The Disturbance

"What, what is this?!"

The D-Class personnel who got out next followed Ning Xiuyuan's gaze. His legs went weak, and he nearly collapsed to the ground, his voice trembling uncontrollably.

"The god has awakened... The god has awakened..."

The two elderly cultists who had come along were even more terrified. With a "thud," they dropped to their knees and muttered shakily, their cloudy eyes filled with fear and self-reproach.

"What did you say—the god?"

A burly D-Class personnel turned to look at the old man.

"You disturbed the god's long slumber. You will eventually become sacrifices, your rotten bodies fermenting your souls, which will be offered to the god to please him and earn forgiveness and salvation!" the old man babbled fervently and incoherently.

The D-Class personnel exchanged glances. The neurotic and bizarre words sent chills down their spines!

"Sir, what, what exactly is going on?"

A bespectacled D-Class personnel asked the Tactical Response Member escorting him with a pleading expression and a smile uglier than a crying face.

"You don't need to know. Obeying orders is your greatest guarantee of survival."

The Tactical Response Member's cold voice came from within his fully enclosed tactical helmet.

"Daniel, don't forget your mission! Oh, right, one more reminder: the thing strapped to your body is a miniature bomb. Complete the deal, and as long as you survive, we can guarantee that you won't die."

A cold voice came through "Ning Xiuyuan's" invisible wireless earpiece.

Ning Xiuyuan withdrew his gaze and walked toward the villa.

Seeing this, the remaining D-Class personnel glanced at the Tactical Response Members eyeing them menacingly, then gritted their teeth and followed.

The two frightened old men also scrambled after them.

All the while, they kept muttering words like "atonement," "salvation," and "forgiveness."

On a towering beech tree outside the villa, a raven cocked its head and stared at the group slowly approaching.

That entire morning, it had already watched more than a dozen people in orange uniforms enter the villa, yet none had returned.

Only the corpses in the air had grown more numerous.

"Ning Xiuyuan" calmly approached the villa, raised his head slightly, and examined the detailed textures that the birds' eyes had failed to detect.

It was an old stone house. Flaking, mottled paint could not conceal the weathered, eroded bricks, and everything seemed utterly lifeless.

He pushed open the creaking wooden door.

Stale air that had not circulated in ages, mixed with the stench of rotting corpses, rushed into his face beneath the stirring of the serene incense, making people want to vomit!

Ning Xiuyuan did not stop. He crossed the threshold and entered the villa.

As he looked around, several rats slipped silently out from his trouser legs and scattered in all directions.

The interior was dim. The living room was completely empty, without even a single sofa, table, or chair. Only the walls were covered in strange graffiti.

The graffiti was highly abstract, looking like countless lines tangled together.

"Clang!"

Ning Xiuyuan was just about to inspect it more closely when the door behind him slammed shut, startling him and making everyone who had entered shudder.

"Daniel, how do we... get out?"

A D-Class personnel asked in a trembling voice. Although the place was spacious, for some reason it gave him a feeling of oppressive overcrowding, as if the air were packed with restless souls.

"Ning Xiuyuan" said nothing. He walked toward the stairs, preparing to go up to the second floor.

--The rats he had released had already searched the entire first floor. It was completely empty. Not only was there no altar of the God of Abundance, there was not even a single intact piece of furniture.

"No, Daniel! That is the god's resting place. You must not go up and disturb him!"

When Ning Xiuyuan was about to reach the second floor, one of the elderly cultists suddenly shouted.

Ning Xiuyuan glanced back at him, then continued toward the second floor as if nothing had happened.

Seeing this, the six D-Class personnel exchanged glances. After a moment of hesitation, they hurried after him.

"Creak... creak..."

The villa had a long history, and its wooden stairs were rotten to the core. The seven people stepped on them, making the stairs creak under the strain and leaving everyone on edge.

What was even more infuriating was that the two old men were still below, shouting all kinds of threats.

"Do not go up! Desecrating the god's slumber will earn you destruction as the lightest punishment!"

"Go home, child. Do not disturb the god!"

"O great god, please forgive these poor lambs!"

The old men's voices grew louder and more numerous. One D-Class personnel could not stand it any longer and instinctively looked back, whereupon all the blood in his body suddenly froze.

"Ah—"

A shrill scream tore through the uproar in the villa.

Ning Xiuyuan and the others turned back in astonishment. In an instant, they felt as if they had fallen into an icy abyss, their entire bodies turning cold.

"Ah—"

"Ghosts!"

Two D-Class personnel twisted their faces in terror and instinctively bolted up the stairs in blind panic.

The living room, which had been empty moments ago, was suddenly packed with people. Each one was decrepit and withered, staring with reddened gray eyes. They looked like preserved human corpses—or wax figures made from human skin by the hands of demons.

When Ning Xiuyuan and the others turned to look at them, they all shut their mouths in unison, satisfied smiles appearing on their faces.

They were satisfied that Ning Xiuyuan and the others had taken their advice.

Several cultists near the stairway suddenly walked backward. Their legs bent backward in the opposite direction, and their heads rotated a full circle to face behind them.

They looked like dolls with their limbs put on backward by a child!

Bizarre, twisted, and horrifying.

"Come down, child. Do not disturb the god!"

"O great god, I did not go up to disturb you. Look, I am even facing away from you!"

As the cultists uttered mad words, they folded their limbs and crawled up the stairs.

At that moment, every attempt to suppress fear with reason failed completely!

"Ah—ghosts!"

The remaining four D-Class personnel could no longer restrain the terror surging from their hearts. They scrambled toward the second floor.

They nearly knocked Ning Xiuyuan down the stairs.

Ning Xiuyuan gripped the banister and turned to take a deep look at the monsters surging toward him in madness. In the end, he still ran toward the second floor.

Strangely enough, as soon as they entered the second floor, the deranged muttering from below vanished at once, as if it had never happened.

"What, what was that?" a D-Class personnel asked Ning Xiuyuan in terror.

--

At that moment, on a country road one kilometer from the villa.

Inside a satellite command vehicle, several high-ranking officers watched the footage transmitted by the miniature cameras on the D-Class personnel, cold sweat pouring down their foreheads. They were intensely curious—and intensely afraid.

As frontline commanders, they knew all too well how strange containment objects could be.

Some containment objects could not have their faces looked at;

some containment objects could not have their voices heard;

and with some containment objects, learning their secrets would cause one to descend into madness.

That was why they were both curious and afraid.

"They are all believers of the god!"

Daniel's voice came through the monitor feed, leaving the commanders inside the satellite vehicle exchanging glances.

--

After saying this, "Ning Xiuyuan" subconsciously glanced downstairs, his eyes flickering.

The Plague Disciple had told him that those were not illusions. They were all living people. His spiritual intuition even told him that he might be able to control them through Heart of the Beast.

--Of course, that would require his true body to be present. He still could not release his abilities through a puppet.

"Believers?"

The D-Class personnel looked bewildered after receiving this answer.

Ning Xiuyuan ignored his confusion and carefully examined the surrounding area.

Compared with the emptiness of the first floor, the second floor had clearly been built for living. Five or six rooms were distributed along both sides of a long corridor.

Above that was the cramped, narrow attic.

Could the altar of the God of Abundance be in the attic?

"Daniel, don't waste time. Where is the altar of the God of Abundance?"

An urgent voice came through the earpiece.

As soon as the voice fell, a nearby door was suddenly pulled open with a "clang." The D-Class personnel who had hidden inside in fright just moments earlier now rushed out with terror written across his face.

"Save me—"

Half his body burst through the doorway. He stretched out an arm toward Ning Xiuyuan and the others like a drowning man, crying out desperately for help.

Unexpectedly, the instant his voice emerged, his body suddenly stiffened. Like a watermelon split open at the bottom, a large amount of crimson gushed out from between his legs.