Strange game designer.

Chapter 809 The Black Box
The surface was smooth, without any wrinkles, and the black color was something Gao Ming had never seen before.

Unlike the depths of the night sky, and lacking the evil of a dark shrine, it seems to represent endless possibilities, extreme silence, and an eternal undertone.

"Is the brain of Shanghai's new smart city located in this box?"

Gao Ming pulled all the living things in the entire building into his dream, even the rats in the sewers dreamed of bullying cats, but he still had a feeling of being spied on.

"You're the one watching me."

Approaching and standing still, Gao Ming tried to find the other person with his own eyes, his gaze fixed on the huge black box.

There was no response or answer. The black box had no gaps or signs of processing, and no doors, windows, or holes could be found.

Raising his palm, the Blood City Ghost Mark wrapped around his fingers, Gao Ming was about to use a power forbidden in reality to touch the black box when he felt a bone-chilling cold. His body seemed to be instantly enveloped by immense darkness and terror. He couldn't describe what the other party was. There was no word in the world that could accurately describe it. He could only use a few general words to summarize it—unknowable.

Unable to see its form, hear its sound, or name it, and unaware of anything about it, it seemed like an illusory existence, yet the fear it instilled in Gao Ming was undeniably real.

"It's inside this black box."

Both sides sensed each other and the danger emanating from the other.

In reality, the constraints on dream ghosts are much smaller than those on the unspeakable, but the other party has been entrenched here for a long time and has been setting up for many years. No one can say for sure what will happen next. Gao Ming has never fought against an unpredictable enemy.

"Snapped!"

The switch was pressed, and strangely enough, Gao Ming could clearly hear the light in a room thousands of meters away being turned off.

The moment the lights went out, the people talking inside, the crying baby, the mother cooking—all disappeared into the darkness. The house was completely silent, as if not only the lights had been turned off, but also all the hope and life within it.

The sound of the switch being pressed a second time quickly reached Gao Ming's ears. This time, the darkened room was even closer to him. Inside the expensive residential building, an elderly man wearing a hearing aid sat in a wheelchair, and a caregiver was washing vegetables by the tap. As the switch was pressed, even the sound of the water stopped.

"Snapped!"

The third switch sound came from inside the Yong Sheng Pharmaceutical building. The virtual projection screen in the office went out, and the researchers in the laboratory dissolved into darkness.

Gao Ming had no idea what would happen when the lights in the room were turned off. He had never seen this kind of attack before. He couldn't see anyone; he could only feel the darkness approaching step by step.

The lights in the Yong Sheng Pharmaceutical Building went out one by one, as if reality was being severed by some kind of rule, which was erasing anything that could be seen within a limited scope.

"Is it an unknowable entity from Dark Blood City? They're currently engaged in battle with Central Blood City and can't spare any energy for it. That would be an even more terrifying possibility: someone is trying to impersonate an unknowable entity from Dark Blood City and use rules similar to theirs to obliterate me." Before Gao Ming could even process this, a soft sound rang out, and the floor containing the black box plunged into darkness. An unknowable attack had arrived.

As darkness enveloped everything, Gao Ming's heart pounded, and the flames of his flesh burned fiercely. But then, in his mind, among countless memories and scenes, a certain switch was pressed down by a hand.

It seemed that with just a little effort, it could shut down all the light in Gao Ming's memory, erasing him from the very beginning.

However, it did not casually lower its hand. Gao Ming connected with the main shrine of the dream, and four ghostly flames burned recklessly on the sea of ​​memories. The only ability hidden in the shrine, delirium, seemed to be a seed so fragile that it would constantly deform, and it was held in Gao Ming's hand.

"I don't want to waste my breath on you, and I don't care what you want to get from Xinhu. I'm here just to take away the last shrine of the dream. You can easily invade my memory, so you should be able to see what kind of person I am. The moment you turn off the light, delirium will cling to you and accompany you forever."

Gao Ming has no experience fighting against the unknown, nor does he know how to restrain his opponent. He has been the Lord of Blood City for too short a time and his understanding of the rules is not as good as Gao Yun's, but this does not affect his dangerousness.

Regardless of whether that terrifying being was testing him or truly preparing a killing move, Gao Ming would prepare for the worst. If he only had one chance to strike, he would definitely choose the most lethal option.

The hand hovering over the switch hesitated to press it. After a long while, the lights in the basement of the Eternal Life Pharmaceutical Building came back on, revealing a dilapidated shrine in the center of the huge black box and Gao Ming.

This shrine is smaller than the others, but it has more dream patterns carved on it than the other four combined. You don’t need to push open the shrine door; you can see the dream worlds formed inside the shrine through the broken holes. They surround a pair of blood-red wings like stars.

"The sea of ​​blood has drowned the butterfly's wings, and this guy is still not completely dead?" Gao Ming and the unknowable being could both sense the extraordinary nature of this shrine, but apart from Gao Ming, no one was willing to easily get involved with the karma attached to this shrine.

The feeling of being spied on hadn't dissipated. The fact that the other party was willing to hand over the shrine and let Gao Ming leave indicated that they were currently at a crucial moment.

"Is this the new Blood City?" The moment this thought crossed Gao Ming's mind, all the lights within 500 meters of the Eternal Life Pharmaceutical Building went out, leaving only the light above Gao Ming's head still on. He seemed to have been instantly isolated from another world, and even the Blood City Ghost Mark was slightly distorted.

With a cold laugh, Gao Ming knew this was a warning from the other party. He put away the last shrine in the dream and walked out of the building.

As he stepped out of the laboratory, dispelling everyone's dreams, the lights returned to normal at the same time. However, there were fewer people in some rooms, while some rooms seemed to have gained something.

“Zero, Black Box, Xinhu…” Gao Ming walked against the crowd, his mind rummaging through the memories of those who had entered the dream. Ever since the re-establishment of Hanhai Blood City, Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals had not paid much attention to Gao Ming and the Investigation Bureau. Their plan for Hanhai had completely failed.

This is normal, though. Zero's focus was not on Han Hai to begin with; compared to the dead Han Hai, it was clearly more interested in Xin Hu.

This also puzzled Gao Ming. Why did the Unknowable Dream from back then, Zero now, and so many Blood City Lords in the Deep World all show such strong interest in New Shanghai Blood City?
For the Blood City of the Vast Ocean, it was about annihilation and destruction; for the Blood City of New Shanghai, it was about doing everything possible to occupy it.

"Is it simply because Xinhu is a passage connecting the deeper world to the human world? Or is it also a road leading to other places?"

(End of this chapter)