Chapter 145

To gather more information about the anomalies, Shen Ge had developed a habit of checking the [Log] every night for updates.

So, when he saw the year [2028], his first thought wasn’t that the digital clock was broken, but whether the distorted space had a four-year time difference, just like the system.

“Could the distorted space have twisted itself four years into the future?” Shen Ge frowned at the thought.

If it weren’t for the system’s four-year discrepancy, he might have attributed it to the effects of time dilation within the anomalous space.

But ever since confirming the relationship between the system and the anomalies, as well as situations like overdrawn supplies and the “lottery” being equivalent to transferring items from other regions, encountering such bizarre circumstances inevitably made him overthink.

Shen Ge explored the bedroom with his flashlight. If this really was the world four years later, there were clues in the environment that seemed to support it.

“A leap through time and space? Is this what the Twelve Branches wanted to test?”

Damn!

If this really was a space from four years later, did that mean the Tier 5 anomaly sustaining this space was the real deal?

If the anomaly sustaining this space was a genuine Tier 5, and if it was one of those Twelve Branches creatures, Shen Ge’s chances of winning were slim.

But then he thought about the anomaly in the bathroom. It wasn’t marked on the system’s map, and there were no prompts. It was highly likely to be the Tier 5 anomaly creating this space.

If it had intelligence, there was no reason it wouldn’t have reacted after he opened the door twice.

With this in mind, Shen Ge decided to test the anomaly’s limits.

He returned to the bathroom door, took out a high-explosive grenade, and activated “Silence” before opening the door.

For safety, he infused the grenade with “Silence” energy before throwing it. As a result, the grenade fell deep into the insect’s mouth without making a sound. There was no explosion noise either, only a flash of light bursting from the depths and rushing out of the mouth.

Fortunately, Shen Ge had closed the door and retreated immediately after throwing the grenade. The blast wave slammed the door open, and the flash of light instantly illuminated the bedroom.

Gulp.

Gulp.

Deafening swallowing sounds followed. Shen Ge swept his flashlight across the bathroom. The previously slow, undulating insect mouth was now writhing rapidly, as if swallowing food. It had woken up because of the explosion.

Boom—

Before Shen Ge could react, the entire building shook violently. The surroundings began to collapse, as if some colossal creature was emerging from underground.

To his surprise, the anomaly didn’t burst out from below like the previous cockroach anomaly. Instead, the entire building “lifted” off the ground, as if coming to life. Shen Ge was reminded of the anomalous turtle fused with the building in Dongyu Village.

Just as Shen Ge was about to rush out of the bedroom through the balcony, the walls on both sides pressed inward like squirming flesh, transforming into a gaping maw!

Gulp!

Hearing the swallowing sound right beside his ear, Shen Ge knew things were bad. Then, the ground beneath him gave way, and he plummeted downward.

Shen Ge immediately reached upward. His anomalous tentacles extended, and the anomalous stomach at the tip opened its mouth, biting into the squirming wall.

But by then, the wall had already “closed,” trembling slightly as if chewing.

With the “passage” above closing rapidly, Shen Ge felt as if he had been swallowed into the anomaly’s stomach. He had no choice but to release the anomalous stomach and retract his tentacles.

Once the stomach let go, Shen Ge lost his anchor and began falling again.

With a splat, Shen Ge landed after falling for over ten seconds. The sound of his feet hitting the ground was like stepping into mud.

Shen Ge swept his flashlight around. The ground was blood-red, and the walls were disgusting flesh.

The space was about the same size as the previous bedroom, but the bed, cabinets, and other furniture were covered in a thick layer of fleshy sludge, merging with the fully transformed flesh walls. It felt like being inside the stomach of an anomaly.

Beneath his feet was a green liquid, sticky like stomach acid, corroding his Rotten Flesh Armor. The armor’s anomalous energy was steadily decreasing.

Shen Ge pointed his flashlight upward and saw a passage “closed” by rows of disgusting teeth, resembling a “throat.”

He took out the Black Bone Dagger and stabbed it into the ground. It took considerable effort to pierce the surface. When he pulled the dagger out, black blood spurted from the ground, mixing with the green stomach acid. Faint traces of black anomalous energy dissipated with the blood.

Shen Ge took out his Anomaly-Killing Revolver and fired two shots at the closed “teeth” above. The bullets easily pierced through the teeth, layer by layer, until they reached the top.

Relieved to see that he could damage the anomaly, Shen Ge walked over to the bed covered in rotten flesh. Standing on it kept him from contacting the “stomach acid” below, and the armor’s energy consumption stopped.

He now had two choices: destroy the rows of teeth above and climb back the way he came, or use the “Collapse” ability of his intangible anomalous domain to exit through the flesh walls or explore downward to find the anomaly’s heart.

“Collapse!” Shen Ge chose the latter. If this anomaly was indeed the Tier 5 sustaining the space, and given the Twelve Branches’ “Three Heads and Six Arms” trait that removed the head as a weak point, the chances of finding a vulnerability in the stomach were higher.

After using “Collapse” on the ground beneath him, an intangible gap opened, and he fell through. The space below was similar to the “throat” above, with squirming blood-red flesh walls and rows of terrifying teeth. The only difference was that it was much wider.

But before he could catch his breath, the rows of teeth began grinding together, as if trying to “chew” whatever fell through.

Shen Ge struggled to change his direction mid-fall, diving headfirst. He timed his move perfectly, kicking off the closed teeth with his anomalous leather boots to accelerate downward.

After passing through several rows of teeth, Shen Ge took out his Cleaver and stabbed it into the blood-red flesh wall. Gripping the handle tightly, he slowed his descent.

Splash!

His feet landed in a pool of soft mud, but he couldn’t touch the bottom. It was like a pool of stomach acid, submerging most of his body in the blink of an eye.

Soaked in the stomach acid pool, the Rotten Flesh Armor’s energy plummeted. Shen Ge had no choice but to grip the Cleaver with both hands, turning the blade horizontally to slow his fall.

He then took out the Black Bone Dagger, using it and the Cleaver to climb upward.

After climbing out of the stomach acid pool, Shen Ge stabilized himself and swept his flashlight around. The surroundings looked like the “first floor” of the villa, but like the upper floor, it was covered in a layer of rotten flesh.

The floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room were pitch black, like a dark wall. The floor was a bottomless pool of green liquid, bubbling disgustingly.

The green liquid corroded the Rotten Flesh Armor’s energy far too quickly. Shen Ge had no chance to dive down and explore.

If the green liquid could damage the armor this badly, there was no way he could take it off and expose himself to the liquid. He’d likely turn into a skeleton in seconds.

After a moment’s thought, Shen Ge used his tentacles to connect to the anomalous stomach, biting into a piece of flesh on the ceiling. Once he confirmed it could support his weight, he used “Collapse” on the area below.

Shen Ge jumped down, and the green liquid instantly swallowed him whole. Even at the full extension of his anomalous tentacles, he still couldn’t reach the bottom.

He quickly retracted the tentacles to pull himself back up. In just those few seconds, the Rotten Flesh Armor had lost a third of its energy to corrosion.

Back in the “living room,” Shen Ge tried using “Collapse” on the floor-to-ceiling windows and the pitch-black space outside. But this time, “Collapse” had no effect.

Normally, areas affected by the intangible anomalous domain’s “Collapse” would become transparent. But now, whether he targeted the windows or the flesh walls, nothing happened.

This was the first time his ability had failed since he gained control of the intangible anomalous domain.

“Can’t move sideways? Is there no way out? Or is the intangible anomalous domain malfunctioning due to the distorted space?”

Shen Ge frowned. The green liquid below was bottomless, and the remaining energy in his armor wasn’t enough to continue exploring downward.

He couldn’t go left or right either…

After exploring the area, Shen Ge decided to return to his starting point. Even if he couldn’t exit from the top, he might find that anomalous bathroom.

With this in mind, Shen Ge took the most direct approach: using “Collapse” to create a path and leveraging the jumping power of his anomalous leather boots to leap upward.

The descent had taken only a few minutes, but going up was even faster.

Strangely, when Shen Ge returned to what should have been the “second-floor bedroom,” he found a completely different room.

It felt similar to his experiences in Dongyu Village and Dajing, where overlapping anomalous spaces caused him to “jump” from one space to another.

But before entering here, Shen Ge had already eliminated the other two Tier 3 anomalies causing the multiple anomalous space reactions. There shouldn’t be any “jumping” between multiple anomalous spaces.

So… what was going on?

Before Shen Ge could ponder further, he suddenly heard a strange noise outside the door. He walked over and pulled the door open, only to find the floor outside crawling with parasite anomalies—a hybrid of spiders and scorpions—that had hatched from the “burst” bodies of the infected.

These spider-scorpions seemed to detect the scent of a living being on Shen Ge. They scurried toward the door in a dense, horrifying swarm.

Shen Ge swept his hand forward, releasing black anomalous flames that instantly ignited several of them. He then closed the rotten flesh-covered door, leaving them to burn outside.

Unfortunately, he overestimated the door’s durability. Within seconds, it collapsed with a boom, crushed by the dense swarm of spider-scorpions.

Ironically, many of them were still burning with black flames, but that didn’t kill them outright. Instead, it made them attack Shen Ge more fiercely.

Since exploring the lower space had already drained much of his armor’s energy, Shen Ge wasn’t in the mood to deal with these “minions.”

More importantly, these parasite anomalies, like the infected, offered no rewards when killed. It was a waste of time.

Shen Ge simply used his intangible anomalous domain on the area above again, leveraging “Collapse” and his anomalous leather boots to jump upward, passing through the tooth-filled throat to reach the “third floor.”

The environment here was also very different. Shen Ge felt like the rooms in the villa were arranged chaotically. Even if he retraced his steps, he might not return to his original location.

But regardless, the higher he went, the less of the corrosive green stomach acid there was, which helped reduce the energy consumption of his armor.

Shen Ge opened the door and stepped into a dark corridor. He swept his flashlight around, confirming no parasite anomalies were present, then cautiously moved forward.

After only a few steps, he heard skittering sounds. Shining his flashlight around, he saw no parasite anomalies on the rotten flesh-covered floor.

But the skittering grew louder. Shen Ge instinctively pointed his flashlight upward and immediately felt his scalp prickling. He broke into a run.

It was like entering a beehive. The ceiling, walls, and every direction were crawling with winged, flying parasite anomalies.

What’s more, they were at least two to three times larger than before. The black anomalous energy emanating from their bodies indicated they were at Tier 1 strength.

Hundreds, no, thousands of them… Even if Shen Ge could kill one with each swing of his Cleaver, it wasn’t a question of whether his eyes could take it, but whether his arms would give out.

The Cleaver was “indestructible” and wouldn’t dull, but Shen Ge’s arms were made of flesh and blood. High-intensity swinging would be unbearable.

Shen Ge couldn’t help but wonder where these damn things were coming from. If each infected person hatched two to three of them, did that mean hundreds of people had died here?

Strangely, he hadn’t seen a single body.

Were they dissolved by the green liquid?

Shen Ge had no time to dwell on it. The moment he stepped out of the room, the flying parasite anomalies detected the scent of a living being and swarmed toward him.

Shen Ge immediately threw two fragmentation grenades behind him, followed by more fragmentation grenades and flashbangs. Most of his throwables were on the helicopter, so he didn’t have many.

Boom!

Boom!

The explosions lit up the “third floor” space. Aside from the flesh-covered walls, it didn’t look much different from the villa’s layout.

But that was precisely what felt off. When he’d exploded the mouth and woke the anomaly, the building had “lifted” off the ground, and many areas had collapsed.

“Collapse!”

Seeing the flying parasites swarming from all directions, Shen Ge had nowhere to run. He had no choice but to use “Collapse” on the area above again.

But this time, the intangible anomalous domain spread out without any effect, just like when he’d tried it on the floor-to-ceiling windows earlier.

“Have I reached the top?”

Or had the chaotic space turned many areas into “dead ends,” making it impossible to go up or down normally?

Shen Ge didn’t have many throwables left, so he tossed them all out. Since he couldn’t use “Collapse” to escape, now wasn’t the time to conserve resources but to find a way to deal with the parasites.

Trapped on the “third floor,” Shen Ge used the explosions to cover his retreat, fighting his way back to the bedroom with his Cleaver.

But when he returned to his starting point, the “door” to the bedroom was gone!

The dark, bare corridor had no “doors” in sight. It felt less like a villa corridor and more like the intestines of an anomaly.

“The spaces on each floor are chaotic enough, but now even a十几-meter corridor can be distorted?” Shen Ge slashed at the parasite anomalies, feeling that something was wrong.

But he had no idea what it was.

Shen Ge fought his way through the corridor three times. The blade wasn’t dull, but his arms were sore.

As a last resort, he used the black anomalous flames to drive back the parasites and retreated to a corner of the corridor, activating “Intangibility + Silence.”

The flying parasite anomalies suddenly lost their target, freezing in mid-air as if someone had hit pause. After a few seconds, they returned to clinging to the ceiling and walls.

Shen Ge didn’t have many mental apples left. While “Intangibility + Silence” could temporarily evade the anomalies, it was only a stopgap measure. That was why he hadn’t wanted to use it earlier.

It was like playing a game: if a mage entered a dungeon and ran out of mana and potions, it was almost time to hearthstone back to town.

Another option was natural recovery.

Although Shen Ge’s mental recovery speed hadn’t changed much after advancing to Tier 3, the upgraded “LiXiang II” armor could absorb anomalous energy to recover, and its natural recovery speed was slightly faster. If he didn’t consider the time trapped in the anomalous space, natural recovery was an option.

But could Rong City afford to wait?

Without Shen Ge and Deng Yuqi, relying solely on Lin Yin and the others to control the anomalous disaster while guarding against the Twelve Branches’ sneak attacks…

It would be difficult.

After the parasite anomalies in the corridor flew away, Shen Ge tried to retrace his steps. On his fourth return to the “starting point,” a series of thumping noises echoed from the dark area ahead, as if something heavy was crashing against the walls.

Then, with a loud boom, the flesh wall ahead collapsed!

Before Shen Ge could get closer to investigate, the parasite anomalies on the ceiling and walls swarmed into the collapsed flesh wall.

Then came the sound of squelching chewing, like biting into juicy meatworms. The sound was utterly disgusting.

Shen Ge crept closer and saw a humanoid monster standing in the room ahead. Its body still vaguely resembled a human’s, but above the neck were three lamprey-like circular mouths. Six fleshy tentacles extended from its body, constantly grabbing the parasite anomalies flying into the room and stuffing them into its mouths.

The parasite anomalies were instantly chewed and swallowed by the rows of teeth, producing the disgusting chewing sounds!

[Warning! Warning! Warning!]

[Tier 5 Anomaly Detected (Trait: Three Heads and Six Arms). Host’s current strength is no match for it. Host is advised to value their life and flee immediately!]

[Flee immediately!]

It was rare for the system to emphasize “fleeing” so strongly. Clearly, this monster was a real threat. Suppressing the urge to complaints, Shen Ge quietly slipped into the room.

He wanted to observe the monster up close. As the middle lamprey head opened its mouth to swallow a parasite, a human face appeared in the flesh inside!

It was someone he’d met before—Liu Zongrui!