Forgotten Photo Studio

Chapter 113 Shaking
"Help...!" A team member's shout came to an abrupt halt. His mouth was still opening and closing, but he could no longer make a sound, as if the concept of "sound" had been partially erased from his body.

Even more terrifying scenes followed.

The shadow moved.

Countless gray and translucent figures "squeezed" out from the curved folds of space.

They had no faces; the edges of their bodies were blurred, like snowflakes with a poor signal.

They are not attacking, but imitating.

It perfectly mimics the soldiers' horrified expressions, their blocking movements, and even accurately replicates the posture of their comrades just after their deaths.

Whenever a living person is swallowed by space, the corresponding ghost becomes more solid, its outline becomes clearer, and it even begins to incorporate details of the deceased's clothing.

The abyss absorbs their "definitions of existence" and uses this "information" as building blocks to construct its own world rules.

Ah Zhe's actions were like throwing a boulder into a calm pond!
The azure beam of light emitted from his compass successfully disturbed the domain that Yuan had just established, causing the imitating ghosts to experience a momentary disorder and double images!

"Ants...interesting...interference."

For the first time, the entity occupying Xu Yan's body slowly turned its black hole-like eyes toward A Zhe.

An indescribable, terrifying pressure originating from the very source of existence instantly enveloped A Zhe.

He felt like an insect pinned to a specimen board, his thoughts frozen.

But he didn't back down. Instead, he met that gaze with a wide grin, a mixture of fear and extreme excitement.

"Come on, monster! Try what your grandpa has prepared for you—'Data Storm'!"

He slammed the compass into the ground, and the pre-set array of dozens of miniature talismans activated simultaneously, unleashing a blinding surge of psionic energy composed of pure mathematical logic, which rushed towards the newly formed domain of rules in the abyss like a virus.

A Zhe's "data storm" was not a violent energy surge; it was a forbidden concept that he and Xiao Zhou had acquired through countless sleepless nights and the sacrifice of a precious life in their secret base called "Tower of Babel."

A piece of code compiled into psychic frequencies, a self-referential logical paradox and infinite recursion.

Xiao Zhou's figure seemed to still be right before my eyes, excitedly pointing at the model jumping on the holographic screen, his voice still ringing in my ears: "A Zhe, look! If we can turn the 'contradiction' itself into a weapon... I think even a gold-level contractor would have a hard time resisting it."

The image of being swallowed by the out-of-control psychic turbulence before he could finish speaking is like a red-hot branding iron, still burning in A-Zhe's memory.

He had sealed this away, regarding it as a pain and failure he would never dare to touch.

But at this moment, faced with his utterly alienated best friend and a reality on the verge of collapse, he trembled and threw this unfinished creation, soaked in blood and regret, into the abyss.

The azure talisman light did not shoot towards Yuan's body, but rather, as if it possessed a life of its own, precisely drilled into the "rule nodes" in the surrounding space that Yuan had just defined.

hum-

A low, discordant noise rang out in the area.

The effect was immediate: a wall that had just been smoothed by white light and reflected the forest of pale arms suddenly froze and shattered, like a poorly connected television screen, flickering wildly between the pale arms, the original scorch marks, and a meaningless patch of colored noise.

Several gray ghosts, who were mimicking death poses, suddenly froze, and then began to uncontrollably repeat or rewind the moment of death at an accelerated pace, like a stuck videotape, which looked both comical and creepy.

The team member who had been "silenced" suddenly let out a distorted, inhuman, and ghostly shriek from his throat, as if the concept of "sound" had been mistakenly restored but placed in the wrong vessel.

For the first time, the body that Yuan Na occupied, which was now occupied by Xu Yan's body, showed an extremely slight stagnation.

Those black hole-like eyes stared at A Zhe, with countless fine white light runes flashing and calculating rapidly within them, trying to understand and eliminate this unexpected "source of interference".

"Interesting...algorithm."

The overlapping sounds rang out again, less languid and more...intrigued.

It didn't seem to be provoked; instead, it was like a mathematician who had seen a novel but flawed solution.

But this is exactly what Ah Zhe has been waiting for!
He knew he couldn't really hurt Yuan; all his actions were for those insignificant few seconds he gained, and—data analysis!
His compass was spinning at an unprecedented speed, the pointer jumping wildly, recording and analyzing the frequency, pattern, and even the "grammar" structure of the Yuan's power flow as it eliminated interference!
"It's not over yet, monster!" A-Zhe roared, a trickle of blood spilling from the corner of his mouth. The forced overload of his spiritual energy had caused blood to seep from all seven orifices, but his eyes shone with a frightening light. "Try this—Singularity Collapse Anchoring!"

He slammed the compass into his chest! The compass embedded itself directly into his psionic energy channels!

He used himself as a sacrifice and amplifier, mixing the reverse phase frequency of the power operation mode of the Abyss that he had just analyzed with all his life force, and then he exploded with a roar!

A dark beam of light, seemingly capable of absorbing all colors, no longer aimed at the domain node, but instead pierced straight into the black hole eyes of the Abyss that were performing calculations!

This is not an attack, this is an intrusion! It is an attempt to forcibly implant a flawed, self-destructive "definition code" into the core of Yuan's "perception" and "thinking"!
It worked!
The moment the dim beam of light touched him, the white light that had been steadily flowing around Yuan began to flicker violently and erratically for the first time!
Its raised hand showed a noticeable delay and deviation!

The "Xu Yan" entity, suspended in mid-air, furrowed its brows very slightly.

"See...do you see that?!" A Zhe knelt on one knee, covered in blood, but turned to the terrified and bewildered Silver-level team members around him and let out a hoarse but proud laugh. "This is...the power of technology and brains! The Planner's...way!"

This was the most glorious moment of his life.

With the wisdom of mortals, they shook the authority of the gods.

However, God's response came.

Yuan seemed to have finally lost patience with the "research".

It didn't use any exaggerated power; it simply looked at A Zhe, its black hole-like eyes ceasing their calculations and returning to absolute calm.

Then, it gently blew a breath towards A Zhe.

There was no wind, no energy fluctuations.

But the space around A-Zhe, along with the compass embedded in his chest and his proud smile, began to disappear silently from the edges, like a pencil sketch that had been erased.

It's not broken, it's not destroyed, it's "forgotten," it's "as if it never existed."

(End of this chapter)