Chapter 32: Abyssal Disturbance, Notification Descends

Late at night, in the conference room of the Anomaly Bureau.

At a time when everyone should have been lost in sweet dreams, the conference room was filled with all the high-level personnel the Anomaly Bureau could gather.

Most faces wore a hint of confusion.

It must be remembered that the Anomaly Bureau was founded to seek how humanity could achieve better development and survival under the 【Spirit Disaster Game】.

This naturally included the challenges social order faced under the existence of Spirit Disaster players, and the supervision and handling plans for all threats the 【Spirit Disaster Game】 would pose to humanity.

They each had their own assigned projects.

Generally, the department responsible for maintaining social order would have no contact with personnel responsible for supervising the game itself, unless there was an internal personnel transfer or similar situation.

But tonight, almost everyone from every department was summoned to the conference room.

Clearly, the situation was not ordinary.

"Everyone, please remain calm. The Director is on his way and has important matters to explain to you."

A man with a square face, thick eyebrows, and a tall, burly build stood at the very front, looking extremely imposing; a microphone that a normal person would hold with a palm, he held with just two fingers, as if afraid to crush it.

This was the Deputy Director of the Anomaly Bureau.

He was also the public face who usually represented the Anomaly Bureau in conversations.

With these words spoken,

the murmurs among the people below became even more distinct.

"The Director? Holy crap! Do I still have the honor of seeing this legend in my lifetime?"

"I heard the Director no longer needs to descend into dungeons, because any dungeon in the current Spirit Disaster Game is nothing more than a snap of his fingers for him."

"Hmph, you all think the Director has it easy? He is actually working too."

"Huh? The Director has to work personally?"

The person who raised this question was a frontline staff member in charge of social order control, who rarely encountered things involving other fields, so he stared blankly at his colleague beside him.

The other party was a technical staff member responsible for supervising and analyzing the essence of the Spirit Disaster Game.

Adjusting his thick eyeglass lenses, the technical staff member said coldly:

"The Director personally supervises that existence at the bottom layer of the game code, preventing it from waking up prematurely."

"!?!"

Hearing this, the people around them sucked in a breath of cold air.

Even people from other departments had heard of the object referred to by the technical staff.

That existence...

Indescribable, ineffable, unseeable.

Is this really something humanity can face and supervise? It is hard to imagine what kind of monster the Director must be!

Buzz—

Before the discussion could continue to ferment,

the large screen in the conference room suddenly lit up.

A man who looked to be just over thirty appeared on the screen; his chiseled face looked extremely resolute, and his neat short hair and white casual short-sleeved shirt made his image look just like the sunny and cheerful big brother next door.

Yet beneath his feet lay a monster fully ten stories tall; under that massive figure that would make a person with megaphobia tremble, the man looked as small as an ant.

But at this moment, that massive monster lay motionless on the ground.

A plain and unadorned sharp sword was stuck in its head, and the sword's appearance was exactly the same as the symbol on the Anomaly Bureau's badge.

The man casually pulled out that sword, idly spun a sword flourish, sheathed it, and hung it at his waist, then spoke calmly to the camera: "Comrades, hello. I am the Director of the Anomaly Bureau—Qing Long."

"!?!"

With just that one sentence, most of the personnel in the conference room became so emotionally agitated that they stood up directly.

Even though they had been high-level personnel of the Anomaly Bureau for so many years and occasionally received orders from the Director, almost no one had ever seen what this Director looked like.

The other party truly lived up to the saying: "The divine dragon shows its head but not its tail."

Seeing him today was extraordinary!

Because they could tell that the other party was not currently in the real world, and the monster beneath his feet was no small fry.

Judging by the size and the degree of destruction in the surrounding environment, this guy would be the absolute final BOSS even if thrown into a difficult dungeon.

A BOSS-level character that made players headache, impossible to break through from the front, requiring reliance on intelligence to find flaws and clear the dungeon, was now slain by the Director like a dead dog.

And the white short-sleeved shirt on Qing Long didn't even have a speck of dirt on it.

This was a crushing victory with no suspense.

"Let me first explain the current situation." Qing Long lightly stepped on the monster beneath his feet and said, "As you can see, this thing was contaminated by some powerful force, causing unpredictable mutations."

Hearing this, everyone finally noticed.

That monster did indeed look a bit off.

Zooming out the perspective, one could see it was humanoid, but its skin was covered with all kinds of scales, feathers, and even a single horn formed from a keratin layer similar to that of a rhinoceros.

The ends of its hands and feet were also in the bizarre form of tentacles, and even on its neck, two tumors slightly smaller than its head had grown, on which one could vaguely see facial features and other parts beginning to sprout.

No living creature would grow in such a manner.

Even ghosts and other existences within dungeons should not appear in such a bizarre, sanity-draining state.

"The source of this mutation comes from that existence sleeping at the bottom layer of the 【Spirit Disaster Game】. It has been motionless for so many years, but ten minutes ago, it suddenly transmitted some unknown emotional fluctuation." Qing Long explained.

Then, with a serious tone, he continued to explain: "Just this one emotional fluctuation caused hundreds of dungeons to be affected simultaneously, and the number of dungeons expected to collapse and suffer damage on the spot is nearly a hundred."

"I hope everyone pays attention to improving your 【Spiritual Power】; this is your only possibility of surviving after encountering contamination. Any intelligence regarding contaminated dungeons must be reported promptly and in detail."

"Judging the contamination method of that existence is simple: if you see any place with such a painting symbol, then you have encountered it."

Having said that, Qing Long zoomed the camera perspective closer.

Only then did the crowd notice.

The eye area of that anomalous monster was not a physiological ocular structure.

It was more like eyes that had been painted on.

It was a pair of red vertical pupils.

The style was exquisite and elegant; even the finest painter in the world could not capture such a pair of spirited eyes, with every detail rendered to perfection.

Even through the screen, everyone felt their scalp prickle, as if something unclean lurking behind them was staring, cold sweat breaking out all over.

————

"Huh? Abyss God, did you secretly turn on a beauty filter for yourself? Why do I feel like you've gotten prettier?"

Wu Wang lay on the bed, examining the red vertical pupils on his wrist in confusion.

At first, this thing had been like a stick-figure drawing with only a few sparse strokes.

But after the dungeon just now and the evolution mentioned by the settlement space, its strokes seemed to have increased, even gaining three eyelashes on both the top and bottom.

"Forget it, not important. Let's look at the loot instead."

Wu Wang shrugged, indicating he didn't care.

After killing Tu Tu Xing Sun earlier, the equipment and items on the opponent naturally passed to him.

Chen Baili had explained to him the current management treaty of the Anomaly Bureau regarding Spirit Disaster players.

In a certain sense, it was very lax.

As long as private grudges between Spirit Disaster players didn't affect ordinary people's lives or property safety, and didn't cause major adverse incidents, then even if the two of you found an octagonal cage to fight to the death and one walked out alive, it would be fine.

Of course, you had to handle the corpse yourself.

Otherwise, if ordinary people discovered it and it affected public safety, the Anomaly Bureau would have to step in and deal with you.

Regarding the earlier incident where Tu Tu Xing Sun grew greedy at the sight of wealth and got killed instead, Chen Baili said he could even call colleagues over to help dispose of the body.

With such a good deal, Wu Wang naturally wouldn't pass it up, and asked Chen Baili to help handle the disposal.

After all, friends who frequently kill people all know this.

Killing is simple, but disposing of the body is the most troublesome part.

Just imagine: you're carrying a body bag to dump a corpse, and halfway there you run into someone you know. You're already socially anxious, so on one hand you're thinking about how to make conversation, and on the other you're worried the other person will notice something off about you.

In the end, forced by circumstances, you choose the convenient method.

Great, now there are two corpses that need to be disposed of.

Just as Wu Wang was happily going through the loot, the notification chime of the Spirit Disaster Game suddenly rang in his ears—

【Attention all players】

【The Spirit Disaster Game's closed beta has ended. The official open beta will begin in 50 days】

【After the open beta, dungeons failed three times consecutively will descend into reality. Please prepare yourselves for the coming paranormal catastrophe】

【Detailed information will be released ten days before the open beta】

【Wishing each of you find your own death】

Open beta?

Wu Wang was stunned for a moment.

Before he could figure out what this meant, the notification sounded again, and an information panel appeared before his eyes:

【You will begin a single-player story dungeon in three days — Records of the Desolate Village】

【Please prepare in advance. On the day the dungeon opens, find a bamboo hat and wear it】

【Wishing you find your own death】