Chapter 430: The Focal Mountain
In the Boundary City, deep within the Special Affairs Bureau building, in the director's office, Bai Liqing let out a soft breath. While rubbing her thigh that had just bumped into the desk, she stood up and walked over to the large floor-to-ceiling window.
Outside the window, the seemingly tangible invisible mist began to flow instantly, transforming into various scenes under her gaze. Most of them were images captured by Xu Jiali at Garrison-3, including the surface sampling operations and the "Crystal Skeleton Heart" deep underground. The rest were many scenes reassembled deep in her consciousness—various materials about the "Derivative Star Entity" and intelligence just transmitted from the Feather Star Domain were aggregated, woven, deduced, and transformed into the various "possibilities" for that planet's next stage.
Huge crystal structures surged out from the planet's depths, crystal clusters bloomed like flowers on the surface of the ruptured crust, a colossal Ascended Entity drilled out of the planet, out-of-control crystalline substances grew rampantly in the absence of a "core," cities were swallowed by crystals, and hundreds of millions of people drowned in a dream of a planet breaking its cocoon and blooming...
The flowing mist rolled and rose, the images presented in the mist reorganized and eliminated repeatedly. After a long time, the mist finally settled, and a pair of light gray eyes emerged deep within the thick fog.
"Sister," the eyes looked calmly at Bai Liqing, "Trying to deduce infinite possibilities from the limited intelligence about the Dark Angel is meaningless—especially when the variable this time is 'Yu Sheng.'"
Bai Liqing gently exhaled. "I know."
"What are you thinking about now?"
Bai Liqing was silent for a moment, then twitched the corner of her mouth. "Mainly I've somewhat regained the feeling of overtime work from a while ago."
"And?"
"And my leg hurts."
"I can't help with that. I don't have hands right now."
"...I know."
...
Yu Sheng quickly browsed through the materials Bai Liqing had sent to his phone, and in the process, he gained some additional understanding of the "Derivative Star Entity."
As Bai Liqing had said, the most eerie and dangerous aspect of the Derivative Star Entity was not His physical form, but the cognitive interference that grew stronger as the parasitization deepened, and the "reality reconstruction" built on the accumulation of cognitive interference.
Beneath the appearance that "everything is normal," the crystals of the Derivative Star Entity had probably already covered the entire planet, already filled every corner of Mo City. The abnormalities were right under everyone's noses, yet always remained in the blind spots of everyone's subconscious.
Theoretically, if there were only the cognitive interference released by the Derivative Star Entity itself, then this level of "perceptual barrier" would not be able to deceive Real Person Yuan Hao, or even Xuan Che's divine sense detection. However, this planet also had hundreds of millions of residents—ordinary people affected by the cognitive interference used their collective "observation" to directly rewrite the reality structure of Shu Ji's surface.
This "overlay" built on the level of reality had surpassed "illusions" in the traditional sense, so that even if someone like Zheng Zhi, who was "exceptionally gifted," could see through the cognitive barrier created by the Derivative Star Entity for a short time, or if Yu Sheng, as when he encountered the Grand Sage of the Hidden Cult earlier, briefly tore open a "crack" in the sky above the city, they still couldn't truly pierce the entire veil—
Because the collective cognition of countless "dreamers" on this planet would immediately repair the damage to the veil, correcting this world back to the "normal" appearance in their subconscious.
And now the only good news was that this originally seemingly impenetrable "veil" had clearly developed problems. The "dream" built on the collective cognitive obstacle of everyone on the planet was conflicting with reality. The two were pressing and tearing against each other, creating the bizarre and twisted "Mo City" before Yu Sheng's eyes—within this distorted and absurd city, there was a very high possibility of hiding the rift that could completely tear that veil apart.
As for how this "conflict" had occurred... Yu Sheng was not sure. Perhaps it was because of the battle that happened at Garrison-3? Or had Zheng Zhi and Yuan Hao, who remained on Shu Ji, done something? Or was it a combination?
Regardless, it was clearly an opportunity.
Yu Sheng put away his phone and looked into the depths of the rain curtain.
The tilting city buildings were piled up at the end of his sight like collapsed cream, then gathered and rose along a common direction. A large number of building structures had accumulated there into a strange mountain. The surface of the "mountain" slowly undulated in the rain like a living thing, various deformed and twisted neon lights and intermittently flickering projections flowed like water on the mountain's body. Amidst the flowing light, one could still faintly discern the shapes of some landmark buildings and main city roads.
Again, lightless thunderclaps came from the direction of that "mountain," rolling and crushing across the sky.
Ever since leaving the hotel room, similar thunderclaps had been sounding from that direction.
Although Yu Sheng didn't know where Real Person Yuan Hao and the others had gone, and hadn't found any other clues near Huixian Island, this rolling thunder seemed like some kind of guidance, reminding him of the direction forward.
According to the materials provided by Bai Liqing, Yu Sheng could now roughly judge the current state of "Shu Ji."
The parasitization of the Derivative Star Entity on this planet had entered the late molting stage, only one step away from becoming an Ascended Entity. At this stage, the cognitive interference it produced had already covered the entire planet—thus theoretically, the entire "Shu Ji" was now actually in a distorted state.
But this "distortion" was not uniform—although its source was the Derivative Star Entity, what supported its operation were countless "ordinary people" affected by cognitive interference. Therefore, this dream covering the entire planet actually had a large number of "support points."
Every densely populated place was a support point.
Mo City was the largest city on this planet.
The most densely populated area of Mo City was the "support point of support points."
That "mountain"... should be it.
Hu Li transformed again into a gigantic nine-tailed silver fox. The protective spiritual energy around her repelled the wind and rain falling from the sky. Yu Sheng and Ai Lin sat on the silver fox's back, while Luna's figure appeared and disappeared like a ghost in the shadows of the rainy night, following closely around them.
In addition, the hazy projections of twelve Bronze Knights appeared in the rain from time to time.
In this "boundary" layer formed by the squeezing and conflict between dream and reality, the line between illusion and reality became blurred, so that even the projections of the knights around Luna manifested into reality much more easily than usual.
"There's noise everywhere around here," Ai Lin sat next to Yu Sheng, frowning as she tightly grabbed the fox fur beneath her. "Did you notice those human-shaped outlines that occasionally flash by on the roadside? And those colorful projections suspended in midair... they are all minds at the edge of the dream. My head is spinning."
Yu Sheng nodded. "I noticed—the closer we get to that 'mountain,' the more there are. It seems our direction is correct... The 'focal point of reality reconstruction' in Mo City is just ahead."
Ai Lin blinked, and then suddenly as if she had discovered something, she looked up and stared straight at Yu Sheng.
"It seems you have a blood calamity again?" the little puppet suddenly said.
Yu Sheng hadn't expected that this one would stare at him just to say that, and he was momentarily at a loss whether to laugh or cry. "You... fine, a blood calamity it is. I'm used to it."
"The amount of bleeding this time will be huge."
Yu Sheng: "...Then I thank you for your good prophecy."
Ai Lin: "Mm-hmm~"
Yu Sheng: "..."
Meanwhile, Hu Li had already traversed the last section of the broken main road on the city's central axis. The nine-tailed silver fox leaped over a floating plaza structure and finally arrived at the foot of that "mountain."
The mountain seemed to have increased in height again. The buildings fused and covered on its surface were twisted into even more incomprehensible and chaotic structures. A wide structure that seemed to have once been an elevated track covered the mountain's surface, winding toward the peak.
Countless humming and rumbling noises appeared all around, and Hu Li instinctively slowed down.
Yu Sheng saw countless shadows—semi-transparent colored human outlines, gathering at the foot of the mountain like passersby from another dimension. Some were walking on the road, some were sitting leisurely on curved benches, some were floating in midair, their postures as if they were reading books or newspapers, and some were sitting cross-legged, as if meditating in concentration.
These were the mind-entities wandering at the edge of the dream—at this moment, they might still be doing daily activities in the real-world Mo City, perhaps talking with friends and family, or busy with work. However, their subconscious had begun to detect the dissonance deep in their cognition. A self-preservation instinct derived from the mind's nature caused a part of their minds to "drift" here, instinctively gathering and converging toward other minds.
A huge outdoor display device was stuck crookedly into a building at the foot of the mountain. Intermittently flickering holographic projections floated above the device—
"...Sleepwalking phenomenon is spreading throughout the city, cases of qi deviation are surging again... It is recommended not to approach the outskirts at night...
"The shadows lingering around the old refining tower have been confirmed to be caused by collective hallucination, residents who see abnormal scenes need not panic...
"The storm has arrived as scheduled, a new round of cold air is entering the southern region... The wind and rain in the city are expected to intensify further. Citizens who have not yet reached the level of qi introduction should not engage in outdoor activities for long periods...
"This city is very good, this planet is very #%@... Everything is very good, everything #￥ is good, everything ￥@#% good..."
Yu Sheng's gaze was fixed on the projection device half-buried in the building, watching the text on it shake and change continuously, watching various bizarre and surreal landscapes that resembled Mo City but were not, alternating and flickering between the words.
On the steep "mountain," more and more "billboards" lit up. The projections that lit up in succession flickered in the rainy night like continuous welcoming flags—
"Welcome to Mo City, the most prosperous city on the border.
"Mo City is peaceful and safe today.
"Nothing is happening on Shu Ji today.
"Welcome to Mo City, welcome to Mo City, welcome to..."
"Boom!"
A thunderclap burst, the sky roared.
The blurry figures gathered at the foot of the "mountain" seemed to sense something. Many of them looked up blankly at the sky, while the continuously flickering holographic projections on the mountain trembled violently, and many words were dispelled by the thunderclap, dissipating into the air.
Yu Sheng looked up following the sound. Enhanced by his far-superior vision, he saw a woman dressed in a black long dress, with pitch-black hair and a high bun, standing coldly on the mountaintop. She held a sharp sword in her hand and looked down at the foot of the mountain with some indifference.