Global Ghost Stories: I'm Investigating Ghosts in My Nightmare!

Chapter 144 Embers of the Wasteland
In the early morning on the outskirts of Linjiang City, the air was chillingly cold. On the distant horizon, the dust kicked up by the collapse of the Investigation Bureau building had not yet dissipated, resembling a huge gray scar lying between the vast twilight and the morning light.

Mo Fei parked the SUV at the site of an abandoned quarry. Huge granite fragments littered the area, a natural barrier blocking any possible view from the outside. He turned off the engine but didn't get out immediately; instead, he switched off all the lights on the dashboard. A deathly silence fell over the vehicle, broken only by the heavy breathing of a few people.

An Mu opened the car door, his leather boots making a soft, scraping sound on the gravel. He surveyed his surroundings, his eyes sharp as an old wolf patrolling its territory. After confirming that it was temporarily safe, he knocked on the car window.

Mo Fei jumped out of the car, tomahawk in hand. This time, instead of rushing forward, he first circled the vehicle, scattering a fine layer of sensory powder in several key blind spots. This powder could detect subtle fluctuations in the system's dynamics, and if anyone approached, the terminal on his wrist would vibrate.

"Old Bai, can you still move?" Mo Fei walked to the back seat, opened the car door, and spoke softly with a unique concern.

Bai Yu swayed as he stepped down, supporting himself on the doorframe. His already pale face became almost translucent in the cold wind. He clutched the yellowed notebook tightly to his chest, his fingertips reddening from the force.

"I'm fine," Bai Yu replied softly. He glanced at Mo Fei and saw that the other was seriously inspecting the crevices in the surrounding rocks. Mo Fei's movements were extremely steady, and the choice of each cover was precisely calculated. This composure gave Bai Yu a strange sense of security.

The group entered a cave deep within the quarry. Lanze quickly took out several miniature launchers from his backpack and attached them to the rocks at the top of the cave. With a few soft buzzing sounds, a temporary shielding field enveloped the area.

“The signal has been cut off.” Lan Ce stared at the fluctuating waveform on the terminal. “Headquarters must be going crazy right now. Although Shen Qing is a puppet, his ‘death’ will trigger the highest level of manhunt procedures. We are now the most dangerous fugitive in the entire Federation.”

An Mu lit a cold light. The pale blue light cast dappled shadows on the stone wall. He looked at Bai Yu, his gaze falling on the notebook.

“Baiyu, take out the notebook.” Anmu’s voice echoed in the empty cave. “We need to know what your father left behind.”

Bai Yu nodded and placed the notebook on the stone table.

The cover of this notebook is made of some kind of unknown animal hide, which has a warm yet eerie feel to it, like touching a piece of skin that still has body heat. The red lettering on the cover has dried, revealing a dark, rusty color, and each stroke looks as if it were carved in with a sharp blade.

Bai Yu turned to the first page.

Lan Ce leaned closer and adjusted his black-rimmed glasses. He activated the terminal's macro scanning mode. A magnified image of paper fibers immediately appeared on the screen.

“This paper is strange.” Lancer pointed to the image. “There are subtle pulses between the fibers. This isn’t ordinary paper; it’s made from a mixture of the skin tissue of a ‘Dreamwalker’ and some kind of regular medium. It’s breathing.”

As Bai Yu turned the pages, the first page of the notebook revealed an extremely complex city map. It was an aerial view of Linjiang City, but it was covered with a dense network of silver grids.

"This is... a distribution map of the silk threads?" Lu Yueqi asked in a low voice. She hid behind An Mu, a hint of fear in her eyes.

Bai Yu stared at the grid, his heterochromatic pupils slightly contracting.

“It’s not just the threads.” Bai Yu’s voice was as cold as ice. “This is the progress chart for ‘displacement.’ Each grid intersection represents a coordinate that has been completely eroded by ‘Ember.’ Look here.”

He pointed to a red dot in the center of the map, which was the collapsed branch of the Investigation Bureau.

"The branch office is the core hub. Shen Qing used that silver cocoon to gather all the causal threads of Linjiang City into the underground archives. He wasn't ruling the branch office; he was treating it like a 'stomach,' digesting the real world and then excreting these silver remnants."

Mo Fei stared at the grid on the map that covered almost half the city, the veins bulging on the back of his hand as he gripped the battle axe.

"You mean, half the people in Linjiang City have been turned into those porcelain puppets?" Mo Fei's voice was filled with suppressed anger. "And what about their souls? Were they eaten?"

“Worse than that.” Bai Yu turned to the next page.

There were no words on that page, only a hand-drawn sketch.

The image depicts a giant hourglass. The upper half of the hourglass shows bustling city buildings, while the lower half shows countless distorted human faces. In the center of the hourglass, a huge, silver eye is watching everything.

“Embers are not a kind of creature, but a rule of ‘ending’.” Bai Yu read the tiny annotations at the edge of the notebook. “My father wrote in it: ‘When reality can no longer bear too much fear, the world will activate its self-cleaning mechanism. Embers will erase all pain, at the cost of erasing existence itself.’”

“Half of the world is dead…” An Mu repeated the sentence, his eyes deep. “So, those who were entangled by the silver threads have actually disappeared from the causal level. What remains is just a logically consistent empty shell.”

The temperature inside the cave seemed to have dropped a few degrees.

Lu Yueqi hugged her shoulders, her body trembling slightly. She thought of the comments she'd seen during her live stream, and of the familiar viewers she once knew. If they too had become empty shells, what in this world would be real?

“That’s why headquarters is hunting us down,” Lanze calmly analyzed. “If this plan was tacitly approved by headquarters, or even driven by them, then the notebook we took is irrefutable evidence of their crimes. They don’t just want the key; they want to cover up this ‘cleanup mechanism.’”

“They want to turn the whole world into obedient porcelain.” Mo Fei sneered. “That way there will be no more nightmares, no more chaos, only a deathly order.”

“We can’t let them succeed.” An Mu stood up, walked to the cave entrance, and looked at the faint morning light in the distance.

"Captain, what exactly do you mean by 'hunting'?" Mo Fei asked.

An Mu turned around, the cold light reflecting on his profile, making him appear exceptionally resolute.

“We can’t keep hiding. Although Shen Qing is dead, the source of the silver threads is still there. The notebook marks three core nodes, located in the power supply bureau, waterworks, and central hospital in Linjiang City. These three places are the lifeblood of the city’s operation and also the places where the embers spread the fastest.”

He pointed to three points on the map.

“We must take the initiative and sever the causal connection between these three nodes. Since they want to turn the dead half of the world into their puppet, then we will burn that half completely.”

"Burn it?" Lan Ce was somewhat surprised. "This would trigger a massive upheaval in the rules. The entire Linjiang City could be paralyzed."

“Paralysis is better than death.” An Mu looked at Bai Yu. “Bai Yu, can the Black Word within you withstand this level of backlash from the rules?”

Bai Yu remained silent for a moment. He could feel Hei Yan's maniacal laughter emanating from the depths of his consciousness.

“He can’t wait to start the meal,” Bai Yu said casually.

Just then, the terminal on Mo Fei's wrist suddenly began to vibrate violently.

"Someone's approaching!" Mo Fei instantly went into battle mode. He didn't rush out recklessly, but quickly pressed himself against the edge of the stone wall, using the signals transmitted by the sensory powder to determine the enemy's location.

“One, two… no, thirteen. They moved very quickly, without a sound of breathing.” Mo Fei lowered his voice. “They were those porcelain puppets. They followed our wheel tracks.”

"Lan Ce, take Yue Qi and retreat. Bai Yu, prepare to provide backup." An Mu drew his sidearm from his waist; it was a specially made rule-eliminating gun.

The footsteps outside the cave grew closer. The sound was strange; it didn't sound like shoes stepping on gravel, but more like a hard object being dragged across the ground.

A man in an investigation bureau uniform appeared at the cave entrance. His movements were stiff, and his neck was twisted at an eerie angle. His eyes were a deathly silver, without pupils or any life.

He looked at the people in the cave, his lips slightly parted, the sound like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together.

"Return to your positions...please...return to your positions..."

"Go to hell!" Mo Fei roared.

Instead of rushing forward, he suddenly pulled a lever on the cave ceiling. It was a makeshift trap he had casually set up when he came in.

Wow!

A pile of heavy rocks fell from above, striking the puppet precisely.

The puppet didn't scream; its body shattered instantly under the weight of the rocks, turning into countless shimmering silver fragments. Those fragments wriggled on the ground, trying to piece themselves back together.

"Can't these things be killed?" Lu Yueqi exclaimed.

"Use fire!" Bai Yu shouted.

The ruby ​​key in his hand lit up again. Crimson flames spread across the ground, covering the silver fragments.

The moment the flames touched the fragments, they emitted a piercing scream. The sound didn't seem like that of a living being; it was more like some kind of high-frequency electronic noise. The fragments quickly blackened and curled up in the flames, finally dissipating into wisps of black smoke.

However, more puppets emerged from the shadows.

They stretched out their hands in unison, countless tiny silver threads shooting from their fingertips. These threads intertwined in the air to form a huge net, sealing off all the cave's exits.

“They’re weaving rules!” Lancer stared at the terminal. “These threads are altering the physical constants within the cave. Gravity is increasing!”

Lu Yueqi felt her legs buckle and she knelt heavily on the ground. Her breathing became rapid, as if a huge rock was pressing on her chest.

Mo Fei also felt his body become much heavier, but he forced himself to stand firm, and the energy blades on his battle axe flashed wildly.

"Trying to trap me? Dream on!"

Mo Fei swung his battle axe violently, creating a blue arc of light. The axe blade sliced ​​through the air, producing a loud bang.

But those silver threads were incredibly resilient. The axe blade struck them, stretching them but failing to cut them. The threads rapidly climbed up the axe blade, attempting to entangle Mo Fei's arm.

"Mo Fei, let go!" An Mu shouted. Mo Fei decisively released the battle axe. The battle axe fell to the ground and was instantly wrapped in countless threads into a silver cocoon.

"Iron Wall of Royal Authority, open!"

Anmu activated his domain once more. The golden light barrier forcefully pushed aside the surrounding gravity field, giving everyone a brief respite.

"Baiyu, analyze their connection points!" Fine beads of sweat appeared on Anmu's forehead.

Bai Yu closed his eyes. His consciousness pierced through the layers of mist and saw the void behind those puppets.

In the void, a gigantic, silver eye is watching this place. The origin of every thread is connected to the pupil of that eye.

"Found it." Bai Yu opened his eyes, purple flames rising in his heterochromatic pupils.

Instead of attacking the threads, he plunged the ruby ​​key into the palm of his left hand.

The key was instantly stained red with blood.

"Hei Yan, may I borrow your 'art'?"

"As you wish, my collection."

An extremely terrifying aura erupted from Bai Yu's body. It was a primordial chaos that transcended nightmares and rules.

He made a grabbing motion in the air.

"Causal stripping: Horizon deprivation!"

Click!

The giant silver eye in the void seemed to shrink slightly.

All the silver threads inside the cave snapped instantly. The puppets, like toys without batteries, collapsed to the ground in unison, their bodies rapidly disintegrating.

Gravity has returned to normal.

Mo Fei, panting heavily, retrieved his battle axe. The silver substance on the axe head had disappeared, revealing the mottled metallic texture.

"Old Bai, that move of yours was so cool!" Mo Fei wiped the sweat from his face and exclaimed sincerely.

Bai Yu felt no joy. He looked at his left hand; the wound was healing at an unnatural pace, but the scar left behind had an eerie purple hue.

“They were just testing us,” Bai Yu said softly. “That eye…it remembers us.”

An Mu withdrew his domain, his body swaying slightly. Lan Ce quickly supported him.

"Captain, are you okay?"

"It's alright, I just expended a lot of energy." An Mu waved his hand and looked at everyone. "We can't stay here any longer. Now that they've found us, it means our whereabouts have been exposed. Shen Qing's puppets are just the first wave; the pursuit will only get more intense in the future."

"Where do we go now?" Lu Yueqi asked softly. Although she was afraid, she had gradually developed a bit of resilience through these life-or-death experiences.

An Mu glanced at the notebook in Bai Yu's hand.

"Go to the first node, the central hospital."

"Why the hospital?" Mo Fei asked, puzzled. "That place is definitely a disaster area right now, with a hundred times more puppets than here."

“Because that’s where the ‘Embers’ crave most,” Bai Yu explained, turning to the middle page of his notebook.

The page had a name written on it: Bai Wan.

“My sister.” Bai Yu’s voice trembled slightly. “The notes say she’s the only variable in the ‘replacement’ plan. If we can find her, we can seize the initiative in our counterattack.”

"Bai Wan?" Mo Fei was taken aback. "Didn't you say she was already..."

“I used to think she died in that disaster,” Bai Yu said, staring at the line in the notebook. “But my father wrote on it: ‘Wan’er is on the third basement level of the Central Hospital; she’s waiting behind that door.’”

Everyone's expressions turned serious.

This is no longer just a battle concerning the fate of the world, but also a redemption for Bai Yu's personal past.

“Okay, let’s go to the Central Hospital then.” An Mu patted Mo Fei on the shoulder. “Mo Fei, go prepare the backup vehicle. Lan Ce, modify our biometric signal; we need to infiltrate the city in broad daylight.”

"understand!"

Half an hour later, a dilapidated gray van drove out of the quarry.

Mo Fei drove, chewing on a dry, compressed biscuit. His expression was extremely focused, showing no sign of underestimating his opponent. He knew that every step from now on could be like dancing on a knife's edge.

Bai Yu sat in the back seat, flipping through her notebook.

The latter half of the notebook was filled with all sorts of strange symbols and formulas. Lanze leaned closer, trying to decipher the logic within.

“These formulas… are calculating the stability of the reality dimension,” Lancer exclaimed in a low voice. “Your father wasn’t just an investigator; he was practically a physicist of rules. He calculated the critical point of ember erosion.”

"When is the tipping point?" An Mu asked.

Lance's fingers flew across the screen, calculating rapidly, before finally stopping at a number.

“Forty-eight hours.” Lan Ce’s voice was a little hoarse. “After forty-eight hours, Linjiang City will completely disappear from the real map and become a permanent ‘Ember Domain’.”

"So we only have two days." Mo Fei gripped the steering wheel tightly. "Two days to cut off three nodes and rescue Bai Yu's sister. This mission is a bit too difficult."

"That's why we're a team," An Mu said calmly.

The van traveled along the desolate highway.

Occasionally, abandoned vehicles can be seen by the roadside, their doors wide open and empty. Scattered on the ground are silvery powders that shimmer eerily in the sunlight.

Lu Yueqi looked out the window and suddenly pointed to a small hill in the distance.

"Look there!"

Everyone looked in the direction she was pointing.

On the hillside stood a figure in a red dress, her back to the road. Her long hair flew wildly in the wind.

Bai Yu's pupils suddenly contracted.

"Wan'er?"

He almost cried out.

But the next second, the figure suddenly turned around.

That wasn't a human face at all.

On that face, there were no facial features, only a huge, silver eye that occupied the entire face.

That eye was fixed on the speeding van.

"Back to your place..."

A grand, repetitive voice resounded in everyone's mind.

boom!
The van's front tire suddenly burst, causing the vehicle to shake violently and roll off the road.

Amidst the dizzying spin, Bai Yu desperately protected the notebook in her arms.

His consciousness gradually blurred, and he vaguely saw the red figure walking step by step towards the overturned vehicle.

(End of this chapter)