Chapter 222: The Real Shadow

Hearing the two words spoken by the Hunter, Yu Sheng was momentarily stunned, but what immediately rose in his heart was not doubt, vigilance, or eagerness to try, but rather a memory of an event—

In a previous dream, he had seen the Hunter appear silently before him; at that time, out of curiosity, he had touched the empty hunting suit, only to see his arm pass directly into the suit's sleeve—if he had not been startled in his heart later, he would have already put on the Hunter's clothes at that very moment.

... So, was that strange dream the Hunter's first "attempt"?! At that time, was ta trying to make him put on this "hunting suit"?

Yu Sheng frowned; out of caution, he took no further action but spoke in a deep voice: "Reason?"

"We know what you are looking for," that hollow, indistinct voice sounded again in his mind, "the path to the 'Deep' is blocked by illusions; only by becoming part of 'It' can one bypass this forest—we successfully found this method, but we cannot resist Its will, so we have had to act according to the stage's 'script' until now, but you... seem capable. Put on this attire, become the Hunter in the Black Forest—and then you will see the true paths within the forest."

"If you truly have the courage and determination to resist It, then go face It."

Yu Sheng keenly noticed that the Hunter used a very special word when referring to himself: We.

"You are the Deep Dive Squad from back then—you merged into a single individual?!"

"Yes, just as you think—'It' could not distinguish our individuals from the group, so after the 'Fracture' occurred, we merged during our descent," the Hunter replied; when discussing this, ta seemed to have little emotional fluctuation, carrying only a faint trace of nostalgia, "but we still remember many things, the group photo you brought..."

However, just then, a suddenly rising hum abruptly echoed through the forest, interrupting the words in his mind; a massive oppressive force seemed to crush over from the end of every nerve, stimulating all perception; Yu Sheng felt his spiritual intuition tremble wildly, and the illusion of being watched by an boundless existence made his heart skip several beats—in the hallucination, he seemed to see a black shadow sweep across the Black Forest, and that shadow was composed of countless huge, grotesque eyes, carrying a pressure and coldness that made one's scalp tingle.

This hallucination vanished in an instant; Yu Sheng found the forest had briefly calmed again, and the Hunter's voice sounded once more, this time with a hint of urgency: "Quick! We don't have much time—It has already realized that the actors on the stage are acting on their own; the 'Hunter' must revert to the state before the Wolf Grandmother appeared—you must believe us, we have been waiting for this opportunity, 'It' is about to..."

Yu Sheng suddenly stepped forward and directly reached his hand toward that hunting suit.

He knew this time he had been somewhat rash.

The information revealed by the "Hunter" was insufficient; the exchange between him and "them" was far from enough to establish any mutual trust; what would happen after "putting on" the hunting suit, what should be done, what the so-called "true paths" looked like, exactly how to pass through the Black Forest via that path, and what the situation would be when facing Ankaira... the other party had not had time to clarify these; reaching out at this moment based solely on an impulse was truly a bit of not cherishing one's life.

But he had no time to think carefully.

Because at this very moment, he felt Ankaira again—that shadow composed of countless "eyes" swept across the sky above the Black Forest once more; like some mechanized scanning program retrieving all storage space, he could almost "hear" everything in the Black Forest emitting a response, emitting resonance under this "retrieval" command; the noise mixed within the infant's crying grew louder and louder; Yu Sheng vaguely sensed that the dark angel trapped deep within the "fairy tale" had discovered him, discovered this "intruder" in the Black Forest.

He could open the door and leave, but opening the door at this time would probably expose the coordinates of the real world directly to that dark angel.

Yu Sheng's hand penetrated the hunting suit once more—just as experienced in the previous dream; the "Hunter" was like an empty phantom, and upon touching, one could feel no physical form of ta at all.

But Yu Sheng could feel that as he lunged toward that empty suit, the "connection" between him and this hunting suit suddenly strengthened.

Ankaira's gaze turned sharply over, like a puppet on stage that suddenly began to move, instantly alerting the one holding the strings.

Yu Sheng felt the clothes covering him, felt as if he were hiding inside an extra "shell"; he felt his mind suddenly become slightly dull, many emotions and memories not belonging to him surged in briefly, but in the next instant flowed away silently and soundlessly; yet, in this brief contact, he still captured many chaotic images—

He saw twelve people wearing heavy protective equipment standing together, and he was among them.

He heard command voices beside his ears, and the sound of water filling the "Deep Dive Pool."

He heard chaotic howls, the voices of countless people—those voices mixed together, gradually distorting, with the hum and echo of many devices running simultaneously interspersed in between.

He saw himself crossing a patch of darkness, saw his "shell" breaking apart into four pieces.

Violent, out-of-control energy flows licked at the protective layer; alarm signals of internal structural disintegration burned like magma surging through the nerves; countless error messages flooded his mind, and a voice shrieked—

Warning, "Umbilical Cord" severed, warning, "Umbilical Cord" severed...

Core connection lost...

Yu Sheng felt his mind jumping back and forth between different perspectives, and these perspectives did not belong only to that batch of Deep Divers from seventy years ago—he saw many "memories" that could not possibly come from human senses, and the final scene he saw was himself falling from a chaotic, mad swirl of light and shadow.

At the end of the fall was a clearing; around the clearing stood several low, old buildings.

The light extinguished.

Yu Sheng opened his eyes, clad in the Hunter's attire, standing in the center of the dark cabin.

His vision swayed; in this swaying, many red cloaks looked like burning flames; silence ignited the night.

Ankaira's gaze swept over the cabin from above.

Yu Sheng raised his eyes; through the edge of the Hunter's hood, he saw the cabin's roof as if it had briefly disappeared, and that shadow piled with countless eyes was moving slowly in the sky, gradually "falling" toward the edge of the Black Forest.

It had not discovered the "intruder" hiding inside the Hunter's attire.

Yu Sheng settled his mind and tentatively asked in his heart: "Are 'you' still there?"

He received no response.

But he vaguely heard some hollow howls; the howls seemed to be consciously sending a "signal" to him. It seemed "they" were still there, but to avoid further provoking Ankaira, "they" had hidden themselves.

Yu Sheng stood still and pondered for a moment, then lowered his head to look at his own body, and tentatively raised his arm.

He saw himself wearing the hunting suit, but when he tried to move his arm, there was no strange sensation.

It seemed the worst-case scenario had not occurred—the only thing he had worried about before was that the process of "putting on" the hunting suit was a trap that would cause him to be controlled by this suit, becoming the next "Hunter" who must act according to the Black Forest's rules; that would be a development more troublesome than death—but now it seemed none of this had happened.

Yu Sheng blinked; he vaguely felt there were still some changes on his person, but could not immediately say what this change was, and at the same time, he felt a gaze.

Following the sensation, he saw the squirrel squatting nearby—this little fellow was waiting nervously beside him, its body visibly trembling a bit, but ultimately it had not fled the room.

"So..." the squirrel spoke in a very faint voice, "you are now the 'Hunter' too?"

"Probably?" Yu Sheng thought for a moment, stepped forward, and picked up the squirrel, "but it seems nothing has changed..."

He suddenly stopped halfway through speaking.

Seeing this, the squirrel worriedly scratched Yu Sheng's finger with its claws: "What's wrong?"

No mistake, one sentence, one release, one content, one look inside!

Yu Sheng did not respond; he just stared blankly at the wall before him.

That wall was "flickering" in his vision.

The wall flickered irregularly, disappearing and appearing at times; when the wall disappeared, he could even directly see the scenery of the Black Forest outside—and that entire Black Forest was also flickering in his vision.

Every tree, every flower, every bush was flickering irregularly; like a projection image with poor contact, everything in the Black Forest had become flickering illusions lacking substance, and as time passed, this sense of illusion lacking substance grew even stronger.

Yu Sheng walked forward in a daze; he directly carried the squirrel through that flickering wooden wall, walking outside the cabin.

"Wow!" the squirrel exclaimed; she hadn't had time to react just now, and only now was she utterly stunned, "we just passed through the wall! How did you do that?!"

Yu Sheng didn't have time to respond to the squirrel's confusion, because he saw another thing.

A huge rift, just like the rift seen in Old Zheng's room back then when Ankaira's tentacles pierced the real world, stood quietly in the center of the Black Forest.

It was right there, it had been there from the beginning—that path leading to the back of the stage was hidden within the Black Forest.

It's just that no one had ever been able to observe it until now.

"Did you see that?" Yu Sheng raised his hand, holding the squirrel up, and pointed with his other hand in the direction of the rift.

The squirrel, however, was slightly stunned: "Huh? What?"

"... Never mind," Yu Sheng shook his head, "It seems indeed only the 'Hunter' can see it."

He took a gentle breath, stepped forward, and walked toward that rift.

Yet the very next second, the instant he took his first step toward the rift, endless wolf howls and a terrifying roar suddenly made him halt in his tracks.

The squirrel immediately shrieked in panic: "The wolves are coming!!!"

The wolves are coming—

Countless wolves appeared within Yu Sheng's field of vision.

Yu Sheng could be certain that even back when he had led Hu Li to blast a path through the Black Forest and gone to fight the Wolf Grandmother, the number of wolves that had rushed out from the surroundings had never been this great!

Dense clusters of wolf shadows materialized directly out of thin air, filling every inch of his vision against the flickering backdrop of the forest, as if every wolf in the history of this forest had suddenly squeezed onto a single stage—tangible malice and bloodlust condensed in the air, so thick it seemed ready to precipitate the scent of blood.

Yu Sheng instantly gasped in a mouthful of cold air, yet still gritting his back teeth, he reached behind his back, grabbed that hunting rifle, and held it in his hands with great clumsiness.

"Come on—"

he said through gritted teeth.

Then the wolves pounced and tore him to shreds.

Shredded into tiny, tiny pieces.

(End of Chapter)