GRMFBS CH94

Traveling through the stealth of the shadow world, it didn’t take Gu Jiancheng long to cross thousands of kilometers and arrive at the alleyway where the Magician was keeping watch.

Next to the alley stood an old house. It seemed to have been built back when urban planning was still in its infancy, forming a block alongside the other surrounding buildings that felt completely out of place among the high-rises and skyscrapers further out.

A long-standing, weather-beaten “Demolish” character was painted on the wall. The red paint had dripped down in irregular tears, now worn thin and chipped in places by the wind and sun. For some unknown reason, the footsteps of the demolition office seemed to have forgotten this place.

The house’s door hinges could no longer bear the heavy weight, causing the two mismatched doors to lean awkwardly against each other. A gap roughly three fingers wide remained where they met, offering a peek into the dim, cluttered corridor inside.

The old padlock outside the door, however, remained steadfast at its post; though mottled with rust, its bite was still firm.

Gu Jiancheng shot a look of utter disgust at the door, which was covered in streaks of rain and dust, and raised his foot to kick it. The two doors, taking the stubbornly holding padlock along with them, slammed backward.

They crashed into the shadows upon the snow without making a single sound. The air was so dead and silent it felt as though the shadows had swallowed all the sound waves.

Gu Jiancheng stepped inside over the fallen doors.

The Magician, currently in her cat form, took two steps forward, gave her paws a disdainful shake just before stepping onto the fallen doors, and then leaped up. It looked as though a layer of air separated her paws from the surface as she floated along behind him.

Without turning his head, Gu Jiancheng said, “Curiosity killed the cat.”

The Magician: “Woof.”

Gu Jiancheng: “…”

The Magician: “You don’t look like you’re in a good mood. What’s wrong? Got called away in the middle of a date with your boyfriend?”

Gu Jiancheng snorted.

If it weren’t for this Black Nest, he would have gone home to meet the parents with Yan Yan!

Even if Yan Yan didn’t want to meet the parents right now, and he had been momentarily blinded by beauty into agreeing to delay it, a mere kiss and a hug weren’t enough to coax him over it! He needed to negotiate for way more compensation than that!

The Magician trailed behind, maintaining a moderate distance. She was very curious. She had seen many Black Nests before, but never from this close.

Every Infinite instance had at least one Black Nest, and every Black Nest had a completely different form.

Some Black Nests resembled insect hives in nature, full of complex hollows or tunnels; others were like flesh wombs gestating offspring, choked with clumps of slimy meat…

A Black Nest meant danger. Danger stimulated her nerves, making her involuntarily excited; she even missed this kind of excitement a little.

The water and electricity in the old house had been cut off long ago. The winter sunlight was already thin, and after being filtered through the old lattice windows and peeling window films, it grew even dimmer.

Fortunately, neither of their visions was affected by the darkness.

Gu Jiancheng strolled through the rooms one by one, as if taking a leisurely walk.

Clusters of black mold bloomed across the walls of the house. Beneath the peeling paint, the white plaster underneath bulged from the dampness. A bizarre smell unique to old houses permeated the rooms. In the kitchen, a window with a broken latch rattled ceaselessly in the cold winter wind.

The cat followed behind him through room after room, yet they found no trace of a Black Nest.

They reached the innermost room.

It was a bedroom that had long been emptied by its previous owner, leaving behind only half a collapsed bed and a mattress with rusty springs poking out. There was still nothing noteworthy in the room, just ordinary objects.

This made the Magician start to grow anxious. She was certain she had discovered a Black Nest hiding here—even if she hadn’t dared get close enough to confirm it with her own eyes. During the time she had kept watch before Deep Shadow arrived, she hadn’t noticed any signs of the Black Nest escaping either. Where had it gone now?

Gu Jiancheng’s gaze lingered on the bed. The spring mattress was half dragged onto the floor. On the bed lay a pile of old newspapers and cardboard boxes, and beneath the cardboard were a rolled-up old mattress, an enamel mug, a plastic comb with missing teeth, and similar items.

The Magician leaped onto the bed and sniffed around. “Someone used to live here… they were still here about a month ago.”

It seemed a homeless person had once used this place as a temporary shelter. But now, the house held no scent of the living.

The Magician looked up toward the side of the headboard.

There was a small door there. The door was half-open, revealing a space without windows. It relied solely on the meager light filtering in from the bedroom window to illuminate a path inside, revealing an old garment hanging on a crossbar. It looked like a walk-in closet.

Could there be clues about the Black Nest in there?

The cat walked up to the doorway and stretched its head out, trying to peek inside.

A shadow wrapped around the cat’s ribs and yanked the Magician away from the door.

Gu Jiancheng stared coldly at the half-open doorway. “Have you gone stupid after a few days of peaceful living? You can’t even recognize a Black Nest when you see one?”

The Magician flipped mid-air and landed gracefully on the bed. Her feline pupils dilated as she stared at the walk-in closet, every single hair on her back puffing up in a frizzy explosion. A bone-chilling terror gripped her heart.

This Black Nest had disguised itself as a room!

The Magician had seen many Black Nests, each entirely unique, but they all shared one common characteristic:

After enduring the trials of countless terrifying instances and missions, Infinite players developed a strange, intuitive recognition toward Black Nests.

Those cavernous maws used to spawn monsters—whether they floated like whirlpools over swamps, were as cold and eerie as withered bones, or even brimmed with vitality like flower buds—all looked like eyes to the players.

Being stared at by that eye was a blood-curdling sensation.

Yet until Gu Jiancheng pointed it out, the Magician had genuinely believed this was just an ordinary walk-in closet.

Was it because Infinite had been destroyed that the Black Nests had lost their “eye” characteristic? Or did this Black Nest possess a much more advanced camouflage ability?

No, it wasn’t just camouflage.

For an old house like this to have a specially designed walk-in closet in the bedroom was inherently bizarre. And the homeless person—the belongings they had stashed beneath the cardboard were tattered but neatly organized. If they had left on their own, they wouldn’t have abandoned all their possessions.

There were many other suspicious details as well.

For the Magician to have made a name for herself in Infinite, her observation skills and sharpness were absolutely top-tier. Even if peaceful living had dulled her edges slightly, she shouldn’t have missed such glaringly obvious discrepancies.

She had been influenced.

This Black Nest possessed the ability to influence the human mind!

Once discovered, the Black Nest began expanding rapidly, spreading from the walk-in closet to the bedroom, and from the bedroom to the other rooms. Before long, the entire house had become the domain of the Black Nest.

From the non-existent walk-in closet flew an article of clothing—old and dilapidated, yet possessing a magical allure that made one want to put it on immediately.

The damp walls began to bubble and boil. With every bubble that popped, a massive amount of wall plaster rained down. The mold spots caved inward, and from those hollows crawled out anomaly after anomaly.

Gu Jiancheng dodged the clothing flying toward him. A possession/control-type Black Nest. That matches up. The garbled anomaly he had dismantled earlier to extract the Black Nest’s trace had been a possession/control type. The garbled anomaly No. 2 that had run amok in Beiling City earlier was also a possession/control type. It was highly likely they both originated from this Black Nest.

The Black Nest continued its expansion, only to crash headlong into the shadows Gu Jiancheng had set up in advance.

The bizarre, unpredictable Black Nest collided fiercely with the formidable, icy shadows!

Instantly, the air shrieked with frequencies imperceptible to the human ear, sending out ripples of bizarre, eerie waves.

The Magician held a wooden talisman carved into the shape of a dormouse in her mouth. As the corruption-laden ripples approached her, they slid right off. The void left by the ripples perfectly formed the silhouette of a dormouse—nobody better disturb my sleep.

The Magician hid far away.

Leave the battlefield to the boss!

Her objective was merely to spectate, not to be a burden!

As she watched, the Magician began to realize something wasn’t quite right. Why is this Black Nest… so weak?

After crashing into the shadow domain Deep Shadow had laid out in advance, the Black Nest hadn’t managed to expand a single step further. Was Boss Deep Shadow’s strength just that overwhelmingly powerful?

Powerful enough to casually suppress and beat up a Black Nest? That couldn’t be, right!

She watched helplessly as Deep Shadow, right in the middle of the fight, pulled out his phone and started scrolling.

No, seriously, Boss, are you really that relaxed? Is this Black Nest a fake or something?!

Gu Jiancheng also felt that this Black Nest was incredibly trash. This wasn’t his first time clashing with a Black Nest; he had fought several during his time in Infinite. The power disparity between them wasn’t exactly like night and day, but it was easily the difference between a lake and an ocean.

Even with the Infinite world destroyed, a normal Black Nest shouldn’t be this weak!

Gu Jiancheng’s paranoia kicked in; he suspected the Black Nest had set a trap to lure him in!

Out of caution, Gu Jiancheng decided not to rush into using his ultimate moves right away. He planned to intentionally expose a flaw to the Black Nest first.

And so, he took the time to drop a like on Zhan Yan’s Moments post, and even took a screenshot to make a new post of his own!

The Black Nest felt deeply insulted! It stretched outward frantically, trying to devour Gu Jiancheng, desperately trying to squeeze out more anomalies like an empty toothpaste tube being squeezed dry, just to teach this guy a lesson!

Looking at its furious yet pathetic display, the Magician couldn’t help but ask, “Is there really nothing left of this Black Nest but an empty shell?”

Gu Jiancheng had also confirmed it. The interior of this Black Nest had long since been hollowed out. It wasn’t acting; it truly was at the end of its rope.

How disappointing!

Gu Jiancheng clicked his tongue.

They had arrived a step too late.

Since that was the case, Gu Jiancheng didn’t plan on wasting any more time. He still hadn’t called Yan Yan to demand his goodnight kiss yet! It was already past time!

The shadows surged violently; the dead, silent black sea seemed to suddenly come alive.

Like the ocean on a stormy night, wave after wave, each higher than the last, crashed down upon the Black Nest.

It’s… it’s trying to devour the Black Nest!

Crouched on the wall far away in her cat form, the Magician watched in awe. The pupils of her feline eyes shrank and then dilated.

This wasn’t her first time seeing Deep Shadow in action, and she knew his ability could devour anomalies, but this was her first time seeing Deep Shadow devour a Black Nest!

For a player originating from Infinite, this was tantamount to an intensely stimulating shot of adrenaline. Excitement and fear intertwined like two colliding tides, her heartbeat racing faster and faster…

Twenty-six years ago, the massively bizarre and almost unimaginably terrifying Infinite world collapsed. Back then, the Magician had merely been one of the many who seized an opportunity to escape. On her desperate flight from Infinite, gambling with her life, she had caught a breathtaking glimpse of the collision between the two worlds.

Twenty-six years later, she was finally able to witness the pinnacle of the players clashing against the most bizarre and terrifying Black Nest in Infinite once more. It was like catching a glimpse through a keyhole of the magnificent spectacle from years ago. A single glimpse, yet brilliant enough to dazzle.

The deep, cryptic nest was gradually drenched through by the shadows; the darkness swallowed the room that never existed.

Gu Jiancheng half-lowered his eyes.

He hated the feeling of a trail going cold. Taking out an abandoned Black Nest wouldn’t give him many clues, but a Black Nest devoured by his Sea of Shadows could.

He held a certain degree of absolute control over anything swallowed by the Sea of Shadows.

But a starved camel is still bigger than a horse; no matter how weak a Black Nest was, it was still far more troublesome than an anomaly. It was like a wad of unchewable wax, sizzling and emitting heavy corruption.

The world before Gu Jiancheng’s eyes warped once more, and a chaotic cacophony of sounds exploded in his ears: roaring fires, collapses, tsunamis, screams, wails, uproarious laughter… The various Infinite instances he had endured were like different colored blocks of clay, squeezed together by a twisting force. His heart pounded madly, thrashing around wildly inside him, desperate to find an exit to escape this maddening world.

Fortunately, he could still maintain control.

The sprawling shadows gradually shrank back, eventually all returning to the shadow beneath Gu Jiancheng’s feet. He looked up at the wall where the Magician was perched.

The Magician’s fur puffed out entirely. Pushing off with all four paws, she flipped backward over a dozen meters, shifting back into her human form mid-air and landing on a distant rooftop, watching Gu Jiancheng warily.

During the process of the shadows devouring the Black Nest, the Magician had an illusion: she felt as if Deep Shadow himself was a living Black Nest!

And that look Deep Shadow had just given her… Even at his most unhinged, his gaze had never been worse than that. It was absolutely terrifying!

Cold sweat beaded on the Magician’s forehead.

Her hands were empty; she wasn’t holding any weapons, afraid they might provoke Deep Shadow in his current state. She didn’t dare run either; fleeing was an action that similarly stimulated predators.

The Magician froze in place, cursing silently in her heart.

Wasn’t Deep Shadow’s madness almost cured? Is it because he devoured the Black Nest?

The shadows beneath his feet boiled and stretched, looking eager to cast their net and begin a hunt to feed. The Black Nest seemed to have triggered their hunger.

The Magician saw Deep Shadow’s left wrist suddenly twitch.

Concealed beneath his long sleeve was a fitness tracker. Worn backward, the band was fastened tightly, pressing the main face firmly against the skin on the inside of his wrist.

Right now, that tracker was vibrating rhythmically, pulsing with the frequency of a heartbeat.

The faint vibration was incredibly steady, transmitting from Gu Jiancheng’s skin and blood vessels all the way straight to his heart, as if his very bones were vibrating in tandem.

Gu Jiancheng raised his left hand and pressed it gently against his heart. The vibration of the tracker lay tight against his own erratic pulse. It was as if his chaotic heartbeat had finally found its proper rhythm; it latched onto that steady vibration, like a ship finally finding its harbor amidst a raging storm.

The two different frequencies slowly merged into one.

Gu Jiancheng closed his eyes, and the terrifying, icy, maddening aura around him gradually melted away.

Even separated by thousands of kilometers, his lover still sheltered him.

The surging dark shadows receded.