The system is four years ahead of schedule, but Weird is still a cub.

Shen Ge walked to the edge of the thick fog. The churning black fog seemed to sense his arrival and became even more turbulent, like a giant maw ready to devour someone.

He reached out, a faint eerie energy swirling around his fingertips, and gently touched the wall of mist.

laugh--

Like a red-hot iron plunged into cold water, the point of contact produced a piercing sound, and the red mist and black mist fiercely clashed and annihilated each other.

A cold, viscous, and malevolent mental shock traveled from his fingertips, attempting to erode his consciousness, but was shattered by his strange power in the next second!

"Hmph." Shen Ge snorted coldly, and the powerful strange energy within his body trembled slightly, instantly dissipating the impact. He withdrew his hand, his fingertips unharmed.

“You’ve done a good job. Guard this place, don’t let anything escape, and don’t let anyone else break in. Leave the things inside to me,” Shen Ge said to the three captains in a deep voice.

Without further hesitation, he took a step forward, and the Crimson Mist Armor instantly enveloped his entire body, the dark red bio-armor shimmering with a metallic sheen in the night.

"Xiao Qi, establish an independent communication link, try to analyze the signal interference patterns in the fog area, and prioritize marking the life signals of trapped citizens," Shen Ge said to Xiao Qi.

"Independent communication link being established... Signal interference mode analysis initiated... Life signal scan activated... Master, the interference intensity is extremely high, and the scanning accuracy will be greatly reduced," Xiao Qi replied.

"Let's go in and take a look first." Shen Ge said no more, took a step out, and his figure was instantly swallowed up by the surging, living black fog.

Within the thick fog, it was as dark as before nightfall.

The air was as thick as glue, filled with a strong smell of blood and decay.

The ground beneath your feet is no longer solid cement or soil, but covered with a slippery, constantly wriggling dark red fungal carpet that makes a creepy "plop" sound when you step on it.

The surrounding scenery was distorted and deformed; familiar park benches turned into jagged rocks, trees stretched out black branches like ghostly claws, and streetlights transformed into eerie eyeballs emitting a ghastly green light, appearing and disappearing in the thick fog.

Even more chilling were the ubiquitous, eerie swallowing sounds, the desperate cries and frantic roars from within the thick fog, and some indescribable, blasphemous murmurs, crashing against Shen Ge's consciousness like a tidal wave. Twisted figures and fragmented memories flashed before his eyes from time to time, attempting to disturb his mind.

"The intensity of mental interference continues to rise... attempting to filter it... Master, we suggest using the Ghost Domain for neutralization and defense." Xiao Qi's voice remained calm.

With a thought, Shen Ge instantly unleashed an invisible, eerie energy field centered on him. The annoying whispers and illusions around him seemed to be muted, diminishing by more than half in an instant, leaving only blurry background noise, and his vision became much clearer.

"Life signal scanning... Multiple weak signal sources detected... Location: 11 o'clock, approximately 150 to 300 meters away... Signal strength is extremely weak, accompanied by peak levels of strange energy contamination..." Xiao Qi began to provide limited information.

Shen Ge followed the location pointed out by Xiao Qi. The fine, shimmering metallic and bone-like "ghost bone armor" on the surface of the Red Mist Armor was faintly visible, protecting him from the omnipresent ghost energy in the air and the occasional corrosive black liquid that shot out from the darkness.

With Xiao Qi and the upgraded Red Mist Armor, Shen Ge didn't even need to use the invisible barrier formed outside the Ghost Domain to ignore these attacks.

The deeper you go, the stronger the stench of blood and a deeper, more pungent odor, like the putrid smell of rotting entrails, fills the air, almost suffocating you.

The ground was covered with a thick, slippery, and constantly writhing dark red "carpet," and the green belt looked like flesh that had been peeled off and was still twitching.

The once beautiful Donghuan Lake Park is now twisted like a hellish scroll. The lush green grass has been completely replaced by this writhing carpet of fleshy fungus.

The familiar trees in the park had now become a nauseating mess, their thick trunks covered with a dark brown scab that resembled bark, but dark red pus seeped from the gaps in the scab. The trunks themselves also showed muscle fiber-like textures and were still pulsating slightly.

The original branches have completely transformed into twisted, dark red tentacles covered with suckers and barbs, waving and lashing unconsciously in the thick fog, tearing through the air with a "whooshing" sound. Occasionally, a broken tentacle falls onto the fungal carpet, only to be immediately enveloped and devoured by the writhing flesh.

Shen Ge didn't feel like he had entered Donghuan Lake Park; rather, he felt like he had entered a giant, eerie body, and he was standing in the "mouth" of the entrance.

"Even if the Snake brought in a high-level fusion monster, it would be impossible for it to 'devour' the East Lake Park in such a short time under the surveillance of the Quanlong Mountain base."

It's impossible for it to be a "giant whale," since that thing has already turned into nutrients, part of which was devoured by the Ark and part by the system.

Moreover, Shen Ge didn't believe that the missing Shen Lin could produce several more "big whales." If he had that ability, he would have conquered "reality" long ago.

Although Shen Ge's supernatural abilities were also resisting the erosion and filtering out most of the invisible whispers and illusions that directly impacted the mind, the living, blasphemous, and terrifying scene before him was itself the most intense form of mental pollution.

Fortunately, Shen Ge was already used to this kind of scene. He ignored the low-level monsters that were wandering around the edge of the fleshy fungus carpet and continued to move deeper into the area.

However, apart from the low-level monsters and the drag marks left by the tentacles that were quickly covered and swallowed by the fungal carpet, they did not find a single living survivor along the way.

Xiaoqi's wide-area life scan was greatly reduced in effect due to the dense fog and strong signal interference. It could only detect extremely weak, scattered and rapidly disappearing signal points, as if the trapped people were being quickly "digested" by this living land.

Even if the Blood Spider is sent out, it will lose contact once it exceeds a certain distance, and the range is even shorter than the multiple ghost spaces of the Australian Ghost Disaster.

Finally, after walking for almost half an hour through the fleshy "green belt," Shen Ge passed through a twisted forest covered with hard scabs of flesh and blood, which arched like huge ribs, and arrived at the East Ring Lake.

The scene before him, however, made him frown.

The lake surface... disappeared.

Or rather, it was completely changed.

At this point, all that remained of the East Lake was a huge, dried-up pit.

The bottom of the pit was not bare soil, but covered with a thicker, viscous, black asphalt-like fungal carpet that was constantly churning and bubbling.

This fungal carpet was more "active" than the one on the shore, with huge bubbles rising from the depths and bursting with a "pop," spraying out a dark green, viscous liquid that emitted a strong sulfur and rotten smell.

The entire lakebed resembled a giant, boiling cauldron filled with filthy pus.

In the center of the lake, a huge bubble several meters in diameter is continuously expanding, as if something is about to break through the "soil".

A chilling, primal, and blasphemous energy surge emanated from beneath the enormous bubble, like the heartbeat of a sleeping behemoth.

"Little Seven, send out the Blood Spiders to explore the lakebed edge and surrounding area, focusing on scanning for life signals and points of strange energy fluctuations."

As soon as Shen Ge finished speaking, the rotting blood on his feet multiplied into blood spiders the size of ants, which then scattered in all directions. In addition to those crawling on the ground, there were also "blood spiders" that flew like mosquitoes.

Shen Ge stood on the edge of the dried-up lake shore, his eerie eyes alertly observing the churning "black swamp" below. His intuition told him that something large was hidden deep within the lakebed; even if it wasn't the maintainer of this eerie space, it was certainly the largest "parasite" within it.

Soon, the images detected by the Blood Spider were transmitted back to Shen Ge's field of vision.

No signs of life were found on the southwest shore of the lake, but the fungal carpet was highly active and extremely corrosive.

A faint trace of energy was detected on the northeast side of the lake shore. Unlike the eerie energy fluctuations emanating from this area, it seemed to be the aura emitted by some kind of eerie energy equipment.

Hundreds of meters deeper into the lakebed, the thickness of the fungal carpet increased dramatically, hindering the detection and preventing the target from being detected... In the blink of an eye, the signal from the blood spider's detection disappeared.

Shen Ge sensed something was wrong. His eyes narrowed, and he immediately activated the system, consuming system points to scan the surroundings.

In the past, when the system map was unfolded, the surrounding environment, terrain, life forms, and sources of strange energy fluctuations would be clearly presented as light spots and markers of different colors.

However, this time the map contained nothing but a blinding, indistinguishable blood red.

There were no terrain outlines, no signs of life, no sources of strange energy fluctuations... only a chilling expanse of pure blood red, symbolizing extreme danger and the unknown!
"How could this happen?" Shen Ge frowned.

Even when he entered the bellies of fused monsters and strange beings in the past, he had never encountered such a situation. Most importantly, he had seen quite a few low-level monsters wandering around on his way here.

Even if the system's seventh-tier progenitor cells haven't fully recovered yet, it's impossible that they can't detect those low-tier anomalies.

Clearly, the complexity here far exceeded Shen Ge's expectations.

At the same time, Xiao Qi completed the scan: "Master, unknown interference detected. The supernatural energy environment is extremely chaotic, and specific targets cannot be identified. This area may contain ultra-high intensity, highly cohesive, and fused supernatural entities, with an extremely high danger level!"

Even the system, Xiao Qi, and Shen Ge's eerie eyes couldn't detect anything strange. The extent to which this area was polluted and distorted was far beyond imagination!

Shen Ge's heart sank. He felt that this was definitely not something that the Snake had done.

The most likely place to find the "answer" now is the dried-up center of East Lake, where he was pulled into the fragmented world.

However, Shen Ge did not choose to immediately go to the most dangerous area in the center of the lake to investigate, not because he was afraid of the Snake, but because he was worried about being dragged into the fragment world.

Although Shen Ge also wanted to get a few dream fragments with more energy as soon as possible to locate the Ark, otherwise it would be a waste to leave such a large "back garden" lost in the fragment world.

However, if he were to be pulled into the fragmented world, it would be impossible for him to do so in a short time. Now that the Twelve Zodiacs and the New God Cult have joined forces, they are clearly trying to cause trouble. He is not comfortable leaving Rong City for too long.

If you manage to get the fragments but your house gets burgled, then it's definitely not worth it.

Therefore, his years of experience dealing with deception have taught him that he must remain calm, especially in situations like these.

He began to move quickly along the dried-up lake shore, trying to observe the lakebed from different angles in search of possible breakthroughs or anomalies.

However, after spending nearly ten minutes carefully circling most of the lakeshore and returning to the original observation point, the scene before him made his pupils suddenly contract.

The lakebed... has changed again!

The black fungus-covered lakebed, which was just bubbling and rolling, now seemed to have been instantly drained of water, becoming dry and cracked.

Huge cracks, like a spider web, covered the entire lakebed, and from the depths of the cracks, a dark red, lava-like light faintly shone through.

The strong smell of sulfur and decay in the air disappeared, replaced by a more ancient, more lifeless smell of dust.

The entire lakebed now looked like a barren, forgotten wasteland that had been abandoned for decades. Only the huge bubble in the center of the lake... no, it now looked more like a huge bulge covered with a dry, hard shell, still existed, and from the cracks, some... turbid, foul-smelling fungal carpet was bubbling out.

The scene was utterly bizarre. Time seemed to be arbitrarily distorted, accelerated, and rewound within this space shrouded in thick fog.

Shen Ge stood on the shore, looking down at the huge, dry, cracked mud pit bubbling with murky water, as if looking at a giant, ancient maw ready to devour someone.

Jump down, and you'll enter the belly of an unknown, terrifying, high-level monster.

"I can't take the risk." Shen Ge kept reminding himself, because according to his usual habits, he would have already rushed in to destroy the strange heart.

……

……

Just an hour after Shen Ge entered the fog zone of East Lake, which should have been the time when he arrived at East Lake, a change occurred in the outside world.

The eerie black mist that shrouded the entire East Lake area was "spreading" towards the city, though at a slow pace, moving about one meter every few minutes.

However, if such a high-intensity psychic energy were allowed to approach the fog area, the non-human creatures would inevitably be affected and produce a large number of anomalies.

Upon receiving this message, Deng Yuqi at the command center immediately issued orders to the three captains remaining in the blockade area, instructing Fang Mingyue, Shen Yun'er, and Cai Hua to proceed to the designated location and activate the eerie energy suppression device.

This eerie energy suppression device was built after the first strange incident at East Lake, and after repeated "modifications" and upgrades, it can now suppress the spread of eerie energy at least to the fifth level.

Even if it cannot completely stop the spread of the strange black mist, it can effectively slow down its spread, buying time for Shen Ge, who is trying to break the deadlock inside.

The three team leaders, who split up, successfully activated the energy suppressors at several designated locations in just thirty minutes, and the spread of the energy mist slowed down at a visible rate.

"Gulu."

"Gulu."

Just as the spread of the eerie black mist ceased, a strange, distinctive swallowing sound rose and fell from within the dense fog! (End of Chapter)