The "Heart of the Ocean" ship, along with hundreds of top players aboard, vanished completely, like a boulder thrown into a seemingly calm lake, the ripples instantly transforming into a massive wave that swept the globe.
The real world is gripped by unprecedented panic, not by ordinary people who mostly see it as just another bizarre shipwreck or mass disappearance of the wealthy, but by the Horror Game community, especially the upper echelons.
Those guild leaders who could shake small nations with a stomp of their feet, those powerful figures who dominated their regions, and those players trained by national departments, evaporated silently like dewdrops in the sunlight.
Even more terrifying, a chilling feeling that penetrated to the bone enveloped all those in the know: something was hunting them down in a way they could neither understand nor resist.
This undercurrent of panic, like countless invisible threads, eventually converged and intertwined, reaching the deepest and most crucial part of the Horror Game.
In some unknown place in the void, a pale brain floats in an ocean of quantum chaos.
At this moment, this ancient and Silence space is no longer peaceful. On the surface of the giant brain, countless human faces embedded in it simultaneously opened their empty eyes and emitted silent screams. They are no longer numb decorations, but have become billions of frantic and fear-filled alarms.
The giant brain flickered and trembled wildly, transmitting a massive, chaotic, and terrifying stream of information.
"Anomaly, a large number of player terminals have been lost."
"Threat model recalculation... Unknown, unknown, unknown..."
The cold, emotionless synthesized electronic voice echoed within the core space, completely alarming the "consciousness" of the pale giant brain.
He couldn't comprehend this loss for the time being. The players were "crops" he had carefully selected, and the simultaneous death of such a large number of high-level players exceeded all pre-set logic and probability models.
A vast, icy power, like the very will of the world itself, erupted from the core of the pale giant brain. Ignoring spatial distance, it instantly pierced through the layers of barriers between the Horror Game and the real dimension, like an invisible net covering the entire world, beginning the most thorough and profound scan.
His only goal was to find the source of the massive player deaths.
This perception swept across the city ruins, past the smoke-filled battlefield, and pierced through the thick lead plates... Finally, like a cold probe, it precisely pierced a seemingly ordinary abandoned factory on the edge of the city.
Inside the factory, in the center of the spacious workshop, dozens of orbs of energy of various colors and twisted shapes floated before Hu Jiu —these were extraordinary powers extracted from the top players.
His fingertips were entwined with Supernatural of the supernatural, as he tried to trace the origin of these powers.
The instant a chilling sense of perception emanating from the pale, gigantic brain spread—
Hu Jiu's movements came to an abrupt halt.
He suddenly raised his head, his pupils shrinking to two tiny, cold stars, and a violent killing intent erupted from his body, causing the energy orb suspended in the factory to vibrate violently.
"Old Hu?!" Du Zhong exclaimed in shock.
"Something is watching me." Hu Jiu's voice was icy cold.
"Big guts?!" Du Zhong exclaimed, wondering who had the audacity to do this.
That perception seemed to have sensed Hu Jiu's alertness as well, becoming more refined and penetrating, like an invisible drill, attempting to thoroughly analyze Hu Jiu from the inside out.
"You're courting death." A fierce glint flashed in Hu Jiu's eyes, and Supernatural light surged within him, tracing back along the chilling sense of being watched.
Boom--.
Two invisible forces of perception collided violently in the void. There was no sound, no light, but the entire factory space groaned under the strain, and spiderweb-like cracks instantly crawled all over the walls.
The pale, gigantic brain's perception recoiled violently, as if burned by a red-hot iron, and the flow of information it transmitted back was instantly filled with chaos and rage.
On the other side, Hu Jiu also had a serious expression. He wouldn't let go and kept tracing back in the opposite direction.
"What is this?" Hu Jiu located a massive mass of energy, and extended a wisp of Supernatural power thinner than a hair from his fingertip, like the sharpest scalpel, carefully piercing into it.
Buzz--
A powerful impact, carrying a clear will to "resist," violently repelled that wisp of Supernatural power.
The Supernatural power at Hu Jiu's fingertips was dissipated.
"Hmph." He snorted coldly, a fierce glint flashing in his eyes, and an even more domineering and Supernatural aura pressed down.
"I saw it..." A few seconds later, a fierce light flashed in Hu Jiu's eyes, "I saw a massive, all-encompassing, neural network-like thing, like a super-organism parasitizing this world."
Countless pieces of information flashed through Hu Jiu's eyes. He suddenly looked up, a hint of excitement on his face. "A massive energy entity, not in the real world. It's hidden in an SSS-level dungeon of Horror Game."
Upon hearing this, Du Zhong asked curiously, "Oh? Is it the core of Horror Game?"
Hu Jiu said, "Perhaps."
Du Zhong: "What are you planning to do? Taking them down won't be that easy, will it?"
If Hu Jiu could easily devour the core of the Horror Game, he would have acted immediately without wasting a single word.
Hu Jiu: "The opponent is hiding in a dungeon called 'Abyssal Echoes,' which is very difficult to invade by brute force."
"Use the players," Du Zhong blurted out almost immediately.
Hu Jiu smiled, his gaze extending further, piercing through the barriers of space, and landing on a certain corner of the city.
There, Qin Lang had finished his revenge and was walking into a 24-hour convenience store to buy cigarettes, still carrying the murderous aura that had not yet dissipated.
Hu Jiu's assessment of Qin Lang's revenge was. "He's too soft-hearted."
He only killed Nie Zheng's father, the ringleader of the crime; the rest of the Nie Family were merely intimidated.
Being soft-hearted can lead to trouble. If it were Hu Jiu, he wouldn't be a Hu if he didn't drag out and kill the entire Nie Family!
But he didn't meddle in other people's business; after all, Qin Lang was just a tool.
In the convenience store, Qin Lang had just picked up a pack of cigarettes when his body suddenly stiffened. An extremely cold, foreign sensation pierced his forehead without warning.
Before he could even react, he felt as if an information bomb had been dropped into his mind, with countless chaotic and distorted curses flooding in and forming a brand.
"Ugh--." He groaned, the cigarette pack in his hand fell to the ground, and he staggered to grab the freezer for support. Veins bulged on his forehead, and deep in his pupils, his original self-awareness was being eroded and covered by a constantly changing chaos.
A dark, fragmented mark was faintly visible beneath the skin between his brows; it was a curse that Hu Jiu had forcibly implanted into the core of his consciousness.
However, at that moment, a sudden change occurred.
Hu Jiu originally only intended to use Qin Lang, a special player, to infiltrate the advanced dungeons of the Horror Game, but he didn't expect that this guy seemed to have incredible luck, practically the protagonist of this world. As soon as Hu Jiu made his move, another force appeared to protect him.
Hu Jiu's lips curled into a cold and ferocious smile. He "saw" it. Following the power protecting Qin Lang, his gaze pierced through layers of spatial barriers and data turbulence. He clearly saw the enormous, pale brain embedded with countless human faces.
The other party was suspended in a chaotic ocean of data, with countless nerve endings like tentacles penetrating the entire world.
"Found it." Hu Jiu's voice carried a hint of barely suppressed greed.
The hungry wolf finally spotted the fattest lamb.
Hu Jiu stood up, his ordinary trench coat fluttering even without wind. The unfathomable Supernatural power within him resonated with a deep, terrifying force, and a destructive energy powerful enough to instantly annihilate a country began to gather wildly.
He slowly raised his right hand, and in his palm, a point of extreme darkness was rapidly forming and compressing, causing the surrounding air to emit a sharp crackling sound as it could not withstand this force.
Then he slammed down in Qin Lang's direction, not targeting the real world, but the power hiding behind Qin Lang, the power from the core of the Horror Game.
Boom--
This time, it was no longer a silent collision.
An indescribable, terrifying, and Supernatural torrent, a mixture of extreme darkness and destruction, surged forth from Hu Jiu's fist. Wherever it passed, the real world shattered and vanished like fragile glass.
A massive passage, its edges swirling with turbulent spatial currents and its interior filled with destructive energy, was blasted open. At the end of the passage, the scene was no longer that of a city, but a bizarre space where chaotic waves of energy surged and a pale, gigantic brain floated at its center.
That's the core of Horror Games.
"Go." Without the slightest hesitation, Hu Jiu transformed into a black lightning bolt that tore through space, instantly shooting into the passage that was on the verge of collapsing.
Du Zhong followed closely behind.
Inside the core space of the pale giant brain, the alarm had been raised to the highest level, and a blinding red light enveloped the entire space.
"Intrusion. Highest level intrusion."
The target has breached the final barrier.
"Emergency defense protocol activated: Rule-eliminating sequence initiated, release all reserve energy."
The cold, rapid electronic synthesized voice echoed wildly, and countless faces on the surface of the pale giant brain emitted silent wails.
Countless thick nerve bundles tensed instantly, like giant, animated pythons, lashing wildly in the direction Hu Jiu and Du Zhong had just entered. Each strike carried a terrifying power that tore through space and rewrote the rules of local physics.
At the same time, space violently distorted, gradually transforming into a boiling meat grinder composed of rules, energy, and nightmares.
"Noisy." Faced with this terrifying counterattack that could instantly annihilate a civilization, Hu Jiu's face showed only cold annoyance. He didn't even bother to dodge.
Boom... Boom, boom.
The nerve bundles, powerful enough to tear apart a planet, lashed out at Hu Jiu, causing his body to become ethereal and rendering the attacks ineffective.
Hu Jiu ignored all attacks, his gaze fixed on the pale, gigantic brain in front of him, radiating an alluring energy fluctuation. That was his target.
He took a step forward, and the space around his body automatically twisted and folded, allowing him to teleport away from several giant nerve bundles that were strangling him, instantly closing the distance to the pale giant brain.
"I don't know what you are, but you look really delicious, so I won't be polite."
"Peel it off." Hu Jiu hissed, his right hand forming a claw as he fiercely clawed at the pale, massive brain so close to his face.
Laugh--
His fingertips did not touch anything substantial, but it was as if they directly penetrated some kind of invisible energy field. An extremely powerful suction force erupted from Hu Jiu's palm, directly targeting the core structures that made up the pale giant brain itself.
"Roar--"
A agonizing scream, beyond human comprehension, rang directly in Hu Jiu's ears. The pale giant brain sensed an unprecedented threat. Its massive body trembled violently, and its human face became even more distorted as it tried to break free from Hu Jiu's pull. At the same time, it mobilized the most primal power deep within its core and slammed it down on Hu Jiu.
The moment he was hit, Hu Jiu's body jolted violently. For the first time, a brief pause and confusion appeared in his cold pupils, and the suction force in his palm also faltered.
"Threat level exceeds definition." A cold, resolute glint flashed in the core information stream of the pale giant brain. "Initiating the final protocol: mutual destruction..."
Before the command was fully issued, the brief confusion in Hu Jiu's eyes was replaced by a more violent ferocity. His innate destructive instincts were activated, and his five fingers tightened sharply, devouring even more violently.
At the same time, he raised his free left hand, a black light swirling around his fingertips, and stabbed it fiercely into the pale giant brain.
Pfft.
Silent annihilation.
The black light, like cold water poured into hot oil, instantly created a collapsing hole on the surface of the pale giant brain. The pale giant brain's impending self-destruction command was abruptly halted, and its massive body rapidly dissolved like a punctured balloon.
"Ugh--"
Countless agonizing faces let out their final, desperate screams, before being devoured and erased along with the nerves they parasitized.
Hu Jiu's right hand finally grasped what he wanted—a clump that had been forcibly peeled from the core of the pale giant brain before it was completely annihilated.
This mass, like a "crystal core" in a zombie's brain, radiated a pure and vast power.
Hu Jiu looked at the "crystal core" in his palm, which was radiating an alluring light, and his eyes were filled with greed that was almost overflowing.
However, he didn't devour it whole like he would the power of a player. This thing had too much energy, and he was afraid of indigestion, and also afraid that there might be a backdoor inside.
With the item in my own hands, I have plenty of time to examine and refine it at my leisure.
"What the hell is this thing?" Du Zhong leaned forward, coveting the crystal core in Hu Jiu's hand.
Hu Jiu stuffed the crystal core into his pocket, not letting him even glance at it, and simply said, "I don't know what it is either, it's probably a god of this world."
"Ha~" Du Zhong's expression was strange, "This is what you call a god? You killed him in no time, he's really not worthy of being called a god?"
Hu Jiu rolled his eyes. "What, is being defeated by me something to be ashamed of? He's already pretty strong if he can even exchange a couple of blows with me."
Du Zhong: "I have never seen a true god, so I don't know who is stronger or weaker between you and True God."
Hu Jiu was speechless for a moment, but he was confident that with the power he had gained by sacrificing two worlds, he would not be afraid even if he encountered an existence that could be called a "god".
Besides, he now claims to be a ghost, a god, an evil god, or a malevolent god; isn't that a bit excessive?