Deep in the jungles of Central America.
The ruins of a Mayan temple.
The deep lake in an underground cavern resembled a giant eye glaring up at the sky.
To the people who lived here, this jungle was a forbidden place, a place of death. No one knew how many people had entered and never come back out.
At that moment, several hundred armed guards with live ammunition surrounded the ruins, keeping watch from hidden posts. There were even two armored vehicles and several bunkers disguised as boulders.
Deeper inside the temple, its interior had long since been hollowed out. A metal detector resembling a radar array stood within.
The armed guards around the ruins were all burly men who looked like they wouldn't blink at killing someone, yet every one of them kept well away from the temple.
Even so, they would occasionally hear strange, anguished howls and see gruesome, terrifying hallucinations, as though they were trapped in hell.
The readings on the Mental Radiation Detectors they wore kept fluctuating.
Beneath the temple stood a massive modern complex, with more than a dozen floors.
Researchers in white lab coats bustled about inside.
At that moment, every researcher in a hall on the top floor, packed with electronic screens and control consoles, was looking at the enormous screen covering the entire wall ahead.
It displayed a three-dimensional image of Blue Star. Waves occasionally rose slightly across its surface, accompanied by various numerical readings.
But at one particular point, a wave-shaped protrusion shot straight out, extending farther than the diameter of the three-dimensional image of Blue Star itself!
The giant radar in the temple above began to beep. A powerful surge of energy radiated outward, and many armed guards stationed far from the temple screamed, clutched their heads, and collapsed, bleeding from their eyes, ears, noses, and mouths as they writhed on the ground.
A tall figure stood staring at the screen, his voice trembling as he spoke:
"It's the mental radiation signature of the Lord of the Abyss! Coordinates?"
An excited researcher in a white lab coat beside him immediately gave a range of coordinates.
"The approximate location should be near Gu City."
"Gu City?" The tall figure's tone changed. He said slowly, "Good! Tell the Collector to search for clues of the anomaly at any cost! The Association will reward him generously!"
A temple somewhere on the Central-Southern Peninsula.
A group of people in hooded robes stood silently reciting prayers before an idol.
Their robes were black, decorated with nine circles: one large circle in the middle, linked to eight smaller circles around it. Clearly, they were not Buddhists, but members of some strange sect.
They were performing their daily rites.
Their temple was resplendent with gold and jade, and it had many attendants. Clearly, they wielded immense influence.
Suddenly, a gaunt old man seated in the front row screamed. Blood tears streamed from his eyes.
The other worshippers immediately crowded around to support him.
With blood pouring from his eyes, the old man shakily pointed at the idol before him and said:
"It's the aura of the Eight-Headed Dharma King! I can feel it—the Eight-Headed Dharma King's aura has appeared in the mortal world! In the east, in the east! Go find it, go!"
The ancient portrait depicted a bizarre idol: eight heads arranged like a flower around a single neck, with strange limbs extending from its lower body!
In the woods on the outskirts of Gu City, inside a military-green tent.
The lean man in a military-green jacket shuddered, then stared at the ancient bronze artifact beside him in disbelief.
The lid of the artifact showed a sacrificial scene: a man tied to a post as an executioner with a blade disemboweled him. A crowd knelt around them.
The one they were sacrificing to was a pillar. A tiger crouched at its top, two giant pythons coiled around its body, and a giant crocodile bore it on its back.
At that moment, the bronze artifact, which had endured for thousands of years, developed a huge, web-like crack that tore through the sacrificial scene on its surface.
The man stood and looked toward Gu City.
Behind him, the jungle roared, as if some enormous beast were slithering through it...
In an apartment building in the residential compound of the Anomaly Bureau Southwest Branch in Gu City.
A shrill phone rang. Director Zhao, Zhao Yifeng, woke from his sleep and answered it.
"Director Zhao, the duty officer from the Radiation Monitoring Section of the Research Department just reported that the mental radiation radar detected abnormal radiation coming from... from that place..."
Zhao Yifeng had still been half asleep, but he instantly came fully awake. Cold sweat broke out across his back as he forced himself to ask in a calm voice:
"Location? Intensity? Duration?"
"We can't pinpoint the exact location, but it should be near Gu City. The intensity... was close to the critical threshold. It lasted 0.31 seconds."
Zhao Yifeng's breathing caught. Then he continued:
"Near Gu City... Notify the Investigation Department immediately. Tell them to speed up their exploration of the ruins. Forget about those people from the Cultural Relics Bureau; cultural relics matter, but human lives matter more! Also, this abnormal radiation may affect some of the Bureau's contained anomalies. Tell every department to stay alert so nothing goes wrong!"
"Yes, sir!"
Only after hanging up did Zhao Yifeng realize that his clothes were already soaked with sweat.
He got up and looked out the window. It was deep into the night, and everything was quiet.
"Sorry for waking you, honey. It's work. The world is always changing; it's just changing a little too fast this time... Something big is going to happen soon..."
Zhao Yifeng spoke to himself, but the bed behind him was empty.
At the same time, the lights in the office buildings of the Anomaly Bureau Southwest Branch, which had been switched off, began flickering on and off.
Strange cries rang out as well!
Li Fan returned to the duty room.
Everything had returned to normal. The "reanimated" corpses lay scattered across the floor, once again quiet and harmless.
The Amalgam was sprawled on the floor too, its mental radiation back to zero.
A large number of Shell Currency pieces were scattered across the floor, all of them spat out by the corpses.
He checked the clock. It wasn't even three yet.
He had spent nearly half an hour inside the Prison of Suppression, but only a few seconds had passed in the real world.
Li Fan touched his chest. The dagger-like Bronze Key was gone.
It wasn't in his hand, either.
A faint mark resembling a tattoo had appeared in the palm of his right hand.
It was the Bronze Key.
Had it merged with him?
He clenched his right hand and immediately sensed a mysterious connection between himself and the Prison of Suppression.
He reached forward and gave a gentle tug. A chain made of mental power appeared in the air.
He could feel that the other end of the chain was connected to the Amalgam imprisoned in the Prison of Suppression!
If he wanted, he could pull the Amalgam straight out of the Prison of Suppression and use its power!
Thinking of the Amalgam's bizarre appearance, Li Fan couldn't help grimacing.
At any rate, he now had a power of his own.
He was no longer a weakling with only slightly more mental strength than an ordinary person.
Meanwhile, his left hand held a windproof lighter, and a rusty pair of handcuffs hung from his waist.
He had brought them all out of the Prison of Suppression.
After a moment's pause, Li Fan began cleaning up.
The Prison of Suppression was far too secret. He absolutely couldn't let anyone else find out about it.
Leaving aside the principle that a man could be guilty simply for possessing a treasure, his identity as the "Collector" made it even more important that he not attract attention.
The surveillance cameras had burned out, and outside communications had been completely cut off just now. He was the only one who knew what had happened that night.
He carried the damaged corpses back down to the third basement level and dumped them into the formalin tank. Then he swept and mopped the floor until it was clean. Only then did Li Fan breathe a long sigh of relief.
The Amalgam's strange corpse was still lying in the hall. He hadn't touched it.
After all, he had shot both corpses in the head, and there were other traces of damage he couldn't erase. He would still have to report it to the Bureau.
Of course, there was no need to lie. He only had to tell them a small part of what had happened.
Li Fan picked up the duty phone, which was working again, and called the Investigation Division.
"Hello, this is the Dissection Department of the Support Center. We just had a corpse come back to life. Yes, yes, the Amalgam delivered today. We didn't get it completely clean; there was still some abnormal contamination left, those shell-like things..."
Li Fan glanced at the bag full of Shell Currency in his hand and continued:
"Two of them."
He set aside two Shell Currency pieces on the desk and locked the rest in a cabinet.
Ever since he had confined the Tiger Pillar God in the Prison of Suppression, the mental radiation from these Shell Currency pieces had become extremely weak, almost disappearing.
He wanted to keep studying them.
The Anomaly Bureau took abnormal incidents within its own ranks very seriously. Less than two minutes after Li Fan made the call, two duty officers from the Investigation Department building had already arrived.
Soon, several people from the Research Department arrived as well. They took photos of the Amalgam, recorded the details, and spent a long time testing the Amalgam and the Shell Currency Li Fan had handed over.
After the tests, a researcher from the Research Department entered the duty room to question Li Fan.
Li Fan was on high alert. He had already prepared a story to talk his way out of the situation.
He was also a little nervous. The formalin had been washed away, but if anyone looked carefully, they could still find traces of what had happened.
To his surprise, the researcher seemed to have expected something like this. He asked only a few simple questions about the corpse coming back to life and the Shell Currency, then didn't press further.
Instead, he offered Li Fan a few words of comfort and asked if he needed psychological counseling. The Bureau could provide that kind of medical care.
Li Fan thought he probably did need it, but still declined the offer.
Only after asking more questions did he learn that just moments ago, several buildings that stored contained anomalies—including the Research Department and the Investigation Department—had experienced similar abnormal phenomena, such as corpses coming back to life and phantom apparitions.
Li Fan couldn't help feeling relieved. This made what happened on his end much less conspicuous.
But on second thought, the time the researcher mentioned seemed to be exactly when he had just returned from the Prison of Suppression!
Just then, footsteps sounded outside. Wu Qian and Liu Dalong hurried over, beaming with delight. They called out to Li Fan from a distance:
"Fan, you've been promoted! You've been promoted!"
Before you continue