Free Web NovelHua City, a tributary of the Yangtze River runs through the entire city.
On the riverbank stretching for hundreds of kilometers, beside an unremarkable bay.
An ugly black strange fish had been staring at the hole in front of it, which looked like it was drilled by a drilling machine, for over a dozen hours.
"Lu Yibei obtained the title of Disaster several years in advance... Eclipse Society members carry the flesh and blood of Invasion Beast with them..."
"Crazy, truly crazy, what exactly happened on the timeline of this rebirth?" the system muttered to itself.
Although each rebirth resulted in slight deviations in the events it experienced, this time could be said to be the one with the biggest changes.
This terrifying pressure brought by the unknown made it feel almost on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Finally, at the moment the morning sun rose, it made a brave decision: it had to go down and see.
Although without a host, its combat strength in head-on close combat was not even comparable to that of a regularly exercising adult male.
But, one of the seven major factors that destroy the world was causing trouble in front of it; even if it couldn't stop it, it at least had to know what was happening below, right?
What's more, the Invasion Beast, in terms of danger alone, was probably higher than a Disaster that hadn't fully grown yet.
Judging from the intelligence collected from the system's only three times setting the Invasion Beast as a target for extermination, and severely injuring it twice.
Simply put, other than its iconic dark red flesh and blood, the Invasion Beast didn't even have a fixed form that it could remember and fully describe.
Its Power would change hundreds or thousands of times in a short period depending on the urban legend it came into contact with, and it would form different appearances based on different "food" and regional differences.
The core of its urban legend body had been liberated from the "common sense" of all urban legend, constantly and almost frantically replicating the Power of other urban legend, and then crudely fusing them.
And this deformed replication and evolution would sooner or later collapse due to its extreme deformity and irrationality, causing the Invasion Beast to exhaust its vitality and die.
At that time, the Power it had replicated would disintegrate and lose their restraints, and as its body collapsed, they would rush in all directions like fierce ghosts escaping their cages, causing large-scale black night disease affecting over a billion people and countless plants and animals, thereby giving rise to a large number of urban legend.
Although it itself had no intention of destroying the world, its existence was like a potent catalyst, accelerating the rate of growth in the number of urban legend throughout the world.
If left unchecked, the number of urban legend would quickly multiply several times, and this entire process usually only took three to five years.
And compared to the Invasion Beast "bursting" itself, the situation would be worse if it were controlled by other urban legend or Psychic organizations.
This was the case the only time the system was unable to severely injure the Invasion Beast.
That time, the Invasion Beast came into contact with Plague Tai Sui, and the two factors that destroy the world formed a symbiotic relationship under unknown circumstances.
One constantly replicating Power and fusing for evolution, the other constantly devouring urban legend and splitting for proliferation; such a combination was simply "reasonable" for going out on Halloween, so reasonable it was like a ghost.
In less than two years, the system stood on the last piece of pure land in the world, witnessing the entire world turn into the body of "Plague Tai Sui" with the last sunset.
...
The system wriggled its body, dug a channel on the riverbank, and directed the water flow into the bottomless hole. As the river water poured in, it leaped up and went straight down the current, and soon its vision plunged into darkness.
Then...
Falling in the darkness, constantly falling, finally after a sense of weightlessness struck, it saw a city that seemed to be wrapped in a giant bubble in the deep darkness.
Countless figures were scattering from the bubble, falling downwards.
The dark red torrent formed by the accumulation of the Invasion Beast's flesh and blood was coiled on the bubble, preying on those figures as if waiting for a rabbit, while countless dark red threads spread from its body, deeply rooted within the bubble.
After a while, the system couldn't help but curse. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com
"What, what the ♦ is going on? I can't figure this out anymore!"
It had originally thought it had "reborn" again, but upon seeing this scene, it suddenly realized that "Hua City", where it had been for the past few days, was actually a place similar to the Bamboo Scroll Illusion.
But even the living Great Serpent God couldn't create a complete "world".
What kind of existence could create a city so real that even it couldn't detect anything unusual?
Another factor that destroys the world? Could it be Disaster? the system thought.
----
In a cold storage facility in the distant suburbs of Yue City, less than ten kilometers from the border of Hua City.
In the dimly lit space, a damp and cold atmosphere and a sickening stench permeated.
The man in the black robe stood silently in front of the rusty metal operating table, his figure almost merging with the shadows. Only his pale face was clearly visible, his deep and somber eyes gazing towards the direction of the door, as if waiting for something.
"Creak—!"
The heavy iron door of the cold storage facility was pushed open, emitting a low groan, and a burly man strode in.
The strong man was dressed strangely. In early spring, the weather around Hua City had already warmed up, yet he was wearing a thick military coat for deep winter.
On his slightly gaunt face, he had a pair of triangular eyes. His right ear looked as if it had been bitten, without an earlobe. The combination of his facial features gave him a feeling of sorrow mixed with a hint of fierceness.
He was carrying a body bag on his shoulder, but it contained something alive. As he walked with a bumpy gait, the "live thing" in the body bag occasionally wriggled its body, emitting low whimpers.
The strong man walked up to Berses, threw the body bag onto the operating table casually, pursed his lips, and said in a muffled voice, "Here, I found what you wanted. Where's the payment?"
"Very good, very good, truly one of the bounty hunters with the highest positive rating for three consecutive years, your efficiency is high." Berses smiled warmly.
As he spoke, he bent down and took out a silver metal box with gold edges from under the operating table. He pushed it forward, opened the lid, and presented the contents of the box to the strong man.
The box contained thirty-five test tubes made of special crystals. The substance inside the test tubes, which resembled mercury in texture, emitted a faint green glow, and faces with pained expressions occasionally appeared in the surging bubbles within.
These were high-purity source spirits, one portion of which was equivalent to a C-level urban legend body core.
"source spirits that I personally purified, would you like to count them?"
The strong man glanced at the test tubes in the box, frowned, and said in a deep voice, "The quantity is wrong. The bounty said thirty portions, there are five extra."
"Heh heh." Berses chuckled twice, spread his hands, and said, "Friend, Hua City is the territory of Disaster. Infiltrating Hua City to collect black night disease patient samples is a dangerous job."
"To be honest, I originally hired three bounty hunters, but only you have returned so far, which shows your remarkable skill."
"These extra five portions are considered an advance deposit. I hope to have a long-term cooperation with you in the future."
After hearing Berses' explanation, the strong man's mouth slightly drooped. He closed the metal box, hugged it to his chest, and said faintly, "Did Disaster get scared out of his wits?"
"One should at least show some respect for a King of Weird Tales." Berses explained perfunctorily.
What's more, this King of Weird Tales has also displayed extraordinary characteristics... Berses added in his mind.
However, research findings regarding "special individuals" are currently among the highest secrets within the Eclipse Society and will not be easily revealed to a bounty hunter who recognizes "money" but not people.
"Just obtained through cunning and force." The strong man said indifferently, "If you ask me, instead of worrying so much about Disaster, you might as well be more wary of Gu Qianqian. I heard she is also from Hua City."
While in Taoyuan, "Gu Qianqian" had astonishing performances: luring a host of Psychic and urban legend into the Night Watch's encirclement to kill them, killing Suolang Baima, and killing three A-Level urban legend by herself.
Recently, a number of forces infiltrated Hua City to seek revenge on "Gu Qianqian" but failed, instead suffering heavy losses, which further added a significant stroke to her notorious reputation.
One who devours urban legend raw, cunning chestnut long hair, the bloody and Charm Demoness, the sinner who deceived the miracle Heavenly Father... various terrifying titles intertwined, making her clearly a rumored extremely dangerous existence.
urban legend in some places have even started using phrases like, "If you don't behave, I'll send you to Gu Qianqian to be eaten!" to scare the Little Freaks in the graves.
It is said that the effect is outstanding.
As for this strong man, it cannot be said that he has a grudge against "Gu Qianqian", only that they are irreconcilable.
If not for him using the special nature of the Spirit Mark to foresee the danger in ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) advance, he would have probably been buried on the riverbed of Jinchan Gorge along with those short-lived ghosts.
"Alas, friend..." Berses sighed lightly, saying, "For the sake of our long-term cooperation in the future, I'll give you a reminder."
"Someone as ruthless as Gu Qianqian hasn't caused any waves in Hua City. Do you really think it's just because Disaster is wary of her and turns a blind eye to all her activities?"
"They are both Psychic and urban legend active around Hua City. They must have had contact long ago. According to my speculation, they are either friends, or they are equally matched and cannot do anything to each other, which is why they can tolerate each other's existence. What do you think?"
Of course, there's another possibility, which is that they are actually the same person!
A Disaster possessing two high-level Powers simultaneously could easily create multiple identities using means that can change appearance.
Of course, given that Team B and Team A respectively monitored their activities in different areas before, this possibility is relatively low... Berses mused inwardly.
"..."
The strong man pondered thoughtfully for a moment, then cupped his hands towards Berses and said, "Thank you for the reminder."
----
Hua City Central Hospital, Laboratory Department, Independent Laboratory.
Silver Horn walked back and forth between various testing instruments, occasionally stopping to look through the documents and test results on the table.
"Like this... no, it should be like this?"
To deal with the black night disease incident in Hua City, he hadn't slept for a long time. His eyes were bloodshot, with heavy dark circles, and his slightly pale face was full of exhaustion.
However, his hard work was worth it. In the past few days, through studying ample black night disease samples from humans, plants, and animals, he had made significant discoveries.
Friendly Reminder: The Website is about to be revised, which may cause the loss of your reading progress. Please save your "book shelf" and "reading record" in time (screenshot saving is recommended). We apologize for any inconvenience caused!
He found a special substance in most of the samples.
That substance had almost no Spiritual Energy fluctuations, no physical form yet exhibited activity similar to living organisms. During certain stages of black night disease patients' illness, the degree of black night erosion would briefly increase, and then rapidly decline with the patient's death.
Jin Jiao temporarily identified that special substance as the tissue of a certain special urban legend, or an individual similar to a clone of the Plague Tai Sui, and sent the sample data to Jin Jiao, asking him to compare it with the Night Watch's database. Once a suspected urban legend was found, an investigation would be launched immediately.
In addition, Jin Jiao also discovered that the abnormal limb proliferation in these black night disease patients was actually a late-stage manifestation of this black night disease.
According to his in-depth observation, there should be two more stages of disease development before the abnormal limb proliferation appears.
In the early stage of the disease, they first experience sleep dysfunction. Every night after falling asleep, they have similar strange dreams and then wake up. Patients' mental state rapidly deteriorates due to this process.
However, nowadays, people tend to be more active the later it gets at night. Even without the disease, there are always a few days each month when they feel listless, so most patients in the early stage of the disease don't even notice any physical abnormalities.
The initial stage lasts for about three days, and then enters the second stage.
In the second stage, patients occasionally experience visual and auditory hallucinations. In broad daylight, they see buildings on the street that don't exist in the city, leading to a brief inability to distinguish between dreams and reality. Their emotions also start to become unstable, showing mild paranoia and personality splitting.
Lack of sleep itself can affect mental and physical health, causing hallucinations and psychological problems, similar to the symptoms of chronic insomnia. Even if they go to the hospital, they will most likely only be prescribed antipsychotic or sleep aids.
Then...
In just about two days, before the patients realize the medication is ineffective for their condition, they will enter the final stage, which is the stage of abnormal limb proliferation.
This special black night disease has a course of only about a week from onset to death. From a pathological point of view, it is already a very serious acute disease.
If...
Jin Jiao picked up a test tube containing the special substance extracted from the research sample's body from the table, frowned and examined it for a while, and then a fierce look flashed in his eyes.
He turned and went to the syringe, drew the special substance from the test tube, and inserted the needle of the syringe into his upper limb vein.
Just as he was slowly pushing the syringe and injecting the special substance into his body, Jiang Li, who was also looking exhausted, arrived at the independent laboratory with the latest autopsy records.
Seeing the scene before her, she was stunned for a moment and asked in surprise, "What are you doing?"
Hearing this, Jin Jiao looked at the syringe, then at Jiang Li, and said with a wry smile, "I'm verifying whether this black night disease is contagious!"
During the experiments these past few days, assuming this black night disease was contagious, he had already verified through traditional scientific methods whether this black night was contagious.
That special substance of unknown origin showed no pathogenic characteristics in experimental mice and dogs.
Perhaps if the number of experimental individuals was increased, there would be a very small probability of illness, but Jin Jiao felt that there was no longer any need for that.
There are many pathogenic factors for black night disease. In addition to the situation where the residual Spiritual Energy fluctuations cause an increase in individual black night erosion, leading to the onset of the disease, there are also possibilities such as urban legend organization pollution, artificial manipulation, and even the disease itself being a urban legend, etc.
Except for the first pathogenic factor, the other pathogenic factors will only appear with special Spiritual Energy fluctuations under specific conditions, causing black night erosion and then triggering symptoms.
Just like the sample Jin Jiao obtained when he participated in the Crusade Plague Tai Sui, from the surface, it is no different from common pneumonia viruses. Only after entering a living body, under the control of the Plague Tai Sui, will it begin to take effect, transforming the organism into a part of its body.
Except for the large number of black night disease patients who appeared in the old cement factory mining area that night, the black night disease currently appearing in Hua City is mostly found in organisms with Psychic potential, followed by ordinary humans, animals, and plants, and then inorganic matter.
Therefore, the fastest way to verify its contagiousness is to use individuals with Psychic potential or Psychic as samples.
The number of animals and plants with Psychic potential is small and difficult to obtain.
It is impossible for Jin Jiao to catch a Psychic potential or a Psychic as a sample. In desperation, he can only use himself as a test subject.
Marshall dared to drink bacteria to verify whether Helicobacter pylori would cause gastric ulcers. What's wrong with Jin Jiao injecting a little suspected urban legend tissue into his body for verification?
"It's not clear yet if this disease is curable..." Jiang Li reminded him tactfully, "Also, suicide doesn't provide welfare cemeteries."
The implication was, if you act so recklessly, you're courting death!
"Haha, don't worry." Jin Jiao smiled again, "I'm different from that reckless Jin Jiao. My Spirit Mark is 【Mythical Species·Silver Spirit Child】, that's a proper immortal in charge of the medicine furnace!"
Jin Jiao's words were not false. If Jin Jiao was a major killing weapon under Inspector Xing Yuan, then he was a top-tier healer.
A healer who can't even raise his own health, is he still qualified to be called top-tier?
Sometimes Jin Jiao would even think lewdly that if he were a girl, in a novel, he would at least need a G-cup character setting to make sense.
"What's more, if I get infected alone and can verify all the characteristics of this strange disease, wouldn't it be very cost-effective?"
"At that time, giving the public a notice early and implementing epidemic prevention measures can save many people."
"..."
Jiang Li held her forehead and was silent for a moment, then reluctantly complained, "Crazy."
----
Meanwhile, in the cold storage warehouse in the suburbs of Yue City.
Not long after the strong man left, Berses took out the black night disease patient sample from the body bag, removed his clothes, and fixed his body in a "too" shape on the cold operating table.
In the darkness, the cold air brushed against his skin, and the strong fishy smell drilled into his nostrils. The man, who was about thirty years old, suddenly woke up from his coma. After clearly seeing the environment he was in, his pupils contracted violently, and a terrified whimper came from his blocked mouth.
"Mmm - mmm -!"
The man vaguely remembered that after working overtime last night, he returned home at midnight and fell onto the bed to sleep without even washing up. In a daze, he seemed to hear a noise from the living room, but he didn't pay attention.
Recently, his company took on a new project, helping a client named Disaster Scare Liability Company develop a bizarre software similar to "Didi Scares People". The client's representative was a demanding woman, which made him work overtime every day and not get a good night's sleep.
When he returned home at night, as soon as he closed his eyes, he would dream of a city that was both strange and familiar. During the day, he also experienced severe tinnitus, which further worsened, leading to auditory hallucinations, but he didn't find it strange.
But...
What he never expected was that when he woke up, he would actually be in this ghost place.
The surrounding light was dim, candlelight flickered, and the air was filled with the fishy smell of dead fish. On the old walls, dark yellow water stains twisted into various bizarre shapes, and the torn plastic sheeting used for partition swayed in the breeze, like ghosts.
And in front of him stood a hunched, pale-faced man, holding an axe saw in his hand, looking at him expressionlessly, as if looking at a corpse waiting to be dissected.
This is definitely a urban legend event! The man thought.
"Hmm? Still alive?" Berses glanced at the awakened man and shook his head, "Unfortunately, you will have the chance to watch yourself being dissected with your own eyes, but don't worry, it won't hurt."
Although Berses's strange Spirit Mark could not make the man completely lose consciousness, it was easy to make him lose all five senses.
As for why he would deliberately keep the man's sight and hearing when he could make him lose all five senses...
Well, for no other reason, he just liked to watch this. Before joining the Eclipse Society and becoming a "scientist" under the guidance of the Chairman, he used to sell these kinds of videos on certain illegal Websites.
"Woo woo woo!"
Hearing Berses's words, the man let out a terrified whimper and struggled violently, pulling at the iron hooks on his hand and foot joints, which clanged. But just as Berses said, he didn't feel any pain.
So, the hand went up, and the knife came down.
The man watched with his own eyes as the saw, which had been used to saw frozen fish, plunged into his body, and the muffled sound of flesh tearing echoed in his ears.
"Don't move around, look, you've sawed crookedly, you've even cut your intestines!" Amidst Berses's loud roar, the man's face twitched violently, his eyes rolled back, and he lost consciousness.
----
Meanwhile.
A small truck loaded with potatoes drove onto the mountain road several kilometers away from the cold storage warehouse.
Rural music with a strong local flavor blared in the car, full of rhythm.
The driver was an old farmer in his fifties, with a cigarette in his mouth and humming a song through his nose.
He drove the small truck on the road, and from a distance, he saw the strong man standing by the roadside wearing a military coat, seemingly waiting for a ride.
As the small truck passed the strong man, the old farmer stepped on the brake, stopped the car in front of the strong man, and grinned, revealing a mouth full of yellow teeth stained by smoke.
"Brother, where are you going? It's hard to get a ride here, do you want me to give you a ride? Just give me a pack of cigarettes, let's go, get in the car, the potatoes aren't full, we can squeeze in!"
Facing the old man's enthusiastic invitation in a local dialect, the strong man with a bitter face frowned slightly, his expression darkened, and he impatiently roared, "Get lost!"
"Son of a turtle!" The old man rolled his eyes, "If you don't ride, I don't want to give you a ride either, forget it, forget it!"
Muttering and cursing, the old man restarted the small truck and drove forward, quickly disappearing around the corner of the mountain road.
After driving for several more kilometers, the old man suddenly felt a surge of blood, his face turned pale, and he quickly pulled the car over to the side of the road, and then...
He took out his mobile phone from his pocket, typed with both hands, and quickly sent a text message.
Old Farmer: "Confirmed target has completed the transaction, should we close the net immediately?"
Codename Au: "No hurry, that guy stole the black night disease patient's body definitely to sell it for money. We need to find his buyer before we can act. Send me the location information, and I'll send someone to stake out."
Old Farmer: "Understood, also... I think I've been infected, please send a brother over for support."
Codename Au: "Received, support will arrive within thirty minutes."
