Chapter 850 - 849: Dislocated Chaos

Chapter 850: Chapter 849: Dislocated Chaos

Under Lucrecia’s control, the flying carpet started accelerating, while a layer of ethereal magic shield appeared around it, blocking the whistling wind. The little puppet leaned over the edge of the flying carpet, eyes wide as it curiously asked, "Wow, Sister Lucy, your flying carpet actually has wind protection! How come you don’t use it usually?"

Lucrecia casually replied, "Because normally it’s in exercise mode..."

The little puppet elongated its tone, "Whoa... what does that mean?"

Lucrecia: "It emphasizes the driving experience."

"Oh oh! You mean torturing yourself, right?"

Lucrecia: "..."

Yu Sheng heard their conversation but didn’t join in, as his attention was fully focused on the distant forest - the area of conflict lay in that direction, where several plumes of smoke were rising amidst the treetops, and he could see two support drones heading to the scene, clearly just dispatched from nearby.

But compared to the smoke, what attracted Yu Sheng’s attention more was the buildings emerging in the dense forest...

Yes, buildings. In a forest originally filled only with towering trees, there suddenly appeared a large expanse of man-made buildings. They looked to cover an area of two or three blocks, with towering spires and towers extending beyond the tree canopies, in a classical architectural style. For some reason, they seemed somewhat familiar.

Erin also noticed the situation over there, and the little puppet stood up in surprise, "Whoa, what are those... I’ve heard of trees growing in the city, but how come there’s suddenly a city in the trees? These things definitely weren’t here before!"

"Don’t know where they came from, Baili Qing only mentioned in a phone call that it was a ’phenomenon of anomalous activation’," Yu Sheng stated solemnly, "The squad previously entering this area has lost contact, we must be careful."

"We’re about to lower altitude, hold on tight."

Lucrecia’s voice came from beside them, followed by the sensation of a jolt under Yu Sheng as the flying carpet rapidly enlarged the view of the forest and that bizarre ’neighborhood.’ The tips of the tall treetops swept past the edge of the flying carpet, and soon they plunged headlong into the target area.

The moment they crossed the ’neighborhood’ boundary, the surrounding light abruptly dimmed. Yu Sheng felt as if he passed through an invisible barrier, encountering a ’changing atmosphere’ that couldn’t be described in words but was faintly detectable through spiritual intuition.

The surroundings were no longer towering giant trees but a densely packed landscape of houses with black pointed roofs, crooked roads, and dimly glowing street lamps. In the distant darkness were many buildings that seemed to have only contours, all layering upon each other in the view.

The flying carpet slowed down, almost floating close to the ground, and then Yu Sheng and the others jumped off, cautiously observing the surroundings.

The first thing Yu Sheng did was take out his phone and glance at it, discovering there was no signal.

However, this wasn’t a major issue - Erin could still contact her mass-produced puppets to keep in communication with Baili Qing through them.

"Strange... before landing I saw firelight and smoke here, but why is there nothing after coming down?" Erin muttered quietly as she had already summoned her treasured frying pan, holding it in her hand.

Hu Li also sniffed the air with a slight frown, "No sign of the Deep Dive Team, no monsters either... and I can’t smell anything."

"Can you sense the mass-produced puppets?" Yu Sheng glanced down at Erin by his side, "There should be mass-produced puppets near the Deep Dive Team, right?"

"The weirdest part is right here," normally carefree Erin was now tense, "I can sense them, they even seem nearby, but I can’t pinpoint them further, nor transfer consciousness to them, only issue vague commands... The last time I felt like this was when using a mass production machine with you to dive into Black Star."

Upon hearing that even Erin’s connection with her mass-produced puppets was being interfered with, Yu Sheng’s face darkened, growing more cautious.

This was not a good sign... In this eerie forest formed by the Dark Angel, the anticipated strange situation finally appeared.

Contemplating, Yu Sheng raised his hand beside him, fine blood threads seeped from his arm and swiftly condensed into a blood-colored spear that he grasped in his hand.

Everything around was silent, the atmosphere on the deceitful street devoid of any living presence. Street lamps stood by the side of the road, yet every street lamp’s dim yellow light seemed confined to a very small area, unable to illuminate the surrounding road at all.

Yu Sheng’s gaze fell on nearby buildings, his brow suddenly furrowed.

These appeared to be several streetside shops, yet all the shop doors were on the rooftops, with large and small display windows crisscrossing on the outer walls. One window’s frame even extended beyond the building’s main structure, protruding from the outer wall at a bizarre angle, standing in mid-air as if being twisted and deformed by something.

These few buildings are not the only ones.

Yu Sheng quickly noticed more bizarre scenes. He saw two distorted houses crookedly "stacked" beside the street, with the exterior walls of the buildings appearing to flow like melted sugar. A structure resembling a clock tower spire stood abruptly in the middle of the distant main road, with the clock mechanism half-buried beneath the cobblestone path beneath its pointed top. There was also a set of gigantic gears at an intersection, surrounded by meaningless and disorderly steam pipes, with various doors and windows of different sizes hanging from those pipes, many of which were shattered and deformed.

Looking around, bizarre and chaotic buildings were everywhere, turning the logical and rational aspects of normal things into a jumble, presenting a seemingly paradoxical street scene.

Erin soon noticed the abnormality in the surroundings as well. The little puppet gradually widened its eyes, suddenly tugging at Luna’s nun dress: "C-type buckle! Look, look, your Valhalla has a companion now!"

Luna casually pulled back her skirt from the little puppet’s hand, looked down at Erin: "Not at all, it’s a style."

Yes, not the same style—although Yu Sheng inadvertently associated those chaotic buildings with the Soul Wilderness’s ↑↓←→ at first glance, what Luna’s subordinates built was merely a result of poor craftsmanship and unbridled imagination leading to disorganized planning and structures, but these in front of him were more like the imaginings of a madman with a disordered mind...

Or more accurately, it was some non-human Mind Body, having come into contact with a lot of artificial objects’ information, that casually mimicked and replicated this place—the "creator" who shaped this area might not even comprehend what these "houses" are, rendering everything here just a clumsy imitation and jumbled collage of some "original"...

Yu Sheng furrowed his brows tightly, such bold speculation surfacing in his mind, and at that moment, he noticed a pensive expression appear on Lucrecia’s face beside him.

"What have you discovered?" Yu Sheng asked curiously.

Lucrecia didn’t answer immediately, instead with a furrowed brow, she walked to the nearest storefront along the street. She stared at the distorted and deformed shop window for a long time before speaking in a heavy tone: "...This is a district of Plande."

Yu Sheng was slightly stunned by this, while Erin already exclaimed in shock: "Ah?!"

"The distortion is severe, mixed with many structures likely from other ’places’, but the main parts here undoubtedly come from Plande City State," Lucrecia said plainly, raising a hand to point at a corner of the storefront’s exterior wall, "I recognize this."

Yu Sheng followed her finger’s direction and saw a twisted and deformed sign embedded in half a glass pane, with the words on the sign scrambled and deformed, barely discernible as "xx Puppet House".

The whole building had no doors that could be opened, one could only see the interior scene through a skewed window—inside, the dim and blurry shop seemed to have a staircase leading to the second floor, and various humanoid objects of different sizes leaned chaotically against the wall.

Erin climbed up to the window sill, peered inside for a while, and then ran to the roadside to look around.

"It really seems like there’s some trace of Plande," the little puppet widened its eyes, "but it’s almost unrecognizable now..."

Hu Li rubbed the tip of his tail, conjuring several clusters of Fox Fire that floated around, casting a ghostly blue light that illuminated the dreary street, making the rows of houses in the distance look even more grotesque and menacing in the light.

"I remember at the beginning when we came here, you used a crystal ball and determined from the coordinates that this is Plande," Yu Sheng said softly to Lucrecia, "At that time, we concluded it was the activity of the Dark Angel ’overwriting’ this place, turning Plande into a sea of trees... Now, does it mean the coverage by the Tree Angel is failing? Is the city-state it covered emerging again?"

"...If it were just the overwriting failing, the forest retreating should reveal a normal Plande, not this chaotic ’copied district’," Lucrecia shook her head, "Moreover, there’s not only Plande’s buildings here, but many other things I don’t recognize, like that clock tower in the distance."

Pausing here, she spoke with a grave expression: "I’m more inclined to believe it’s the opposite situation—the distortion caused by the Dark Angel isn’t diminishing but intensifying, and this sea of trees is entering its next phase, though the underlying reason is unknown, it’s clear... that the loss of control risk of the Tree Angel is increasing."

Yu Sheng instinctively tightened his grip on the blood-colored spear in his hand, his brow furrowed as he looked around: "There’s also another problem—the Deep Dive Team that previously entered this area is still missing, and Hu Li’s Divine Sense and Luna’s radar have shown no response."

"Let’s search farther into the district," Lucrecia suggested, "The environment here is quite strange, my perception seems somewhat affected too, but the crystal divination just pointed in a vague direction... we need to pass through this street."

Yu Sheng glanced at the crystal ball floating beside Lucrecia. Although he still didn’t understand the principle of this thing, he decided to trust the Witch’s judgment.

It’s better than letting Erin lead the way.

The party continued cautiously along the street into the depths of this eerie space, with only the hollow echo of their footsteps amidst the dead silence of the district.

Erin, with two hands clutching a frying pan, quickly scurried along with her short legs beside Yu Sheng, glancing nervously at the shadows of the nearby buildings from time to time and muttering, "Next time I go to the gathering place, I’ll have a psychological shadow... What’s old tree doing here..."

They passed by a puddle of standing water, where a faint light reflected. The small Erin seemed to notice something and turned to look at the water’s surface.

Reflected in the water was a red moon, with the moonlight cascading from the sky like blood, gently rippling on the other side of the water’s surface.

Erin: "...?"

The little puppet was taken aback for a moment and suddenly shouted at the top of her voice: "Good heavens, Puppet Progenitor!"