Chapter 160: Lingering Sound

In an instant, everything went dark before his eyes.

Countless scattered perspectives emerged.

In the collapsed hospital, hollow eyes that had lost their light and spirit, fading lives, and cold corpses. Walls covered in cracks, falling dust, and shrill screams coming from afar.

"Try again, doctor, try again."

A patient covered in tumors pulled futilely at the doctor's sleeve. The equally disheveled doctor froze on the spot, lips trembling, lowering his head in exhaustion, unable to say those words.

"It doesn't matter if I die, at least, please save her..." On the hospital bed, the desperate patient used his last bit of strength, wanting to grasp the hand of his wife on the other bed, but he couldn't reach it.

The patient on the other bed had long since ceased to make a sound.

And so, he wailed loudly.

Welcoming death amidst the sorrowful cries.

The shrill crying echoed, but could not attract any attention.

In the collapsed and chaotic hospital, no one even turned back to look... because such sorrowful cries had already enveloped everything at this moment.

In the temporary operating room, the chief surgeon's movements paused, and he put down his knife.

"Massive hemorrhage, no saving her, give up."

"But... there are still patients..."

"There's no medicine or equipment left! Where is the rescue team?! Where are the promised supplies?!"

The furious doctor roared, his eyes bloodshot, questioning: "What are we using to save her? What are we using to save the many patients outside? By lying?

Everyone is begging me, begging me to hold on a little longer... I've already tried my best! But who will tell me how much longer I have to keep telling this lie?"

No one responded, only the sound of faint sobbing.

The sound of tears falling to the ground.

That dim, fragmented light fell into the dust and disappeared, like a soul leaping from a cliff, wanting to touch the sky, only to fall into the abyss.

Tears merged into the blood, reflecting the scarlet sky.

Flames spread, and billowing thick smoke like pillars supported the gray-black firmament.

A falling sound arose.

As if the sky were collapsing and the earth splitting.

The world fell into darkness, never to return.

Here, only the lingering sound remained.

Outside Yacheng, heavy rain.

Ten minutes after the Time Ruins entered the Beishan District, a speeding off-road vehicle had already stopped outside the strictly sealed square.

When Seeing Wen Wen jumped out of the car and looked up, she saw the pouring rain in mid-air, and within the thick curtain of rain, that vaguely emerging, blurry whirlpool.

It had already been shackled by the force field emerging in mid-air.

Unable to move forward.

This was the entrance to the Time Ruins.

Under the command of the artisans from the Third Division of the Anquan Bureau, engineering vehicles were clearing the way, quickly completing the evacuation, and then preparing to tow the shackled Time Ruins to an uninhabited area.

The worst outcome had already been avoided.

She breathed a sigh of relief.

"Where is the search and rescue team?"

Seeing Wen Wen waved her hand to refuse others holding umbrellas for her, walking straight toward the Tong Shan at the front: "Have they started to be dispatched?"

"Currently, the Time Ruins are in a locked state, and the internal state has begun to initiate a cycle. I'm afraid it won't open again until it ends."

Tong Shan stood under the whirlpool and sighed slightly: "Good news, after inspection, the alert level of the Time Ruins is roughly at the Metamorphosis Rank, and has not yet reached the Rebirth or Transcendent stage.

Moreover, Ah Hua's status is still safe, and the life lock at home has not been triggered. The Xingxin Society provided help, and Fourth Uncle just rushed back from Chaocheng. If the life lock is triggered, he can provide assistance at any time."

"Alright, stop the foreshadowing."

Seeing Wen Wen knew the habit of these guys from Tian Tian Yuan of praising before criticizing too well, and she irritably opened and closed the lighter in her hand, "Let's just talk about the bad news directly."

"The bad news is that the detachment of the Time Ruins might be an accident, but coming to Yacheng is not."

Tong Shan finally turned his head back, expressionless: "When its Time Ruins-ization drifting began, the Haizhou Garrison had already made arrangements, and the Chuancheng Security Bureau was responsible for implementation.

But at first, it was heading out to sea, not toward Yacheng, so that the Taiyi Ring and the Chuancheng personnel completely missed it after boarding the ship and going out to sea.

Halfway through, it suddenly turned and came straight toward Yacheng."

"Is there something in Yacheng attracting the Time Ruins?" Seeing Wen Wen frowned.

"Impossible."

Tong Shan shook his head decisively: "The premise of attraction is that there is an observable 'gravity' between them. But at such a distance, if there were a gravity capable of easily attracting an entire Time Ruins to drift over to Yacheng, the Xingxin Society would have sounded the alarm long ago. It might even have caused the entire Yacheng to temporarily undergo Rift Realm-ization.

According to the trajectory, it should have headed straight for the Municipal Square. Instead, it deviated from its direction due to other reasons and was intercepted by us on the outskirts of the Beishan District."

Seeing Wen Wen's complexion gradually turned cold.

"In other words... someone did this on purpose?"

Someone wanted to send it to Yacheng, to a densely populated area, and then, after it deteriorated, let it explode completely... At that time, at least two districts would be completely razed to the ground, and half of Yacheng would suffer pollution.

No, I'm afraid it's not just Yacheng.

"Ten minutes ago, the Chaocheng Anquan Bureau also sent an urgent telegram. A Time Ruins also appeared within the city limits, but because Yacheng suffered first, they were prepared in advance and successfully intercepted it. But they cannot enter the Time Ruins for the time being and must divert manpower to watch over it to ensure that the worst situation does not occur.

There have also been movements in Chuancheng and Jiangcheng. Other small cities have no situation for the time being, but they are also worried that they will be destroyed, and have begun to request support from surrounding large cities."

Tong Shan said, "This is taking the lives of ordinary people in the entire Haizhou as hostages to tie up the manpower of the Anquan Bureau... Just two situations have made the entire Haizhou panic.

With such a hand, who can you think of?"

Seeing Wen Wen didn't speak, silently lowering her head to smoke.

The flickering firelight was dampened by the rain.

It twisted and shattered between her clenched fingers, and the debris fell into the rain, following the rolling turbid flow into the foul-smelling darkness.

And the sound of the heavy rain stopped for an instant.

Only deathly silence remained.

"The Huaxie Sect..."

Seeing Wen Wen's eyes were pitch black. She looked up at the rain frozen and suspended in the static zone, and sighed silently: "First the Long Jihui, and then this bunch of lunatics.

How come these lingering ghosts can never be killed off?"

Everything that had passed dissipated without a trace.

In just a short moment, Ji Jue staggered back a step, panting.

Returning to the interior of the Time Ruins from the records of the past.

He raised his hand, stopping Tong Hua's urge to speak.

"Back to the office first."

After the two returned to the office safely and smoothly, Tong Hua saw that this dog Ji Jue had tied the chain directly to the doorway.

Then, he took out a blood bottle from his pocket and pulled out the skull spiritual cage at his waist—at this moment, the light in the skull's eyes was already turning red from green, and no one knew how much he had embezzled.

At this moment, using blood rich in vitality and spiritual quality as material, Ji Jue started sprinkling it on the wall, stained with blood.

His fingers, strengthened by physical properties, were closer to metal. Under the strengthening of "Miraculous Hand," he used his fingers as a chisel to engrave a spiritual circuit on the wall, from left to right, from top to bottom.

He didn't even spare the floor and the ceiling.

After just a few minutes, the originally neat and solemn office had turned into a bloody evil cult club full of scarlet patterns everywhere.

If he pointed and said that this was for sacrificing evil gods and evil fools, people would probably believe it.

"In an emergency, we have to deal with it hastily."

Ji Jue clapped his hands after finishing, placing the skull directly between the spiritual circuits. Instantly, spiritual quality flowed and spread, sealing the entire office inside and out.

For the isolation of a workshop, such a perfunctory measure was simply fooling ghosts, but if it was just to seek closure and avoid prying eyes, it was enough.

"Alright, now you can speak."

Ji Jue asked: "What else did you find in the fragmented records?"

"This Time Ruins drifted over from the Quancheng underground cave."

Tong Hua sighed, sorting out those messy findings, "If I'm not mistaken, the place we are in now is the last hospital before the destruction of Quancheng decades ago.

But half a month ago, this was just a nest occupied by many monsters, and its Time Ruins-ization should have only started recently."

"..."

Ji Jue was silent, understanding what she meant.

If this hospital had been just a ruin for decades, why did it suddenly transform into a Time Ruins? Perhaps it was the subtle accumulation of problems in the environment within the underground cave, so that the "Goodness" and "Evil" became entangled, appearing with unresolvable contradictions and distortions.

But the problem is, even if it became a Time Ruins, how could it suddenly drift and then run to Yacheng to "open fire" in our faces?

Even if the cousin dragged the instance dungeon over directly.

But how did it drift into the Yacheng area?

You have to know that Yacheng is not close to the ruins of Quancheng; it can even be said to be at the two ends of the entire Haizhou. It didn't go to the closer Chuancheng, didn't go to the more accessible Chaocheng, and after passing through a small city like Jiangcheng, it actually headed straight for Yacheng?

Ji Jue still remembered Zhao Zhou, who dissipated before his eyes.

Wasn't he an outsource hired by the Anquan Bureau to patrol the outskirts of the Quancheng ruins?

There were too many mysteries, but those mysteries were too far away from Ji Jue, so he had no time to think about their meaning. Currently, just surviving inside the Time Ruins was already an all-out effort.

Up to now, he was only able to temporarily survive amidst the squeezing of hospital rules, superiors, colleagues, and patients.

And the existence of the Lord and the Core still had no clues.

After pondering for a moment, he took out the Soul-Calling Bell from his pocket.

After the surgery ended, before Director Qian came to throw trouble at him again, he finally got a short rest period, but this didn't mean he could sleep soundly.

The key now is to first clarify the structure of the entire hospital.

The risk of people doing this kind of thing is too great. After all, no one knows what ghostly things are still lurking in the depths of the hospital, or whether those attending physicians have territorial awareness...

We always need some consumables.

Ding~

A crisp sound echoed within the closed office. The scarlet spiritual circuits on the surrounding walls suddenly lit up, sealing the bell sound within the room.

And then, Ji Jue began to rejoice that he had done enough preparation work...

In the originally empty office, countless human figures actually emerged one after another, and the faint wailing sounds overlapped, making people dizzy.

Just in this one office, there were already so many fragments of residual spirits.

And then, Ji Jue shook the bell for the second time. Many residual spirits gathered in the bell, winding around the bell tongue. And when the third sound rang out, one after another, translucent spiritual spiders the size of fingers fell from the bell.

At first, they were as big as a palm or a fist, but the further they went, the smaller they became, until at the end, they were like fingernails, completely inconspicuous.

"Eww—"

Tong Hua subconsciously pushed her chair back a little.

At this moment, Ji Jue was already covered in strange spiders of all sizes, and the density was enough to make anyone with a fear of insects scream on the spot.

Those restless spiders that inherited the ferocity of the residual spirits were almost unable to suppress themselves, wanting to attack and gnaw on Ji Jue's soul, but the moment they climbed onto his body, they seemed to be on fire, frantically retreating, wanting to keep their distance. But under the restriction of the bell, they couldn't escape.

"Record book."

Ji Jue reached out: "Give me two pages, ordinary ones are fine, but they need to be stable."

Tong Hua didn't ask what he was doing. After taking a deep breath, she grabbed a notebook and tore off two pages directly. Amidst the flow of spiritual quality, a wisp of silver light instantly appeared on the two pages, then quickly hid, but after getting them, it gave people an inexplicable urge to write.

After Ji Jue took them, he decisively tore them into fragments.

Under the forging of "Non-Aggression" and the assistance of "Spirit First," every tiny fragment retained the essence of the record book, but the quality had dropped to the limit, and it could be said that it wasn't far from being scrapped.

And then, Ji Jue raised his hand and pointed upward.

Instantly, many spiders quickly crawled over the fragments, clutching the debris, climbing along the walls, pushing open the ceiling plasterboard, rushing out from the opened spiritual seal, and disappearing into the darkness.

Only the rustling sound was like fine rain, gradually moving away.

Ventilation ducts, ceilings, central air conditioning, electrical conduits... the spiders of all sizes, which could penetrate everywhere, went in all directions.

Ji Jue sighed with regret.

It's a pity that the portable mercury bottle wasn't brought in. Without mercury as a carrier, the retention time of pure spiritual creations is too limited, so they can only be used roughly.

Must be as fast as possible.

Limited by his own abilities, he couldn't manually operate every spider, so he could only give vague instructions, dividing them into several different directions to let them crawl along the pipes. If discovered, they would self-destruct directly. Before the spiritual quality was exhausted, they would imprint the route on the paper scraps and send them to a fixed location.

Half an hour later, Ji Jue shook the Soul-Calling Bell again. This time, a slender centipede crawled out along the ceiling, and soon, it returned with the debris piled up in the ceiling of the hall.

However, the paper scraps brought back were only three-quarters of what had been sent out.

Either they were discovered, caught, or accidents occurred, and they failed to reach the designated location.

But it was enough.

Relying on the record book fragments on hand and Tong Hua's interpretation, every ten minutes, the general outline and layout of the main outpatient building of the hospital appeared on the paper in front of the two.

From the top floor of the seventh floor to the morgue and equipment room in the basement, there were a few sporadic areas that were blank, which were worth further attention or probing later.

But not a single spider sent to the inpatient building was able to return.

In the scene outside the window, the inpatient building covered in flesh and blood still echoed with wailing and crying, screaming at the top of their lungs, as if it would never stop.

"We are currently on the fourth floor, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and the same floor as Dermatology and Health Care."

Ji Jue recalled the buttons in the elevator and the instructions on the wall at the elevator entrance, trying to fill in the departments he had an impression of, but Tong Hua's memory and observation skills were clearly better. She quickly wrote down the floor directory she had only seen once, marking it next to each floor: Internal Medicine, Emergency Department, Surgery, First Aid Department, Otolaryngology...

The main structure of the entire hospital gradually became clear.

The first floor had completely turned into a ruin, and a ghostly thing of unknown nature was lurking in part of the second floor, and the entire floor was sealed.

Some areas on the third floor still had departments, and the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh floors were all considered completely preserved, with many departments and sections listed on them.

Then, the only urgent investigation direction left was one...

The two looked at each other, and instantly understood.

—The Archives! ===== CHAPTER 161 =====