Chapter 158: The Gate of Heaven

The Night Song Bar operates on an invitation-only membership system; one must be invited or recommended by a regular patron to obtain membership.

Membership qualifications are strictly controlled, but for the Administration, bypassing the invitation requirement poses little difficulty.

Originally, to investigate the Night Song Nightclub, Zhao Yan and others obtained over a dozen blank membership cards through impersonation, leveraging personal connections for invitations, and even directly modifying backend data to add members.

These membership cards are fully legitimate and will not trigger any detection.

Wu Chang took one of the membership cards from Zhao Yan, memorized the information on it, and asked casually:

"I wonder if it's my imagination, but it feels like our Administration has been taking a lot of abuse lately. The cultists of the Dark God and the Painters are enemies, fine, but how come someone like Tang Renquan—a worthless scumbag—can still make us look foolish?"

Zhao Yan chuckled bitterly: "Don't you dare call him a worthless scumbag. Without the Abyss Game, he'd be a cut above everyone else—the kind you'd have to crane your neck just to catch a glimpse of."

Wu Chang shrugged. "The problem is, the Abyss Game exists now."

Zhao Yan sighed and said:

"There's nothing we can do about it. After all, we're the Order Faction. To uphold any order, we must first abide by it ourselves; otherwise, it's all empty talk. But obeying order inevitably leaves loopholes for others to exploit."

"If Haisheng City were under the Evolution Faction's control, Tang Renquan and his kind would never dare act so brazenly. The Evolution Faction doesn't care about evidence or order—if one of their people is harmed, someone must pay."

Wu Chang sneered. "I think I finally understand why the Evolution Faction is more popular."

Zhao Yan: "Sounds satisfying, doesn't it? Feels good, right? A few years ago, before I met Big Sis and the others, if I'd had to choose again, I probably would've joined the Evolution Faction too."

"But over time, I realized there's an unbridgeable gap between me and those geniuses, those elite products of the organizations' training programs. I'm not the protagonist—even not a standout supporting character."

"Adopting the Evolution Faction's philosophy might feel good for a while, but in the end, I'd just become fertilizer for the advancement of those above me."

Wu Chang said: "Because of the recent Incursion, all sorts of monsters have surfaced. I have a feeling the Night Song Bar will finally reveal its true nature this time."

Zhao Yan nodded. "They never expected us to hold such a grudge."

Wu Chang rolled his eyes—he could hold a grudge, but he never did. If he had a grudge, he settled it on the spot.

Zhao Yan pulled two pills from his personal space and handed one to Wu Chang.

"Item Name: Transformation Pill"

"Item Type: consumable"

"Item Rank: F"

"Item Description: Temporarily alters body shape to a minor degree."

"Where did you get these?" Wu Chang asked, puzzled.

Zhao Yan replied casually: "Someone at the branch can make these. We applied for extra during a previous infiltration; these are leftovers."

Wu Chang frowned. Leftover consumables from a mission that long ago? Are you sure you just applied for a little extra?

But then he remembered: during the Incursion, he'd withheld two bottles of Energy Activation Serum, and Xiang Jianxing hadn't even asked for them back. Those two bottles were probably worth more than a hundred Transformation Pills.

With that thought, it suddenly made perfect sense.

After taking the Transformation Pills, both their height and body build changed slightly; even close acquaintances would struggle to recognize them.

Using the membership cards Zhao Yan had prepared, they entered the Night Song Bar without difficulty.

As soon as they entered, Wu Chang felt his mind grow heavy, as if something was suppressing his Insight, constraining his perception of the surroundings.

Had his Insight been below 100, he likely would've been affected by this force.

He glanced at Zhao Yan—and found Zhao Yan showed no sign of discomfort, revealing just how skilled the Night Song Bar's setup was. Most players with low Insight wouldn't even realize they'd been influenced.

He didn't mean Zhao Yan's Insight was low—he meant every Administration member who'd infiltrated Night Song had low Insight.

Any one of them with Insight at 80 or 90 would've instantly sensed the anomaly.

The Night Song Bar's true location lies underground; the staircase down is extremely long, descending to the fourth basement level before reaching the bar's entrance.

Inside the bar, the layout was no different from any other: bar counter, dance floor, stage, band, DJ—just the usual.

The only difference was the presence of many scenes unsuitable for children.

The waitstaff moved through the venue wearing daring, revealing leather outfits, towering stiletto boots over ten centimeters high, and grotesque animal-head masks covering their entire heads, carrying trays as they served.

In videos, when someone wore a backless outfit, comments often joked: "Your clothes are on backward."

Here, the backless outfits truly were worn backward—the waitresses, rich and generous, adorned their massive wealth with metal and gemstone decorations.

Clearly, the staff had undergone rigorous training: their gait, service language, tone, and every motion of serving drinks were designed to stimulate testosterone.

Even with their heads fully enclosed in black leather masks of horses, dogs, cats, and rabbits, they still provoked vivid imaginations.

Others might not know—but Wu Chang, this inexperienced kid, stood at attention.

He asked Zhao Yan, feigning ignorance: "Wait, is this even legal?"

Zhao Yan, the veteran, couldn't withstand this test either. He sat Wu Chang down in a corner of the bar, eyes fixed straight ahead on the glass, and said:

"Of course it's not legal."

Wu Chang asked: "Then why doesn't anyone do anything about it?"

Zhao Yan shot him a sidelong glance. "Our Administration doesn't handle this. Besides, even if we shut this place down under this pretext, it won't touch Tang Renquan—he'll just open another bar somewhere out of our sight, and we'll have to investigate all over again."

"If you're so bothered, don't look."

Wu Chang snorted, speaking with righteous indignation: "If I don't look, how will I ever condemn this behavior? Practice yields truth—without experience, I have no right to speak."

Zhao Yan: "You're fucking right—that actually makes sense. Fine, I'll look too."

Hum~

As the stage performance ended, the lights dimmed, and Wu Chang heard a piercing hum in his ears.

The occult ritual installed here had activated.

He looked around and saw that everyone's gaze—including Zhao Yan's—was helplessly fixed on the stage, eyes unblinking.

The hum lasted three or four seconds; when the ringing faded, the lights brightened, and several burly men appeared on stage, dressed like deranged killers from a slasher film.

The lead singer wore a puppet mask identical to those issued by the Yifu City Miracle Committee staff, clad in a studded leather jacket, its open front revealing a muscular chest and six-pack abs, holding an electric guitar shaped like a chainsaw.

"Flyer!"

"Flyer!"

"Aviator!"

The crowd in the dance floor shouted the band's name at the top of their lungs, and to liven the atmosphere, blazing flames shot out around the stage.

Aviator? The name didn't quite fit. Wu Chang had assumed the guys would call themselves something like Butcher or Hardened Criminal.

He slapped awake Zhao Yan, who was shouting alongside him, and asked, "Why are you shouting along too?"

Zhao Yan looked at him blankly. "What did I shout?"

Wu Chang took out his phone, which was playing footage of Zhao Yan shouting "Aviator" at the top of his lungs.

Zhao Yan's expression changed drastically. "There's definitely something wrong here. I'll request backup right now!"

"Hold on." Wu Chang held Zhao Yan back and said, "We're already here. Let's first see what the other side is actually trying to do. Calling in reinforcements won't be too late after that."

Zhao Yan figured that made sense. He put his phone away, changed the subject, and asked, "Right, if everyone's been affected, why are you fine?"

Wu Chang drew in a breath. Xiang Jianxing too, Zhao Yan too—these Bureau of Management guys, every last one of them so slow to react to the enemy, yet all their attention lands on their own people. If all you know how to do is ask that, I might as well let you go catch the same sickness as everyone around us.

"Did you forget? I have social anxiety disorder."

Zhao Yan said, surprised, "Social anxiety can dodge a mass-effect ability? When I get the chance, I'll learn one too. If I get affected again later, just wake me up. If that doesn't work, give me two punches—whatever it takes to bring me back."

Wu Chang nodded and made a mental note.

The show began quickly. Accompanied by a burst of intense, rapid-fire electric guitar solo, the band's lead vocalist roared in a metallic voice:

"Tonight, we will carry you soaring straight up, flying through the Gates of Heaven!"

Ever since the occult ritual began, the bar's crowd had become repeaters, only able to repeat the three words "Aviator."

While Wu Chang was mentally grumbling, Zhao Yan beside him started shouting along again. He backhanded Zhao Yan awake with a slap.

"Huh?" Zhao Yan looked at Wu Chang in a daze.

"You got affected again."

"Oh."

Wu Chang asked, "Is that force okay?"

!

"It's fine—stunned without brain damage, just right." Zhao Yan rubbed his face, secretly thinking this kid had quite the heavy hand.

"The Flight of Destiny is now departing!"

The moment the lead vocalist opened his throat, Wu Chang's vision jolted and he felt the entire underground space come alive.

Everything around him became soft and warped, as if he were inside the body of some enormous creature.

"Currently located in an occult-contaminated zone. Contamination level: Severe. Reality anchoring may now commence."

Wu Chang looked at the prompt that had popped up before him. Worried that if he began anchoring it would interfere with these people's plans, he didn't act rashly and held back to observe.

"Fly, fly, fly—fly over the waves of the apocalypse!"

Just as he was thinking, Zhao Yan beside him let out a shout that nearly ruptured his eardrums.

Good lord—he'd started singing along too. The occult ritual here was truly domineering, capable of controlling everyone into performing the same actions.

In other words, if he didn't go along with the action, he'd stick out terribly, and the flaw in his cover would be spotted in an instant.

He waited for the lead vocalist's gaze to sweep his way, then hummed along with Zhao Yan. Once the vocalist's gaze passed, he backhanded Zhao Yan twice across the mouth, muttering under his breath:

"Instructor, wake up."

Zhao Yan had just barely recovered when his body suddenly jolted and he started singing along again.

Wu Chang let fly with both hands, slapping him several more times until Zhao Yan's cheeks were swollen, but still failed to wake him.

Looks like physical methods were no longer working.

He thought for a moment and decided to give up on Zhao Yan—just let him stay controlled. With him over there yelling at the top of his lungs, he'd draw the surrounding crowd's attention and provide cover.

He slipped into a corner, spread his inspiration to the maximum, and strained to sense everything happening underground.

In a daze, he saw colored patches begin to appear in the air. These patches writhed along with the singing, piecing something together in midair.

The moment he saw these patches, he felt his body craving them—they had to be the contamination brought by the occult.

Not far from him was a clump of deep black patches. He reached out and touched them, watching the patches sink into his body and merge with his flesh along some pathway.

Perhaps the moment he thought of the occult, he thought of the Mortal Poison; the moment he thought of the Mortal Poison, he thought of his eyes.

He drove these forces into his head, fusing them first with his eyes.

The fusion was fast, but also agonizing. During the process, his eyes felt as if they'd been pierced over a hundred times. When the pain ended and he opened his eyes again, he could see the occult energy in the air with his naked eyes, no inspiration required.

So this is what an Arcane Knight is—letting occult contamination take the flesh, and using it to directly drive occult energy.

Brutally simple.

His eyes, contaminated by the occult—or rather, Arcane Knight-ized—not only could see occult energy, but could also faintly make out the lines the occult ritual wove through the air.

The ritual's lines spread over the entire bar like a spiderweb. Everyone who entered the bar was prey, and the hunters were the band at the center of the stage.

Taking the chance while no one was watching him, he began continuously absorbing the free-floating occult energy and merging it into himself.

Soon, his entire head had been assimilated by occult contamination, and his five senses were greatly enhanced.

But this enhancement didn't bring any real, stat-raising boost—it could only be said to let him make contact with occult energy. He was still a long way from truly mastering the occult.

While gathering occult contamination, he also injected a portion of his own energy into this space, anchoring it to the reality here.

He could clearly see the emblem of an Arcane Knight regiment appear in this space, yet the ones driving the occult ritual hadn't noticed.

"You have successfully completed an anchor point in the real world. The current area has been anchored. Please change areas."

The moment the anchor-success prompt appeared, the performance on stage also reached its climax.

Accompanied by the lead vocalist's roar that seemed about to tear his vocal cords apart, Wu Chang—through both his inspiration and his Arcane-ized eyes—saw an enormous stone gate appear on the stage.

White clouds floated around the stone gate, and behind it flickered dazzling Jin Guang, as if it were the Gates of Heaven the vocalist had mentioned earlier.

In the vocalist's high notes, the Gates of Heaven slowly opened, and countless tangible rays of light poured down, landing on the heads of everyone in the venue. The crowd let out beast-like howls and began writhing about like a demonic dance.

But when Wu Chang gathered his will and looked closely, the filter of light dissolved, and he saw that what fell on the crowd was no light at all—it was plainly tiny flesh-borne parasites.

He had wanted to step in and stop it, but just as he was about to act, he saw that under the glow of the light, as if welcoming the arrival of new companions, the faces of the crowd in the dance floor were covered in dense, fine tentacles.

These fine tentacles received their new companion from the light, settled it onto its host, and then began to sway in time with the music's rhythm.

The waitstaff in their bold outfits, weaving through the crowd, had flesh-and-blood tentacles pushing out from the gaps in their head coverings, unzipping themselves on their own, revealing the thick, long clusters of tentacles on their faces—their contamination was far more severe than anyone else's.

Throughout the entire Night Song bar, apart from Wu Chang and Zhao Yan, every other person had at least twenty or thirty flesh-and-blood tentacles growing on their face.

To keep Zhao Yan from being infected, Wu Chang could only pretend to be overly excited, spin around, and land a heavy punch that sent Zhao Yan tumbling beneath the bar counter, to a spot the light couldn't reach.

To these tentacles, the Pilot Band's music was like the most potent of banned substances.

People pressed close to one another, faces mashed together, letting the tentacles on their faces intertwine and coil up, and their bodies tangled along with them.

Tentacles don't distinguish gender, which meant that in the packed dance floor, who ended up tangled with whom was purely random.

Even Wu Chang, who had seen his share of brutal sights, watched the scene before him and couldn't help baring his teeth.

If this were recorded and released, forget whether viewers would lose SAN—anyone who came to Night Song to play would have their SAN value wiped clean for sure.

What was even more chilling was—who would have thought that right under the Management Bureau's nose, Wanghai City could be hiding so many monsters contaminated by the occult.

If things were already like this with the Management Bureau in place, then what would Wanghai City, or the whole world, become if the Bureau were gone, or if its power of governance were weaker than it is now?

What would become of those with no ability, or people like Zhao Yan who had some ability but not much?

Watching the writhing chaos on the dance floor, Wu Chang began to understand the Order faction.

Just then, the high note on stage ended, the virtual light gate vanished, and the performance moved into its second phase.

(End of chapter)