask that 'kind' archbishop?"

Before he could finish speaking, the side door of the prayer hall was hurriedly pushed open.

Wearing a deacon's robe, Ivan rushed in with a look of anxiety and worry. His gaze quickly locked onto the three people standing in the center of the prayer hall, who seemed somewhat out of place with their surroundings. A look of relief and joy immediately appeared on his face.

“Investigator, sir! Madam! You…you’re finally back!” Ivan rushed forward, his voice filled with relief. “The Archbishop and I were so worried that something had happened to you in the City of Terror! You disappeared for over two whole days! During that time, the town…”

His words trailed off, as if realizing this wasn't the place for a detailed discussion, and he quickly changed his tune, saying, "Anyway, it's wonderful that you're back safe and sound! The Archbishop would be overjoyed to know! He's in his office, please come with me!"

More than two days...

Yu Xing's eyes flickered slightly.

The flow of time in the City of Terror is indeed different from reality. They entered on the fifth day, so it should be the seventh night of the instance now.
He glanced at Qu Xianqing and the actor, and the three exchanged a knowing look, though the latter's smiling gaze was immediately ignored.

It was time to go and report to the archbishop who was waiting for news, and report on their gains over the past two days.

A two-day gap is enough for the situation in Yolikef Town to change dramatically, and enough for the leaderboard of the deduction game to undergo several rounds of reshuffling, after all, the deducers are a group with particularly strong subjective initiative.

The air was filled with a mixture of candle wax, incense, and... a faint, almost imperceptible smell of rust and decay that masked the scent of wheat in the church, seemingly confirming this point.

Even the deep night outside the church's stained-glass windows seemed to carry a heavier and more ominous air than when they left.

Just as they followed Ivan toward the archbishop's office, it was midnight.

A cold, mechanical, and emotionless electronic system voice rang out precisely, announcing the elimination of the last-ranked, unfamiliar investigator. Yu Xing seemed to remember something, opened the leaderboard, and then paused.

[Current number of surviving investigators: 19]

A chilling atmosphere permeated the empty prayer hall, as if an invisible coldness was spreading outwards, making the already dim and flickering candlelight appear even weaker.

Nineteen people?
how come?
Yu Xing clearly remembered that there were still thirty-seven strategists left before they entered the City of Terror.

This means that in the two days or so since they left, not counting the three people whose rankings were erased, a total of fifteen people have disappeared forever in this eerie town for other unknown reasons!
This is equivalent to a huge loss of personnel. You have to know that the deducers who came in the second round were not weak.

Yu Xing checked and found that Carlos, Zeng Lai, and even Cang Nong, whom he had met in the school archives, were still alive and well. Their rankings had also changed significantly because the things inside the City of Terror were not yet included in the system's rankings. Carlos's contribution value had surpassed his and he had taken first place.

Or rather, he has actually dropped to fourth place, while Qu Xianqing is in sixth place.

The actor, barely thirteenth, should have been a very high ranking, but with only nineteen names left on the list, his position seemed precarious.

The situation in the town did not seem to improve in the slightest after they completed an important task.

With some doubts in his mind, he quietly spread his sensory tentacles underground in Yolikev. As a result, on his way to the archbishop's office, he heard faint, suppressed gasps, indistinct whispers, and feelings of panic coming from almost everywhere, far from the church.

As if sensing something, the actor suddenly spoke up and asked Ivan, who was leading the way, "What happened in town while we were gone for the past two days?"

A hint of reluctance and fear flashed across Ivan's young face. He subconsciously drew a wheat stalk symbol, representing the Mother Goddess of Harvest, on his chest and whispered a prayer.

In his gaze toward Yu Xing and the other two, there was a mixture of relief and complex emotions—these three powerful investigators had gone to unknown places and encountered countless dangers, but the town in reality had also encountered a crisis far beyond imagination in the past two days!
"It's a long story, it's the calamity brought by the Chaos Rain..." Ivan's words sounded somewhat pale, "The rain only stopped this afternoon, but more spawned monsters appeared in the rain. His Excellency the Archbishop has been trying his best to coordinate, but... alas, the casualties are still very heavy, especially for the investigators who went there on their own initiative."

"Please come with me to see the archbishop first. He is very worried about you and has many important things to tell you. He will explain them to you in detail."

Just then, several people dressed in the robes of clergy of different ranks hurried by, one of whom was a strange old nun who exuded the aroma of foie gras.

Beside her were several deacons and low-ranking priests with solemn expressions, their bodies bearing signs of fatigue and travel-worn appearance, while she blended in among them, inconspicuous.

When her gaze fell upon Yu Xing, Qu Xianqing, and the musicians standing in the center of the prayer hall, a gentle smile appeared on her lips, and she stopped.

"May Mother Goddess protect you, you have returned safely." The old nun stepped forward quickly, her voice kind, her body shrouded in a sorrowful emotion that blended into the environment. However, Yu Xing's perception was strong, and he keenly "saw" the extremely calm, eerily calm nature beneath her disguise.

She seemed completely indifferent to the current situation, showing neither tension nor excitement.

The old nun carefully examined the three of them, lingering particularly on Yu Xing for a moment, as if to confirm they were unharmed: "These past two days, I almost thought you..."

She paused, not continuing, but the unspoken meaning was clear—against the backdrop of the Chaos Rain, the frequent strange events in the town, and the successive losses of investigators, being missing for more than two days was almost synonymous with death.

Even among church members, very few knew about the City of Terror; most could only speculate based on the current situation.

A tall, burly deacon with a scar on his face also stopped and couldn't help but ask, "Where did you go? No one has seen you since the Chaos Rain fell! I thought, cough cough, I thought you abandoned the mission and left early."

Another priest, who appeared younger, added, his voice tinged with lingering fear: "The town has been very unsettled these past few days. The effects of the 'Chaos Rain' are far more terrifying than anticipated. When it rains, everyone who gets wet undergoes a transformation. The streets have become forbidden zones, and the frequency and intensity of various monsters' activities have increased dramatically. Residents have no choice but to stay indoors. This area is alright, but the slums... the slums over there..."

In the slums, people could starve to death if they didn't work for a day.

Not to mention the leaky, dilapidated houses and the already sick patients...

Even without the priest recounting the facts in a trembling voice, Yu Xing and the other two instantly realized the devastation of the slums. (End of Chapter)