"Boss, what do we do?"
Ming Xuan looked at him pitifully, her eyes filled with worry for her mischievous little sister.
She could not even spare a thought for the strange phenomenon in the sky.
Gu Zhe thought for a moment...
"Let's go over there and take a look first."
"Okay."
They said no more.
The two took a taxi straight there.
People in Dragon Country had always been fiercely competitive. Even with such a shocking spectacle in the sky today, most taxis and other businesses were still operating.
Many people feared poverty more than the apocalypse.
Compared with Ming Xuan's anxiety, Gu Zhe was somewhat calmer.
Not because he was less close to her sister, but because he knew Ming Xiao Fei was no longer a helpless child.
She could summon a "ghost" to possess her.
Gu Zhe kept his consciousness focused on changes in his eerie paper figure within the Du Xiao Secret Realm.
Suddenly.
His consciousness stirred.
There it was!
Then, through the possessed figure's perspective, Gu Zhe saw a few things.
His brow furrowed slightly.
He suppressed his nausea.
After a while, he turned to Ming Xuan.
"Xiao Fei is safe for now, but the others..."
"Ah, Xiao Fei is safe? That's wonderful."
A moment later, Ming Xuan caught on.
Her expression darkened.
"The others? What happened to them?"
She did not think Gu Zhe was making things up. She had seen his abilities with her own eyes that day. If he said so, he must have seen something through means ordinary people knew nothing about.
Gu Zhe shook his head.
"Nothing."
Ming Xuan was only an ordinary person. While she lacked the power to do anything, telling her about such cruel things would serve no purpose beyond leaving her distressed and conflicted.
Ming Xuan noticed that Gu Zhe looked unwell.
She did not press him for answers.
Gu Zhe paid her no further attention. Sitting in the back of the taxi, he leaned against the seat and directed his consciousness through the perspective of his secret realm lord paper puppet.
After the initial visual shock, Gu Zhe calmed down and slowly surveyed that landscape.
It was not just the school.
It included an entire block surrounding the school.
Shattered walls and ruins, hills and dense forests... high-rises and broad roads, primitive wooden huts...
It was as though a dense forest, primitive huts, and hills had suddenly been forced into an existing modern city block.
Or as though a modern city block had been forcibly embedded in a landscape of dense forests, hills, and wooden huts... the ground had swollen and warped, foundations had cracked, hills had pierced high-rises, and high-rises had pierced massive trees...
This was the result of two stretches of land inexplicably interlocking.
Some houses had survived. Some buildings had collapsed.
And there were...
Not just shattered walls and ruins... but severed limbs and mutilated remains.
Clearly, in the merging of these two regions, the humans were at a severe disadvantage.
Countless severed limbs and bloodstains littered the area: severed heads, bodies with most of their flesh bitten away, torn limbs, filthy entrails and lungs, fragments of skull bearing tooth marks, dark crimson blood...
The horror was beyond description.
In the distance, countless terrified cries for help and savage roars rang out from every direction.
This truly was the apocalypse.
It was the apocalypse for the humans caught in the place where the two worlds intersected.
While people outside discussed the upheaval, they could never have imagined that others had already fallen into utter desperation and an apocalyptic catastrophe.
"Roar!!"
A tremendous roar came from afar.
Through the paper figure's eyes, Gu Zhe peered through a gap and saw a monster over four meters tall walking through the place where the city block and dense forest had merged.
He stood upright, with a pig's head and a humanoid body. His eyes were as large as bronze bells, filled with savage bloodlust. A rust-covered iron ring hung from his deeply wrinkled snout, and each casual breath sent waves of heat rolling through the air. His huge mouth jutted forward, a pair of upturned tusks gleaming coldly like halberds. As his jaws opened and closed, scraps of flesh still hung from his sharp black teeth...
His body was covered in bristles, each like a steel needle, draping down his back.
His body was immensely thick and muscular, dark as iron, with only a piece of unidentified hide wrapped around his waist to cover his private parts.
His legs were out of sight, but his arms dragged a thick, long wooden club that had clearly been worked into shape.
The ground seemed to tremble as he walked, and he let out harsh, sinister chuckles.
Occasionally, he reached out with one hand, grabbed a human barely a third of his size, and stuffed them straight into his enormous mouth.
This was a pig demon, or perhaps a pig monster.
Gu Zhe looked at those towering primeval trees and hills.
So this world had more than just the Underworld? Those trees were clearly different from the withered, twisted trees of the Netherworld Land.
They were green and seemed full of life. Without those savage monsters and the brutal apocalyptic scenes, that region would have looked like somewhere in the human world.
But Gu Zhe knew it was certainly not the human world, certainly not Earth. Such terrifying monsters could not exist on the human Earth.
Moreover.
Gu Zhe's gaze shifted slightly.
The monster actually knew to wrap a hide around his waist. It seemed that, despite their cruelty, these creatures possessed a degree of intelligence.
There were also scattered enormous wooden huts. Apparently, they had some sort of organized structure as well.
"Ho, ho, ho..."
The terrifying pig head tilted back, letting out one mighty roar after another.
"Heh heh heh heh, boys, don't eat them all! Leave some for me to offer to the king. Heh heh heh, these humans are nice and smooth. They're a little lacking in nourishment, but they'll make a fine treat to wash down with a little wine!"
"And they possess spiritual wisdom, with all three spiritual souls and seven corporeal souls intact. Their flesh and blood are unique. These are true humans! Eating them increases wisdom and broadens the spirit. Good stuff!"
"Heh heh heh, to think I, Pig Seven, would stumble across something like this! Two worlds intersecting, their rules merging! Those generals and cave lords are too powerful, rejected by the rules on the other side. Looks like I, Zhu Qi, get to reap the benefits! If the king is pleased and rewards me with some Spirit Fruit, Spirit Crystals, Spirit Wine, Spirit Meat, or spirit materials, won't I, Pig Seven, soar to new heights? Heh heh heh, heh heh heh..."
Perhaps because he sensed how weak these mortals were, the pig demon made no effort to conceal anything.
As for Gu Zhe.
His eyes flickered as he listened to those boastful words.
He murmured to himself.
"So they really are organized. Generals, cave lords, and a king..."
"More importantly, there are Spirit Fruit, Spirit Crystals, Spirit Wine, Spirit Meat, and spirit materials... he also revealed that their powerful reinforcements can't enter because of the rules."
"That makes sense. This place where two worlds have merged is only a corner of those vast worlds. The rules have merely blended, allowing some contact with the other side, but neither world's own rules have disappeared..."
"Still, it's worth exploring. In an age of great contention, I must fight for what should be mine..."
As he considered this.
Something stirred within Gu Zhe again.
Because.
Just then, Ming Xiao Fei had borrowed the paper figure lord's power to kill a small pig demon, and his paper puppet had sensed some kind of spirit nature energy.
"Killing demons and monsters can yield drops? It looks like I really do need to make a trip through there."
But Gu Zhe remained cautious.
He had to establish whether that place held any dangers.
Hand-to-hand combat would be manageable. The main concern was whether the enemy possessed any other uncanny abilities.
These things resembled demons, after all. Who knew whether they had demonic magic?
Gu Zhe did have ways to test them.
Because that world, though it looked like the human material world, was not actually the same.
Otherwise, given the inert spiritual energy of the material world, how could it nurture demons and demon kings?
That world seemed more like a spirit world or spirit domain beyond the nine nether astral force described in Netherworld legends, a world filled with vitality and spirit nature.
Gu Zhe felt puzzled.
What was the difference between the Netherworld, the world of the living, and these worlds?
Yin and yang could at least be understood as the two sides of the material world. Humans lived in the human world, then fell into the Netherworld after death.
But what about these worlds?
The more he learned about the world, the more questions he had!
Still, he could confirm at least one thing now.
That kind of world did not reject supernatural, uncanny life. Ghosts could survive there, and uncanny beings could come into existence.
Of course.
Even if this was a spirit world or spirit domain, even if its rules were suited to the survival of mysterious, incorporeal beings, ghosts could only hide in dark places during daylight.
Even if they could enter, they would be unable to exert their strength.
Right now, both the Earth side and the other side of that region were in daylight. Unless a ghost was extraordinarily powerful, going there would mean certain death.
But.
Gu Zhe's eerie paper figure, created through ritual transmutation, belonged to neither yin nor yang. It was neither human, demon, nor ghost.
As long as a world was not the mundane material world, and mysterious, supernatural laws held sway there, it could exist.
Gu Zhe's gaze sharpened.
He knew that the scroll Ming Xiao Fei now kept by her side at all times contained an anchor to the Du Xiao World. His paper figure subordinates, who had killed the Du Xiao Fierce Ghost last time, were still inside that world.
Normally, the anchor was utterly useless. The current real world would not accept them. The passage could not be opened, and even if it opened, they could not enter. Even if they forced their way in immediately, they would turn to ash within a short time.
But.
Ming Xiao Fei was no longer in a purely mundane material world. She was in a world filled with mysterious rules, where demons and monsters could survive!
An intersecting world from a dimension of the Void.
As Gu Zhe considered all this, they arrived at their destination.
From inside the taxi, Gu Zhe saw several SWAT officers maintaining order, shields strapped to their backs and blades in their hands. Among them stood a few people who were clearly unusual, their expressions grave as they studied the fog-shrouded block.
Perhaps the people sent in to scout had not yet returned, leaving them with no knowledge of the fog.
None dared enter blindly. Who knew what lay inside-lava, ice, mountains of blades, or seas of fire...
A supernatural gleam flashed in Gu Zhe's eyes.
Then his consciousness stirred.
Within that spirit realm, beside Ming Xiao Fei...
Countless startled cries instantly rang out.