I write obituaries for the gods

"Let's anchor in the core area. Be careful, that thing was just a child entity."

"receive."

After regrouping, Lin Chen led the way towards the core area of ​​the ruins.

After walking through the fog for about fifteen minutes, a white fence appeared at the end of the fog.

Behind the fence, the outline of a mansion could be seen in the distance.

Lin Chen walked to the fence and looked at the house behind it.

The mansion is a detached house in the American style, with a neatly manicured lawn and a Stars and Stripes flag flying in front of the house.

The flagpole of the Stars and Stripes was unusually short, almost as tall as the door. The flag fluttered eerily on the windless lawn, partially obscuring the house's gate.

Faintly, laughter and cheerful voices could be heard coming from inside the mansion's gate.

“Louis, the images have been sent,” Li Zhanyi said softly. “Are there any records of ruins that match the appearance?”

"Searching..."

A few seconds later, Louis said:

“Found it. This house was destroyed three years ago in the Liberty district, where the depth dropped rapidly to 1.2 in a short period of time.”

"After its initial exploration, the ruins were named 'The Neverending Family Feast.' Before its internal mechanisms could be fully explored, a demigod from the Foundation resolved the situation, rescued several children, and closed the case."

“So it seems that this ruin was built using ‘Utopia’,” Lin Chen’s fist clenched slightly, “again, the Foundation’s doing.”

Create a ruin, then send a demigod to fix it.

If this evidence could be taken out of the country, it's hard to imagine how quickly the foundation's plaque would be smashed.

“I’m sorry, it seems there isn’t much useful information in these ruins,” Louis sighed softly. “You’ll have to explore them yourselves.”

"receive."

Lin Chen took out a syringe, injected a sanity stabilizer into his neck, and then injected a combat endurance agent into his arm.

"I'll be the forward, follow me."

Lin Chen picked up his gun, climbed over the fence, and entered the courtyard.

He approached the house, his eyes fixed on the gate and the fluttering Stars and Stripes.

Suddenly, his vision began to blur, and he heard someone whispering in his ear:

"Lin Chen! Take the feathers and run!"

An unfamiliar male voice.

"Da da da da da da!!"

Gunshots rang out repeatedly.

"You won't be alone..." Lin Chen heard his own voice.

When he came to his senses, he found that the previous scene had disappeared, the house in front of him was dilapidated, the wild grass was growing up to his ankles, and the Stars and Stripes lay on the side of the road, riddled with bullet holes.

Lin Chen's head was throbbing; the auditory hallucinations he had just experienced left him momentarily stunned.

What are those...?

Someone is telling me to hurry up... with feathers... what feathers?

Litty did give me a feather...

Then came the gunshots... and my own voice...

These all seem to be things that haven't happened yet...

Lin Chen wanted to think about it for a while, but then he heard a soft panting sound behind him.

He turned around and found Li Zhanyi standing blankly behind him, with no one else around.

Those armed officers have all disappeared.

"Zhanyi, are you alright?"

"No...it's nothing."

Li Zhanyi rubbed his head, seemingly feeling dizzy as well.

“They’re gone…” Li Zhanyi said softly. “I heard someone talking.”

“I heard that too,” Lin Chen nodded. “It seems to be some kind of mechanism of this ruin.”

“Don’t take it seriously, it might all be fake,” Li Zhanyi exhaled. “It seems the scenery before was completely fake, and this is the real ruin.”

"Those armed officers have been infected?" Lin Chen sensed something was wrong.

"Probably, but I don't know the specific mechanism," Li Zhanyi said, looking ahead. "However... we should get the answer soon."

Lin Chen also turned his head and looked at the gate of the house: the whole house was dilapidated, but the windows were shining with orange-yellow light, which looked very strange.

“Let’s go, let’s advance together,” Li Zhanyi walked to Lin Chen’s side. “It seems we can only rely on ourselves.”

The two approached the entrance of the house together. After taking a few steps, Lin Chen suddenly had an idea and asked:

"Zhanyi, what did you hear?"

Unexpectedly, Li Zhanyi's throat tightened slightly, and his head lowered slightly.

“I heard someone giving a speech…” she whispered.

"Anything else?" Lin Chen pressed. "Perhaps it will help in understanding the mechanism of the ruins."

"And... there were gunshots."

A gunshot? It seems to match my auditory hallucination...

Lin Chen frowned and continued to press:

"anything else?"

Seeing Lin Chen ask again, Li Zhanyi's pupils narrowed slightly, and she turned her face in the opposite direction.

"I heard...you talking to me..."

"You said you wouldn't be alone..."

.....

Chapter 99 The Tramp King (First Update)

That sentence was actually said to Zhanyi.

Seeing Li Zhanyi's awkward expression, Lin Chen was a little confused.

Could the auditory hallucinations created by these ruins be linked together?

Is it a characteristic of ruins, or do these auditory hallucinations actually point to a specific, existing scene?

If it's the latter, is this a record of the past or a prophecy of the future?

"I can't figure it out," Lin Chen shook his head gently. "Let's solve this problem in the simplest way possible."

"Hmm." Li Zhanyi drew his pistol.

The two arrived at the main gate of the house together and listened quietly to the sounds inside.

Faintly, Lin Chen heard a little girl singing, seemingly a Christmas carol.

Hearing a little girl singing in such an eerie place is quite frightening.

"Prepare to enter," Lin Chenfang released the rifle and grabbed the shotgun from behind his back. "Three, two, one."

He kicked the door open and rushed in, shotgun in hand.

Upon entering, he witnessed a truly bizarre scene:

The armed officers, dressed in maid outfits, were walking around the living room carrying plates.

The plate was filled with a kind of paste that Lin Chen couldn't understand, which seemed to contain human teeth and hair.

"Hello, Wang Pan?"

Lin Chen watched as Wang Pan, dressed in a maid outfit, walked past him, his gun barrel slightly lowered.

Wang Pan clearly ignored his meaning; he faithfully performed his duties as a maid...

"They've been... assimilated?" Lin Chen muttered.

“Hmm, it seems you’ve gotten into a certain role,” Li Zhanyi’s brow furrowed slightly. “Look over there.”

Following the direction Li Zhanyi pointed, Lin Chen saw a skeleton dressed in a maid outfit following Wang Pan.

“That was a victim,” Li Zhanyi said in a low voice, “who has been dead for a long time.”

Lin Chen's lips twitched slightly. He picked up his shotgun once more and followed the maids into the house.

After passing through the living room, a long corridor comes into view, with passageways on all sides.

From here on, the interior design of the residence no longer resembles American style, but rather a medieval castle, with oil paintings covering the walls, depicting only blurry figures of kings and generals.

“The owner of the ruins seems to yearn for… aristocratic life,” Li Zhanyi said softly. “Let’s follow the maid.”

Lin Chen nodded and followed a maid as they continued to explore the interior of the castle.

It seems that because the ruins turn all humans who enter the area into "family", Lin Chen and Li Zhanyi were not blocked by any entity.

Once you're here, you're family.

After walking for five minutes, Lin Chen confirmed one thing: the size of the room inside was completely different from what it looked like from the outside, and it was even two or three times larger.

Just as he was beginning to wonder if these corridors were endless, the maid led them through a door into a large hall.

The interior of the hall is half medieval castle style and half American style, with a long table in the center of the room, which is filled with all kinds of food.

To be precise, those were all "food-like" things.

“There it is,” Li Zhanyi said softly. “Found it.”

Following Li Zhanyi's gaze, Lin Chen saw the figure at the end of the long table.

He looked like a homeless man, dressed in tattered clothes, with a paper crown on his messy gray curly hair.

His two eyeballs had disappeared, replaced by two fake stone eyes, similar to the stones placed on the eyes of medieval nobles during burial.

His "family" were clearly on both sides of the long table, dressed in proper clothes, posing in various ways, frozen in place.

However, all of these family members have now become skeletons.

Lin Chen could still hear their laughter and chatter, even though there wasn't a single living thing moving on either side of the long table, the little girl's voice still echoed as she sang Christmas carols.

"This is really weird..." Lin Chen said softly.

“An American homeless man…family…gathering…” Li Zhanyi guessed softly, “He turned everyone who entered the house into his family, and kept them in the gathering forever.”

"Gamma level?" Lin Chen looked at Li Zhanyi.

“By the standard of ‘affecting a small urban area,’ it’s definitely gamma level,” Li Zhanyi nodded. “The lawn has spread far beyond the mansion, and there are even sub-entities.”

"This thing looks difficult to handle..." Lin Chen said in a low voice.

“Although it’s cruel, we must get rid of its obsession,” Li Zhanyi looked around. “We need to make it realize that its home no longer exists, and then the entity’s internal driving force will naturally collapse.”

"Then...should we kill all these 'family members'?"

Lin Chen looked into the distance and saw Wang Pan, dressed in a maid's outfit and with a charming demeanor, pouring wine for a homeless man.

His lips twitched slightly, and he shook his head.

"We can't just wipe out all the armed personnel, can we?"

“There must be a source,” Li Zhanyi searched the wall. “Its obsession with home… there must be an emotional trigger, maybe a family photo or something. These kinds of entities are all like that…”

Lin Chen also started scanning the walls: all sorts of gaudy oil paintings were pasted on the walls, like flyers stuck together, a mess.

Soon, Lin Chen noticed that one wall was almost entirely devoid of oil paintings.

He walked to the wall, looked up, and saw an old picture frame embedded in the wall.

In the photo frame, a bearded man is seen embracing a woman wearing rainbow stockings, surrounded by several children, standing on the lawn and smiling at the camera.

Rainbow stockings... Isn't this the same person who was pushing the lawnmower on the lawn just now?

That's his wife?