The cave had appeared again!
I still hadn't figured out the pattern behind the cave's appearance and disappearance, so neither its arrival nor departure would have surprised me. I'd already prepared for the worst and planned to spend a great deal of time investigating how to make it appear again. Yet now it had come out on its own. How could I not be thrilled?
If Chang'an and Maza had been here, they might have regarded the cave as an extremely ominous sign. But in my eyes, this could only be called a lucky start.
I lifted the wooden cover, and the dark, profound entrance appeared before me once again.
Unlike last time, I was now observing the cave alone at night, and my state of mind was worlds apart. Chang'an had once worried that "filthy things" might crawl out from beneath the cave, and back then, I hadn't been able to empathize with him at all. To me, during the day, this space seemed full of the atmosphere of ordinary life whenever I was here with Chang'an. Ghosts would absolutely never come here.
But now, I felt as if this space had transformed into a demonic realm incompatible with reality. The distant city's noise had completely faded from my consciousness. Anything that happened here belonged solely to my own "Ghost Story." There was no second witness, and no matter how I described it to the public, no one would believe me. In other words, this had become a domain where any ghost or monster could set foot and run rampant.
And this time, Chang'an wasn't beside me to stop me, nor was Agent Kong suddenly knocking on the door to interfere with me.
What would happen if I went downstairs, punched a hole in the ceiling of the room below, and opened it directly beneath the cave? I imagined the possibilities with great interest. But it would be troublesome if doing that prevented the cave from appearing, and there were tenants living in the room downstairs. I didn't want to destroy the mysterious atmosphere that only existed when I was alone. I was afraid that after alerting outsiders, the cave might also be startled into hiding again.
I set my backpack down on the floor and took out a wired camera and a selfie stick. I connected the wired camera to my phone, secured it to the selfie stick, and extended it beneath the cave. Then I looked at my phone.
Unlike what I'd imagined last time, the phone displayed no image at all.
It seemed that the wired camera was useless too. The signal-blocking mechanism inside and outside the cave had nothing to do with whether the connection was wired or wireless. If so, why weren't human bodies affected by the electronic signal blockage? Could it really be because human bodies held a special status in supernatural events?
A scientist might pursue a more rigorous conclusion, but I was perfectly willing to accept one tinged with mysticism. Next, I withdrew the wired camera and selfie stick, switched my phone to video mode, turned on its light, and used the selfie stick to send it beneath the cave.
After recording for about a minute, I pulled the phone back and lowered my head to check the footage.
I'd actually expected electronic devices to malfunction in a supernatural space. That's how many horror stories described it. But this time, the result exceeded my expectations. The phone had successfully recorded the scene beneath the cave.
The scene matched the first impression Chang'an and I had gotten from the cave. It really was a basement.
And it was a fairly spacious basement. At a glance, its area seemed roughly two-thirds the size of a classroom. Naturally, there were no doors or windows in the walls. The interior had received no decoration whatsoever. The floor and walls were bare concrete, and lonely gray shelves filled the place, making it look like a convenience store that had gone out of business.
Most of the shelves were empty, their surfaces coated in dust. The few that held anything contained only some yellow cardboard boxes with their bellies gaping open. There was basically nowhere to hide. I saw no trace of any monsters, ghosts, or other supernatural entities.
Then again, what if electronic devices couldn't capture ghosts? Or what if there were monsters as small as insects or rats? The supernatural couldn't be judged by common sense.
Suddenly, I noticed something strange in the video.
At the base of the wall at the far end of the basement, something seemed to be reflecting light.
I pressed my eyes tightly against the screen, trying to see what it was. But I couldn't make it out. The problem wasn't the filming angle. The thing was simply too small, and the distance from the camera was a little too great. I couldn't confirm its true appearance from here.
I could barely tell that it probably wasn't a shard of glass or anything similar. There were no other glass objects in the basement, nor anything else that could reflect light.
That thing looked extremely out of place in the basement.
It had been fine before I noticed it, but once I did, I felt that unknown object possessed an indescribable presence. It was merely "something whose identity couldn't be made out" placed in a "dim basement," yet it seemed like a blot of black ink on a sheet of white paper. Once I came to my senses, all my attention had been drawn to it.
What was that?
I mulled over this incredible sensation again and again, then put away my phone.
I'd seen what there was to see. It was about time to go home, right—impossible.
This was merely an appetizer, just enough to whet my appetite. I'd already been made to salivate, and now they wanted me to leave? No chance.
Next, I was going to enter the cave.
I had imagined the dangers I might encounter afterward.
The least threatening situation for me would be a danger of a physical nature.
To exaggerate, even if ten Godzillas suddenly spawned inside this basement, I still had my trump card, "Second Form." I would have been invincible from the start.
But if the one that appeared were a Vengeful Ghost with unfathomable powers, that would be harder to say. If it could launch a mental or curse attack against me, I couldn't guarantee that I would be able to withstand it. After all, I'd never suffered an attack of that metaphysical nature before.
The most dangerous possibility, without a doubt, was that the entrance would suddenly disappear after I went down, never open again, and trap me inside until I died.
Perhaps there were other more ingenious and clever ways to investigate the interior, and there was no need to risk my life personally. But did a method really exist that could let me experience this cave more directly than entering it with my own body? Text, pictures, videos... I didn't want to learn about another mysterious, unfathomable spacetime through such boring things. I wanted to measure the space beneath the cave with my own feet and breathe the air of this unreal place with my own mouth. That was why I'd come here.
To put it bluntly, I knew perfectly well that my rationality had been greatly reduced at that moment. In my pursuit of an "adventure beyond reality," this cave possessed an irresistible allure. I couldn't resist it through reason. No matter what, I had to investigate it to the end.
I stared at the stairs beneath the cave, then took a step forward and placed my right foot on the first stair.
It felt as if I'd stepped into a deep, murky swamp. This foot had already entered a spacetime that didn't exist in reality, and a numbness spread throughout my body. I took a deep breath, raised my other foot, and continued downward.
One step, then another, then another... I slowly descended along the stairs as the surrounding floor gradually rose until it passed over my head.
Unable to resist, I looked up. The space of reality had now become a square opening above my head. I forced myself to look away, then extended my right hand and summoned "Firefly."
Orange-red points of light appeared in the air, radiating a bright glow. Just as expected, "Firefly" couldn't be summoned beneath the cave—it simply couldn't exist there while I was outside the cave.
"Firefly" appeared one after another, rapidly increasing in number to twenty or thirty. Under my direction, they spread throughout the basement and shone even more brightly, illuminating the place as if it were broad daylight.
Both my feet touched the basement floor, and I observed my surroundings. There were no monsters or ghosts, and I couldn't see any other supernatural phenomena for the time being. This entire space was within the range of my perception. Forget tangible dangers—I couldn't even find a single insect. It was practically a land devoid of life.
After pausing briefly, I headed straight for the far end of the basement.
Soon, I clearly saw what the unknown object reflecting in the video was.
The thing lying at the base of the wall was an irregularly shaped, hard substance. It was black all over and about the size of a ping-pong ball. Although it was black, its material resembled jade, so it faintly reflected the light when illuminated.
I picked it up and examined it repeatedly in my hand. This black jade not only looked like jade, it felt like jade too, with a warm, smooth texture. Its edges were somewhat rough, though, and I might even cut my hand if I wasn't careful.
Judging from its appearance, this black jade didn't seem to be a complete object. It looked more like a fragment broken off from a larger jade ornament.
So I examined the surroundings again, but found neither an object that seemed to be the main body nor a second fragment.
I focused my attention on the black jade again. Even though the floor felt cold to the touch, the black jade transmitted not the slightest chill. Nor did it feel warm. It was as if the concept of temperature had never existed for it in the first place.
What exactly was this thing?
I examined it even more carefully.
And at that moment, something incredible happened.
The instant I focused all my attention on the black jade, I felt that its darkness, like a black hole capturing light, had "caught" my gaze.
By the time I realized something was wrong, I could no longer move my eyes away. I couldn't even turn my eyeballs in the slightest. The black jade began to grow larger in my field of vision. I didn't know whether it was really expanding or whether my face was moving toward it against my will.
In the blink of an eye, the black jade filled my entire field of vision, and my mind seemed to fall, crashing bodily into the black jade.
Then, in the pitch-black darkness, gray mist began to emerge.
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