Chapter 184: Chapter 182: The Spreading Mirage
"How can this be?" Old Xu stared at the mirage mist rising from the earth fissure and muttered, "The fissure is dangerous, but the mirage mist is safe? Why is it so contradictory?"
The scene before him seemed difficult for Old Xu to comprehend.
Disregarding his own safety, he rushed to the edge of the fissure and reached out to grasp the damp mist.
"Safe?" he asked, his face a mask of disbelief.
Old Xu’s gaze darted back and forth between the fissure and the mist.
The rising white mist grew denser and denser, enveloping Old Xu in the morning sunlight.
Moreover, the white mist began to spread, creeping rapidly along the ground.
Seeing he was about to be swallowed by the mist, Old Xu quickly fled, returning to stand with Li Luo and the others.
"Underneath that fissure, it’s all Shell People shells! I saw them!" The moment he got back, Old Xu revealed something that left everyone utterly stunned.
"A Shell People graveyard has appeared beneath Oasis City," Old Xu said dazedly. "This is bad. I have to report this to the Guard Patrol immediately."
He pulled his citizen card from his cloak and pressed the alarm button, but he couldn’t get through. The line was busy.
"Too many people must be calling in right now."
Old Xu quickly started typing out a message and sent it to several people.
’I don’t know if they’ll even see it.’ Old Xu’s hand, holding the citizen card, began to shake anxiously.
But he received no reply.
The mist billowing from the fissure grew denser, spreading rapidly across the ground.
Old Xu had wanted to return to the dome to personally tell the Noncommissioned Officer about his discovery, but the mist soon rose over their heads, swallowing them whole.
This mirage mist was even denser than the two times they had experienced before, so dense it looked grayish. The morning sun seemed powerless against the thick fog.
However, a faint, rainbow-colored light began to appear at the mist’s edge, spreading along with it.
"Stay put!" Old Xu warned, as the sudden, dense mist had completely obscured their vision.
Visibility plummeted, and even their immediate surroundings began to blur.
However, this didn’t affect Mo Ling. No matter how dense the mirage mist became, it couldn’t obscure his vision.
He saw that the fissure was still spewing forth mist.
The mist that had initially been rising in wisps was now billowing out like a volcanic eruption, surging and tumbling.
While the dense fog couldn’t block Mo Ling’s sight, the rainbow-colored light that was gradually blanketing everything caused a great deal of interference.
As the sun rose, its light penetrated the mist. The refracted, rainbow-colored light suddenly swelled, and Mo Ling could only watch as it swallowed Li Luo and the others.
’This is bad.’
Mo Ling quickly directed the Block downward, trying to get closer to the others, but by the time he neared the ground, they were nowhere to be seen.
’Where’d they go?’
The mirage mist had hidden Li Luo and the others before, but their movements would always disrupt the concealment, revealing them instantly.
But this time, the mist was so dense it seemed to hide them even when they were moving. What’s more, there wasn’t even a trace of sound.
Everything around him was changing rapidly. For a moment, Mo Ling couldn’t distinguish between reality and the illusions created by the mist.
’Too fast.’ The mist had spread so quickly there was no time to react. Mo Ling felt a surge of anxiety, but he was powerless.
Just then, he heard a clamor of voices nearby. Mo Ling hurried toward the sound and, sure enough, spotted several figures within a patch of rainbow light.
Mo Ling flew over at once, but the figures were bizarre.
It wasn’t Li Luo and his group. Instead, he saw several office workers in suits carrying briefcases, apparently deep in conversation.
"The food in the cafeteria is getting worse and worse. It was never this bad when Sister Guo was here."
"No kidding. Her relic was made for creating gourmet food."
"But I heard the price for that relic is losing your sense of taste forever. You can make all the gourmet food you want, but you can only let others taste it. If it were me, I wouldn’t be willing to pay a price like that..."
’Cafeteria? Gourmet food?’
’Why are they so relaxed?’ No sooner had the thought crossed Mo Ling’s mind than he realized something was wrong.
’It’s an illusion!’
The mirage mist was replaying a scene of these office workers’ idle chatter from some other day!
As Mo Ling processed this, dense crowds of people appeared all around him. The patches of rainbow light that had been scattered everywhere transformed into an incredibly realistic scene.
Sunlight streamed down. The sky was clear and bright.
People in the crowd chatted as they passed right under the Block. In the blink of an eye, the scene had transformed into an ordinary morning.
The mirage mist itself seemed to have vanished, but Mo Ling knew it hadn’t really disappeared.
’This is all the mist.’
Watching the bustling street, Mo Ling felt disoriented.
Just moments ago, the sky had been filled with a thick fog; now, it was bright and sunny.
A bustling crowd had appeared from nowhere. The office workers who had been chatting a moment ago waved to each other and headed for a nearby building.
This was the Core District in the morning. Mo Ling had seen this exact scene when he first arrived in Oasis City.
The surrounding buildings and infrastructure were perfectly intact, with no trace of the earthquake’s damage. A phantom of the past was completely overlaying the present.
The people bustling back and forth were mostly morning commuters. If not for the Hunters in combat gear scattered among them, Mo Ling might have mistaken it for a familiar downtown business district on Earth.
For now, Mo Ling had no intention of making any sudden moves. He just stayed quietly where he was.
Just then, an eye-catching motorcade appeared in the distance.
Seeing the striking motorcade, the people in the crowd couldn’t help but stop and stare.
’The Guard Patrol.’
When they first arrived in Oasis City, the guards had used the same type of vehicle to pick up Li Luo and Li Xiangyi.
The motorcade pulled up to a tower-shaped building—the very same office building where Li Luo had previously reported on the Black Tower.
’Wait a minute... could this be the morning we first arrived in Oasis City?’ Mo Ling was suddenly struck by a sense of familiarity.
Sure enough, a guard got out and gestured for the two inside the car to exit.
The two were none other than Li Luo and Li Xiangyi. They looked around curiously before following the guard into the building.
’It really is that day.’
Mo Ling’s feeling of familiarity had been right. He was just watching the same scene play out again, but from a different angle.
But he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.
’Something seems to be missing...’
Something was off.
The crowd was identical; Mo Ling even recognized a few faces.
The guards in the motorcade were exactly the same, too.
There was nothing out of the ordinary about Li Luo and Li Xiangyi either.
’What exactly is missing?’ The more Mo Ling watched, the stranger it felt.
Suddenly, he froze. A realization struck him, and a question exploded in his mind.
’Where’s the Block?’
