Chapter 2079: A Space Unable to Contact the Outside World
Xu Huo saw a deserted street appear before him. The hazy sky let no sunlight through, and even with his naked eye, he could only see a small portion of the street. The traces of explosions on the ground and on the buildings on both sides extended deep into the thick fog—this was the only path visible. Although there seemed to be side roads to the left and right, the dense fog completely sealed off those intersections, as if deliberately forming obstacles to indicate that passage was not allowed there.
He stood still for a moment before stepping forward.
The fog limited his vision and also restricted his sensing range. What he could detect was essentially the area not covered by the mist. As he moved forward a bit, the fog might thin slightly, but when he looked back, the places he had passed would be covered by fog again. The buildings on both sides hadn't changed much, but it was clear they were extensions of the same street block.
The entire space was extremely quiet. The only sounds he could hear were his own footsteps and breathing. Within his perception range, there were no living people or animals, not even insects... This kind of situation wouldn't normally occur unless the environment was particularly special. But after entering, Xu Huo found the air breathable and non-toxic, with no poisonous plants growing nearby. The excessive silence gave him a sense of unreality.
Could it be an illusion?
When he reached the next fork in the road, he stopped and, with the help of an auxiliary item, released his spiritual realm. However, in the next second, a sensation of his consciousness plunging into an endless expanse of water made him instinctively shrink the scope of his spiritual realm. Frowning, he looked at the fog before him again. That uncomfortable feeling of having his brain exposed nakedly in an open area even surpassed the pain caused by an actual attack, instilling in him a primal fear of delving deeper.
This fear wasn't about worrying that there was a powerful enemy nearby, but rather the realization that he had suddenly become exceptionally weak—so weak that he had no power to resist.
Abruptly stopping in front of the fog, Xu Huo hesitated and took half a step back.
This feeling was even worse than witnessing Carmen Field's battle in Zone 017.
Then he opened his personal panel and discovered that he was disconnected from the outside world. The item slot was still usable, but both the Under Dimension and the Bounty Platform had no response.
"It hasn't completely detached from the game..." But it wasn't an instance either. He hadn't received any instance prompts, yet his connection to the outside world had indeed been severed.
After thinking for a moment, he decided to move forward. If he stopped here, he might be trapped until death.
Releasing his spiritual realm again, this time he didn't spread all his spiritual power out. Instead, he carefully touched the fog, slowly pushing inward. After adapting for a while, the fog on one side of the fork began to recede. At about two hundred meters, when he could almost see the next intersection, he stopped.
As the fog receded, the buildings on both sides naturally became visible. This place had once been a shopping mall—quite large in scale with many stores—but the information it carried was very chaotic. Whether it was the shops or the decorations, everything seemed to be cobbled together from different zones. From an aesthetic standpoint alone, many items shouldn't have been placed together. The public transportation signboards should have listed famous cities, because among them was "Platinum Eye."
Passing by the signboard, Xu Huo walked past a street sign that read "C901" and arrived at the next fork, "A901," where he saw a tourist information board a few meters away:
"Time Tower, 500 meters ahead."
Xu Huo looked in the direction indicated by the arrow on the signboard. Due to the fog blocking his view, he couldn't see what was ahead. Just as he was about to step forward, someone behind him suddenly warned, "There's only a tower over there."
Xu Huo turned around. A man carrying a longsword on his back leaped down from the tenth floor, landing lightly on the ground. In the blink of an eye, he was in front of Xu Huo. Face to face, the other man continued, "How long have you been in here?"
"For a while," Xu Huo said. "How long have you been in?"
"Probably a bit earlier than you." The man rubbed his stomach and asked, "Do you have any food? I didn't have time to prepare any when I got sucked in."
Xu Huo handed him some dried meat and water. "Is this an instance?"
"Not sure," the man replied vaguely while eating. "Probably not. If it were an instance, there should be instance prompts. Besides, we can't contact the outside world here."
"But the good thing is that the personal panel can still be opened. If it can be opened, it means we're still within the game's scope. If we can get in, we can definitely get out!"
"Where were you sucked in from?" Xu Huo looked around. "Have you run into anyone else?"
If this was the strange random instance that the people in Cockscomb Flower City had mentioned, then the female player and the sunny young man who had disappeared earlier should also have entered. There didn't seem to be any other danger in the city, so they should run into each other sooner or later.
"You're the first one." The man finished the dried meat in a few bites and smiled. "Didn't I say? A bit earlier than you."
He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "My name is Wang Ling. I'm from a D-level wormhole point, a B-level player."
"Xu Zhi. Also from a D-level wormhole point, a B-level player."
After briefly exchanging information, Xu Huo asked, "What does the Time Tower look like?"
"Just an ordinary clock tower," Wang Ling said, puzzled by the question. "Clock towers exist in many zones. They're just towers for calibrating time. What's so special about them?"
Xu Huo pointed at the distant signboard. "C901. Zone 01 of the C9 wormhole point also has a clock tower. It's very famous."
Wang Ling laughed heartily. "You noticed too. This damn place is like a junkyard—picking a bit from this zone and a bit from that zone. When I first saw it, I thought it was a prank. But I've blown up two buildings, and at least the buildings are real."
The traces Xu Huo had seen along the way were hard to distinguish as old or new. The city under the fog looked aged, but the signs of destruction seemed as fresh as yesterday, as if the entire city's population had just been cleared out.
Some shops still emitted the aroma of food, but there was no sign of open flames or electricity in use.
Next to them was a high-end supermarket. From outside, Xu Huo could see the dates on the packaging of the goods inside. According to this city's calendar, the production dates were three months ago.
"These things look tempting," Wang Ling said, casually grabbing an apple and sniffing it. "But I don't dare eat them."
"Have you ever heard a ghost story?"
The two walked together, and as they moved forward, Xu Huo listened to Wang Ling's story.
"Actually, the story is quite simple. The gist is that someone accidentally stumbled into another unreal world. He was originally an outsider, free to come and go. But because he was greedy and ate something from that unreal world, he became assimilated with it. In the end, he became part of that unreal world, forever unable to leave."
"Tell me, isn't that creepy? I sure don't want to be stuck here forever."
(Chapter End)