They traveled through time at the same time, but the villainous scientist

Chapter 422 The attack begins

"Let's leave here first..."

Zhang Qi's voice rang out as he addressed the crowd.

Everyone nodded, and Zero even "requisitioned" an inconspicuous black Toyota Alphard minivan from the roadside. This type of vehicle is ubiquitous on the streets of Tokyo and is perfect for concealing one's whereabouts.

Having skillfully handled the vehicle's security system, the group filed in.

The vehicle started and smoothly merged into the traffic, leaving the chaos and screams far behind.

As planned, the team splits up here.

"Chu Xuan, I'm leaving Sadako's matter to you. Be careful."

Zhang Qi sat in the passenger seat, looking at the faces of his teammates in the rearview mirror, finally fixing his gaze on Chu Xuan.

"clear."

Chu Xuan adjusted his glasses, the lenses reflecting the dazzling neon lights outside the window.
"it is good."

Zhang Qi nodded, then looked at Zheng Zha.

"Protect the newcomers, and protect yourselves too."

"Do not worry,"

Zheng Zha grinned, revealing a confident expression.

"We're not newbies who just entered the Main God Space anymore. Your situation is much more complicated, all by yourself... are you really sure you'll be okay?"

"no problem."

Zhang Qi's answer was simple and powerful.

The car stopped at an intersection, and Zhang Qi got out, his figure quickly disappearing into the still somewhat crowded streets in the early morning.

The black van didn't stop at all, accelerating towards the Izu Peninsula.

Inside the car, the atmosphere was somewhat depressing.

Zhan Lan used the [Mind Link] to comfort the three still-shaken newcomers, while Lingdian and Bawang sat in the driver's and passenger's seats.

"Chu Xuan, tell us about Sadako."

Upon seeing this, Zheng Zha raised a question.

"Although I've seen the movie, the things in the God's Space are definitely not that simple."

"Sadako Yamamura, a person with superpowers. Her mother, Shizuko Yamamura, also possessed precognitive abilities. Due to a failed experiment, she was slandered as a fraud by the media and committed suicide because she could not bear the humiliation."

Sadako inherited and surpassed her mother's abilities, possessing the power to influence reality through thought, and even to kill.

He was later thrown into a well and killed by his biological father, Heihachiro Ikuma. His resentment combined with his supernatural abilities, attaching itself to a videotape and forming the curse we know today.

Chu Xuan's voice remained flat as always. He paused for a moment before continuing:
"The transmission mechanism of this curse is a meme virus based on mental infection."

Watching the videotape is like opening a receiving port on a mental level, and Sadako's resentment will use this as a beacon to 'download' it for seven days.

Seven days later, the resentment materialized and physically attacked the victim's heart, causing his death.

The method used in the first part involves copying the videotape to the next person within seven days, which might be a way of transferring the 'download task' elsewhere.

But this is only a temporary solution; it merely removes you from the 'download list'.

"So what we need to do is to directly destroy the server and database, and eliminate this curse at its source."

Chu Xuan explained that with their current weaponry, accomplishing this task would not be difficult.

……

Meanwhile, Zhang Qi, who was alone, walked into a 24-hour internet cafe and found a seat in a corner.

He needs intelligence, more intelligence about this world.

He pulled out the computer from the alien world and hacked into the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's internal network again.

First, there was the hotel riot just now.

The official preliminary report has been released, and the cause of the accident has been determined to be "a chain fire caused by a gas pipeline leak".

The report was written with great certainty, and even included several blurry pictures that appeared to show firefighters rescuing people in thick smoke.

A cold, sharp smile curved Zhang Qi's lips. This report was too perfect, so perfect it was almost unreal.

A monster's lair that required the Central Continent Team to use Predator equipment to break through was downplayed and characterized as an accident.

He broadened his search, changing keywords from specific events to "mass hysteria," "unexplained mass deaths," and "unexplained disappearances"...

He set the time frame to the last ten years and the geographical scope to the whole of Japan.

A massive stream of data refreshed his screen like a waterfall.

His mini-program performs high-speed filtering, comparison, and analysis on massive amounts of data, searching for abnormal patterns hidden beneath countless cases.

The result is alarming. Over the past decade, the frequency of such unusual events in Japan, this island nation, has shown a terrifying exponential increase.

These incidents were mostly covered up by various seemingly reasonable official explanations: mass casualties caused by building quality problems, localized panic triggered by a novel virus, mass suicides by cults...

But when Zhang Qi pulled up the files for these events, there seemed to be nothing unusual about them.

What's more troublesome is that these incidents leave almost no trace on the internet; related discussions and questions are quickly deleted, and the relevant accounts are banned.

It seems as if an invisible hand is erasing all memories of the "abnormal" aspects of this country.

There are two possibilities behind this.

First, there are one or more secret organizations at the top of this country that are aware of the existence of the underworld and use the power of the state apparatus to cover up the truth at all costs and maintain the superficial stability of society.

second……

Just like the situation in that hotel, this country has been controlled by an entity similar to Tomie.

"I see……"

"Is this why the Supreme God bestows such a generous reward?"

Zhang Qi muttered to himself, if the entire country is a giant monster's lair, then what they will face is not just a few famous horror movie bosses, but an enemy of an entire corrupted social system.

But he always felt that something was off.

It seems that a crucial step has been overlooked...

With his thoughts in turmoil, Zhang Qi temporarily suppressed these macro-level speculations and turned his attention back to the immediate trouble—the curse of "ghost calls".

The source of this curse is a girl named Mizunuma Mimiko.

A girl who suffered from hypochondriasis by her mother from a young age, and who eventually died in despair after being ignored during an asthma attack.

Her resentment clung to the red cell phone she always carried, becoming the beginning of her death prophecy.

Zhang Qi's fingers tapped on the keyboard again, this time targeting the medical databases of major hospitals.

With the alien world's technological advantage of over a century, these firewalls are completely ineffective.

Soon, an old medical record appeared on the screen. It detailed Mimiko's frequent hospitalizations for asthma during her childhood, as well as doctors' suspicions that her mother, Mizunuma Mariko, might have mental health issues.

At the end of the record, their home addresses were included.

found it.

Zhang Qi wrote down the address, closed all windows, deleted all his browsing history, and got up to leave the internet cafe.

At this moment, the sky was already beginning to lighten, and more and more pedestrians were appearing on the streets.

He walked at the busiest intersection in Shibuya, surrounded by huge billboards and hurried office workers, and there was nothing unusual about it.

As he was pondering how to deal with Mimiko's resentment while crossing the pedestrian crossing, the huge LED screen on a nearby building, which was playing the latest cosmetics advertisement, suddenly flickered and was replaced by a blinding static.

Shila-

The next second, a photo appeared on the screen.

An incredibly clear and incredibly bloody photograph.

The subject of the photo is Zhang Qi.

In the picture, he is lying in a pool of blood, next to a burning tanker truck.

This sudden and bizarre scene immediately attracted the attention of everyone around.

"what is that?"

"Oh my god! Are these accident photos? How did they end up here!"

"Wait a minute...that person looks familiar..."

"Hey! Look, that man crossing the street... doesn't he look exactly like the person in the photo?!"

Countless gazes, a mixture of fear, curiosity, and disbelief, instantly focused on Zhang Qi.

"Oh? Has the attack begun?"

Zhang Qi stopped in his tracks, his face showing no panic. Instead, as if he had confirmed something, he calmly raised his head and glanced at the screen showing his "death."

He didn't look back.

Because he had already heard it.

Behind me, there was an abnormal screeching sound from the tires rubbing against the ground.

The engine roared violently as it was running at full capacity.

And... a huge tanker truck, smashing through the median strip, roared onto the sidewalk at an illogical angle, heading straight for him...

(End of this chapter)