Chapter 164: Dark Boundless Realm 19
Was that… a bat?
Kui Xin was momentarily stunned.
A bat with eight eyes! And it was much larger than an ordinary bat, almost the size of a human head. The largest bat Kui Xin had seen before was only the size of a palm.
The eight-eyed bat silently opened its mouth, revealing a set of glistening teeth. Kui Xin flashed backward using Shadow Transition and drew a kitchen knife from her lower back.
The bat did not pursue her. Instead, it emitted a twisted, piercing screech that sounded like nails scraping against glass or chalk on a blackboard. Upon hearing the sound, Kui Xin felt a jolt throughout her body, her eardrums buzzing to the point of pain.
This thing actually has a sonic attack!
A wave of unease washed over Kui Xin. She used her magnetic sword to control the kitchen knife, making it hover and fly towards the bat.
Fortunately, aside from its large size and sonic attack, it seemed to possess no other abilities. The flying kitchen knife effortlessly pierced through the bat’s body, pinning it to the ceiling.
The eight ferocious crimson eyes closed. Kui Xin waved her hand, and the bloodied kitchen knife flew back into her grip, causing the bat’s corpse to drop to the ground and stir up a small cloud of dust.
Kui Xin turned on her mobile phone’s flashlight and poked at the bat’s body with the knife. She saw two neat rows of eyes—eight in total—lined up on its face. Additionally, the bat’s head was covered in many protruding growths resembling tumors. The dim light had made them hard to see earlier, and each tumor had a tiny slit, like closed eyelids. She sliced a piece of a tumor off and pried open one of the slits with the tip of her knife, observing a scarlet eye that rolled around flexibly inside, resembling a living creature…
A shiver ran down Kui Xin’s spine, but she forced herself to continue the examination.
The bat’s membranous wings had jagged bone spurs jutting out, making a clattering sound when knocked together. They seemed very hard, and some bone spurs were still emerging from the membrane, suggesting they were still in a state of growth.
In less than a minute, the bat’s corpse melted, its bright red blood flowing on the ground.
Furrowing her brows, Kui Xin stood up.
According to various experiments in the Second World, animals injected with Divine Blood would die within three days, while a few primates might survive for a week. If this bat had mutated due to Fang Zhi’s blood, then its survival time would be too long… However, Fang Zhi’s blood wasn’t Divine Blood, and the blood from the bodies of creatures in the Second World didn’t possess such strong contamination properties…
Kui Xin flicked the blood off the kitchen knife and stepped over the bloodstains, making her way deeper into the tobacco factory.
Without tools to handle the blood, she would have to explore first and return later to clean up.
She remained particularly vigilant, entering Shadow Transition mode at the slightest noise. After a few minutes, she felt that this wasn’t conducive to her investigation, so she intentionally made her footsteps louder to attract any hidden creatures lurking in the darkness.
Rustling sounds came from around the corner of the hallway, and five or six bizarre-looking creatures with excessively long limbs scampered toward her, squeaking loudly as they ran.
Kui Xin stepped back, and her kitchen knife whirred through the mutated beings, severing their limbs in one sweep.
“What is this… mutant rats?” Kui Xin’s mood grew heavier.
As the mutant rats’ corpses also turned to blood, she looked up to scan her surroundings and struck the metal window frame with the handle of her knife, creating a jarring sound that resonated through the factory.
She waited in place for two minutes, but no mutated creatures came.
Staying alert, Kui Xin walked a few steps and then stopped, occasionally striking the window frame and stomping her feet, attempting to lure out the creatures hiding in the shadows… but her efforts were in vain. The abandoned factory was eerily silent, as if no living creature existed.
Finally, she reached the location where Fang Zhi had been killed.
The red liquid had dried up, and when she shone her flashlight on it, a layer of dust covered the remnants of the red liquid. Scattered around were some desiccated rat corpses, some of which were incomplete, showing signs of gnawing from rodents.
Had some rats encountered this blood and died from poisoning, while another batch had mutated, consuming their dead kin and aggressively attacking any living creatures?
This place felt unnervingly silent.
Aside from the whispering wind and her own breathing, there was no other sound.
Kui Xin circled the entire abandoned factory several times, trying to spot more mutated creatures. However, these beings didn’t seem to be simple mindless attackers; they appeared to be hiding.
She glanced at her phone. It was 23:56, almost midnight.
It looked like it was going to be a sleepless night.
In such circumstances, Kui Xin couldn’t peacefully sleep; she pondered what else she could do.
The mutated animals still had characteristics of normal creatures, such as body heat and a beating heart. To efficiently investigate whether there were more mutated beings nearby, she needed specialized equipment, like thermal imaging display devices and detection radars.
If only this were in the Second World, where wearing an ocular device would solve all those problems—such equipment was still too cumbersome and inflexible here in the First World.
Kui Xin walked another round around the tobacco factory. Staying here was proving to be futile; it was better to return and organize the information. She needed to check the forum for updates from players and search for informants.
However, just as Kui Xin was about to leave, her surroundings suddenly blurred. The lines of reality twisted, and a whisper emanated from the darkness, mimicking the roar of a beast.
The gray walls, the pitch-black corridor, and the moonlight projected onto the ground melded together like colors in a dark palette, indistinct and chaotic. In the depths of the darkness, a shadow that obscured its face writhed, as if struggling to break free.
The change happened in an instant.
Perhaps it was a second or even less; Kui Xin’s vision returned to normal.
She stood dazed for two seconds, shocked to find her back completely soaked in cold sweat.
Looking down at her phone, she saw the time read 00:00.
Midnight! The time of the anomaly coincided with the moment when players transition between worlds—midnight zero point.
With a grim expression, Kui Xin quickly scanned her surroundings, unwilling to linger any longer. She activated the Spatial Vortex and dove into it.
When she arrived at the brightly lit city center, her intense heartbeat gradually calmed.
She saw numerous shops operating 24 hours, and scattered night returners on the street. The warmth of human presence soothed her restless spirit, prompting her to take a few steps towards the bright lights. Upon seeing the illumination and humanity, she finally felt as if she had returned to the realm of the living.
Kui Xin bought a drink from a convenience store, downing it all in one go before returning home.
She opened her phone and saw that the forum was buzzing.
Players from both domestic and international backgrounds were posting. Regional tasks were not exclusive to Kui Xin’s country; other nations had them as well. Moreover, foreign players accurately indicated the location of tasks in their descriptions.
The anomalies were global, and those transformed cities might be evenly distributed worldwide.
Although Kui Xin felt troubled upon seeing the mutated beings, their combat power was very weak, easily dealt with. The real problem lay with their blood. If that blood still possessed contaminating properties and could induce further mutations in other creatures, the situation would become dire.
However, based on the space-time distortion that occurred at midnight, the reality could be much more complex.
“The Dark Realm Descends,” the four characters represented a meaning far beyond mere contamination by remnants of Heterogeneous Blooded beings. It indicated that the darkest realm had truly intersected with the reality where Kui Xin existed.
Like many players, Kui Xin also had questions in her mind.
—Why Tonglin City?
Was it merely because the Heterogeneous Blooded Fang Zhi had died there? Had any other regions experienced space-time distortions?
Was the distortion limited to that small factory, or did it envelop the entire Tonglin City?
Although the distortion lasted a short time, it was significant enough. If it were a city-wide distortion, others would certainly have felt it—like He Kangshi, who had to still be awake at that point.
Curious, Kui Xin tentatively sent a message: “Any updates?”
He Kangshi replied within three seconds: “Forum? Nothing, boss.”
He hadn’t noticed the space-time distortion.
Kui Xin thought for a moment and then messaged Su Rong: “How are things on your end, Rongrong?”
“I’m fine, Xin Xin. Don’t worry; I’ll watch my safety and minimize going out.” Su Rong replied.
Su Rong also hadn’t noticed the space-time distortion…
Furrowing her brows, Kui Xin searched keywords on the forum and found no players discussing related content.
Perhaps the space-time distortion phenomenon truly only occurred in that small factory.
Kui Xin refreshed the posts, noticing a new thread come up in the forum’s first section.
Title: “Second World Secret Cult Related Religious Stories Explanation.”
Instinctively, Kui Xin glanced at the poster’s nickname and discovered it was someone she recognized—the player who had reached out to her, suspected to be working in the TQC.
First Floor: The Second World does not permit religious activities and does not allow private retention of religious texts. I am not a member of the Secret Cult, but I have learned some of these stories from various sources, so I’m posting this for educational purposes, hoping everyone can understand more about this terrifying organization.
1L (Original Poster): Before the history of humanity’s birth, there existed Xenomorphs in the world. In the mythological texts of the Secret Cult, Xenomorphs are not species that naturally emerged in the Second World but appeared in the world after the “Seven Days of Blood.”
The “Seven Days of Blood” is described in their religious texts as “the day of the ancient gods’ descent.” Before humanity existed, during the era when various prehistoric creatures ruled the land and sea, the ancient gods arrived on that planet. They possessed unparalleled might, and with their arrival, rain of blood fell from the sky for seven days.
During those seven days, the crimson rain stained the land and oceans, leading to the extinction of many species living on that planet. When the blood rain ceased after seven days, Xenomorphs emerged from the earth and began inhabiting that planet. For the following hundreds of thousands of years, some Xenomorphs slept deep beneath the earth and oceans, while others remained active, leaving behind folk legends around the world.
