Chapter 18 – The Horn

It was the silhouette of an extremely bizarre city, with unimaginably massive structures—completely different from human cities, an entirely alien entity.

The buildings surrounding Tongyun Square boasted a modern and imposing architectural style, but under this dim light, they appeared only as hazy, yellowish outlines, like some ancient place.

Looking out, they seemed to be submerged in the deepest depths of a nightmare.

Wei An stared at this vast, dark world and shuddered.

No one knew what the cities of the ancient civilization that had sunk into Deep Space looked like. There were no records because everyone who had witnessed them had died.

It was said that some of these sunken cities were desolate and empty, while others housed creatures so terrifying they should never exist in reality, forever wandering the streets.

The bloody sacrifice of the “Gate” was a catalyst. Only the emotional energy it generated could, on some level, establish a connection with a sunken city.

Gui Ling stood behind Wei An, silently observing the nightmarish city outside.

Numbers flickered on the terminal screen as the dark city crawled back into reality.

Under the eerie light, something loomed at the edge of the sky—a half-collapsed pillar from some distant, enormous dome, towering as high as the clouds, like the lone bone of a long-dead leviathan.

It was hard to imagine why such colossal structures existed—they didn’t seem meant for humans.

Wei An stared at it and asked, “…Is this real?”

“Mm,” Gui Ling replied. “It is.”

He gazed out the window, belonging more to that place than to the human world.

He turned his head slightly and said to Wei An, “I’m going over there.”

“Going over?”

It took him a few seconds to process, realizing that Gui Ling meant that city.

He hadn’t even considered that it was a place one could actually go to—it was the spectral shadow of monsters from legends, occasionally appearing in the human world.

“To find something,” Gui Ling added.

“…Find what?”

“The upgrade program for the contract.”

Wei An froze for a moment before realizing Gui Ling was referring to the earlier contract upgrade that could permanently lock him in a certain place.

The man stood by the window, the backup light casting a ghostly pallor over him. He wore a smile—genuine happiness, the first time Wei An had ever seen him happy.

“Don’t worry. The spatial membrane will hold it back for a while. I’ll sink it back when I return.”

His tone was soft, soothing, yet terrifying all the same. The idea of sinking an entire city sounded astonishing, but Wei An knew he could do it. It was hard to fathom how powerful he truly was.

Wei An knew he shouldn’t want to know anything about this city, but in a situation like this, with such a person by his side, it was impossible not to feel a flicker of curiosity.

So Wei An couldn’t help but ask one more question: “What’s it like there?”

“Nothing much. Just an empty house with some things that weren’t cleaned up,” Gui Ling said.

His tone was calm, dismissive, as if the city were merely a phantom in the darkness, posing no threat to him at all.

After saying this, Gui Ling walked toward the tree gate.

In the dim yellow light, the “Gate” had changed.

The ground where the corpses had been buried had somehow turned into a path of dark-red bricks, the crevices soaked in blackened blood. The power of the ancient civilization had seeped in, altering the fabric of reality.

The glass wall behind the “Gate,” previously painted black with Hellflower petals, had reopened. It should have been clinging to a wall twenty-five stories high in midair, but now Wei An could clearly see the path extending beyond the door, stretching into what should have been empty space.

Gui Ling reached the entrance, then turned back to Wei An and added, “Wait here. Don’t go anywhere. Sunken cities like this are dangerous. I’ll be back once I find the upgrade program.”

Wei An nodded. There was nothing else he could do.

Gui Ling turned away and stepped through the door that seemed to lead to nothingness, vanishing without hesitation.

Wei An stood in front of the “Gate” for a while before finally looking away.

He stepped through the hall of corpses and found the incineration bin where the victims’ clothes had been disposed of earlier.

He switched the bin to its cleaning-robot function and set its working parameters, then sat on the sofa and watched as it deftly and efficiently cleaned up the surrounding corpses and bloodstains.

Gui Ling’s handiwork might have gone unnoticed amid the chaos of the Yingtian Headquarters explosion, but in a place like the Flâneur Hotel, the police would flag it in their systems immediately—and the Ministry of Science would undoubtedly suspect him right away.

Outside the window, the city loomed silently. Wei An could sense it in a way he didn’t understand—immensely vast, pressing close, yearning to resurface into reality.

The “Gate” stood beside him, horrifying in its presence, with its naked corpses hanging, a passage leading to a world of blood, terror, and human indignity.

Wei An refused to look in that direction. Instead, he watched the high-tech cleaning robot—round and cute, the kind people adored—efficiently dispose of the bodies.

With its ethical restrictions disabled, the cleaning robot skillfully extended its claws, sliced through the corpses, and incinerated them.

Its eyes were round and flat, as if Wei An had summoned some dim-witted carnivorous creature to devour these high-paid elites of human civilization. Once it was done, not even genetic testing could identify the remains.

The little machine finished consuming the corpses and began cleaning the bloodstains.

Soon, pristine flooring was revealed. Wei An thought that the Flâneur Hotel would remain here, its business continuing as usual. Once it was renovated, he would visit again.

Wei An didn’t need to look outside to know the city was still rising.

His head still ached. He had already taken a lot of medication earlier, but it was no longer enough to suppress whatever the Ministry of Science had implanted in his brain.

Before the Qin family found him, he had been nothing more than a nameless test subject. His father had given him a name, a chance to survive, and a space to exercise his talents. He should have stayed, spending his life in gratitude—but he had left instead.

The hatred he felt had been too overwhelming to endure, driving him to betray everything.

Back then, he had even wished he had never been saved—that he had just died in that lab. And now, as if in some long-delayed response, something deep inside him—something that had formed long ago, suppressed in the darkness, never given birth—was stirring awake…

It sensed something—indescribable information, profoundly bizarre, thick and deadly.

A massive city pressed against this space, looming dangerously close. Something there was calling out… urgently…

Then he heard it.

A sound from the dark city, piercingly high as it surged up from below into the real world—not high in pitch, but overwhelming in presence, drilling into his mind.

The sound of a horn.

A deep, ancient tone, filled with sorrow and weight.

Wei An had never heard this sound in his life, but he knew instinctively—it was a war horn, summoning an army.

The ancient civilization had perished. There was no army left. Yet some mechanism still functioned… It called out again and again, summoning something from that long-sunken city—low, urgent, rallying its nonexistent warriors to the battlefield.

Goosebumps rose on Wei An’s skin. He suddenly turned his head, staring at the “Gate.”

It was calling him inside.

Wei An knew—this horn was the “adhesion rate” skyrocketing in the spatial data.

It was pulling the entire space upward, desperately searching for something…

He could feel something in his brain screaming—an eternally hungry fragment, desperate to step through that door.

There was something there—something crucial, something he had to obtain at all costs—

Wei An took a deep breath, trying to rein himself in.

He reminded himself to focus on what Tao Jinlai and his people had been trying to accomplish here. That was what a man like him should be thinking about. They weren’t true believers in some demonic god, nor did they actually want to summon an ancient city.

That kind of power was too dangerous to harness. Everything was just part of a larger scheme, serving some faction’s interests…

In fact, since this was a premeditated conspiracy, these people had likely already pinpointed this city, knowing exactly what their actions would unleash…

Wei An’s fingers twitched unconsciously, craving a cigarette so badly his throat itched.

He had once been a heavy smoker—several packs a day. The sensation had seeped into his bones like poison, impossible to shake.

But he had quit after retiring. A peaceful life didn’t need addictions.

Wei An found himself staring again at the smooth path that had once been made of corpses, now half-submerged in blood—normal-looking, like any other road in the world.

He thought, It’s just a road, after all.

He stared for a few more seconds, then stood up, walked over to the pile of bodies, and rummaged through a dead man’s pocket until he found a crumpled cigarette pack stained with blood. He pulled one out, sat back on the sofa, picked up an equally bloodstained lighter, and lit it.

He smoked it down to the filter, crushed it out, then stood up and picked up a gun from the floor.

He tested its weight—well-balanced, perfectly suited.

With the gun in hand, Wei An stepped through the “Gate.”