Alien Hotel.

Chapter 402 Dark Place
"These are the cases of monks being possessed by demons and people going missing that have occurred in Mo City over the past few months."

Mo Ran pointed to several books with light golden cloud patterns on the table and said to Xuan Che, then he took out another jade slip from the bookshelf next to him and placed it in front of Xuan Che.

"This is the most recent incident - just a few days ago."

Xuan Che nodded slightly, took the jade slip and unfolded it casually.

A misty light rose from the jade slip, and before his eyes appeared a series of video materials and text records compiled by the investigators, the contents of which were extremely detailed.

Xuan Che frowned slightly while checking the information. After a moment, he raised his eyes and looked at the woman standing opposite him through the holographic projection in the air: "The manager of the refining tower? After returning home from work, his temperament suddenly changed, his cultivation level skyrocketed, and he caused massive destruction?"

"Yes, and he broke through three obstacles in succession when the City Patrol was chasing him - he didn't care about his life at all," Mo Ran nodded slowly, with a solemn look on his face, "The last time the witness saw the person, he jumped into a ground vein crack at the bottom of the No. 10 Refining Tower, and then he disappeared... We also organized people to explore the crack, but we didn't find the body there."

Xuan Che did not speak, but continued to carefully check the rest of the information. Mo Ran continued to speak opposite him: "According to the information we have so far, the parties involved in these incidents are from all walks of life, with different backgrounds and sects. They have nothing in common in terms of identity. Moreover, among them are not only human beings, but also demons, spirits, and even naturalized spirits and ghosts. It can be seen that the 'culprit' who caused them to be 'possessed' is not selective, and it should be random."

Mo Ran paused for a moment and added, "Of course, with so many cases put together, we are not without discoveries. These cases have some commonalities. The biggest commonality is that the parties involved have all reached the level of 'Spiritual' or above, and have the ability to leave their bodies and travel through time..."

Xuan Che immediately frowned and looked up at Mo Ran: "In other words, they were probably influenced and possessed by the devil in the process of releasing their spiritual consciousness and observing things with their mind?"

"This is the most likely guess at the moment," Mo Ran nodded, "but we are still not sure how this kind of 'possession' happened - after all, the first step for a cultivator to learn how to leave the body is to master various techniques to protect their own minds. Although there are always people who are not skilled enough or careless and get bewitched in the process, it is really wrong for so many people to be 'possessed' in a short period of time.

"Also, although we speculate that most victims were infected while releasing their spiritual consciousness, there are currently at least 20% of cases where the parties suddenly lost control without any practice or meditation. Some people even just took a nap - although these cases are extremely rare, they are the most disturbing."

"Without the consciousness leaving the body, it was still contaminated?" Xuan Che frowned, and after a moment of silence, he slowly spoke, "Indeed, the cultivators know how to protect their own minds, especially in this case where the consciousness has not left the body at all. In theory, they should not be contaminated at all... But if they are facing a mad ancient power, that's another story."

Mo Ran's expression finally changed slightly: "A crazy ancient powerful being?"

"Don't tell anyone about this," Xuan Che thought for a moment and warned before telling the other person the truth. "First, it might cause panic. Second, the person behind the scenes might have a very high level of cultivation, and might have reached the point where his mind could communicate with the gods. If the news gets out, ordinary people with lower levels of cultivation might think of that person's name frequently in their hearts out of fear, which might attract their attention."

"It's really like this..." Mo Ran was shocked when he heard this, with a hint of disbelief in his tone, but he quickly reacted, "I understand, please go on, Immortal Envoy."

Xuan Che calmed himself down and spoke slowly: "This series of events is very likely related to an ancient great power named 'Yun Qingzi', and this old senior... is very likely to have gone crazy."

……

Deep caves connect to corridors, and man-made corridors connect to criss-crossing rift valleys. Deep in the wilderness far away from Mo City, the secret underground hiding place is like a huge maze interwoven with man-made traces and primitive geological structures, burying all the secrets deep under the thick rocks and soil.

There are countless forgotten corners on this mining planet located in the remote frontier and has long been in decline.

Thousands of years ago, pioneers built countless outposts, collection stations and environmental transformation facilities in this harsh and primitive alien environment. As time passed, many of these pioneering outposts became history. Some of them completed their designed missions, while others encountered irresistible environmental changes. Regardless of the reasons, these facilities that were abandoned over the long millennia eventually became forgotten "graves", submerged in the eternal rainy season, and slowly moldy in the dampness and cold.

And now, deep within one of these forgotten graves... something darker and more dangerous than mold has apparently grown.

In the core area of ​​the underground palace that was once part of the base, many facilities and equipment added later replaced the old formations, mechanisms and spiritual tools that had long since become ineffective. A dozen "foreigners" who looked like foreigners were busy among the many sophisticated equipment, and in the center of the hall, there was a dark chair.

There were countless pipes and cables connected to the chair. The tangled pipes spread out like roots, connecting the equipment in various parts of the underground palace. Some of them disappeared into the roof and deep in the ground, as if they were going to lead to even more distant places. And on the chair, there sat quietly a middle-aged man in a white robe with a dignified face.

The man closed his eyes and frowned. Many cables extended from under his white robe, connecting to many interfaces on the seat. Nerve-like biological tissue "grew" directly from the back of his head and merged with an "interface" above the seat back, twitching slightly from time to time.

After an unknown amount of time, when a high-level technical monk from the monastery who was busy nearby looked up at the black chair anxiously for the third time, the middle-aged man sitting on the chair finally slowly opened his eyes.

The nerve tissue behind his brain severed its connection with the chair and then slowly retracted into his body. Not far behind the chair, several culture containers that looked like dormant chambers were making a low humming sound, and the surface of one of them gradually lit up.

"Great Sage," the high-level technical monk wearing the cloak of the monastic order immediately took two steps forward and bowed his head slightly, "Have you recovered?"

"Well," the middle-aged man known as the Great Sage nodded. Despite his majestic demeanor, he couldn't hide the trace of fatigue in his eyes. "I still need some time to recover to my best condition, and... sort out my memories."

Having said this, he raised his head and looked at the monastics who were busy in the hall.

"How's your progress? Have you found anything useful from the feedback signal?"

"There are only some messy memory fragments," the high-level technical monk said helplessly while operating the equipment in his hand, "Your last clone died too suddenly and too completely, and there was not even enough time to copy the memory back completely... From the only signal analysis, the black box chip in the brain was vaporized in an instant, and the protective shell around the chip almost did not work.

“In addition, there was a strong spatial interference at the clone’s death scene… It was different from any interference technology we have seen. This also seriously affected the clone’s memory transmission. Your current memory impairment and thinking interruption were caused by this.

"These are the few barely meaningful images we analyzed from the limited 'dying signals'..."

The technical monk said this, turning slightly to activate the holographic projection device in front of the Great Sage's chair.

A chaotic and blurry light and shadow flickered in the air, and vaguely one could see rain curtains, lightning, and fierce battle scenes. However, the picture was upside down and disordered. Not only was it extremely blurry, but it was also filled with a lot of "imaginations" and "illusions" that did not seem to conform to reason at first glance, like an out-of-control nightmare.

There were missiles flying through the sky, but for some reason they were imagined to be tails spewing fire. There were people flying around on the tails, holding strange and vicious sticks in their hands. There were spider silks all over the sky forming a huge web, and in the center of the web was a terrifying giant figure crawling...

Bizarre, chaotic, and irrational, it was like a picture drawn by a dream on the verge of waking up - obviously, it was the loss of control of memory and imagination caused by the chaos in the clone's brain when it died suddenly.

And at the end of all these crazy images is the last image sent back by the black box chip.

It was blurrier than all the previous images, but because of the recorder's extreme fear at the time, it was covered with a layer of extremely bright and complex colors. In the colors, a figure with a hand raised could be seen. It seemed to be a woman, wearing a black and gorgeous dress, with blood-red eyes. She was raising her hand towards this side, and a strong light was brewing at her fingertips and then bursting out.

"This is the death scene. Judging from the timestamp, this should be the enemy that caused the death of your clone," the technical monk said on the side, "but for some reason, the memory data extracted from this scene shows that this enemy is very... small. In terms of size, it is probably only a few dozen centimeters, like a doll."

The middle-aged man sitting on the black chair had a gloomy face and was silent for several seconds before he slowly spoke: "You mean, I was killed by a doll once?"

"This may also be a false impression caused by death and transmission interference." The technical monk lowered his head hurriedly. "You also saw that there were many confusions and absurdities in the images just now. The clone's confused brain at the time of death distorted many memories."

The great sage did not comment, but continued to look gloomy, staring at the figure covered with a layer of crazy colors on the holographic projection for a long time without saying a word.

(End of this chapter)