Chapter 109: Eerie, The Sudden Appearance of Missing Persons

"What happened?"

The moment Yao Ling let out a cry of alarm, Ye Bai and Cao Xiaoseng turned to look in the direction she was pointing. They gripped their weapons tightly, though they did not yet imbue them with elemental energy, as they had not yet detected any abnormalities.

Yao Ling felt as though a flicker of purple light had streaked across her peripheral vision, but she hadn’t seen it clearly. By the time she tried to locate the source, it had already vanished.

"It seemed like a flash of purple light went past the corner of my eye. I couldn't tell what it was," Yao Ling said, sounding extremely uncertain. She wasn't sure if she had truly seen something or if it was just an illusion.

"Could it be a little purple sable?" Cao Xiaoseng looked at the empty rooftop under the moonlight, his mind suddenly turning to the specialty of the Purple Sable District: the little purple sable.

Under normal circumstances, novice-level star core warriors rarely experienced hallucinations unless they were under some form of interference. Ever since everyone at the guard station had vanished, the entire facility had been plunged into darkness, with no light-emitting objects to be found. Where could that purple light have come from?

"That's impossible. A little purple sable wouldn't be that fast. Even an adult only reaches the early novice stage at most; its speed couldn't possibly be so great that it would appear as nothing more than a flicker of purple light," Yao Ling immediately dismissed his theory.

"Then have you considered that it wasn't a living purple sable at all?"

Cao Xiaoseng’s words jolted them. Yao Ling remembered the patch of purple sable fur Cao Xiaoseng had in his pocket earlier that day. She shuddered, feeling a sudden chill in the wind. This wasn't a radiation zone—there shouldn't be so many 'undead creatures' here. Could it really be the work of ghosts?

The more she thought about it, the more bizarre and terrifying it became. Girls feared the unknown—supernatural spirits and demons—far more than any known, powerful monster.

"Alright, say no more. It was likely an illusion. From now on, stay on high alert. Don’t let a single rustle or movement escape your notice. There are no such things as ghosts or demons in this world; there are only the monsters within our own minds."

Observing Yao Ling’s increasingly pale face, Ye Bai guessed she might have heard rumors in Yang City regarding this guard station. He needed to snap her out of it before she sank deeper into fear, otherwise, she might be defeated before even encountering the mutated beast responsible.

The three resumed their formation. Before turning away, Ye Bai gave Cao Xiaoseng a look, signaling him to keep a close watch on their surroundings, as he didn't truly believe Yao Ling had been mistaken.

In the depths of the guard station—areas Ye Bai had already checked—the beds, bedding, walls, and even the clothing left behind were all white. The moonlight shining into the deep, dark corridors made them appear even more cadaverous. Every door stood half-open, and at the boundary between light and shadow, it felt as though someone was watching from the dark.

Suddenly, a drop of liquid fell onto the white wall of the infirmary. Under the moonlight, the entire facility looked like a reflection at the bottom of a lake—shimmering, white to the point of suffocation. Yet, it was as if a stone had been tossed into that calm water, and ripples began to spread across the entire infirmary.

Ye Bai and his companions moved slowly into the depths of the station. Nothing had happened yet, but a sense of oppression weighed heavily on everyone’s heart. It was the calm before the storm. The bright moonlight no longer felt like a beautiful scene, but rather a haunting, ghastly pallor. The three walked through a world woven from white, gray, and black.

"That's right. It's the smell of a rotting corpse."

This time, Yao Ling was certain. A thick, nauseating stench had just wafted into her nostrils.

"It’s still late summer and the weather is hot. Without preservation, a human corpse will rot and stink in no time. Even with artificial protection, there’s no one left here but us. Without anyone to care for them, the bodies would only rot faster."

***

Having realized her previous oversight, Yao Ling stayed on high alert, paying close attention to every movement.

"Are you certain?" Ye Bai asked, turning his head.

"I am. This was a mandatory lesson in my family," Yao Ling replied with absolute confidence, without a moment's hesitation. She might not remember the scent of many living people she had met, but the putrid stench of the dead was something she remembered vividly to this day.

"Then why wasn't it there during the day? Where do they hide during the day? They even managed to mask their own stench."

The world, which had been deathly silent during the day, seemed to come alive at night.

The stench in the air came and went, drifting from the depths of the station on the night breeze. Three or four days had passed, and the three hundred people had vanished without a trace. If they had all died, the stench wouldn't be this faint; at the very least, the entire guard station would be filled with a suffocating odor.

"Move deeper into the station. The smell is coming from the back," they decided. Just moments ago, they had all caught a whiff of a strong, concentrated stink, confirming their direction.

"What was that?" Suddenly, a purple light flashed before Yao Ling’s eyes again. It was incredibly fast, and by the time she drew her pulse gun, it had vanished.

Cao Xiaoseng had been keeping his eyes on Yao Ling since she first noticed something unusual. The moment she spoke, yellow light bloomed around his fingers, and he vanished in an instant.

Yao Ling held her pulse gun, but she had no target to aim at. However, she was now certain that her previous sighting hadn't been an illusion; the purple light was real, and it was indeed a little purple sable.

Cao Xiaoseng dashed in the direction the light had appeared. It was moving with abnormal speed—not the speed a normal purple sable should possess. He didn't know what had turned their former pet into this, but the creature, which should have been at the early novice level, was moving with a speed approaching the middle novice stage. In a blink, it had leaped hundreds of meters across the rooftops.

Although Cao Xiaoseng was only at the early novice level, speed had always been his specialty. Even when he first reached the novice stage, he could burst into middle-level speeds. He channeled his earth-attribute energy into his legs, and his speed soared; to Ye Bai, who was watching from afar, it looked like a streak of yellowish light chasing a purple one.

After a chase of about several hundred meters, Cao Xiaoseng caught the sable.

"How is it?" Ye Bai asked as Cao Xiaoseng returned, holding the motionless creature.

Cao Xiaoseng placed it in Yao Ling's hands for her to examine. "It's dead. I didn't kill it. It died the moment I touched it. I don't know what’s going on."

As soon as he finished speaking, Yao Ling’s expression grew grim as she inspected the creature. She muttered to herself, "How is this possible? This little purple sable has been dead for a week."

"What!" Ye Bai and Cao Xiaoseng exclaimed simultaneously. Could it be that this really was a land of the dead, a place forbidden to the living, where ghosts returned?

Yao Ling’s fingertips glowed with green elemental energy as she sliced open the carcass. The blood was long dried, the internal organs had failed, and the muscles, which had been supple when Cao Xiaoseng handed it over, had turned rigid in mere moments. Beneath the purple fur, the flesh had already turned black.

***

Yao Ling scanned the body with the smart-device on her wrist. "It's parasitism. It must have been parasitized by a plant-type mutated beast. This sable died a week ago. Before that, its blood and nutrients were being slowly drained away."

She turned over the creature's shriveled heart, revealing a small hole on the side—the original point of infection.

"What could it be?" Ye Bai asked, hoping for a clue.

Yao Ling shook her head. "There are too many plant-type mutated beasts capable of parasitism. Take the Demon Sunflower, for instance; each seed is a parasite. Once ingested, it takes root near the heart, feeding until it matures, bursts out, and finds a new host to breed the next generation."

"This might be troublesome. Low-level plant parasites usually only affect body-tempering beasts like the Earth Gold Rat. For a creature capable of making everyone at a guard station vanish, it won't be easy to handle."

Ye Bai could feel the abnormality of the situation. Ordinarily, the disappearance of an entire guard station’s staff would not only shake Yang City but likely the main city of Green Forest as well. After all, three hundred people don't just vanish like beans. He suspected the authorities in Green Forest knew something about the situation, which was why the mission had been posted at the academy—and why they were the ones who had accepted it.

"Regardless, we’ve taken the mission, so we’ll investigate. If we truly can’t handle it, we’ll abandon it and pay the academy the penalty credits."

With that, Ye Bai led the way deeper into the station.

"Something's not right."

Cao Xiaoseng’s eyes, which grew sharper in the night, seemed to pierce through the darkness toward the depths of the station.

Yao Ling followed closely behind him. Hearing his warning, she stopped and asked, "What is it? What happened?"

Ye Bai looked into the hazy night and felt his skin crawl. "There are people. And more than one."

Since returning from the radiation zone, Cao Xiaoseng’s lethargy had worsened. Aside from the training Yao Ling forced upon him, he spent almost all his time sleeping. No one knew if he was truly learning the bizarre movement techniques he claimed to see in his dreams, but his perception had surpassed Ye Bai’s in just a few days.

"Yes, people. There are people walking in the streets and inside the houses," Cao Xiaoseng confirmed.

Yao Ling was the weakest of the three and could see or sense almost nothing, but hearing their words, she felt the situation turning truly sinister.