The job change is a bizarre and calamity; the nation begs me to tone it down.

The adjutant standing nearby was utterly dumbfounded.

So this is how deep the scheming is in the hands of those at the top!

They're using this deadly spot as a backyard for Commander Gu to gain experience!

Just then, the adjutant had a sudden realization.

Just as he was preparing to shower his superior with flattery about his foresight.

"Buzz!!"

A dull and strange friction sound came out without warning from the huge black fog ahead.

Xu Yunshan's hand holding the cup trembled, and half a goji berry fell onto the table.

The two of them turned to look ahead at the same time.

Followed by.

"boom!!!"

A deafening roar, like a thunderclap exploding from the ground, pierced the sky with a shockwave that seemed capable of tearing apart the soul!

Even the glass in the command center trembled with the loud bang!

"What's going on!" Xu Yunshan slapped the goji berries off the table and jumped up from his chair.

The adjutant also jumped up, his eyes fixed on the transparent bulletproof glass in front of him.

But they soon discovered that the problem wasn't even ahead.

And on top of the head.

The sky has changed.

The night sky, which was originally as black as ink, was now being swallowed up by a layer of dark red light at an extremely unscientific speed.

The red light didn't emanate from a single point; rather, it was as if someone had splashed a bucket of blood onto the sky.

They emerged from all directions simultaneously and spread rapidly.

In just a few seconds, the entire sky turned into a blood-red curtain.

All the instruments in the command center started alarming frantically.

"Beep beep beep beep beep—"

The sound was so piercing it gave me a headache.

The adjutant instinctively rushed to the monitoring station, and upon seeing the data, his face turned deathly pale.

"Sir...Sir! The energy readings are skyrocketing! They're already more than three times the warning level! And they're still rising!"

Xu Yunshan ignored him because he had already seen it.

In the very center of that blood-red sky, something was pushing outwards.

It started as just a black dot.

Then the black spot rapidly expanded and turned into a crack.

The crack grew wider and wider, like a huge wound being ripped open in the sky.

Something emerged from the crack.

To be precise.

It is a head.

No, that thing doesn't have a head at all.

That was a—worm?

Xu Yunshan's pupils suddenly contracted.

Slowly emerging from the crack in the sky was a colossal creature of breathtaking size. Its shape bore some resemblance to leeches on Earth, but its size was at least tens of thousands of times larger.

It is dark red in color and its surface is covered with a dense array of sucker-like organs that open and close continuously.

Each suction cup has a ring of fine, inwardly curved teeth at its center, which are rhythmically undulating.

It has no eyes, no limbs, and none of the organs that a normal living organism should have.

It was a giant fleshy worm floating in the sky.

But this thing, which seemed to pose no threat other than being disgusting, made Xu Yunshan, a ninth-level saint, feel a fear that surged from the depths of his soul.

That kind of fear has nothing to do with strength.

It's purely an instinctive biological rejection.

It's like the feeling you get when you see a snake in the toilet.

But what if you magnified a snake a million times and stuffed it into your ceiling?

"What the hell is this thing?!"

The adjutant's voice changed instantly, sounding like a rooster whose tail had been stepped on.

Xu Yunshan did not answer.

Because he was rapidly reviewing all the information he had about "Izumo: The Mysterious Realm" in his mind.

The files transferred from the Sakura Kingdom contain detailed records of the various outbreaks of this SSS-level secret realm.

It mentions all sorts of bizarre and strange creatures, but none of the records mention this thing.

What does this tell us?

This means that this thing is either a hidden boss deep within the secret realm.

It is either a completely new variant that has never been observed before.

Neither of these situations is good news.

"All attention! All attention!"

Xu Yunshan grabbed the communicator: "Level One Combat Readiness! All patrol personnel immediately retreat to within the defensive line! Non-combat troops immediately execute the evacuation plan!"

The command had just been issued.

The enormous, blood-red leech in the air stirred.

Its mouthless front end, or rather its head—if that lump of flesh can be called a head—suddenly tilted back towards the sky.

Then, it made a sound.

That wasn't a roar or a howl.

The sound was more like the sharp, piercing scraping sound of countless fingernails scratching a blackboard, but amplified countless times, so loud that it almost exceeded the limits of human hearing.

"laugh----!"

Sound waves are visible to the naked eye!

Centered on the blood-red leech, concentric circles of dark red ripples spread wildly in all directions.

Wherever the ripples passed, the air distorted.

The sand and gravel on the ground bounced up with the tremors.

The expensive energy shields on the defensive line were like soap bubbles hit by a stone; they shattered into points of light the moment they touched the ripples.

But that's not the worst part.

The most dangerous thing is what's inside the ripples.

The adjutant was the first to notice.

"Sir! Look at the ripples! There's something there!"

Xu Yunshan took a closer look, and his scalp tingled with fear.

Within those concentric circles of dark red ripples spreading outwards, countless faces faintly emerged.

Those faces were all distorted beyond recognition.

Some had their mouths stretched to their ears, while others had their eyes drooping out of their sockets.

They are thus embedded in the ripples, moving as the ripples spread.

Each face wore an extremely eerie smile.

That smile, how to describe it.

It's like someone is laughing, but the way they're laughing is completely wrong.

The curve of the corners of the mouth is correct, but the direction of muscle movement is reversed.

It looks like you're laughing, but your brain will frantically tell you—that's not a laugh.

It was an expression you couldn't understand at all, forcibly distorted into a shape resembling a smile.

"Ghost heads...those are all ghost heads!"

The adjutant's voice trembled.

Not only him, but all the soldiers on the entire defensive line witnessed this scene.

Those hideous ghost heads bobbed up and down in the red ripples, like drowning people washed ashore and then swept away by the waves.

Some of them stuck half their bodies out, opened their mouths wide and let out a silent scream, and then were dragged back by the ripples.

Every ghost head that rushes out is pulled back, and several new faces appear.

more and more.

What started as just a few scattered individuals has now grown into a vast, sprawling expanse.

From a distance, the dark red ripples looked like a bowl of boiling soup with countless round dumplings rolling around inside.

These dumplings, however, have grown faces, and every single one of them is smiling at you.

"Izumo: The Realm of Ghosts is in Turmoil!"