Chapter 516: Suspicious Clues

A few minutes later, the King was sitting leisurely on the shoulder of the Wandering Mage big sister, licking his own paw, while the young swordsman, the village girl priest, and the mysterious Stealth Walker from the adventurer party formed a circle nearby. They were shouting things like "For the sake of everyone in the village," "Don't underestimate our bonds," "This is the power of our mutual trust"—phrases that no one could understand—while bashing the cat with a clatter.

Anyone who didn't know would think from the sound that they were storming the Demon King's castle.

"That's just how cats are, and 'entities' are no exception," the King said lazily, looking up at Zheng Zhi beside him, who seemed to want to say something. "If you save it, it will hiss at you; if you're polite to it, it will hiss at you; if you ignore it, it might still hiss at you. So sometimes you might as well give it a beating—but it only works right after you hit it. Next time you meet, it'll still hiss at you…"

Zheng Zhi held back for a long time, then finally couldn't help it: "But you're also a cat."

"Even though I'm a cat, I still say that—because the difference between cats can sometimes be greater than the difference between you and me," the King said, stretching his body vigorously and yawning, then lightly jumped off the Wandering Mage and walked forward with graceful steps. "Alright, alright, you can stop now. At this level, we should be able to have a proper conversation."

The village girl priest, who had been swinging her short staff with an excited expression, was the first to stop. Then she quickly tugged at the young swordsman and the Stealth Walker, and the three of them turned respectfully to bow to the King before hurrying to the side.

The black cat that had just been hissing at everyone in its Spinosaurus form now lay obediently on the ground, showing a submissive posture to the tabby cat approaching it.

Then the King began meowing and mewling with the local cat to find out what was going on in the Dark Alley—still interspersed with gestures, flushed faces, claw swipes, and the King's frustrated growls at his intellectually disabled kin for their poor language skills and limited feline vocabulary.

Meanwhile, Yu Sheng took the opportunity to have Eileen quickly deal with the remaining cobwebs covering the Dark Alley.

"...Not really working, Yu Sheng," the little puppet said, tugging at a bundle of threads and fiddling for a while before stopping with a worried expression. "It seems like I've reached my limit. Even with the Omen Star's 'amplification,' I can only control the nearby threads. The farther I go, the more I feel a kind of... 'resistance,' as if something is constantly pushing back the lines I extend."

"Resistance?" Yu Sheng frowned instantly upon hearing this, instinctively looking up into the depths of the Dark Alley—of course he saw nothing. "Can you find the source of that resistance?"

"Can't find it," Eileen said, feeling carefully for a moment, then shook her head. "I just feel... it's everywhere."

While the two were talking, Luna's figure suddenly leaped out of the group. She lightly stepped onto a nearby rooftop, crossed between the crisscrossing black cobwebs, and quickly reached the tallest building beside the Dark Alley. After observing for a few seconds, she gracefully returned to Yu Sheng's side.

"The cobwebs extend infinitely," the Saintess said, describing her findings. "The structure is like a cocoon."

Huli also came up to a cobweb hanging from midair. Hugging one of her large tails, she rubbed the tip of it and produced a bright, nearly blinding blue-white flame, using an argon fox weld to burn the seemingly thin and fragile thread.

The foxfire spread along the cobweb, and the black thread disappeared into the air for a moment. But the moment Huli withdrew the foxfire, the burned thread returned to its original state.

The fox girl looked up. "Can't burn it, benefactor. This thing regenerates instantly."

Yu Sheng felt that the fox girl's phrasing was a bit off...

But before he could speak, the King had finished communicating with the local cat. Seeing the serious expression on the King's face as he approached, Yu Sheng quickly stopped his stray thoughts and asked, "How is it?"

"According to the 'cat,' these 'threads' first appeared suddenly from the crossroad, then starting from that point, they began to emerge from every building in the alley," the King said with a serious cat-face. "They've actually stabilized now, at least they're not increasing anymore."

Eileen immediately poked Yu Sheng's head. "Hey, looks like it's not your fault for digging a hole in the old bookstore. It started from the crossroad."

Little Red Riding Hood looked up and glanced at the black cats above the Dark Alley that were trapped in the cobwebs, still struggling and writhing.

"Then why are these cobwebs 'catching' the 'cats' in the Dark Alley?" she asked with a puzzled frown. "We've been testing here for a while, and these cobwebs don't seem to react much to outside stimulus."

The King licked his paw. "Just being spiteful."

Little Red Riding Hood: "...?"

"When they saw something unfamiliar appear in the alley, they pounced on it," the King said lazily. "And then they all got stuck here."

Everyone: "..."

While they were speechless, Yu Sheng suddenly seemed to think of something, a contemplative look appearing on his face.

The little puppet quickly noticed his expression change. "What are you thinking about?"

"According to the rules of the Dark Alley, under normal circumstances, 'cats' are not generated on the first layer," Yu Sheng broke the silence, looking up at the dimly lit shops with blurry signs in the alley. "Only when someone activates a deeper layer of the Dark Alley at the crossroad will entities begin to generate here—including the large number of 'cats' we saw last time, which was because the old bookstore collapsed and sent everyone directly into the deep Dark Alley."

Hearing Yu Sheng's reminder, Little Red Riding Hood suddenly realized as well, looking up into the depths of the alley.

When they first entered, everyone's attention was only caught by the eerie scene of cobwebs covering everything, to the point that even Little Red Riding Hood, a veteran spirit world detective, hadn't noticed certain environmental details beneath the webs. Now, she finally understood what that lingering sense of wrongness was about.

The signs of the street-facing shops were blurry, the text on them seeming to be unreadable and chaotic from the start; the string lights tangled in cobwebs gave off an eerie glow, and the flickering dim light was not the result of interference from the webs; the edges of puddles everywhere on the road were covered in filthy moss, which spread up to the nearby walls, forming all kinds of strange patterns.

The alley was dim, with a twilight-like sky mixed with a tinge of blood.

All of the above were typical characteristics of the Dark Alley having entered its deep layer!

"No wonder there are so many cats!" Little Red Riding Hood took a soft breath. "When we first came in, this place was already in the deep layer state!"

Zheng Zhi thought for a moment and then hesitantly said, "Could it be the effect of these cobwebs? This place is already in such a strange state, maybe the operational rules have changed too..."

"Although we can't rule out that possibility, it's best not to casually attribute unexpected situations in the Otherworld to 'rule failure,'" Little Red Riding Hood said immediately, cautioning Zheng Zhi, who was as green as they come. "Rules are the most stable 'underlying structure' in the Otherworld. Among all possible causes of anomalies, 'rule failure' must be placed last."

Zheng Zhi opened his mouth. "Then, then what about this situation..."

"There must be someone else who entered the Dark Alley and triggered the conditions for entity generation here," Little Red Riding Hood said, her eyes glowing with a wary light like a wolf in the twilight. "And who knows what that person did, but the Dark Alley is clearly being 'maintained' in the deep layer state."

The King seemed to understand as well and quickly said, "Maybe that's also why these cobwebs have spread so far—under normal circumstances, Otherworlds periodically reset themselves. But now, at a time when the Dark Alley has just opened for the day, its state seems to be stuck..."

A faint chill spread through the air. Zheng Zhi subconsciously rubbed his arms, but when he looked up into the depths of the alley, he could only see the crisscrossing cobwebs, the silent empty street, and the shops with their doors and windows tightly shut. As far as the eye could see, there was no sign of any 'other visitor.'

"The person... must have already left, right?" he said hesitantly. "Could it be another spirit world detective or investigator? One of your colleagues..."

But before he could finish, Little Red Riding Hood interrupted: "Impossible. After we returned from the Dark Alley last time, we reported the situation to the Special Services Bureau, and they suspended the access permits to the Dark Alley. Right now, only 'the Hotel' and 'the Fairy Tale' have access here. If any other investigator or spirit world detective approached the node device here, it would directly trigger an alarm."

Zheng Zhi fell silent at once. Yu Sheng couldn't help but recall the information about the Black Dot Group that Bai Liqing had mentioned when she contacted him earlier. After a brief pause, he broke the silence: "Let's go to the crossroad. If the cobwebs started spreading from there, there might be some traces at the intersection."

"But the road to the crossroad seems to be completely blocked by cobwebs," Little Red Riding Hood said, looking toward the end of the alley, her eyes faintly glowing in the dimness. "The closer you get, the more cobwebs there are."

Yu Sheng didn't speak, only slightly turned his head to glance at the little puppet on his shoulder.

"I-I'll try my best," Eileen immediately nodded, but the little puppet, who was usually fearless and always cocky, was clearly lacking confidence now. "Not sure it'll work, these threads don't listen to me much."

Yu Sheng was quite open-minded about it. "We'll go as far as we can. If we really can't get through, we'll have Huli do a saturation bombing. It'd be good to at least get a look at the crossroads."

Little Red Riding Hood opened her mouth at that, as if she had a bellyful of nagging, but she looked at Yu Sheng's matter-of-fact expression and then at the nine-tailed fox beside her whose eyes were already shining, and in the end, she swallowed all the nagging back down.

Oh well, every organization has its own corporate culture...