Chapter 329: City of Illusions

Stop. Close your eyes. Then open them.

They saw the surroundings remained bustling. Traffic flowed, pedestrians laughed and chatted, streaming past them like water.

Someone lightly brushed past Lu Xin’s shoulder. The touch felt real.

Lu Xin and the other two exchanged glances, recognizing the strangeness reflected in each other’s eyes.

This place was supposed to be a dilapidated ruin, yet it had suddenly transformed into a bustling, prosperous city.

Pedestrians flowed past like water. Some browsed in shops, others chased each other laughing. Someone debated ice cream flavors while another pair argued, spitting curses. On a distant high-rise, a giant LED screen showed a blonde woman with vibrant, full red lips holding lipstick, pouting seductively at the city below.

…

“The mental radiation detector indicates we’re in a zone of intense mental radiation.”

Chen Jing glanced down at her wristwatch, frowning slightly as she surveyed the lively street. “But there are no obvious flaws.”

Gecko took a deep breath, tightening his grip on his gun. “I can see so many details, and they all look incredibly real. Like those girls walking down the street—you can even make out the lines of their undershirts beneath their blouses… Several with long hair clearly have extensions… That one looks like she’s carrying a designer handbag, but the logo has an extra letter…”

“Damn… I can even smell their cloyingly sweet perfume…”

“Seriously? An illusion this realistic? Who else besides me, the foremost expert on the Civilization Era, could even pull this off?”

…

Lu Xin and Chen Jing couldn’t help but glance at him.

Although his words weren’t exactly serious, Gecko had just proven how incredibly real this illusion was, hadn’t he?

Lu Xin felt he should contribute something. After careful consideration, he stated, “There are no mental monsters here.”

Gecko and Chen Jing simultaneously turned to look at him.

They naturally trusted Lu Xin, but this confirmation only made their expressions turn grimmer.

Deep down, they knew this street had to be fake.

Yet, no matter how they looked, the diverse crowd around them seemed incredibly alive, each person appearing to have their own life and purpose.

And therein lay the problem.

How could they prove any of this was fake?

…

“Confirmed. We are currently experiencing pollution.”

Chen Jing observed her surroundings, speaking slowly. “Pollution characteristics: All surrounding scenery and perceptions are abnormally distorted. Visual identification alone is unreliable. Pollution source: unknown. Pollution logic: unknown. Presence of other dangers: unknown.”

Lu Xin and Gecko both let out quiet sighs.

Their nerves tightened slightly.

The falseness represented an unknown truth. With their vision completely filled by this fake street scene, it was like being thoroughly blindfolded. It created a sense of being trapped, unable to move forward.

…

“Two options,” Gecko finally muttered after a moment of silence. “Either we keep moving forward, or we… eliminate them all…”

“Team Leader, what’s the plan?”

Lu Xin also turned his gaze toward Chen Jing.

After all, Chen Jing was the leader of Qinggang’s Special Action Team, a title she hadn’t earned for nothing.

They trusted her judgment implicitly.

“Continuing forward is not viable.”

Chen Jing shook her head slightly. “Perhaps everyone on this street is already heavily polluted. Perhaps they have weapons hidden under their clothes or in their bags. It’s possible the living people we see are essentially monsters. Or maybe they already have guns aimed at us, but all we perceive are their smiles…”

Gecko fell silent for a moment, his expression turning serious. “Can we solve this by attacking?”

Chen Jing’s peripheral vision flickered towards Lu Xin before she subtly shook her head.

“As you pointed out, everything we see is fake. So, if you start killing these people…”

“How can you guarantee you aren’t killing ordinary people?”

…

Gecko froze, then pressed his lips together tightly, saying no more.

Lu Xin understood Chen Jing’s point. They all remembered seeing the ruins when they first entered the city, ruins inhabited by many drifters. If they were under the control of an illusion and began killing indiscriminately, they might suddenly snap out of it only to find themselves surrounded by corpses.

The corpses of innocent people.

So…

What were they supposed to do now?

…

…

“Captain, what is this stuff?”

Meanwhile, Lu Xin’s group wasn’t the only one trapped on the streets of this illusory metropolis.

Ability Users from Central City had also entered Water Buffalo City, divided into various teams. They progressed at different speeds, but through their respective methods, they had all ruled out the possibility of the lab being located in the peripheral areas and had arrived in the central part of the city. And at different times, they too encountered these bustling streets filled with lifelike pedestrians.

Approaching from the east was a middle-aged man in a white lab coat, accompanied by two individuals dressed in blue-and-white striped hospital patient gowns. They looked like a doctor leading two patients who had escaped an asylum for a happy shopping trip.

“If anything happens, ask the Captain.”

The Doctor scanned the surroundings with a grim expression, then placed his right hand near his ear.

“Team Seven calling Headquarters. Can you hear me?”

He repeated the call twice but received no response, only static filling the channel.

It seemed the signal was blocked the moment this bustling metropolis appeared.

The Doctor let out a deep sigh. “Severe mental radiation. The pedestrians don’t align with the current era. The street scenery feels fundamentally wrong… Based on these details, we can reach one conclusion.” He surveyed the surroundings with grave seriousness. “We are inside a false world.”

Both ‘mental patients’ glanced at the Doctor with expressions typically reserved for looking at an actual mental patient.

“You needed *reasoning* to figure that out?”

“Anyone with half a brain could see that, okay?”

…

From the north came a burly man dressed in a black combat suit, flanked by two flamboyantly dressed team members. He stood in the middle of the road, observing the various pedestrians on either side who were staring at him with strange expressions. He also noted the car behind him, honking impatiently because he was blocking the way, yet he remained still, just observing.

One of his teammates was a clown, face coated in thick white powder with bright red lips, holding a single red balloon.

The other wore a tuxedo, white shirt, and a black top hat.

They stood obediently by the roadside, grinning at their captain, seemingly completely unconcerned.

…

From the west, another team had entered Water Buffalo City via a different street than Lu Xin and Chen Jing’s group. Because they detected traces of an ability user influencing ordinary people right after entering the city, they spent some time investigating, which slowed their progress. They had only just reached the area bordering the outer and central parts of the city.

…

“How annoying…”

Entering from the south were Xia Chong and her two teammates.

Expressionless, she pulled off her headset, frowning slightly as she looked around at the bustling street, which seemed almost comparable to Central City’s main hub. Then, planting one of her heavy, black military boots firmly, she suddenly kicked off and leaped onto the hood of a nearby car, squatting down.

Her action drew numerous surprised stares from the surrounding crowd, as if they were watching some crazy little girl.

“They react to unusual behavior just like a real crowd would…”

Xia Chong thought to herself, fixing her gaze on one person in the street. He was a punkish-looking young man with a rebellious air. When Xia Chong’s gaze landed on him, he subconsciously glanced back at her before quickly looking away, resuming his laughing conversation and drinking with several similarly dressed youths near a shop entrance.

“But the reaction is weak. Otherwise, he should be asking me ‘What are you staring at?’ by now…”

Xia Chong muttered to herself, slowly reaching a conclusion. “This must be one of the parasitic items stolen from the Research Institute…”

“2-48—Memoir Videotape.”

As she spoke, her fingers swiped across her tablet computer, pulling up a data file.

2-48—Memoir Videotape

Source: An ordinary videotape recovered by a scavenger team after the Red Moon incident. It records scenes of a prosperous city street.

Function: When played, this videotape influences the surrounding environment, causing it to synchronize with the content recorded on the tape.

Note: Experiments indicate the maximum area of radiation is 50 square kilometers (subject to potential increase).

Pollution Characteristics: Individuals entering the affected range will gradually forget the real world, becoming trapped within the memories recorded on the videotape. Their mental power is gradually consumed, effectively devoured by the tape. Those subjected to deep pollution will remain trapped forever within the ‘beautiful’ memories.

Origin: No definitive verified origin.

Inference: It is theorized that someone repeatedly watched this videotape depicting Civilization Era street scenes and developed an intense sense of nostalgia. A powerful and somewhat mutated mental power then parasitized the videotape, forming this special ability.

Record: Stolen from the Red Moon Research Institute twenty-seven years after the Red Moon incident. Its whereabouts have been unknown ever since.

Solutions:

1. Locate the videotape within the false city street scene and cut off its power supply.

2. The videotape cannot project specifically targeted illusions onto individuals. Simply leaving the radiation range will allow one to escape its influence.

…

“Let’s notify the others!”

Xia Chong gave the illusory city one last look, confirming its connection to 2-48. She attached the file to an email and sent it to the others presumed to be within the city. However, after sending, there was no notification indicating the message had been delivered.

“The signal’s blocked. Looks like they’ll have to figure it out for themselves!”

“Encountering a Tier 2 special parasitic item… it’s easy enough to handle once you know what you’re dealing with.”

“But if you don’t know what it is… well, then you’re in for some serious trouble…”

“Good luck to them!”

Xia Chong put her tablet away and said to her two teammates, “Stick close to me. I’ll get us out of here.”