Chapter 305: The Blocked Path

In the ruins, a nauseating bloody smell permeates.

Lin Fan stepped over severed limbs on the ground, his leather shoes splashing through puddles and pools of blood, making a sticky squelching sound.

He stopped before a collapsed glass display stand.

That ancient bronze ring, stained with dark red blood, lay quietly in the rubble pile.

He bent down, reached out, and closed his five fingers around the metal ring.

As his fingertip touched that node on the metal surface, an extremely violent chill surged violently into his meridians through his hand.

A chaotic stream of information suddenly flooded his mind without warning.

The usage rules and death price of this item were forcibly etched into his memory cortex.

The Divine Gift directly links its benefits with a lethal Death Summoning Talisman.

The price of this ring is the ceaseless draining of the user's sanity.

If worn for more than five minutes, the cerebral cortex will be completely burned through.

The holder loses human logical ability, descending into a mad dog that knows only indiscriminate slaughter.

This is an inescapable deadly situation.

Touching the divine forbidden zone with a mortal body is essentially offering one's life to fill it.

An ordinary person encountering this overbearing backlash mechanism would have their mental defenses shattered long ago.

Lin Fan didn't move, his right hand gripping the copper ring tightly.

In his right eye's azure pupil, a violent, ferocious light churned.

A shrill sound wave, inaudible to ordinary people, erupted violently within a three-foot radius around Lin Fan.

Ling Xinyu, lurking in his shadow, unleashed all her power.

In life she dared not even kill a chicken, but after death she boiled all her protectiveness and venom into this extremely ferocious virtual flesh and blood.

Now a dead thing dares to stand before her and erode her man's brain?

The icy aura of a full-fledged Fierce Ghost poured out without reservation.

The red light that had been crawling up Lin Fan's arm slammed head-on into the thick, gloomy black mist surging up from the ground.

Ling Xinyu's eyes streamed with bloody tears, and her black-hole-like sockets revealed a ruthless killing intent.

She cared nothing for the Divine Gift's regulations.

Hundreds of thick black hairs shot out from Lin Fan's cuff, tightly entangling the ancient bronze ring.

A grating, squeezing noise echoed through the ruins.

The hairs turned into the greediest siphon, forcibly crushing the ring's outer regulatory shield.

Ling Xinyu bore all the mental erosion with her ghostly body.

The ring's pure anomalous energy was peeled and extracted by the hairs, harmful impurities removed.

It ultimately became an extremely gentle energy flow, pouring directly from his palm into his limbs and bones.

Lin Fan's bones throughout his body emitted a series of crackling sounds like popping beans.

The weakness from his previous penetrating wound vanished completely.

Muscle fibers were violently widened and remodeled by the external energy.

The azure flame in his pupils burned through the iris, forcibly raising his rank.

The backlash mechanism of the Divine Gift was hard‑coded a bug by this pair of reckless lunatics.

Everything that happened in the ruins did not escape the eyes of those high above.

The gaze shot straight up along the rainy night sky, passing through thin clouds.

The spire of the tallest skyscraper in Jiang Hai City.

The wind was extremely strong, making the lightning rods clatter noisily.

A man in a dark‑red luxurious suit, half his body protruding from the rooftop edge, looked down over the whole city fallen into mutation.

The man's face was covered with a gray mask lacking any features, only two slits left for the eyes.

Behind the slits were two blood‑red pupils.

He leaned on a wholly black staff, its tip inlaid with a rolling, living human eyeball.

Chu Che's clone, codename Sai Men.

A perverse lunatic split off specially to stir up trouble onstage.

Sai Men idly turned the staff in his hand, a nervous low laugh issuing from beneath his mask.

"Really fun."

"Actually using a top‑tier Fierce Ghost to filter the side effects of a Divine Gift item."

"Such a simple, brutal way to exploit a bug—even the Editor didn't anticipate it."

He stood in the high wind, his tone revealing extreme excitement.

"One obsessive paranoiac, one husband‑protecting maniac."

"What a perfect pair of twin stars."

Sai Men flicked at nonexistent dust on his collar, locking his scarlet red eyes onto the boy in the ruins below.

In the hunting grounds, a vicious dog capable of biting through a human throat finally slipped in.

Lin Fan's name was officially written into Sai Men's regular observation list.

He hoped this hound, guarded by an Evil Ghost, could kill a few more hypocrites in the heated death match.

Through the Weird Editor, Sai Men could look up the underlying code of every Divine Gift item.

He was quite clear about the true ability of that ring.

It was not merely an amplifier that boosts anomalous power.

Its truly terrifying aspect lies in its ability to alter the fundamental physical laws within a small area.

Combined with the fully manifested Fierce Ghost Ling Xinyu, this ability would produce a horrifying chemical reaction, something he eagerly anticipates.

Sai Men even began to consider whether to add more stimulating fuel to this boiling chaos.

For example, leak Lin Fan's whereabouts to Chen Shao, so that Lin Fan is caught off guard.

"Live on well, boy."

Sai Men removed the Gray Mask, revealing a face of exquisite beauty yet deathly pale and bloodless.

A warm, jade-like smile appeared, yet utterly devoid of vitality.

He turned the Eyeball Staff.

His form transformed into a flock of scattering black crows, blending into the starless night.

And below, in the ruins.

Lin Fan slowly rose to his feet.

His distinctively jointed fingers touched the copper ring on his index finger.

On the other side of the city.

The intersection of the Department Store Building was sealed off by thick, impenetrable white fog.

The air carried the foul, damp stench of the Sewer.

Lei Yu walked at the front of the team, holding a tactical rifle, his combat boots scraping the crosswalk with a rustling sound.

The Special Forces members behind him held their guns, protecting the dozens of trembling survivors in the middle.

The fully armed unit advanced in a tactical diamond formation.

Su Ming walked at the outer edge of the team, gripping a makeshift spear made by binding a Watermelon Knife to a mop handle.

Liang Wen walked to Su Ming's left, his right thumb idly tapping the sword guard.

The katana remained sheathed, his gait relaxed to an inappropriate degree.

"Lei Team, the locator shows only fifty meters left to the target object."

The communications soldier lowered his voice to report, his fingers swiftly swiping across the Tactical Tablet.

Lei Yu gave a tactical hand signal, and the entire team greatly slowed its advance.

All gun barrels pointed outward, infrared beams sweeping back and forth through the thick fog.

It became too quiet.

Since entering this district, we haven't even encountered a single wandering Mutated Monster.

When things go awry, there must be a demon.

From deep within the white fog ahead, a piercingly harsh scraping sound suddenly came.

Screech.

Screech.

The sharp screech of a metal blade dragging on the asphalt road made nerves tense.

Accompanied by a nauseating stench of blood, a grotesque outline gradually took shape in the mist.

Everyone instinctively halted, pointing their gun barrels straight ahead.

That thing stepped out.

It stood over two meters tall, with limbs extraordinarily long, its bodily proportions utterly distorted.

It was clad in a heavy raincoat originally yellow, now thoroughly soaked in plasma and turned dark red.

Its withered right hand held upside-down a boning knife as long as a forearm.

The blade was covered in dark-brown rust and bits of flesh, dripping viscous fluid along the rain.

The gaunt, lanky man tilted his neck, humming a completely off-key children's song.

"Little bunny, be good, open the door."

The hoarse, broken voice echoed across the empty intersection, drawing cold sweat from everyone.

It dragged its feet, step by step, approaching the line of dozens of people.

It happened to block the sole exit.