Chapter 369: Door to the Abyss

“Come on!”

Seeing Lu Xin hesitate, Xia Chong frowned, her expression blank. “Don’t waste time,” she stated flatly.

“This…”

Faced with the request, Lu Xin had no choice but to comply, standing awkwardly face-to-face with her.

“Remember, once inside, stay quiet. Don’t move around.”

Xia Chong turned and walked toward the office door, pulling the much taller Lu Xin along like a child. “And,” she instructed sternly, “no matter what you feel, you *must* stay calm…”

“Right, right…”

Doctor An added from the side, “The young ones lack experience. They often give in right away…”

Lu Xin didn’t want to stay here a second longer.

Just then, Xia Chong pulled him to the office door and gently opened it.

Lu Xin froze instantly, his body trembling slightly.

Xia Chong stood in the office; she had opened the office door, which should have led to the corridor outside.

But as she held his hand and he looked forward, he saw the doorway opened into a red world.

It was hard to describe the feeling. It was as if looking through revealed a place where all shadows were scattered and overlapping chaotically.

Countless forces of mental distortion permeated every inch of air in this world.

Just one glance sent a chilling wind blowing out from behind the door, making the hairs on his skin stand on end.

Dry air filled his nostrils, thick with the smell of burning rust.

“This…”

He started to speak instinctively, but before he could finish, Xia Chong pulled him through the doorway.

A powerful force seemed to emanate from beyond the door, pulling Lu Xin in the moment he glimpsed the world within.

*Ohm…*

An indescribable flood of chaotic thoughts suddenly filled Lu Xin’s mind.

It was like hearing hundreds of people screaming, wailing, muttering madly. Each voice seemed distinct yet tangled together into an overwhelming cacophony, scrambling to drill into his eardrums.

“Stay focused! Don’t listen closely to any single voice…”

A faint voice shouted as a small, cold hand squeezed Lu Xin’s face hard.

Startled back to awareness, Lu Xin looked up to see Xia Chong’s face right before his.

She was watching him intently, her face close as she shouted the warning.

Shaking his head slightly, Lu Xin steadied himself and gave Xia Chong an understanding gesture before looking around.

The door behind them was gone.

Lu Xin found himself standing on the crumbling ruins of a building.

After straining to recognize his surroundings, he realized he was still at the location of the Research Institute building in the Second Main City. Only now, the upper parts of the building above him had vanished, leaving only ruins beneath his feet.

Everything here seemed to be burning.

He could feel his skin as if exposed to red-hot steel, every inch searing with pain. Yet, it wasn’t just heat; it felt more like the air itself was slicing into his skin, again and again.

In the distance, under a hazy scarlet, searing glow, dilapidated buildings swayed and distorted in the air.

The streets and floors looked alive, performing some grotesque dance.

Red enveloped the entire world like a deep nightmare – disorienting, helpless, terrifying, and lonely.

Farther away in the sky, he could faintly make out a round moon.

Lu Xin waved his hand through the air a few times, then touched his own face.

It was all so alien, yet strangely, unsettlingly familiar.

This place seemed unreal, yet it felt intensely real.

…

“Where is this?” Lu Xin asked instinctively.

“The Abyss.”

Xia Chong’s answer was extremely simple.

She tilted her head, checking that Lu Xin wasn’t panicking, seeming a little surprised herself.

But she didn’t elaborate, simply pulling Lu Xin’s hand and walking forward.

The moment they started walking, everything around them began to blur and distort.

Lu Xin noticed that with each step he and Xia Chong took, the surrounding scenery rushed backward as if they were speeding up. After just a few steps, they were already on a street where wrecked, bizarre cars flickered past like phantoms.

“My power is an Abyss-type Contract.”

Only Xia Chong’s stiff, monotonous voice gave Lu Xin any sense of reality. “I made a contract with the Gate Worms of the Abyss. They can bring me into the Abyss and offer basic protection. I originally contracted three, but one was killed back in Water Buffalo City. Besides these three worms, I also had a contract with a powerful mental entity.”

“But it was killed when I faced that monster from the Black Table.”

“So, I have no way to protect myself here now. We can only get in and out quickly.”

“…”

Lu Xin finally noticed the fat bugs clinging to Xia Chong’s left and right shoulders. He had indeed seen them on her in Water Buffalo City, but they were far clearer now than they had been then.

In this world, all physical objects became indistinct, yet these things seemed *more* real?

*Swish swish*

As they walked forward, Lu Xin suddenly sensed something. Looking down, his blood ran cold.

The ground wasn’t asphalt; it was made of hands. Countless hands.

He and Xia Chong were walking on innumerable hands.

The hands were dark, their skin shriveled, covered in twisting blue veins like earthworms. They grasped chaotically, viciously, randomly, trying to seize anything they could touch. Their sharp fingernails were like daggers.

Lu Xin finally understood where the wounds he’d seen on Xia Chong’s legs came from.

They were scratches from these fingernails.

She endured this agony every time she entered the world behind the door.

There was no dodging, no escaping, because the ground in this world—all of it—was like this.

*Chhk! Chhk!*

The fingernails were scraping against his own legs now, sending sharp, cold sensations through the points of contact.

“You get used to it.”

Xia Chong said, glancing back at Lu Xin.

“If you’re worried about scars, don’t be. My worms can heal you. Smooth as if you were never injured.”

“…Is scarring really the issue here?”

Lu Xin felt choked with discomfort and couldn’t help but ask, “What *is* this?”

“The cheapest malice in the world, and the most basic desire to grasp everything.”

Xia Chong answered, her voice still flat, “Because it’s cheap, there’s the most of it. It covers this world, layer upon layer!”

“The Abyss…”

Lu Xin sighed deeply and looked into the distance.

He suddenly noticed faint figures and various bizarre creatures also existed within this red world.

He saw strange, mushroom-like plants in some places. In the dilapidated, burning buildings, branching or spider-like and snake-like creatures occasionally peeked out, staring at him gloomily.

“Mental Monsters?”

Lu Xin suddenly thought of many other things.

This wasn’t his first encounter with the Abyss.

Back in Qinggang, while helping the Drunkard clean up that organization believing in the “True Hometown,” he had encountered some Mental Monsters. Although different from what he saw now, their aura was distinctly similar.

When the Sea Country’s S-level Ability User attacked Qinggang, he had also seen many Mental Monsters.

He had wondered where these Mental Monsters came from. Now, he suddenly understood.

“Do ‘True Hometown’ and ‘Abyss’ both refer to this place?” he asked, voicing his main concern.

“You could say the True Hometown is *in* the Abyss, but they aren’t equivalent.”

Xia Chong explained softly, “It’s like how Central City is in this world, but Central City doesn’t equal the entire world.”

Lu Xin understood immediately. Xia Chong was surprisingly good at analogies.

“So,” Lu Xin said, growing alert as understanding dawned, “what you brought me here to see is…”

“The biggest Pollution Source in this world. And the thing we’ll have to deal with soon…”

Xia Chong spoke while continuing to pull Lu Xin forward without stopping.

The surroundings, seeming both real and illusory, retreated in an instant.

Some places Lu Xin seemed to walk through normally, while others he seemed to pass straight through the middle of.

He saw stretches of ruins, mountains of skeletons, and bizarre creatures crawling rapidly over those bones, watching them with cold gazes. Their mere appearance was enough to make one’s skin crawl.

“Look…”

After what felt like only a few seconds, Xia Chong suddenly raised her hand, pointing something out to Lu Xin.

Lu Xin looked up sharply and saw a beam of light cutting through the shifting air ahead.

The light was clear and bright, like looking out from under frozen water towards the outside world.

Through that beam, amidst the distorted air of this world, they could sense the sunlight, fresh wind, and fleeting figures outside. It was as if they were now looking out at the real world through someone else’s eyes.

“This is…”

Xia Chong began to explain to Lu Xin, but stopped abruptly, startled.

At the same time, or perhaps even before Xia Chong, Lu Xin also felt a bone-chilling cold that made his hair stand on end.

He instantly turned his head toward a specific direction. He saw patches of air distort and ignite like fire. Immediately, the surrounding twisted, gloomy monsters scattered in all directions as if fleeing something terrifying.

And in the distance, a tall figure could faintly be seen rapidly approaching.

“Run!”

Xia Chong reacted, suddenly pulling Lu Xin and dashing back the way they came.

As they started running, the hands reaching up from below grasped at them even more frantically.

These hands also felt the terrifying pressure. They were afraid too, but couldn’t escape, so they just desperately clawed at Lu Xin’s and Xia Chong’s legs, as if catching them and keeping them there would somehow make them feel better…

*Gurgle.*

A hollow, compressed sound echoed through the air.

The thing in the distance was rapidly approaching, distorting the space around them.

Xia Chong’s short legs pumped furiously.

Lu Xin, still unfamiliar and unaccustomed to this world, was practically flying as she dragged him along.

The path that took them about a minute to walk now took only ten-odd seconds to retreat.

The price was seven or eight times more scratches from the hands.

Every step here was like walking through thorns.

Finally, Xia Chong pulled Lu Xin back to where they had entered. She abruptly reached out her other hand.

One of the fat worms slid down her arm and wrapped its round body around a specific spot.

Where it wrapped itself, the shape of a door latch appeared.

Xia Chong grabbed the latch, twisted hard, and the door opened.

But at that exact moment, the pressure from behind reached its peak.

Lu Xin felt something press against his back and instinctively turned his head.

In the scarlet air, he saw only a huge face appear abruptly, rapidly closing in on him.

The face was deathly pale and stiff, like a mask.

Only where the eyes should be were two bleeding holes, filled with writhing, bright red hands.

They squirmed, clawed, and twitched in agony, seemingly fighting desperately to emerge from the sockets and grab Lu Xin.

As Lu Xin met the gaze of this face, his brow furrowed slightly.

The face seemed to sense something too. The hands emerging from its eye sockets actually hesitated.

Some hands even quickly retracted back into the sockets.

This hesitation noticeably slowed the monster’s pursuit.

Taking advantage of this moment, Xia Chong finally pulled Lu Xin out through the door.

…

*Crash…*

The door closed behind them. Lu Xin stumbled slightly before steadying himself.

He found himself back in the real world, still in the same office. Everything that just happened felt like a dream.

But the wounds on Xia Chong’s legs were clearly not a dream.

They crisscrossed her legs, bleeding profusely, the flesh torn open in places.

“Whoa, twelve seconds…”

Doctor An’s voice sounded. She had been watching her wristwatch and looked at Lu Xin approvingly.

“Not bad for your first time.”

“…”

“What on earth was that thing?!”

Before Lu Xin could answer, Xia Chong, who had nearly collapsed, cried out in terror.

“Yeah…”

Recalling the face, Lu Xin couldn’t help feeling some lingering fear. “That was terrifying.”

Xia Chong whipped her head around to look at his face. “I’m talking about *you*…”

“You were only in the Abyss for a dozen seconds! How did you attract the attention of a Lord-level monster?!”

“Mental Monsters of that level usually only attack things that pose a threat to them…”

“…”

“Well…”

Looking at Xia Chong’s terror and the thoughtful expression on the female doctor beside him, Lu Xin didn’t know how to respond for a moment.

After a long pause, he finally mumbled, “That’s clearly not my fault, right?”

“You should ask *it*…”