The surrounding darkness was so silent, as quiet as an abyss that devoured everything. Jemis looked up at the sky, only to find that the bright moon hanging in the firmament had disappeared without a trace, leaving behind nothing but an intangible darkness. The once bright lights along the streets were now as dim as the tail light of fireflies, and the splendid lights at the hotel entrance now resembled the yellow gloom of old incandescent lamps. The thick darkness seemed to congeal into a tangible fog, absorbing everything around it. "Minister He, we may have encountered a covert event..." He shifted his gaze forward, but to his shock, he discovered that the young man who had been standing in front of him had been swallowed by the darkness, leaving only a dim, pitch-black void. He reached out with his hand, but it only met with the emptiness of an unoccupied space. The person who had been standing before him had disappeared without a trace. The urgent and shrill ring of a phone echoed through the pitch-dark darkness. He abruptly drew his pistol from his waist and looked towards the empty darkness. A violent vibration echoed from his pocket. He jolted slightly and slowly reached out, touching the pocket of his jacket, and he pulled out a black cell phone. The jarring ringtone of the phone became even more intense. He looked down at the phone, the shrill ringtone, seemingly a howl, was not his usual ringtone, but at the moment his phone was trembling violently, and on its screen, there was a bright red incoming call alert. The option to hang up the call was now a bloody red. After Jemis picked up the phone, the shrill ringtone suddenly intensified, as urgent and piercing as a wail from hell. Jemis subconsciously threw the phone away. The dark cell phone hit the ground, but it let out an even sharper screech. Drops of fresh blood flowed from the shattered screen, spreading ceaselessly under the dim light. Jemis gripped the pistol in his hand tightly, shouting loudly. The only response was the deepening darkness and the piercing ring of the cell phone. The stream of blood flowing from the cell phone was about to reach his feet. He raised his head to glance at the endless, profound darkness outside the hotel, and within those depths, it seemed as though some twisted entity was slowly undulating. Jemis took a deep breath, swallowed, and retreated towards the hotel entrance, guided by the faint light from the doorway. The hotel door consisted of a central revolving glass door and single glass doors on each side. The central revolving door was still operating normally, the bearings carrying the heavy door in a rotation, making a ’creak-creak’ sound, Jemis carefully bypassed the revolving door, reaching for the handle of the regular glass door beside it. But no matter how hard he tried, the glass door, which was ordinarily easy to push open, was now immovable as if it had been welded shut. The increasingly heavy flow of blood, accompanied by the shrill ’ding-ling-ling’ of the phone’s ringtone, poured forth from the still vibrating phone on the ground. The pervasive red spread over the hotel’s entrance platform, steadily making its way towards Jemis. The sharp ringtone of the phone still sounded, and through the spreading blood, one could faintly see the red alert for an incoming call on the screen. Jemis leaned against the glass door, desperately banging on it, but still unable to break it open. He glanced at the fresh red blood that was about to spread beneath his feet, and in that flowing crimson, it seemed something was slowly writhing. He raised his gun and fired several shots at the glass door in front of him. With the crisp sound of gunfire, the transparent glass door was instantly pierced, splintering into countless fine cracks. Jemis took a half step back, then charged forward with force. Accompanied by the sharp sound of shattering glass and the shards flying everywhere, the man rolled into the interior of the lobby. "Minister He!? Where are you?" Jemis stood up, shook off the shattered glass fragments from his body, and lifted his head to shout loudly a few times inside the hotel. The dim light illuminated the spacious hotel lobby, with that bizarre ringing still shrieking madly, but apart from the bell, everything around the lobby was eerily quiet, as if the entire world had been draped in a gray-black veil. During this time, Jemis had thought about how to "resolve" this "secret incident," but he did not foresee such a sudden attack. However, he was not entirely unprepared. He also didn’t know about the young minister’s current situation, whether he had been dragged into this secret incident as well. He took a deep breath, took out a handgun from his waist again, turned around, and looked at the fresh red blood that was spreading behind him. Under normal circumstances, such area-based secret events were likely to have an "escape" exit. Although so far, in the cases he had dealt with, none of the people who "received the call" had survived; none had reemerged alive. But at this moment, he could only believe that he was lucky enough. Before he entered last, he seemed to have seen the young minister subduing an attacker. Considering the time when this secret incident broke out, that attacker might be related to the incident. He hoped the young minister was lucky enough not to have been dragged into it. Although he had heard many "legends" about that young minister, he couldn’t fully believe that a young man who appeared to be only in his teens had the terrifying strength of those legends. Before the other had suddenly caught an attacker related to this event, he had always thought it was irresponsible of the Research Institute to send such a young minister to investigate a C-level secret event, sending this minister into a dangerous situation. But now he had no more time to think about this. He glanced down at the blood that kept seeping through the door crack and spreading and continued to back away toward the deeper part of the lobby. He had to find a way to escape from here. He tried firing at the blood that seemed to be writhing with something, but it only splattered a spray of blood; then nothing happened. These kinds of secret events without visible enemies were the most troublesome; he couldn’t even find an entity to fight against. He continued to back up a few steps, pulling away from the blood while retreating to the edge of the reception desk. Just as he reached the edge of the desk, the telephone on the counter suddenly screamed violently, emitting a sharp, piercing ring. The two bells, both inside and outside, echoed together, like a fluctuating duet, tearing at his thoughts. Jemis instinctively raised his gun and shattered the telephone with a shot. The piercing telephone ringing briefly ceased. Jemis looked at the perforated phone under the dim light; the hole made by the bullet suddenly contracted, as if some fine fibrous flesh was writhing. Right after, bright red blood flowed from the hole in the phone, covering the entire marble surface of the counter and dripping continuously over its edge. The phone, with its ringing that had briefly ceased, screamed again. Jemis trembled and stepped back, continuing to retreat, avoiding the flowing blood, and continued to back away. Behind the counter was the hotel’s elevator area. The entire elevator area had no other doors, just four elevators leading to the hotel rooms, two on each side. The blood outside was writhing crazily towards him, Jemis extended his hand to light up the button in front of the elevator. The two lifts on the left and the first one on the right showed they were on the first floor, but the doors did not open. Under Jemis’s watch, the piercing telephone ring came from behind the doors of the three elevators, and bright red blood slowly surged from the elevator door gaps, spreading rapidly and covering half of the elevator area in no time. Jemis turned his head to look behind him, at the end of his field of view, the last elevator did not ring, and the numbers above were changing. A faint light spilled from the gap under the elevator door. Dropping rapidly from the 10th floor. Seeing the changing numbers, a surge of joy flashed in Jemis’s heart, and he immediately rushed towards the elevator. The flowing blood seemed to sense something, speeding up, and continued to spread forward. The numbers on the elevator grew smaller and smaller, and Jemis could even feel the vibrations of the elevator descending. His pace was swift, furiously rushing towards the elevator door. Just as he was about to reach the elevator door, the flowing blood finally reached in front of his steps, blocking the path between him and the elevator door. He raised his handgun, firing into the writhing blood; with the splattering of blood drops, the bullet harmlessly sank into the blood. In thought, he took off his jacket and flung it outwards, throwing it into the fresh blood before him. But before he could react, the brown jacket quickly "sank" into the fresh blood. The seemingly mere millimeters-thick blood was, in fact, like an abyss that devoured everything. The blood around him gradually drew closer. That piercing ringtone continued to howl, as the crimson ’sea of blood’ formed an ’island’ around Jemis’s feet, eroding away the foundation of the irregular ’island.’ Streaks of bright red reached Jemis’s toes. He took a deep breath and looked at the redness around him—the smell of death was so close. The crisp sound came from the end of the elevator corridor, followed by the slow parting of the elevator doors to each side. In that final moment, without hesitation, Jemis leaped, jumping over the crimson blood and charging into the elevator. Bright light filled his field of view as he tumbled into the elevator car. But the first thing he felt wasn’t relief from having survived, but the piercing sound of the ringtone. He slowly got up, and beneath him, in the light of the elevator, a cellphone was emitting a sharp shriek. Looking at the blood-red caller ID, this was his phone, the one he had just thrown outside the door. The black cellphone kept vibrating, and blood overflowed from it. The elevator doors hadn’t closed, and the crimson blood kept flowing in from the elevator corridor. As he beheld everything before him, Jemis finally realized that there was no escape from this ’hidden event.’ Once entered, it was a road to death. The red blood squirmed, and eventually, a blood-red, emaciated figure slowly ’floated’ up from the blood, picked up the phone from the ground, and handed it to Jemis. The blood-colored call was answered. But there was no voice from the other end of the phone. At this moment, the once noisy world finally fell utterly silent, as quiet as the footsteps of death approaching. The blood-colored figure slowly closed in. Jemis felt only intense oppression and palpitations at his heart, as if the Grim Reaper’s hand had pierced through his chest and gripped his heart. Accompanied by a crisp sound. A hoarse remark echoed through the silent elevator. The chest of the blood-colored figure was pierced; a hand emerged from its chest and then slowly retracted, pulling the blood-red figure apart into two halves, as the flowing blood dripped down in the silent elevator. Jemis, trembling, looked up and saw in front of him. A young man in dark jeans and a black coat casually dropped the dripping ’carcass’ to the ground. He stood amidst the pool of blood, his face splattered with crimson droplets, and gave Jemis a ’gentle’ smile. In that instant, Jemis felt a sudden tightness in his chest, as if his heartbeat had stopped. "Snap out of it, it’s time to leave." The young man looked at Jemis in front of him and waved his hand. Then he turned, placed his hands onto the void, and, as easily as tearing bread, ripped open ’space’ to each side, revealing a spacious and bright street lit by street lamps beneath the dim void. The young man then stepped forward, passing through the rift and onto the street. Jemis finally snapped out of it, followed the young man, and stepped onto the street. Bright lights shone on his cheeks, and the cold night seemed to carry a touch of warmth. At that moment, he suddenly discovered at his feet, a split-in-half, emaciated figure’s ’corpse.’ But this body was hollow, devoid of any organs or bones. He asked in a low voice, somewhat puzzled. "Nothing but a human puppet." He Ao looked up at the night sky and slowly raised his left hand, extending two fingers. As if by design, a slender scalpel plunged into the gap between his two fingers, and with a ’bang,’ it was clamped tight by his fingertips. The man in the coat, materializing in the night, looked on in astonishment at the scene, but before he could react, He Ao’s finger holding the scalpel forcefully twisted, then flicked at the tip. The scalpel’s blade snapped instantly, and as it flew out, it was flicked by his finger. Accompanied by a whizzing sound, it ’thwack’ embedded itself in the still-surprised man’s neck. Blood imbued with a white radiance spilled from a slender wound as he opened his mouth, but no words came out. Then his body tilted backward and crashed to the ground. It all happened too swiftly, so fast that Jemis had not even made out the man’s appearance before he fell. He Ao walked over to the man’s corpse, crouched down, and searched the body, pulling out a round, brown lens. He lifted the lens to the streetlight, and through it, he could vaguely see a blurry ’sea of blood’ that gradually dissipated under his gaze, reverting to pure transparency and revealing the street beyond. This was an interesting Extraordinary Item; it could ’deceive’ the ’perception’ of people within a certain area covered by the Prop, making them believe that their surroundings had changed. It seemed that this was the device which led Jemis to think he had entered some sort of ’hidden area’. But its deception was not without a trace, nor could it deceive everyone. Under the field of view provided by the Eye of Truth’s escaping energy, He Ao could clearly see the ’Extraordinary distortion’ created by this Extraordinary Item. By inserting at the right angle into this Extraordinary distortion, one could enter the world as seen by those deceived. At this time, Jemis also approached, looking bewildered at the corpse on the ground. "The one who created all this," He Ao glanced at the corpse on the ground, "Should be, a C-level?" In fact, it was only at this moment that he clearly saw the person’s appearance. It seemed to be a face he had seen in the ’files’ sent by the Daybreak Leader, codenamed... ’Dissector’? Strictly speaking, this guy was now his subordinate at Daybreak. Shaking his head, He Ao slowly stood up, "Contact the Research Institute and gendarmerie; we have to work overtime tonight to clean this up, or else these escaping Extraordinary Powers might cause unnecessary damage." Jemis nodded shakily, still utterly confused and not yet recovered from the shock. The young Minister before him, killing a C-level, seemed even easier than slaughtering a chicken. He had thought the forum’s descriptions of this young Minister were ’exaggerated’, now he felt those descriptions were ’too conservative’. This Minister was not just strong; he was outrageously strong. He picked up the phone from the ground, unlocked it nervously and found it working fine, then began to call people. Only after contacting everyone did he vaguely recover, approaching He Ao with some confusion, "Minister He, is this the mastermind behind those recent disappearances?" He Ao shook his head, looking up at the bright moon above, then glanced at the lens in his hand, pensive. Jemis nodded blankly and walked over to the hotel to contact the manager to block off the street. It was only then that he noticed, at the hotel entrance, a torn ’chunk of fat human skin’. This young Minister, he was quite... quite amiable. The cleanup lasted until nearly dawn. By the time everything was settled, He Ao returned to his hotel room to find the sky already showing the first light of day. Meanwhile, Hao Yi had also received the first draft of the interview sent by ’Lin Chichi’. Dusk Delayed: [Hao Yi brother, I’ve arrived at the Yika Republic, waiting at the airport for a transfer to Rodan. Take a look at the draft I organized on the plane, see if there are any issues?] He Ao received the file, replying with a ’good’. Lin Chichi typed swiftly, her new message promptly popped up. Dusk Delayed: [Hao Yi brother, if there’s any issue, you must tell Chichi, okay!] Dusk Delayed: [Hao Yi brother, wait, my dad is calling me. I might reply late later.] He Ao, who was reading the draft, paused as this message popped up. He Ao’s real body sat by the hotel window, looking at the ’sunrise’ outside the French window. A crimson glow spread across the tourism-filled classical town. Within the field of view affected by the scattering power of the Eye of Truth, a gargantuan red eyeball was slowly rising from the eastern horizon. Various ringings of telephones echoed through the silent town.