The bishop is unfathomable.

Riverside Apartments.

It's called an apartment, but it's actually just an old three-story brick building.

Li Wei went straight into the apartment without anyone stopping him.

It's clear that strangers coming and going here is a very common occurrence.

Even though Li Wei's clothes were somewhat eye-catching, they only attracted a few more glances.

He didn't stop; he had already taken out his revolver beforehand, and walked directly to the door of the room with the gun in his hand.

The tension and sense of crisis brought on by his intuition grew stronger. Li Wei took a deep breath and then tried to turn the doorknob.

Unexpectedly, the door wasn't locked at all; Li Wei simply turned the knob and entered the room.

Then he saw an extremely shriveled corpse, slumped on the floor with its back against the desk.

The corpse looked as if something had drained all the blood, moisture, and muscle from its body.

A withered skin clung to the bones, and clothes hung limply as if on a skeleton's clothes rack. Beside the corpse lay a large book turned upside down and placed on the ground.

On the desk, there was also an open notebook.

"Dead?"

Li Wei entered the room, but instead of closing the door, he retrieved the falcon that was circling outside, summoned it into the room, and commanded it to perch at the window.

"If anything unexpected happens, just grab me and fly out. You can do that, right?"

"Guga (the boss of the buns)!"

Li Wei first retrieved the books from the ground, picked up the large volume, and then checked it against the book's characteristics given by Thomas.

"The title is correct, the cover material is right, and the inscription... is also correct."

Li Wei breathed a sigh of relief; at this point, he no longer needed to worry about promotion.

If he's in a hurry to complete the ceremony, he can leave the room right now and go back to the bookstore.

But what caused this thief to die?

Suddenly, the falcon that had been perched at the window flapped its wings and flew towards Li Wei.

The wind whipped up by the falcon's talons grazed Li Wei's cheek before pinning something firmly to the ground.

Then, a scarlet, worm-like monster with lamprey-like mouthparts appeared under the falcon's talons.

"Hiss hiss hiss!!!!"

The monster emitted an annoying buzzing sound. Seeing this, the falcon simply tightened its claws, tearing the monster in two. Then, it picked up the pieces of the corpse with its beak and crunched them down.

Then, under Li Wei's gaze, Falcon revealed a remarkably human-like expression of nausea: "Yue!"

"Gurgle, gurgle! (This stuff tastes awful!)"

The thought that this thing was, in a sense, a projection of his own soul made Li Wei feel nauseous.

Whatever that thing is, it definitely cannot be a creature that exists in the real world.

"A mythical beast?"

Li Wei murmured to himself.

Mythical beasts, beasts of fantasy, beasts of dreams, beasts of illusion...

Regardless of whether they are evil or good, beautiful or ugly, or what their attitude is towards the creatures of the real world, all creatures from the dream world are called dream beasts.

They are creatures born from the mixture of thoughts and souls of all sentient beings in the world. Under normal circumstances, unless summoned by a special contract summoning ritual, mythical beasts cannot appear and exist in the real world.

unless……

"Swamp formation..."

Li Wei's brows furrowed tightly.

Swamp phenomenon.

A phenomenon in which the scope and severity of a disaster are highly random.

Severe swampification is enough to engulf a country, rendering the laws of reality within that area completely ineffective, and allowing the dreamlike beasts and even deeper forms of malice from the dream world to enter the real world.

There is absolutely no way to stop it; we can only let it develop and then rely on the self-correcting nature of the real world to slowly repair it.

However, mild cases of swampy conditions can be resolved simply by addressing the root cause.

Moreover, based on Li Wei's research on history and local customs over the years, he also summarized a characteristic from the many severe swamp formations in history.

Even if the phenomenon of swamp formation develops to the point of being completely unstoppable, there are still ways to solve it.

That is to address the initial point of mutation before it spreads from its source.

Typically, this occurs in someone who, due to reading knowledge beyond their capacity, unconsciously connects with a dream world.

Some people go insane at that point. It's actually a protective mechanism, both for themselves and for reality. Once you're insane, you can't connect to the dream world.

But some people don't... or rather, they didn't have time to go crazy.

These people's rationality was not so strong; it was shattered in an instant, and then became the "gate".

Li Wei suddenly realized something: the crisis and danger mentioned in the optional missions.

Suddenly, the falcon began to flap its wings impatiently, and Li Wei immediately shared his vision with the falcon and activated True Sight.

The next moment, five scarlet worms crawled out from under the thief Jimmy's shriveled corpse and pounced on Levi at the same time.

"Gah!!!"

The falcon let out a sharp cry and spread its wings to block Li Wei's path.

The wings, claws, and beak, which were like sharp blades, blocked four of them in an instant and killed him instantly.

But one still lunged at Li Wei's face.

At that critical moment, Li Wei's thoughts accelerated instantly, and everything seemed to slow down.

The scarlet worm opened its menacing mouthparts and stretched them forward.

Li Wei stared expressionlessly at the somewhat disgusting and terrifying scene, then raised the revolver in his hand.

"Bang!"

After a gunshot, the worm, pierced by the bullet, fell to the ground. After struggling for a few moments, it was crushed into a pulp by Li Wei's foot.

But by this time, black sludge had appeared in the room, slowly seeping out from under Jimmy's body.

Li Wei darted forward, snatched the notes from the table, then, holding a gun in one hand and the book in the other, quickly retreated from the room.

Then, Li Wei addressed all the residents who had poked their heads out after hearing the gunshots: "A swamp has formed. If you want to live, run!"

After saying that, amidst the commotion caused by his words, Li Wei squeezed through the crowd, retrieved the falcon, and went to the nearest public phone booth to make a call to the supervisor.

"The riverside apartments in the slums are turning into marshes."

After saying that, without waiting for the other party to ask any questions, Li Wei hung up the phone immediately, then walked into a small alley and summoned the falcon again.

Then he grabbed the falcon's talons and let it fly him to the neighborhood on the other side of the river, and then began to wait.

Five minutes later, using the falcon's high-altitude view, Li Wei saw the arrival of the inspectors.

Leading the way were three humanoid mechanical combat dolls, each with a constantly rotating spring on its back.

Even high in the air, in another block on the opposite bank of the river, Li Wei could clearly hear the monitor's words.

"Everyone leave immediately! Do not interfere with the swamp cleanup using the robotic puppets!"

"You have three minutes to evacuate. Anyone who remains in the building after three minutes will be considered an unprotected person."

"One is responsible for one's own life and death."