GRMFBS CH267

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The starry sky swirled, the stars tracing out magnificent and mysterious stellar tracks.

Gu Jiancheng felt a sliver of familiarity, but before he could dwell on its source, the starfield began to fade, and another world emerged before him.

A Candle Dragon remnant image. Gu Jiancheng immediately recognized where he was. Did “Approaching Science” get stuck in this Candle Dragon remnant? Is that why he can’t be reached?

Gu Jiancheng pondered as he scanned the surroundings. He looked up and saw the Candle Dragon coiling in the sky. This was the scene from twenty-seven years ago, when the world was invaded by “Infinity.”

So far, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Most Candle Dragon remnants were like this, recording chaotic time fragments from the Candle Dragon’s cycle twenty-seven years ago. But this fragment couldn’t be ordinary, or else “Approaching Science” wouldn’t have produced such a… “trace-drawing secret key.”

Gu Jiancheng observed for a while but couldn’t find a breakthrough.

That’s fine. If there’s no breakthrough, do it the usual way—beat the anomalies to a pulp!

Shadows spread from Gu Jiancheng’s feet, searching for the aura of anomalies. The “Deep Shadow” big shot was addicted to clearing anomalies; he picked a random direction and began clearing his way through.

Halfway through, Gu Jiancheng suddenly looked up at a mountain valley in the distance, his brow furrowed. He felt a huge gathering of anomalies there, along with “Harvester” players. The number was unusually large, enough to count as a major operation even during the height of Infinity’s invasion.

Gu Jiancheng began to recall what he had seen while at the “Supreme Balance.” Which battle had such a massive commotion?

Before he could remember, he had already arrived. A group of anomalies and Harvesters were coordinating a siege. It was unclear who the target was, as they had already been sealed off by various skills.

Whatever, doesn’t matter who they’re attacking; killing anomalies is the right thing to do.

The Deep Shadow big shot rushed in and started fighting, hammering the anomalies and Harvesters relentlessly. The sealing skills were devoured by shadows, revealing the target of the siege.

Gu Jiancheng glanced over.

…Di Ting?

Zhan Yan let out a sigh of relief, thanking the heavens.

He had tried every possible way to control the situation, but he could only follow the Di Ting’s perspective, watching it walk step-by-step toward a dead end. The desolate history made him feel as uncomfortable as a shriveled, crushed orange in his heart, but what was more tragic was that these events were already finished, and yet he might very well die along with this piece of history… Is my cheat code really this unreliable?!

The Di Ting fled once, and the Deep Shadow big shot didn’t appear. It fled three times, and he still didn’t appear. It fled ten times, and Zhan Yan waited longingly for the Deep Shadow big shot. After forty-eight times, Zhan Yan began cheering the Di Ting on.

Forget counting on Xiao Gu. I should keep trying to find a way to switch perspectives.

However, on the forty-ninth time, the Di Ting was blocked.

All things in nature were still whispering urgently.

“…Over there…”

“…Over there…”

…

From every direction, the same worried voice—the phrase “not over here” never appeared. It was surrounded.

The Di Ting stopped and looked around, then up at the sky. The Candle Dragon’s body was hidden in the red and black clouds; she seemed to lack even the strength to mutter to herself anymore, her heart-sounds filled only with a vague sense of endurance and persistence.

Zhan Yan, inside the Di Ting’s perspective, could hear what it heard, but he could not hear its thoughts. Why would it willingly walk to this point? Zhan Yan felt a chill of sorrow in his heart.

The anomalies and Harvesters closed in. The Di Ting stopped fleeing and began to fight. But how long could a Di Ting—which didn’t even count as a support-type entity—hold out?

A mournful sound of cracking came from its horn.

This must be the time the Di Ting turned into a Ghost King, right?

Suddenly, Zhan Yan felt he could control this body.

…What’s the use of letting me control it now?! He was worse at four-legged combat techniques than the Di Ting was!

Just as he felt despair, a wave of shadows slammed down, shattering all the skills that had trapped him.

Zhan Yan’s eyes lit up instantly. Xiao Gu! Never late in a crisis—a hero who truly arrives on auspicious clouds!

Zhan Yan controlled the four legs to stand steady—he dared not move, fearing he’d trip on flat ground. The Deep Shadow big shot, living up to his reputation as the No. 1, easily took care of the anomalies and Harvesters that had trapped the Di Ting.

Zhan Yan looked at Gu Jiancheng with shining eyes. The Deep Shadow big shot finished clearing the battlefield and looked at the Di Ting.

“Hmph!”

Zhan Yan: ???

Gu Jiancheng looked down at the Di Ting with disdain. So this is the image left behind by that psycho cat Wan Yan? So weak. And he dared to come and fight for Yan-yan’s attention.

Zhan Yan thought for a moment and figured out what was up with Gu Jiancheng. Oh my, Xiao Gu is still holding a grudge. There was no helping it; he was currently attached to Wan Yan’s perspective.

The crisis was averted, and now that he could move, he needed to find Wan Yan’s horn. Wan Yan’s horn… was still sitting right on his head. It had almost broken, but Xiao Gu’s timely arrival had saved it. However, the horn on his head definitely wasn’t the one they needed to find.

He didn’t know where to look for clues, but there were still anomalies and Harvesters in this Candle Dragon fragment, and he was just a little “noob” who had never fought head-on, currently stuck in a four-legged body.

So, time to cling to the big shot!

Zhan Yan tentatively lifted a front paw and took a step forward: “Thank you.”

Gu Jiancheng snorted: “So weak.”

Zhan Yan: …

The Deep Shadow big shot turned and left, ready to continue clearing anomalies.

Zhan Yan: “Wait, wait! Where are you going? Take me with you!”

He ran forward anxiously, and as expected… he tripped immediately from walking on four legs. Walking on four legs was different from crawling on the ground—the joint structure of four legs was different from a person’s!

Gu Jiancheng stopped and looked back: “Are you just starting to learn how to control your limbs?”

Zhan Yan: …Yeah! You want to try coming in here and doing it yourself?

He muttered something and crawled up to try walking again. It was wobbly, and he took nearly a minute to walk ten meters.

Gu Jiancheng looked at the Di Ting and figured it must be seriously injured. But he didn’t have healing abilities, and this was only an image of the past. Let it bear it itself. He grumbled a lot in his heart, but his feet didn’t move; he just stood there waiting for the Di Ting to catch up.

The valley was quite large; Gu Jiancheng stood at the edge, and the Di Ting was in the center.

Zhan Yan was awkward and wobbly when he started, but after a while, he adapted to the feeling of moving on four legs. He could even run. Hey! I have super adaptation skills!

He controlled the Di Ting’s body to run, and soon he could bound along lightly. It actually felt much happier than using a human body; he couldn’t jump ten meters at a time in his own body.

Zhan Yan quickly ran to Gu Jiancheng’s side and looked down at him. The beast’s body was truly huge; Gu Jiancheng, in his human form, barely reached the Di Ting’s leg. Gu Jiancheng took two steps back, looked up at him, and looked displeased.

Zhan Yan: Oh my~ I’m sorry I don’t know how to turn small.

Gu Jiancheng snorted and continued searching for anomalies. Although he looked displeased, he didn’t dive into the shadows along the way, allowing the injured Di Ting to keep up.

Zhan Yan followed behind him, smiling involuntarily. He knew Xiao Gu was soft-hearted.

Successfully clinging to the big shot, his safety was temporarily guaranteed. Next, he had to find clues to the Di Ting’s horn, but how? And why could he suddenly control this body? Was it because the Di Ting was already dead at this moment?

No, I could control the body before Xiao Gu came to the rescue; the Di Ting was still alive then…

At that time, the Di Ting had actively tried to break its own horn because it couldn’t let it fall into Infinity’s hands. It intended to hide its horn. At that time, where could it have sent it?

The Farmhouse.

Matthias was panicking. He found the farmhouse owner and rattled off a string of Spanish.

The owner looked blankly at the foreigner: “Don’t rush, I don’t understand this. Where’s that Chinese guy who came with you?”

Matthias took out his phone and opened a translation app. After some communication, the owner’s family climbed out of bed and started looking for people.

“It’s fine,” the owner said loudly to comfort Matthias, who couldn’t understand a word anyway. “There are no dangerous places here; maybe he just got drunk and fell asleep somewhere.”

The owner’s youngest son checked the surveillance in the yard, while the others followed Matthias to look for him, shouting his name as they searched. After ten minutes with no response, they received a call from the owner’s son.

The boy’s voice on the phone was trembling, on the verge of tears.

“Come back quickly, come back… I found the surveillance for that spot.”

“What’s wrong? What happened?” The hearts of everyone listening sank.

They rushed back in a panic. The boy, home alone, was curled up in front of the monitor, eyes filled with tears, goosebumps covering his arms. Everyone gathered in a circle around the monitor, watching him adjust the recording to the right time.

The night surveillance footage was black and white. The overhead perspective showed the entire yard, and there was sound, though it wasn’t very clear.

At 8:23 PM, Matthias and Zhan Yan were grilling and eating in front of the stove. Matthias held a beer, Zhan Yan held a skewer, and the two were chatting.

Zhan Yan finished his skewer, put the stick in a bucket, and stood up, walking toward an old willow tree at the edge of the yard.

Beside the tree were two bushes, just enough to block the surveillance view up to a person’s waist. There were no other obstructions around the bushes. Zhan Yan bent down, his figure blocked by the bushes. Two beverage bottles rolled out from beside the bushes.

The boy fast-forwarded.

Four minutes passed, and there was no movement behind the bushes. Matthias’s shouts came through the monitor. Other Spanish words couldn’t be understood, but those few shouts of “Yan” were intelligible. In the footage, Matthias stood up and walked to the willow tree, looking around for him.

Everyone watching felt goosebumps break out.

A perfectly healthy man walked behind the bushes, crouched down to get a drink, and then never walked out. He just disappeared?

The farmhouse owner swallowed hard, his voice trembling: “This… let’s call the police.”

“Can the police solve this? Don’t we need to find some professional masters or something…”

“I want to move…”

Before the farmhouse owner could shakily call the police, chaos was breaking out in two other places.

At 8:00 PM, Zhan Yunkai was in the recording studio of Mingtang Film Industry. His command of lines perfectly matched the AI settings, producing a mechanical, inhuman aesthetic. The recording engineer couldn’t help but sigh: “What a treasure that was misplaced.”

The recording was going very smoothly. Zhan Yunkai continued reading the lines into the microphone: “I cannot…”

At 8:25 PM, Zhan Yunkai suddenly couldn’t feel the feather talisman he had left on his youngest son. He stopped abruptly.

The demon-race assistant asked in confusion: “Teacher Zhan?”

Zhan Yunkai took off his headphones: “Sorry, there’s an urgent matter; I need to leave.”

He walked out of the recording studio with hurried steps. The recording engineer didn’t say a word. After Zhan Yunkai left, he let out a long breath to the assistant: “What’s wrong with Teacher Zhan? His face looked so scary just now.”

The assistant had already picked up his phone and started calling Xia Yuexian.

“I don’t know.” He, too, was hearing that tone from the Chongming Demon King for the first time… it sounded calm, but it was so scary that no one dared to make a sound.

8:20 PM: Ji Yueming was working overtime at the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau. Since Old Zhan was coming home late anyway, she decided to give her team members extra training, but she accidentally bumped into the Black Wolf.

A simple training session accidentally turned into two squads sparring; sparring accidentally dragged in the captains; after the captains entered the field, it accidentally became a situation where the team members couldn’t get a word in. Currently, only the Black Wolf and the Tianshi remained in the field, while the members sat on the sidelines eating dinner and watching, the atmosphere friendly enough that they were swapping side dishes.

Sigh, let them fight, let them fight. Black Wolf is just a provocative battle fan, and the Tianshi isn’t serious. The captains know what’s going on.

8:25 PM: In the training ground, lightning flashed suddenly, followed by a loud boom.

The Black Wolf was shocked by a lightning strike, let out a howl of excitement, and prepared to charge forward.

He didn’t pounce; Ji Yueming had already flashed out of the training ground’s protective barrier. Everyone else dropped their chopsticks in shock.

What’s wrong? Did the Black Wolf really anger the Tianshi?

Lightning overflowed in Ji Yueming’s eyes; her terrifying aura was released and withdrawn instantly, making everyone’s legs go weak. Just a moment ago, she had suddenly lost the connection to the lightning talisman she left on Yan-yan.

“Sorry, I couldn’t hold back my hand.”

Ji Yueming left in a hurry, every word sounding like a clap of thunder.