Alien Hotel.

Chapter 431 Convergence and the Sober Ones

Upon seeing the figure of the woman in the black dress on the mountaintop, Yu Sheng and the others were all startled.

A normal person! A "sober person" who is clearly out of place in this chaotic and frenzied environment!
However, just as the woman on the mountaintop opened her mouth as if about to say something, a shadow suddenly appeared behind her—before anyone could react, the shadow pierced through the woman's body. She only had time to turn her head in astonishment before her life was cut off, and her body slumped on the mountainside.

"Holy crap!" Eileen exclaimed in surprise upon seeing this scene. "Isn't this a weird opening?!"

Yu Sheng immediately grabbed the fox fur beside him: "Let's go check out the situation!"

Hu Li took off running towards the "mountain" made up of countless twisted buildings and bulging city roads.

The next second, the "mountain" seemed to come alive. The buildings and roads piled on its surface began to undulate and writhe like a turbulent dream, rapidly changing their structure. Hu Li tried to take off midway, but found herself inexplicably entering a fully enclosed "garage" the moment she took off. The surrounding walls collapsed and flowed like molten wax, and the road surface broke open with large holes. She hurriedly crossed those holes and ran into a stairwell—the stairwell stretched upwards like a staircase, but suddenly broke at the end. A rusty staircase that she could never reach hung at the opposite intersection, and the road surface under her feet began to shake violently, as if it were made of loose bricks.

Hu Li cried out in surprise and instinctively leaped forward, only to find that her body had lost its support. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't jump or fly high. She narrowly escaped by jumping over a building lying flat on the ground and found herself back on that strange "mountain" slope. The road in front of her stretched endlessly ahead, with seemingly nonsensical buildings piled up on both sides—all like empty shells, with haphazardly piled-up stairs and corridors inside the empty doors and windows.

However, just as everything around them was rapidly falling into this "dreamlike disorder," and all the roads were about to collapse, a rapidly spreading spider web suddenly appeared in the wind and rain.

"What kind of nonsense is this!"

Agitated by the chaotic dreamscape around her, Eileen raised her hand without hesitation and released her "threads." These dark and cold lines, as if alive, instantly burrowed into the rain and rapidly expanded in this area woven from a confused mind. As the spider silk spread, the undulating "mountain" also froze instantly.

Yu Sheng's heart stirred, and he subconsciously turned around to look.

He saw that the swaying human figures at the foot of the mountain had also shrunk by more than half at the same time.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Hu Li crossed the hillside and rushed to the top of the mountain in the blink of an eye.

Where Eileen's spider silk covered, the mountain that had just seemed unreachable and constantly "growing" upwards suddenly turned into a small hill. The enormous nine-tailed silver fox could easily run a few steps and leap to its top. The twisted and stacked buildings and long roads seemed to be "skipped" directly, turning into a bunch of miniature backgrounds that shrank behind Hu Li.

Many strange, enormous "pillars" stand atop the mountain, forming a circle around a vast, dimly lit open space.

Yu Sheng didn't immediately pay attention to the surrounding pillars; instead, he searched for the woman in the black dress who had just fallen.

He didn't find it.

The wind and rain swept over the mountaintop, leaving only a patch of clean stones where the woman had fallen.

Yu Sheng frowned, and just then, he suddenly heard a whooshing sound coming from afar.

He looked up abruptly and saw the woman in the black dress who had just died on the mountaintop charging straight at him, sword in hand. Her expression was icy cold, and the blade shimmered with a hazy, flowing light. The surrounding wind and rain seemed to avoid the sharpness of this sword, retreating in all directions without needing any dispersal.

But the next second, another ghostly figure rushed forward.

Luna moved with the grace of a dance, lightly leaping across the rain. Her fingertips instantly slashed at the black-clad woman's sword strike, then the blade aimed straight for her throat. The black-clad woman was forced to the ground and staggered back several steps. Just as she was about to regroup, twelve bronze knights rushed out of the rain and began to beat her mercilessly...

The woman in the black dress retreated again and again, her expression seemingly dazed. In that moment of dazedness, a gleaming sword pierced her chest from behind.

Even Luna and the Bronze Knights were stunned by what they saw.

The woman in the black dress convulsed and collapsed limply. Another woman, identical in appearance and attire, stood behind her, slowly withdrawing her sword, expressionlessly wiping it on her sleeve, and muttering softly—

“The thirty-seventh…” The figures of the bronze knights disappeared into the wind and rain, while Luna immediately returned to Yu Sheng’s side, watching the woman who was standing not far away with a sword in her hand warily.

The woman in the black dress who had just been "killed" gradually transformed into a writhing shadow in the rain, then melted away and was washed clean by the rain.

Yu Sheng seemed to have thought of something. He gestured for Luna to step back, and at the same time, his gaze fell on the woman wielding the sword. He tentatively asked, "...Are you the 'Lord of Ink Dye City' that Xuan Che mentioned?"

Mo Ran raised his head and squinted in the rain to carefully examine the group of strangely dressed people in front of him.

A nine-tailed silver fox (about the size of two cars), a "nun" dressed like a star maiden, a male human who looks like an ordinary person but whose background is impossible to discern, and a very small but arrogant doll.

Distinctive features.

“I am,” she nodded, then pointed towards the huge pillars, “and there’s another person over here, probably your friend.”

Yu Sheng was stunned for a moment, then turned his head and saw a familiar figure peeking out from behind a pillar, greeting him nervously: "Brother Yu! Hey, you guys finally showed up..."

"Nephew!" Eileen looked at him in surprise. "What are you doing here?!"

"Ah, this..." Zheng Zhi's lips twitched slightly, "This is a long story..."

As they were talking, Mo Ran walked over. Her gaze swept between Yu Sheng and the others and Zheng Zhi, and she nodded slightly: "It seems that this is indeed your friend—he described your appearance to me, and he was quite accurate."

Yu Sheng blinked, then pointed at Zheng Zhi: "What is he doing...?"

"He was wandering around the city when he attracted a group of roaming 'shadows' who chased after him. In his panic, he ran all the way to this area," Mo Ran's tone was somewhat subtle, as if carrying three parts emotion, seven parts confusion, and ninety parts exhaustion of "when will this ever end?" "Don't ask about the details. I was trapped on this 'mountain' and couldn't help him at first. I didn't know how he was able to run all the way here without any fighting power... I only saw him somehow run all the way up from the foot of the mountain and dodge the attacks of my 'inner demons' near the top. Only then did I have the opportunity to protect him in the formation."

Listening to Mo Ran's story, Yu Sheng and the others couldn't help but look at Zheng Zhi—who simply scratched his head awkwardly, looking at Yu Sheng with an innocent expression: "I don't know what happened either. I was in my hotel room not long ago, and then I looked out the window and saw that a refining tower on the outskirts of the city was suddenly covered in crystals. Before I could even react, I was trapped in the city..."

Before his nephew could finish speaking, Yu Sheng's eyes widened: "Wait! You said you saw a refining tower on the edge of the city suddenly covered in crystals?!"

Zheng Zhi: "Ah, right. They're grayish-white, like tree branches. It seems like they're everywhere in the city too—but I didn't get a good look before everything went haywire, and even Master Yuanhao disappeared."

Yu Sheng and Eileen looked at each other, both seeing the sigh of relief in each other's eyes at the guaranteed 200-word limit.

“So you really are the ‘breakthrough point’!” Yu Sheng turned to look at Zheng Zhi, feeling that this was outrageous but after thinking about it, it seemed to make sense. Then he couldn’t help but sigh, “You… are really lucky.”

“I think this is hard to explain from the perspective of sheer luck... It must have involved some psionic energy,” Eileen said, her eyes wide as she looked her nephew up and down not far away, clicking her tongue in amazement. “He saw through the cognitive barrier created by the ‘Star Entity,’ even if only for a moment—but he managed to pierce a hole in the barrier and was then thrown into this ‘Nightmare Frontier’ to survive until now…”

She paused, her face scrunching up, "No, let's not talk about those wandering 'shadows,' after all, we didn't provoke those things, and we don't know why they're chasing you—how did you manage to dodge those 'inner demons' that Mo Ran mentioned? You even managed to fight them off with your C-cup..."

Zheng Zhi shrugged: "I don't know. Anyway, when they chase me, I just hide, and then they stop chasing me—you all know my fighting ability. I haven't even been officially promoted yet..."

Yu Sheng was dumbfounded. In the end, he could only sigh in his heart—this guy's experience in just a few days of internship was enough for many legendary investigators' entire lives. He couldn't even imagine what it would be like for him to become a full-time employee...

Meanwhile, Mo Ran listened silently to Yu Sheng and the others' conversation, hearing them talk about things like "penetration point," "star body," and "cognitive barrier." Only then did he suddenly frown and break the silence: "So, you really do know something... Can you tell me what exactly happened in Mo City? Why did the city become like this in just a moment of confusion?"

Yu Sheng stared at Mo Ran for a few seconds, then hesitated for a moment before slowly speaking: "It's not Mo City—it's the entire Shuji. Your entire planet has been controlled by a dark angel called 'Star Derivative Entity'."

(End of this chapter)