Chapter 1 Vivian Seems to Have Disappeared

It seemed that Vivian had indeed disappeared.

Hao Ren quickly found Vivian's phone on the bedside table in her basement room. As the first high-tech communication device she'd ever been able to afford, Vivian had always treated this phone like a treasure. Even when she transformed into a bat to go out, she would use magic to change the phone's form and carry it with her. The fact that this thing was left on the bedside table while she was nowhere to be found was enough to prove that this incident was extremely strange.

Lily, Lorsch, and Nangong Sanba quickly searched the area around the house again, but even using the tracking skills of a werewolf (husky) and the tracking spells of a demon hunter, they couldn't find any trace of Vivian. It seemed she had indeed vanished directly from the basement.

"No, we've searched everywhere, but there's no trace of a bat," Lily said, seeming anxious after searching for so long. As soon as she returned home, she shouted urgently, "And there are all kinds of messy things outside. In some places, even the terrain and roads have changed. If I didn't have a good nose, I might have gotten lost out there!"

"Just vanished into thin air in the basement?" Hao Ren felt his heart sink. "This is a place protected by a god... That's right! Protected by a god! With such a big disturbance on Earth, Raven 12345 should have reacted, right?"

With that thought, Hao Ren immediately tried to contact Raven 12345. However, after connecting the telepathic communication and calling several times, there was still no response from "God's Realm," not even the automated reply that everyone complained about.

Lily looked at Hao Ren expectantly, noticing the change in his expression. She couldn't help but ask, "Landlord, what's wrong?"

"The connection with God's Realm is broken. It seems to be interference," Hao Ren frowned. "This has never happened before."

"The application to transfer to God's Realm also failed to receive a response," the data terminal floated over from the side. "This unit has detected that the entire Earth is in a strange state. Communication with information stations throughout the universe is extremely difficult. We seem to be in a huge shielding layer."

Hao Ren frowned deeply. "The entire Earth is having problems?"

As soon as the situation was out of control, Lily's cowardly nature was exposed. The husky spirit looked nervous, shuffling in small steps to Hao Ren's side. "Landlord, what do we do? We can't even contact the goddess..."

"It's okay. I didn't expect much from her most of the time anyway. The most urgent thing now is that we can't panic. We have to calm down," Hao Ren said, comforting Lily while looking around. "I'm very worried about Vivian's whereabouts, but the first priority right now is to figure out what's happening in this world, or rather, on this planet. I'll divide the areas later, and we'll split up in pairs to investigate, without missing any details. We'll all come back to gather before noon. If anyone encounters an accident outside and can't return, like falling into an illusion or something, don't wander around. Stay where you are and try to make enough noise. I'll go find you according to the pre-divided areas. Now that things are out of control, we can put the secrecy law aside for the time being."

As he spoke, he looked out the window, thinking that with the current situation of demons dancing all over the world, even if someone performed some celestial feat in the city center, probably no one would even bother to watch... Speaking of which, with the world changing like this, are the ordinary people on Earth still okay?

Nangong Sanba and Izhaks had already gone out to check the situation earlier. Although they had only returned in a hurry, they had still seen something. According to them, ordinary people wearing modern clothes could still be seen on the streets, but those people were in a very strange state – exactly how strange, Hao Ren felt he needed to see for himself before he could judge.

Vivian's "disappearance" was causing anxiety. Even Hao Ren himself had a hard time calming down completely. He was very worried about Vivian's situation, but he knew that in the current situation where there were no clues, understanding the cause of the changes outside was the only breakthrough: perhaps Vivian's disappearance was related to the changes outside.

The work of investigating the situation was quickly assigned. Hao Ren told Roll to stay at home to take care of Dou Dou and prevent the weak chickens from running out, then took the others and left.

He and Lily were in a group, and their main task was to investigate the situation in the southern suburbs. The others went to the city center and the neighboring county. Although Nangong Sanba and Izhaks had been to these places before, they had only been back and forth in a hurry at the time. Apart from seeing all kinds of incredible phenomena, they hadn't actually investigated the details behind these phenomena, which was far from enough for analyzing the information.

After setting off, Hao Ren also released a batch of probes from his dimensional pocket. These probes would travel even further than people: they would fly into the distance, even to the other side of the planet, to confirm whether the same changes had occurred throughout the entire Earth.

The once peaceful and tranquil southern suburbs were now completely turned upside down. It could even be said that it had become a place Hao Ren didn't recognize at all – when he first went out, he could still see some familiar street scenes, but as he continued to walk outward, the things in front of him gradually became bizarre to the point of being almost illogical.

He saw a triumphal arch standing at the entrance of the southern suburb elementary school, with ranks of Qin infantry and Mongolian soldiers with scimitars marching beneath it.

The place that should have been the southern suburb vegetable market was now a small desert. The edges of this desert were sharply defined, as if they had been forcibly cut from a map and pieced together on this land. At the end of the desert stood a majestic pyramid. The pyramid and the surrounding open space occupied a very large area, far exceeding the limits of what the vegetable market could accommodate. Obviously, a large area of buildings around it had been replaced.

He even saw an extremely magnificent stone bridge spanning before him. That stone bridge was as grand and ornate as a fantasy building that could only be seen in games. Countless emerald green vines hung down from the stone bridge, and moss climbed up the bridge piers for more than ten meters. Around the stone bridge, there were lush jungles and shrubs.

Everything was in chaos.

And he finally saw the existence of "ordinary people."

On a street that still barely retained its original appearance, he and Lily saw several familiar faces – the old neighbors who lived in the southern suburbs.

A small shop facing the street had just opened for business. The shopkeeper, Old Zhao, was laboriously pushing up the old, dilapidated rolling shutter door. Helping Old Zhao was Old Wu, who ran the oil and salt shop next door. The two of them chatted idly while raising the rolling shutter door.

Old Zhao shook his head. "This broken door should have been replaced long ago."

Old Wu wiped his hands. "You said that last year."

"That's right. I said it the year before too – but my wife at home just won't let me replace it. What can I do? She says if it can still be used, don't waste money. This door is hard to open, which is good for preventing thieves. Even thieves are too lazy to open it..."

Standing beside them were several Spartans, full of murderous aura and wearing only leather loincloths. The two sides ignored each other, making for an extremely strange scene.

After seeing this scene, Hao Ren and Lily immediately went forward. They couldn't help but constantly size up the Spartan warriors who were almost naked in the cold wind with strange eyes, and then looked at Old Zhao and Old Wu, who looked completely normal, trying to see some clues.

But Old Zhao spoke first after seeing Hao Ren: "Hao Ren? Coming to buy something? Wait for me while I tidy up a bit. I opened late today..."

The old store owner's wrinkled face was full of the familiar smile he always had. There wasn't the slightest hint of anything unusual.

Even though there was a group of Spartan soldiers standing next to him, even though a sphinx stood not far in front of him, even though half of the shop behind him had been swallowed by the primeval forest and a creature that looked like a wild boar was howling on the roof of his shop.

Old Zhao was oblivious to all of this.

"Uncle Zhao..." Hao Ren's mind was filled with speculation, but his expression didn't change at all. He turned sideways, pointing to the sphinx not far away. "What do you think of this sphinx?"

Instantly, he felt everything around him freeze for a moment, like rusty gears stuck in place. Then, with a familiar smile on his face, the shopkeeper Old Zhao greeted him cheerfully: "Hao Ren? Coming to buy something? Wait for me while I tidy up a bit. I opened late today..."

Hao Ren looked at this familiar old neighbor again. Behind that vivid smile, he saw an aura that was as stiff and emotionless as a puppet. The uncle-like figure he had known for more than twenty years was now like a precise holographic image. Although it was identical to a real person down to every strand of hair, standing face to face, he could still feel a kind of inorganic sense of disharmony.

Hao Ren quickly left this place with Lily.

"Landlord... what's going on?" the husky girl asked a little timidly.

"And you call yourself a writer? Don't you have any imagination?" Hao Ren said without turning his head. "Obviously, the real people have been replaced – now, I'm afraid everyone except us has been replaced by something like a projection."

"What about those ancient people and ancient buildings on the street..." Lily looked around. A white steed with wings was flying across the low sky not far away, with a valiant Valkyrie riding on its back. "And those mythological creatures..."

"Also projections, projections with substance," Hao Ren frowned. "But I don't think they're just projections. Have you noticed that these things that are out of sync with time and space are becoming more and more numerous, while the 'modern scenes' that should really exist are becoming less and less? When we passed by here just now, there were still a few pedestrians wearing modern clothes on the road, but now there's only a bunch of ancient people and monsters running around."

Lily shrank her neck and stuck out her tongue. "That bat, she had to disappear at a time like this... Could this be something she stirred up?"