Paradise turned into a hell of black fog in just a few minutes.
The air carried the scent of decay and mold. Spores and powder floated through the air. They were sitting in the top cabin of the Ferris wheel and could clearly hear the screams and chaos from the ground.
Something massive was writhing.
Aside from the unbearable creaking of the mechanical structures under strain, there was also the damp sound of plants rubbing against painted steel frames.
Xin Hexue looked into the distance. The dense fog had already completely cut off the park from the rest of the city.
The lights from the office buildings in the city were no longer visible, and the neon glow had disappeared from the ground.
The amusement park Folded Zone had fully formed.
Even though the largest monster had no intention of harming humans and was only instinctively searching for its target…
It had still brought the pollution source of the Folded Zone.
One blood-red eyeball after another opened in the darkness, and the buzzing of insect swarms filled the air.
More and more plants and animals in the park became infected and mutated due to excessive inhalation of the spores and powder in the black mist.
Xin Hexue looked solemn. He pushed at the glass door of the cabin hard, but the dark green mold outside had sealed the door shut.
He turned to Yan Ji. “Can you force it open?” There were still many ordinary people who had come for the fireworks show inside the park, and the chaotic screams clashed and overlapped on the ground.
Even if the Central Military District responded immediately, it would still take time for them to arrive.
The gray wolf appeared inside the cabin. Its body had doubled in size, instantly making the space cramped.
The Sentinel and the mental body rammed the door with full force about three or four times before the cabin door finally burst open and fell straight from the sky…crashing down toward the huge vines below!
The vines resembled the tentacles of some ancient sea creature. They caught the falling glass door with precision.
Twisting, deforming, shattering.
It all happened in an instant.
Two white feathers drifted down from high above, descending like snowflakes.
Xin Hexue tapped lightly with his toe and landed on the ground.
Those who had come to the Folded Zone were not only ordinary people. Among the crowd were many Sentinels. Even though the sudden appearance of a Folded Zone within the safe zone had never occurred before, they had reacted quickly, entering combat state and actively guiding the crowd to evacuate through the park’s three exits.
Once a Folded Zone flipped and formed, it stabilized. That meant this amusement park Folded Zone, like the corner of a puzzle piece, only covered this park. Unless it expanded, the mutated monsters could not leave, but humans could freely enter and exit.
Their top priority was to evacuate ordinary people, get them out of the Folded Zone, and while ensuring civilian safety, find the Folded Zone’s “switch” and shut it down completely.
Even though the largest visible threat in the entire Folded Zone was the massive vine cluster clinging to the Ferris wheel, the “switch” wasn’t necessarily it.
Without a compass to detect the energy field and point the way, it seemed the only option was to kill all the mutated monsters.
Each mutated monster was like a box, you wouldn’t know if the key to unlock the door was inside until you destroyed it.
Xin Hexue looked up at the sky.
The gray wolf, now nearly three times its original size, carried the Sentinel as it leapt from the steel frame, narrowly dodging the vines’ attacks several times as it landed.
Finally, the vines climbed to the top cabin, where a tentacle reached inside and poked around.
It took a moment to realize that the cabin was empty.
Its prey had long since vanished.
A piercing screech echoed through the sky.
Xin Hexue didn’t know if he was the only one who could hear it. No one stopped or reacted to the sound, but it was very unpleasant and shrill.
He pressed his lips together.
Out of the corner of his eye, Xin Hexue caught sight of a familiar face.
It was the child with the cotton candy who had bumped into Yan Ji earlier in the evening.
In the distance, a mutated pet dog opened its bloodstained jaws and charged at the lost child.
The child stood frozen in terror.
In a flash, a white blur swept across. Xin Hexue pulled the child into his arms to shield him.
The gray wolf pounced on the mutated pet dog.
Blood stained the white, curly fur.
Xin Hexue saw that it had originally been a white fleece dog without a leash, but after inhaling too many airborne spores and powder, it had mutated completely into an evil fleece.
Smaller animals and plants were more susceptible to infection and mutation. In contrast, humans weren’t as easily affected. But in the Folded Zone, it was more likely that humans would be killed by monsters before they even had time to get infected.
Xin Hexue lifted his gaze. In the night sky, the vine cluster, frustrated from not finding their target, tightened their grip on the Ferris wheel.
The steel structure of the Ferris wheel had already started to deform in the hazy air, and people trapped inside the cabins pounded on the glass walls in despair.
White light arrows solidified into sharp tips, and three arrows pierced into the vines at once.
Xin Hexue didn’t dare to bet on whether the Strangling Tree still retained a trace of human reasoning, so he chose to strike first.
He pushed the child at Yan Ji and gave a clear, direct order: “You go with the other Sentinels and save the people.”
He turned back and said, “I’ll draw it away.”
Yan Ji hadn’t even reacted yet.
The child Xin Hexue had pushed into his hands finally reacted and burst into loud wails.
There was no need for the military’s newly developed inducers, and no need for human blood, as Xin Hexue himself already held a powerful attraction for the vines.
The vines reacted quickly and followed his scent.
There was a dense crowd nearby, and with dozens of Sentinels already stationed in the park, a path to the exit was barely carved out through the insect swarm with Sentinels guarding on both sides.
In fact, Xin Hexue had already shown signs of mental power exhaustion earlier, so after jumping from the Ferris wheel, he couldn’t even maintain his conjured wings for more than a minute.
He couldn’t face the vines head-on. All he could do was lure them to a less populated area and delay them until the Central Military District’s Sentinels arrived.
Xin Hexue remembered that while wandering around earlier, he had passed a newly built attraction that hadn’t yet opened, meaning it should be mostly deserted and not far from here.
………
It was probably a newly constructed haunted house, still not officially open to the public.
The entrance, which had looked colorful and not so scary during the day, now appeared in the Folded zone as a peeling, damp, mottled wreck.
The sign above the haunted house, originally lit with bulb letters, had gone dark in the power outage, making it hard to read.
The wet, dragging sounds followed closely behind, sticking to him like a shadow.
It felt like the footsteps of death.
Without hesitating, Xin Hexue lured the vines into the sealed building.
As soon as he entered, unstable current surged, causing the light bulbs to flicker.
“Puppet Circus Fantasy Night” lit up faintly, the bulb walls spotted with green mold and blackened tungsten particles.
The light bulbs flickered several times before finally burning out just as the vines slithered in, plunging everything back into darkness.
Xin Hexue had no other light source, so he could only rely on his communicator inside the pitch-black venue.
It still had 25% battery left.
Enough to power the flashlight.
The hallway was designed as a puppet exhibit. On both sides, glass display cases held different puppet figures propped up by stands.
Bald heads, hollow eye sockets, and red dresses trimmed in white lace gave off an eerie vibe.
Xin Hexue only took a quick glance. He knew they were just props, so he quickly strode forward without looking around, searching for a place to evade the vines.
After winding through a few turns, the slithering sounds faded behind him.
But as he rounded a corner, he accidentally stumbled, barely managing to steady himself against the wall.
He looked down…and met a pair of bulging eyes staring back at him.
Two streaks of blood, like red paint, ran down from the eyes.
They stared at the intruder. Their eyelids opened and closed mechanically, and the creature’s mouth stretched up and split to the ears.
Xin Hexue frowned.
What had tripped him was a puppet.
It had fallen from a shattered glass case and landed in the middle of the hallway.
But more disturbing than the puppet’s eerie appearance was the sticky, clammy texture under his fingers.
He looked down. In steadying himself, he had touched the wall.
The paint had peeled away here. Moisture soaked the surface, staining it so badly that the residual red paint made the water streaks look just like blood.
Xin Hexue frowned in disgust.
The puppet he had ignored suddenly let out a frenzied screech. “He’s here! He’s here!”
The wet slither of vines suddenly returned at the end of the hallway.
………
A puppet sat in front of a vanity mirror, the surface glowing faint green and reflecting its protruding cheekbones, crooked eyeliner and brows. Two braided pigtails framed its face, their ends draped over the ruffled collar of its chiffon dress.
The music box on the table lit up. A small figurine danced in the snow, softly playing a melody, like an unfamiliar woman humming.
This was the dressing room backstage at the Puppet Circus.
The closest was spacious enough to hide a full-grown man.
Inside hung layers of skirts, oversized clown pants, and magician suits.
The closet door couldn’t close all the way, and light and air leaked in through a narrow crack.
Xin Hexue kept his breathing shallow.
Judging from the vines’ behavior tonight, he was almost certain: the vines outside lacked human reasoning. Or rather, He Botian’s consciousness could no longer control this huge monster.
“Bang!”
A thunderous noise shook the room.
The door slammed open and crashed against the wall.
Through the thin gap, he could vaguely glimpse the outside world.
A dark silhouette moved along the wall.
Just one.
Guides weren’t built for combat. If it was the Strangling Tree, Xin Hexue fighting alone meant certain death.
But if it was only one vine…he had a good chance.
Xin Hexue held his breath and sank his shoulders.
The suffocating space made breathing difficult. A bead of sweat the size of a bean rolled down from his temple, glinting as it slid into the collar of his hoodie.
The plant’s skin scraped against the floor with a wet sound, growing louder and louder.
Suddenly, the communicator screen lit up in the corner, casting light on Xin Hexue’s figure in the dark.
Even with the music box playing, the vibration of an incoming call couldn’t be muffled.
He quickly reached out to silence it but accidentally hit something else in the dark.
The small dancer in the music box froze. The melody stopped.
The vine’s tip slid away from the music box switch.
With an unstable signal, a stuttering voice came through the communicator.
“Xin Hexue, I’m… here.”
“Where… are you?”
It was Wei Zhuo calling.
There was no time to answer. The closet door suddenly flung open, and the vine lunged at him.
The scissors he had been gripping tightly stabbed into the vine’s flesh without hesitation.
A splash of green blood hit Xin Hexue’s face. His expression was cold, an extreme kind of deadly beauty.
The vine thrashed and twisted violently. The scissors sank deep, directly pinning it to the closet floor.
Green blood gushed out.
But this attack seemed to have triggered a branch of the monster’s neural network.
The climbing and squirming of the huge vibes converged into a synchronized sound.
It was coming.
Xin Hexue’s face went pale like soaked paper.
The puppet at the vanity opened its mouth mechanically and shrieked, “He’s here! He’s here!”
The voice on the other end of the communicator became more anxious. Accompanied by wind only heard while running, Wei Zhuo asked, “Xin Hexue, where are you?!”
“He’s here! He’s here!”
Just before the communicator’s battery ran out.
The young man, whose mouth was covered by vines, could only lift his hand to pound the wooden wall of the closet.
Until more vines flooded in like a sea, drowning him.
They surrounded him, forming a damp nest.
Maybe it was a hallucination caused by the monster, or the suffocation made his consciousness drift from his body…or maybe he was just dying.
Either way, Xin Hexue saw He Botian.
The Sentinel hovered midair, his combat uniform stained with blood, a bullet hole in his chest where he had shot him.
So Xin Hexue couldn’t mistake him.
This was the real He Botian.
