Life Dungeon Game

He turned and smiled at He Ao, "This room happens to be within my business area. Speaking of which, the lease for this room expired yesterday, and it's time to clean it today. That's how it is here; rent is paid weekly, and nobody knows if they'll even be able to stay next week."

Alive.

As he spoke, he looked up and glanced inside the room.

Warm white light illuminated the clean floor, and the even glow spilled over the cozy decor of the room.

"Wow, they even changed the light bulbs and re-laid flooring; that's not common in Vilant,"

The skinny man looked around and chuckled, "This young couple seems to know how to manage their finances. Are they planning to stay here long-term?"

He Ao's gaze also passed over the door and entered the room.

It's just a small one-bedroom apartment, but the whole apartment is kept exceptionally clean.

The brand-new, clean carpet and the spotless tabletop all testify to the great care that the previous inhabitants of this house had taken to maintain it.

Even though no one has returned for several days, the place still looks as if its owner has just left.

"Brother, would you like to come in and take a look?"

The man walked into the house, glanced back at He Ao, and asked softly, "If you weren't coming in, I would have just packed up and thrown these things away."

He Ao followed the man into the house.

The living room was simply decorated. On the shoe cabinet by the entrance was a close-up photo of Rani and Gade.

Just as Li Le had guessed, the two were indeed a secret couple.

Generally speaking, romantic relationships are not allowed between intelligence agents from different countries, as this could easily interfere with their missions due to other factors.

He Ao continued walking inside.

Although the whole house was clearly decorated with care, there weren't actually many things in it. Behind the dining table, on the wall, hung a huge photo board with various photos of the two of them on dates pinned to it with thumbtacks.

Behind the photo board are some old, weathered walls, which are the original colors of this house.

There was nothing noteworthy in the living room. He pushed open the bedroom door.

The bedroom is decorated even more warmly than the living room. This bedroom has a large balcony, and bright sunlight shines through the balcony onto a small low table in front of the balcony.

The messy manuscripts and photos were piled haphazardly on the table.

He Ao walked straight to the table.

There were many photos on the table, and a laminating machine was placed next to it.

Most of these photos were laminated for long-term preservation, and each photo had lines of text written in black ink on the back.

This script is neither Tia nor Jodan.

He Ao opened the translation software and scanned the text behind the photo.

It was identified as being in the language of the Republic of Ica.

He Ao took the photos and began to read them one by one.

Most of the photos depict Rani and Gade on dates, while some are photos taken by Gade of Rani. The accompanying text is like a diary entry.

The text accompanying these photos mostly describes the progress of their relationship and doesn't contain much useful information.

However, He Ao discovered that in the early photos, there were more individual photos of Gad and Lani, and a tall building frequently appeared in the background of these photos.

He Ao had just looked up the information about that building; it's the Ellen City TV Tower, one of the landmark buildings in the Trenk area.

He Ao has a TV tower

Photos of the relevant areas and scenes were selected and laid out on the table.

According to the intelligence provided by Li Le, Rani and Gade are posing completely different identities, and one is in the west and the other in the east, making it impossible for them to have any contact in their daily lives.

In the early days, before the two had fully established a romantic relationship, the only place where they could 'meet' each other was their shared workplace, the Ruodan branch of the World Tree.

Based on the angles from which these photos were taken, He Ao began to roughly estimate the distance and direction between the location where the photos were taken and the TV tower.

He quickly constructed a rough three-dimensional model in his mind.

Then he opened the map street view and began to search for shooting locations based on the model he had built.

The street view of Ellen on the online map is what it looked like about five years ago. However, Ellen has not changed much in the past five years, so Heo easily found the approximate area where the photo was taken.

Two or three streets near Neukölln Street.

All the shooting locations were scattered in the more distant areas around Neuk Street, while no photos were taken on Neuk Street itself, which was in the very center.

It's unlikely that the two will take photos at the entrance of the Ruodan branch; they'll probably have to keep a certain distance before taking pictures.

Therefore, He Ao speculated that the Ruodan branch of the World Tree was most likely located in Niuk Street and some nearby buildings.

He put the photos away and neatly arranged them on the low table.

However, he did not leave. Instead, he briefly activated his super memory and scanned the entire room with his gaze.

There is still one unsolved mystery surrounding Rani's death: why did she 'run away'?

Before that shadow got close, there was no danger except for a bit of fear, and there was no large-scale sacrifice at that time. The people who died that night basically died in their homes without even realizing it.

So how did Rani sense the danger of the divine power? And how did she know she would be 'hunted down'?

Soon, He Ao discovered uneven bumps on the pillow at the head of the bed.

He walked to the bedside, fumbled around for a bit, then unzipped the pillowcase and took out a stack of blank photos from the middle.

These photos were not laminated, and some had dried bloodstains on the edges.

He Ao had already checked the room when he swept it, and the whole room was clean, with no trace of blood.

The bloodstains could only have come from somewhere else; these photos may not have originally been placed here, but were brought back from elsewhere.

On the back of these photos were lines of text written in scribbled handwriting.

Something's not quite right at the branch today. Everyone's eyes are looking strange. Last night they said in the group chat that there were strange noises coming from the sky, but when I asked them today, they all said they didn't know anything about it, even though the chat history is still there. They don't know why the department head summoned us.

No, I need to call Rani and tell her not to come. Something's weird going on. I feel like I've fallen into a vortex. I need to write this down.

They've all gone mad! What are they worshipping?! Hehan has been kidnapped!

[Is that lump of flesh Hehan? Damn it, all the exits are blocked. I have a feeling something...]

Something terrifying is approaching; they're inviting me to join the ritual. What should I do? Hehan is already dead; if I don't participate, I'll be next.

There was no signal, and the minister seemed to still be trying to bring back those who had been stranded outside.

I saw Rani by the window. Damn it, God, don't let her in.

Rani is gone, that's good news, but she was so close, I wonder if she was also affected by that thing? I don't want to participate in those weird rituals anymore, I feel like I'm becoming unlike myself, it's getting closer and closer to me.

[I understand. This kind of worship is something like a classical religious ritual. Everyone who participates in this ritual will be eroded by that thing more quickly. It is getting closer and closer to me. What will I become when I get completely close? A blurry mass of flesh and blood like Hehan?]

[Jensen died. He said he dreamed that the shadow was stuck to his back. Damn it, attending this ceremony really does lead to death. As long as that thing gets close, we will all die.]

The deputy minister came over to dance. She's such a cold person, yet she dances so beautifully. But after watching the dance, that thing moved even faster.

I seem to have lost a lot of memories. I can't remember what I just did. The dark shadow is getting closer to me, but I don't think I'm dead.

[Great ￥***%￥#！ You are the master of eternal night!]

At this point, the blood-stained photos were gone, and He Ao was left with only one clean photo, its color different from the others.

He flipped the photo over and stared at its contents.

The person who wrote the last words on the back of the photo seemed to be mentally unstable; his handwriting was so illegible that He Ao could only copy it and try to translate it using handwriting input software.

[Damn it... Rani was lured here too... She was deceived... Drive Rani away... So many people... They lured so many people today... The more people die, the faster that thing descends... I'm going to die... Rani... Run... Run... Get out of South City...]

No... I can't stay here... I can't contact headquarters, the minister cut off communications... Moonlight still has a C-rank... I have to go find Moonlight...

The text ends abruptly here.

The next part should be about the person who took these photos hiding them and leaving the house.

And then he never came back.

These words were likely left by Gade.

Just as He Ao had predicted, the World Tree Ruodan branch had indeed run into trouble. Judging from the contents of these texts, the head of the Ruodan branch must have indeed been contaminated.

Similarly, these words confirm some of He Ao's guesses.

The Shadow Club's 'ritual' can accelerate the approach of the shadow in dreams. The Primitive Church does not kill people actively; they only accelerate the approach of the shadow in dreams. These innocent people will directly become 'sacrifices' to that 'mysterious shadow'.

And absorption

After these lives are destroyed, the speed at which the mysterious shadow descends will increase.

However, once the shadow gets close enough, it doesn't necessarily become a 'sacrifice'. Some people with 'qualification' will be transformed into its 'servants' by the mysterious shadow, and Gade is one such person.

Rani was lured to the club the night before last, where she met Gade, who had been transformed into a 'servant'. She awakened a part of Gade's own will and was then driven away by Gade.

Starting from Oak Street, the shortest straight-line distance out of South City passes near the martial arts school, so Rani collapsed near the school. She followed her 'boyfriend's' advice and ran towards the outskirts of South City, but in the end, she did not escape the control of the Primitive Church.

Judging from the shadowy figure's behavior, she had been under the control of the original church and may have been influenced by the ritual long ago, so Gade did not actually save his girlfriend.

Gade himself also mentioned that Rani was deceived.

However, this incident revealed another problem: Rani hadn't slept and had been running away, but she still died.

Therefore, the 'shadow' doesn't just approach in dreams; it's always approaching, but it can only be observed in dreams.

These all happened before Heo arrived.

Unable to contact the World Tree headquarters, Gade tried to seek help from Moonlight, but he failed and ended up as a puppet 'greeting' guests at the entrance of the Shadow Club.

Upon seeing the blood-stained photo in He Ao's hand, the gaunt man standing behind He Ao seemed to understand something.

He took a cigarette, put it in his mouth, and slowly lit it with a lighter. "That's how it is in this city. You never know if you'll live to see next week. Everyone's the same. It was like that in the Kingdom era, and it's like that now."

A wisp of smoke filled the room. "I'll come back in a couple of days to clean this place. Maybe someone will remember them and come to collect their belongings."

"There will be."

He Ao placed the photo on the table and turned to walk out the door.

"Hey bro, where are you headed now?"

The gaunt man followed behind He Ao and reached out to close the door.

He Ao turned to look at him, then put his phone in his pocket.