Chapter 125: Chapter 125: Exploring Beining District Again, Familiar Tentacles

Fortunately, Ding Yang’s reply was still good news.

"According to Headquarters, if a monster is going to advance to Tier Four, the disturbance would be massive."

"The moment a monster shows the potential to advance to Tier Four, Hongshan Camp will take immediate action. According to our original plan, the operation is scheduled for about two days from now."

Lin Qi nodded. ’There’s still enough time. I don’t need a full forty-eight hours.’

The issue was that after completing this investigation, he might need to return to the Cyber World to make preparations before he could proceed.

"I will arrange for people to destroy those Moon Gypsum Statues as soon as possible. Mo University Camp won’t just stand by and watch a Tier Four Monster emerge."

After exchanging a few more words with Ding Yang in an official tone, Lin Qi opened the conference room door and had Wang Ziru see him out.

After Ding Yang left, Wang Ziru asked, "Boss, did something happen?"

Lin Qi shook his head. "I need to make a trip to Beining District. Have ten squads arm themselves and be on standby. I’ll have new assignments for them when I get back."

Lin Qi couldn’t possibly go and destroy all the Moon Gypsum Statues himself, one by one.

What he had to do was investigate the core of the problem: the building where the Tier Three Aggregated Monster was located.

The last time, when he went searching for the rescue team, Lin Qi’s Spiritual Vision only had a hundred-meter range, not enough to cover the top of the building.

But now, a range of nearly four hundred meters was enough for him to conduct a more detailed investigation.

As long as he could guarantee his safety, Lin Qi was going to take a look.

He had to see what that monster really was.

The humans on the roof of the monster’s building were also a key target for his investigation.

’Moon Worshipers?’

Lin Qi wanted to capture two of them alive and bring them back for study.

Seeing the look on Lin Qi’s face, Wang Ziru understood the gravity of the situation and immediately replied, "Don’t worry, Boss. I’ll make sure it gets done!"

With that, Wang Ziru left the conference room without a moment’s delay to handle personnel deployment.

’Ten squads. That’s forty people. They have to be the most capable operators, fully kitted out!’

...

「Beining District」

Lin Qi had returned to the area.

He activated his Spiritual Vision.

In the area where he had destroyed the Moon Gypsum Statues last time, no new ones had appeared.

The Spiritual Particles in this region had returned to normal.

This proved that the shaping effect the man-made Extraordinary Items—the Moon Gypsum Statues—had on Spiritual Particles wasn’t permanent. Once they were destroyed, the area would quickly return to normal.

Through this gap, Lin Qi entered Beining District, the area designated as a fallen zone by the official rescue teams.

After entering, Lin Qi didn’t sense any obvious anomalies for the time being.

’Either I’m not close enough to the Tier Three Aggregated Monster, or it just hasn’t activated its ability to lure people closer yet.’

Lin Qi made his way forward without incident and soon arrived at the spot where he had previously found the giant Zombie.

He frowned slightly.

The giant Zombie’s body was no longer in its original spot.

’It’s gone?’

It had been less than ten days since he was last here.

The giant Zombie’s corpse definitely wouldn’t have decomposed naturally, and Zombies didn’t prey on the corpses of their own kind.

’Two possibilities. First, the Tier Three Aggregated Monster upstairs has been active during this time.’

’Second, someone moved the giant Zombie’s corpse.’

Lin Qi’s gaze fell upon the building where the Tier Three Aggregated Monster was located.

He found a concealed spot and slipped into a ground-floor storefront on the side of the street.

Activating his Spiritual Vision, Lin Qi began to observe.

Immediately, his attention was drawn to the dense concentration of Spiritual Particles at the top of the building.

That was the floor where the Tier Three Aggregated Monster was, and the concentration of Spiritual Particles there far exceeded that of other areas.

This was a characteristic not seen in ordinary Extraordinary Professionals.

Nor would it appear on ordinary monsters.

Such a disparity in Spiritual Particle concentration is typically a trait of Extraordinary Items.

Continuing his observation, Lin Qi saw the true form of the Tier Three Monster for the first time.

Seeing it, Lin Qi was stunned for a moment, and then his eyes flickered with intense disbelief.

From the outside, this Tier Three Monster appeared to be just a huge ball of flesh.

On the surface of the flesh ball were the features of many other creatures.

Things like cats, dogs, birds, and mice.

This was an Aggregated Monster. Lin Qi had learned from Ding Yang that the full name for this type of monster was Animal Aggregated Monster.

When humans mutated, they simply turned into Zombies.

But the mutation in animals was even stranger.

Mutated animals would attract and devour each other, eventually forming an Aggregated Monster.

The result was this ball-of-flesh form.

But what surprised Lin Qi was not the Tier Three Monster’s ball-of-flesh appearance.

It was the... tentacles!... gestating inside it.

Yes, tentacles!

Lin Qi had seen the shape of those tentacles before, and he was very familiar with them.

They weren’t the suction-cupped tentacles of an octopus or squid.

Instead, they looked like the tentacles manifested by a Wizard’s Spiritual Power: seemingly smooth on the surface, but actually covered in strange patterns.

The monster’s tentacles were identical, down to the patterns, which were extremely similar to the manifestation of a Wizard’s Spiritual Power.

’Why? Why would an Aggregated Monster manifest this way?’

Lin Qi’s expression turned grim.

’The Cyber World and the Doomsday World...’ Lin Qi was certain they were parallel worlds with many similarities.

’If I really think about it, there’s actually a third world: the ordinary, modern world of my past life.’

’All three worlds are in the category of parallel worlds; even the people and objects within them are similar.’

’The Cyber World is just set further in the future—in the year 2089—so many details are hard to discern.’

’But from the Cyber World’s political structure and historical development, I can tell it shares a very similar trajectory to my past-life world.’

’It’s not just that the people and things are similar. The Spiritual Particles, and even the Extraordinaries, of the Cyber World and the Doomsday World share common ground. This implies that the Extraordinary origins of both worlds might be convergent—that they share parallel versions of the same genesis.’

’In other words, could this Aggregated Monster I’m seeing now become the origin of this world’s Wizard Profession in the future?’

’Fuck! Then how the hell did the Wizard Profession in the Cyber World even come to be?’

Lin Qi’s head throbbed, but his thoughts quickly cleared.

’Regardless of the Wizard Profession’s origins, it’s at least one of the long-standing professions in the Cyber World.’

’Even if there’s a catch, it isn’t something that will blow up anytime soon.’

’I’ll get as strong as possible first, then deal with problems as they come.’

He temporarily shifted his gaze from the Aggregated Monster.

Based on the monster’s current state, Lin Qi could be sure.

’This thing is still a long way from Tier Four. There’s no way it’s advancing any time soon.’

’Even if the flesh ball bursts and the Tentacle Monster within emerges, it would at most be at the level of the second or Third Stage of Tier Three, not even reaching the Tier Three Limit.’

As for how Lin Qi made this judgment?

It was just an intuition.

An intuition... for its own kind.