Artifact Report

Chapter 100: Chasi: There is a door hidden here
It seemed like just a few steps, and Morandao flashed and disappeared into thin air.

But her words caused countless thoughts, ideas, worries, anxiety, guilt... and many fragments of memories that for some reason resurfaced in Chai Si's mind, pouring out like an avalanche.

For a brief moment, he stood there, like a victim buried under thousands of snows, unable to move at all.

Did that man attack the Kai family because he found a fake image of Wei Xilai? If he hadn't found it, Uncle Kai wouldn't be in danger?
Is it a coincidence? As a dead man, why does Vesile's name keep appearing again and again?

Why would Morandao go to such lengths for that person, even going so far as to make an enemy of Chai Si?
...Is Uncle Kai still alive?
How was he going to get out of here?
Chai Si closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

When a myriad of thoughts are tearing at your mind from all directions, the most important thing is to extricate yourself from the knot of emotions and thoughts, and distance yourself from everything.

The worst outcome would be that Kaironan would die, and he would also die after rushing up the hillside.

Accept it and you will calm down.

Don't think about whether Kaironen is dead or not; Kaironen is dead, and Chase is dead too.

Since the ending is death for all, no matter how anxious and angry he is at this moment, it is just meaningless noise before the finale.

There is only one path now, and it is clear - as to whether he is heading towards the end, death, or hope, that is the domain of fate.

When Chai Si opened his eyes, the blizzard had already stopped in his mind, and a vast expanse of endless silence and whiteness spread out in the distance.

In his family faction, he often needed to evaluate and assess the artifacts brought back by hunters, so he had seen and understood a large number of artifacts.

Illusions sound magical; but if you see them enough, you will find that these things, which perhaps should not appear in the human world, are not completely unpredictable, but have traces to follow.

What Morandao used on him should be a "separation-type" artifact. As the name suggests, the artifact itself and the artifact effect can be separated.

She used an illusion to create a "cage" that was very similar to the surrounding environment. After Chai Si accidentally entered it, she could leave with the illusion itself. This type of illusion is naturally more flexible and safer for the user because it does not require the user to stay in one place all the time. However, the disadvantage is that its effect is also very limited.

For example, Morando herself admitted that she could not kill Chai Si through this illusion effect.

Another point... is the "effect" of being left alone. Compared with the powerful weapons of the "Nest Communication Network", it is not very powerful; most of the time, there is even a "key to breaking the deadlock".

It's like a room; all Chase needs to do is find its "door".

He took half a minute to carefully look around.

This cemetery, the most expensive in the state, covered an entire hillside. The main road, where he had gotten off, wound its way up the hill; a thin swathe of trees flanked it, casting dappled shadows on the green.

Chai Si looked beyond the trees beside him and could see a vast, flat, dark green meadow in the distance, and tombstones that seemed to have gloomy faces under the thick, dark gray clouds.

It looks like it's going to rain again.

Turning back, he saw the modified truck he'd left behind still parked sideways on the road, nearly crashing into a tree. Silence reigned supreme, the sound of cars on the distant highway seemingly obscured by the illusion.

"It's so quiet," Chase whispered to Morando, who had already left.

She was surprised just now why he could immediately realize that he had fallen into the illusion trap - that was because Chai Si was very familiar with everything in this cemetery, including what kind of sounds could be heard in every corner of it, he knew it clearly.

"To you, this should always be just a quiet cemetery." He listened to his own voice echoing in the air. "But for me, walking into the trap was like a movie being paused. The subtle sounds that should have existed suddenly disappeared, which was naturally the biggest warning signal."

When he was in college, Morando, as a junior in the same school, discovered his own path and always asked various questions to Chai Si, who had no path and another person who was not a hunter; it seemed that from that time on, he developed the habit of answering her questions.

…So this habit still exists. Even after she's gone, I still have to answer her questions.

Chai Si let out a small laugh through his nose, though he wasn't really smiling.

Roughly speaking, his vision extended for several hundred meters before being blocked by the terrain and woods in the distance.

A few hundred meters is far enough; it's just a separate artifact, and the effect can't possibly cover a radius of several hundred meters.

In other words... if there is a "door" in this artifact effect, then he must have seen it.

He just didn't know where the door was among the things he saw.

So, let's first try to test the boundaries of this artifact effect.

Chai Si raised his gun and fired a bullet in the direction of the cemetery behind the woods with a bang. The gunshot was much louder than before, and it made his ears buzz continuously - it didn't sound like a gunshot that should be produced in an open space outdoors at all.

As soon as this thought came to mind, Chai Si immediately had the answer.

As soon as the bullet touched the air between the trees, it suddenly slowed down, as if it had drilled into gelatinous jelly, moving slower and slower; until it trembled slightly, finally lost all power, hovered in the air for a moment, and then fell to the grass.

Chai Si did the same thing and fired a bullet in several other directions, including the sky. Even though he had stuffed two pieces of cloth torn from his shirt into his ears beforehand, he still had tinnitus - but he finally determined the scope of this cage.

He was wrapped in an independent space of more than ten meters square; no matter what he did in the space, it would not have any impact on the outside world.

The effect of this illusion is very simple. It is just a large transparent box that is not destroyed by external forces. It covers him inside and is probably time-limited. The only special advantage is that it can create an illusion in the real position of the owner of the illusion - that is, the owner of the illusion can use "himself" as bait to trick the target into walking into the transparent box.

If it was something brought by the family hunters, Chai Si would have offered a maximum of 60,000.

Don’t underestimate the simple effect, it is quite effective. Now he can’t get out, right?

...Where is the door?
He looked around again, walked to the "wall", and felt around carefully: if it weren't for the transparent and flexible thing surrounding the air, he wouldn't be able to find anything unusual with the naked eye.

The smell of trees and grass, the rustle of one's own clothes, the clouds pressing down on the earth, everything - wait.

Chai Si turned around suddenly, as if subconsciously trying to catch the thought that was about to pass by.

Something is wrong.

Things that shouldn't appear appeared in this place... Does it mean that he found the door?

　The clues have been given. Dear smart readers, can you guess the answer?

　　…For some reason, when I was writing this chapter, my mind was like being poisoned, and I kept playing these words over and over again. Smart readers, you can definitely imagine the tone of voice.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)