The Strange Descends

The black fog spread silently, like a monstrous beast devouring the darkness.

The Fallen who had fled rushed into the mist. For some reason, they let out terrified screams.

"The Great Ruins! The Great Ruins are here!"

"We're done for—the Great Ruins are here! Hahahaha!"

"We're going to die!"

Their backs gradually vanished into the mist, then disappeared in an eerie fashion, never to make another sound.

Just before they vanished, their laughter had been so strange. It was like the hysterical laughter of someone gripped by fear in their final moments, yet also like they had found their last release. No one knew what they had encountered.

Everything fell silent. The remaining Fallen had disappeared without a sound.

In the stillness, only the rustle of crawling things and the scrape of fingernails against the ground could be heard.

It was as if something was writhing in the mist.

Gu Jianlin narrowed his eyes, fully on guard.

Cheng Youyu stared in horror. "What the hell is this Great Ruins they're talking about?"

Zhang Cheng put away his bow and arrows, his face dark. "I don't know, but it definitely isn't anything good. Sure, this thing indirectly got us out of trouble, but whatever can deal with those Fallen can deal with us, too."

"W-what should we do?"

Nie Xiangsi looked at everyone, her voice timid.

"Clearly, something is wrong with Black Cloud Stronghold, and the Association didn't tell us about it. There are only two possibilities. Either they don't know, or someone deliberately kept it hidden."

Yan Ye folded his arms across his chest and said coldly, "Given that our operation was leaked and we were ambushed, I'm inclined to believe the latter. In other words, there's a mole among us."

"My brother's right."

Yan Feng scanned the remaining survivors. "And there's probably more than one mole."

Mu Ziqing took out her phone and fiddled with it, then shook her head. "Bad news, everyone. Something here is blocking the signal. My phone can't connect to Deep Sky anymore."

Everyone hurriedly took out their phones and found that she was right.

They had lost contact with Deep Sky, and the support they had relied on was gone in an instant.

The so-called elites immediately fell into fear.

So far, the First Group had shown decent judgment.

They knew to assess the situation and had concluded that there was a mole.

After all, Gu Jianlin knew the mole was real.

One of the survivors came up with a brilliant idea. "What should we do now? Shouldn't we find the team leaders and regroup? If they're under attack, we can help them."🌟

"Idiot. The team leaders are all Transcendent, and even the deputy team leader is Tier Three. They're in a completely different league from us. If someone can put them in danger, going there would just get us killed. We might even cause them more trouble."

Another person leaned against the wall and weakly retorted, "But I don't think anything's happened to the team leaders."

Deputy Team Leader Chen Chen's death had truly shaken everyone.

No one knew what had become of the team leaders.

"The team leaders' inn is right across the street. We can go take a look."

Yan Ye looked across the street and spoke gravely.

The situation was bad. They still hadn't dealt with the Grave Diggers.

As the Grave Diggers' leader, Hasegawa Shinichi was still alive.

No one knew how many Fallen were hidden in the area.

And they knew nothing about the strange things happening in Black Cloud Stronghold.

Danger lurked everywhere.

They were also isolated and without support.

Regrouping with the team leaders really was the safest option.

Gu Jianlin stared silently at the inn across the street.

Tang Ling suddenly walked up behind him. Her vermilion eyes were full of curiosity as she asked indifferently, "What do you think? About the team leaders."

Gu Jianlin glanced back at her and said in a hoarse voice, "The team leaders are already gone."

"Gone" could mean two things.

They might no longer be where they had been.

Or they might already be dead.

His words left everyone horrified.

Stunned gazes turned toward the boy who was still in Ghost Humanization.

"How do you know the team leaders are gone?!"

After ending his Ghost Humanization, Li Xun hurriedly stuffed a handful of Purification Stones into his mouth. Leaning weakly against the wall, he lost control of his emotions and snarled, "Are you the mole? Did you leak the details of this operation?"

Gu Jianlin could tell the two Divine Priest brothers had been hostile toward him all along.

The older brother's mental state was unstable after ending his Ghost Humanization.

As for his younger brother, he was lying on the ground, his life uncertain.

Gu Jianlin sensed gazes coming at him from every direction.🎈

The First Group's eyes had turned especially cold, brimming with hostility.

"Seems reasonable that a Fallen's son would be a mole."

Yan Ye stared at him coldly. "And why did you hide your strength? I want an explanation."

"That's right. Who knows whether a Fallen's son would collude with other Fallen?"

Someone spoke with difficulty. "You owe us an explanation."

These were the people whose supplies had been taken after Gu Jianlin rescued them.

If someone had fallen, they should have killed themselves before losing their reason.

Without exception, those who had harmed their own kind had clung to life after falling, eventually surrendering to their desires and becoming killing machines.

People like that had completely defiled the Association's beliefs.

And their son naturally couldn't be trusted either.

"Hey, what kind of way is that to talk to him?"

Cheng Youyu said indignantly. "Without Brother Lin, the Fallen would've torn you apart by now."

"That's right. Now isn't the time to turn on each other."

Zhang Cheng tried to reason with them. "We should stand together against outsiders. You're acting like none of your families have ever had a Fallen."

Nie Xiangsi said nothing, but stepped forward to silently make her position clear.

Yan Ye remained expressionless. "Sorry, but even if someone in our families had fallen, they wouldn't have had the chance to commit a serious crime."

"Sure, anyone's family could have someone suffering from mental corruption."

Yan Feng smiled. "But someone with the ability and opportunity to commit a crime? That's another matter."

The two groups stood clearly apart.

Gu Jianlin had never been good with words, and he wasn't the sort to defend himself.

Besides, these people didn't deserve an explanation.

He simply raised the chair in his hand and looked toward the two Divine Priests who were barely clinging to life.

Li Xun's expression shifted slightly when he saw him coming.

"If I were the mole, I'd just beat you to death right now. No one could stop me."

Gu Jianlin said coldly, "So shut your mouth."

Li Xun was about to argue, but glanced at his younger brother, who was barely clinging to life.

Then he looked at Gu Jianlin, who seemed like a demon.

He wisely kept quiet.

Because he suddenly felt that something was off.

Li Xun and Li Yi were both Tier Two Divine Priests, so they should have been stronger.

But after using Ghost Humanization, they seemed weaker than Gu Jianlin.

Most importantly, after using Ghost Humanization, Gu Jianlin had dared to use the Divine Sacrifice Fire to drain the Fallen's life force, as if he wasn't afraid of losing control at all. If Li Xun hadn't known better, he would have thought Gu Jianlin had several pounds of Purification Stones stored away.

"Let's see what you do later!"

Li Xun thought angrily.

Yan Ye watched the scene and said coldly, "If you can't prove yourself, we can't accept you."

"I don't need you to accept me."

Gu Jianlin shot him a glance, his expression blank. "If you suspect me, then you should present evidence. Don't keep calling me a Fallen's son and then demand that I prove myself."

If he hadn't suspected that the team leaders were still alive, he would definitely have found a chance to kill these idiots.

They were really annoying.

Yan Ye narrowed his eyes and stared back at him coldly.

Just as the two sides reached an impasse, Tang Ling had already made it across to the inn and hacked open the door with her sword.

Everyone turned at the sound and fell silent.

Inside the inn, all the team leaders had been pinned to the walls with iron spears. Strange smiles were frozen on their faces.

Blood had stained the entire wall red.

The scene was unbelievably eerie. In the pitch-black night, it looked like a macabre religious painting.

Lu Zicheng and Chen Qing were among them, too!

Gu Jianlin was startled and hurried over to take a look.

At that moment, his mind was racing and his eyes darted about as he scrutinized the inn.

There were no signs of a struggle, only bodies that were completely dead.

Even Lu Zicheng's phone had fallen to the floor.

The screen was frozen on the notes app.

There was only one word.

East!

Gu Jianlin froze. He couldn't believe these two had simply died like this.

Something had to be wrong.

Something had to have gone wrong somewhere!

His instincts told him there was something off about the team leaders' deaths.

It was like some kind of conspiracy, or a play.

"Wait. What does the Ether Association intend to accomplish with this operation? The Sea Siren was a mole, but she clearly doesn't have the ability to control the entire Feng City jurisdiction. Lu Zicheng even sent me a message earlier, telling me that my father had lived here, too. Wouldn't he know that something was wrong here after midnight? Wouldn't the minister know? Wouldn't Chen Bojun know?"

Gu Jianlin suddenly grasped the key point and looked again at the dead team leaders.

Their deaths—and the strange smiles on their faces—seemed deeply suspicious to him.

Just then, black fog came rolling in, churning like a living thing.

From within the mist came the dense sound of footsteps!

"Take tactical formation!"

Yan Ye barked, "Stay alert!"

Everyone turned around, facing the danger.

But when shadowy figures emerged from the mist, they all froze.

Because they saw the dead team leaders!

Wang Bolin.

Lu Zicheng.

Zhang Shiheng.

Chen Qing.

And others.

In the black fog, some walked, some crawled along the ground, and some simply writhed.

Strange smiles spread across their faces as they walked straight toward everyone.

"Why are you so surprised? Don't you recognize us?"

One of the team leaders writhed along the ground, smiling. "Newbie, help me. I don't feel so good..."

Everyone's scalps went numb, Gu Jianlin included!

They looked back at the rows of bodies in the inn.

If those bodies were real, then who were these people in front of them?

And if these people were real, then who were the ones who had died?

Boom!

Gu Jianlin's mind exploded.

Because from the deepest part of the mist, someone else emerged in silence, wearing a strange smile.

His face looked about seventy or eighty percent like Gu Jianlin's, but more weathered and much gentler.

Gu Ci'an!

"Something's wrong! Run!"

Gu Jianlin growled.

I'm a bit stuck today, so I'll stop at seven thousand words. I changed the surname of the Grave Diggers' leader; it's no big deal.