Evil Cultivators' Scheme, Strange Town

Gloomy, chaotic cloud layers covered the sky, shrouding everything in sight. Beneath them stood ancient, weathered houses arranged in uneven rows, their outer walls mottled and faded. Yet upon them were inscribed one crimson flower after another, as vivid as bright dye—and as though stained with dark-red blood.

The town was silent and deserted, as if it had been abandoned for a hundred years. Neatly aligned iron-black lamp posts stood along both sides of the road. Weeds grew thickly and vines curled through the gaps between the posts and the stone-paved streets.

Yet what concerned Lin Chen most were the strange fungi clustered together at wall corners, in crevices, and along rock faces... lumps and patches that oozed yellow-green pus. They squirmed faintly at angles that even mortals could barely discern, as though they possessed some form of life.

This yellow-green hue was dark, lifeless, and brimming with ill omen and strangeness. It resembled mold parasitizing a bloated corpse that had been dead for ages. Yet strangely, rather than evoking disgust and discomfort, it instead carried an unexpected... sense of familiarity?

...Familiarity?

This inexplicable feeling that surged up made Lin Chen frown slightly. He used his methods to inspect himself, yet found no problems at all.

"Am I overthinking this? No, that's not right..."

He recognized these things. They were a form of pollution caused by Spiritual Energy Radiation, which Hell Ten Paths had turned into a biochemical strategic weapon.

By all reason, any region polluted and warped by these flowers should cause the living beings of this world intense nausea and discomfort, perhaps even some more terrifying rejection reaction. There should not have been such an uncanny sense of familiarity. That meant he had been affected without a sound.

Yet no matter what methods he used, he could not