Fantasy Game: Infinite City

The three players who formed a temporary alliance were Lin Mo, an "Engineering Builder", Su Ye, a "Nature Explorer", and Wen Wan, a "Medical Assistant". Lin Mo carried a large, multi-functional backpack, neatly filled with alloy components, mini portable machine tools, and various repair tools. Since successfully changing jobs, his fingertips have always been perpetually smelling of machine oil, and his knuckles bear several thin calluses from long-term operation of machinery. He excels at building sturdy defensive fortifications in a short time and can accurately analyze various unknown mechanical structures. Su Ye wore a durable camouflage outfit, with a heavy geological hammer and leather specimen clips slung across his waist. A folding entrenching tool was also hidden in his boot. With his keen senses, he could quickly assess environmental risks by observing the degree of vegetation withering and the pH level of the soil, and could even detect faint energy fluctuations in the air. Wen Wan carried a silver-gray thermostatic medicine box, with two syringes filled with sedatives at her waist and a miniature instrument for detecting mental energy hidden in her cuff. She was not only skilled at handling emergencies such as external injuries and poisoning, but could also sense the presence of surrounding life forms with her weak mental energy. She was the team's undisputed early warning officer and logistical core.

After leaving the blank square, the previously blurry scenery gradually became clearer—underfoot was a neatly paved, bluish-gray cement road. As they ventured deeper into the city, irregular, net-like cracks appeared on the road surface. From the depths of these cracks sprouted several weeds with leaves that shimmered with a dark purple sheen. The edges of the leaves were covered with fine, sharp serrations. Su Ye gently touched the leaves with a geological hammer, and instantly, a sticky, dark green sap seeped out, dripping onto the ground with a soft "sizzling" sound, quickly corroding small pits. The buildings on both sides of the road were mostly six-story residential buildings, their exterior walls peeling and crumbling, revealing dark red brick walls underneath. The windows were either covered with spiderweb-like cracks or completely missing. The howling wind whistled through the empty window frames, making a sound like a woman's low sobs, echoing in the deathly silence of the city, particularly jarring and eerie.

“The geological structure here is very strange.” Su Ye squatted down and gently tapped the cracks in the road with a geological hammer. Fine, grayish-black debris fell into her palm, rough to the touch and slightly cold. “The soil contains a high concentration of unknown radiation, far exceeding the safe range. These weeds are all mutated by radiation; they are tenacious and poisonous. Try not to touch them directly.” She took out a blank sample bag from her specimen holder and carefully collected a little soil and half a weed leaf. Several mutated leaves of various shapes were already in the specimen holder, each exuding an eeriness that defied the laws of nature. “What’s even more abnormal is that there is no trace of any living organisms around. Even the most common insects are nowhere to be found. The entire city is like a grave abandoned by life.”

Wen Wan frowned slightly, a faint milky-white light swirling around her fingertips. Her mental energy spread out slowly like a fine net. After a moment, she withdrew her power, and the white light at her fingertips gradually dissipated. "Within my perception range, only the auras of the three of us are clear, and there's a very faint mental interference factor floating in the air. This factor can make people unconsciously feel irritable and anxious, but fortunately, the concentration is not high, so it won't affect judgment or action for the time being." She took out three round, silver purification badges from her medicine box. The badges were engraved with simple defensive runes. "Wearing these can isolate some mental interference and also resist mild toxin erosion."

Lin Mo clipped the badge to his backpack strap, his gaze warily sweeping across the residential buildings on both sides. His eyes lingered for a moment on each broken window and each half-open door. "The mission prompt tells us to find a place to stay, and it mentions that it will get colder and darker at night. This means we not only need to find a well-hidden place, but also need to prepare in advance for the low temperatures and unknown threats. High-rise buildings are too conspicuous and easy targets, and their structures may be unstable. The ground floors are also vulnerable to sneak attacks. The third or fourth floor is the best choice, as it's suitable for both offense and defense." He pointed to a relatively intact residential building diagonally ahead. The walls had minimal damage, and most of the windows, though cracked, were still intact. "That one. Let's go up there first to check its security and collect some usable supplies for the coming night."

The three approached the residential building in a triangular formation. Su Ye took the lead and climbed the first-floor steps. The cement steps creaked slightly due to years of disrepair. She took out a thin wire from her backpack and deftly twirled it with her fingertips. First, she used a wire tester to check for energy fluctuations around the door lock. After confirming it was safe, she gently tapped the lock cylinder of the security door with a geological hammer: "The lock is intact, but there is slight metal deformation inside. It seems someone forced it open with tools. There might be other players inside, or there might be an ambush. Be careful, everyone." As soon as she finished speaking, the thin wire in her hand was already inserted into the lock cylinder. After gently stirring it a few times, accompanied by a crisp "click," the security door was slowly pushed open a crack, and a smell mixed with dust and mildew rushed out.

Behind the door was a narrow entryway, where several pairs of worn-out sneakers lay scattered on the floor. The shoes varied in size, some adult, some children's, seemingly left by a family. Strangely, there were no signs of wear on the edges, and no mud on the soles; they seemed to have been placed there by chance. Several old-fashioned coats were draped over the living room sofa. The fabric was dusty but not rotten. A white ceramic mug sat on the coffee table, with dried coffee stains on the bottom and several clear fingerprints on the cup's surface. The fingerprints were well-defined, not like they had been exposed to air for a long time. Everything seemed as if the owners had just left, yet an inexplicable eeriness lingered—no signs of a struggle, no hastily piled-up debris, the furniture was neatly arranged, even the newspapers on the coffee table were folded neatly, as if time had suddenly stood still.

"Something's not right." Wen Wan lowered her voice, her spiritual power spreading out again, a serious expression on her face. "The aura here is very chaotic, with the residual auras of at least five people, but they are all extremely weak, as if they were slowly swallowed and diluted by something. Even the duration of their residual auras is chaotic." She walked to the coffee table, her fingertips lightly touching the wall of the ceramic cup. The cup was icy cold, clearly inconsistent with the room temperature. "The coffee in the cup is so dry that, judging from the humidity, it has been sitting there for at least three days, but the dust covering it is only a thin layer. This means that someone cleaned this place recently, and very hastily, only cleaning the surface dust."

Lin Mo, holding the probe of the portable machine tool, tapped the walls and floor in turn. The probe emitted a faint beeping sound, and the screen displayed the wall structure data: "The wall is a solid brick structure, and its load-bearing capacity is not a problem. There are no hollow areas under the floor, nor are there any signs of loosening. There is no need to worry about collapse for the time being." He walked to the window and carefully pushed open half of the broken window. A gust of cold wind rushed in. He held the window frame and looked at the distant urban area. His gaze passed through the staggered buildings and he could see the blurry outlines of two other empty squares. "From here, you can see the outlines of two other empty squares. The straight-line distance is at least five kilometers. Moreover, the layout of the entire urban area is too regular. The spacing, height, and apartment type of all the residential buildings are almost exactly the same. The roads are also symmetrically distributed. It doesn't look like a normally planned residential area. It's more like a deliberately designed model."

Su Ye had finished checking the bedroom and kitchen and came out with a diary in his hand, its cover yellowed and its edges worn. On the cover of the diary, there was a strange symbol drawn in black ink, which looked like a coiled snake and a bird with outstretched wings intertwined. The snake's head bit the bird's wing, while the bird's sharp beak was pecking at the snake's vital spot. The handwriting inside gradually became messy and distorted, and the ink color also changed from uniform to uneven shades. “Look at this.” She opened her diary and pointed to a few pages. “On the first day, it was very quiet here. The neighbors were all friendly and greeted each other when they met, but they never went out at night. They would close their doors and windows tightly as soon as it got dark, and they rarely even turned on the lights.” “On the third day, I saw Aunt Zhang downstairs walk into the square alone. There was no moon that night. After she went into the square, she never came back. The neighbors around her acted as if they hadn’t seen her, and when they asked, they were all vague.” “On the fifth day, there was a strange, sweet, and fishy smell in the air. I didn’t dare to open the window. Those dark purple weeds began to creep in through the cracks in the doors and windows, growing at an alarming rate.” “On the seventh day, they came. They came from the direction of the square. They had no shadows and walked silently. The doors of every household were easily pushed open…” The diary ended abruptly here. The last few lines of writing were covered by dark red marks with irregular edges, like dried blood, still retaining a faint fishy smell.

The three exchanged a glance, all seeing the gravity and vigilance in each other's eyes. Lin Mo carefully closed the diary and put it into his backpack: "No matter what 'them' are, the most important thing now is to build a shelter as soon as possible and prepare for the night. Su Ye, go to the rooftop to check the surrounding environment, mark possible danger zones, supply points, and traces of other players, and be careful to stay hidden; Wen Wan, organize the available supplies indoors, and also thoroughly check the entire building for any remaining traces of life forms, focusing on whether there are any hidden rooms or passages; I will reinforce the doors and windows, build fortifications, and set up alarms and traps at the entrance."

With the tasks clearly defined, the three quickly got to work. Lin Mo took out all the alloy components from his backpack, started the portable machine tool, which hummed softly, and quickly processed the alloy strips into reinforcing strips that fit the dimensions of the doors and windows. He then firmly nailed them to the edges of the doors and windows with high-strength screws and installed a sensor-activated alarm on the ground near the doorway—it would sound a sharp alarm if any object approached within one meter of the door. During the construction process, when he was drilling holes in the wall to fix the reinforcing brackets, the drill bit suddenly encountered resistance. He turned off the machine tool, chiseled away the surface bricks of the wall, and discovered strange silver filamentous substances hidden inside. These filaments were as thin as hair, and had a cold, sticky feel, like the tentacles of a living creature. When he cut them with the machine tool, the filaments would quickly contract and coil, making a faint "sizzling" sound and emitting a faint fishy smell, similar to the scent left on the diary. “There’s something wrong with the structure of this building. These filamentous substances in the walls are very strange, like they’re alive.” Lin Mo frowned, picked up a piece of the cut filamentous substance with tweezers, and put it into a sealed bag. “Let’s ignore these things for now and focus on building up the defenses. We can study them later when we have more time.”

Su Ye, backpack on, climbed to the rooftop. The wind was stronger there than downstairs, whipping her camouflage outfit into a fluttering motion. She took out high-powered binoculars and began observing the surrounding urban area, the distant dam, and the other empty squares. She discovered that the city's layout was far more orderly than she had imagined. All the residential buildings, roads, and green belts exhibited a strict symmetrical structure, while the empty squares were evenly distributed throughout the city, like chess pieces on a chessboard, precisely occupying key positions. She aimed her binoculars at the distant dam. She could vaguely see that the dam's spillway gates were tightly closed, their surfaces rusted, as if they hadn't been opened in a long time. However, the water below the gates was an unnaturally dark black, with some unidentified debris floating on the surface. These debris varied in size; some resembled animal carcasses, already rotten and deformed, while others looked like fragments of some kind of machinery, their surfaces covered in black slime. "There's something wrong with the dam in the distance. The water is an abnormal dark black, and there's no sign of any activity, not even a trace of guards or monitoring equipment." Su Ye reported to his teammates via communicator. At the same time, he noticed that the strange symbol—a coiled snake and a flying bird—was also engraved on the water tank on the roof. The symbol was surrounded by tiny cracks with smooth edges, as if someone had repeatedly scratched it with their fingernails. There were also a few blurry handprints on the surface of the water tank, which were bluish-gray, unlike the skin color of a normal person.

Wen Wan carefully searched the living room and bedroom for usable supplies. She found several thick coats in the wardrobe and several unopened bottles of mineral water and compressed biscuits in the kitchen cabinet. The packaging of these supplies was intact, as if they had been placed there recently. While cleaning the wardrobe in the master bedroom, she inadvertently touched a slight bulge in the wall deep inside. She tapped the wall, which made a dull sound, indicating that it was hollow. She carefully felt around and found a hidden latch on the wall that was similar in color to the wardrobe's wood panel. After pressing the latch, a hidden door slowly appeared. The door was made of a special alloy with a smooth and hard surface, and it was also engraved with the same entwined snake and bird symbol. She tried to use her mental power to penetrate the door and sense the situation inside, but she was violently repelled by an invisible force. A sharp pain shot through her fingertips, and her mental power was briefly disrupted. “There’s a hidden chamber here. The door is made of a special alloy and can’t be opened. It’s engraved with that strange symbol, which my mental energy can’t penetrate. The situation inside is unknown.” Wen Wan immediately called Lin Mo over via communicator. The two tried to crack it together. Lin Mo started his portable machine tool and used a diamond drill bit to drill a hole in the alloy door, but found that the alloy’s hardness was far beyond his expectations. The drill bit spun at high speed for several minutes, leaving only shallow scratches on the door, and the machine tool’s blade was worn shiny. “This door isn’t an ordinary alloy. It may contain unknown energy materials. My machine tool can’t break it.” Lin Mo put away the machine tool, took out a red marker from his backpack, and drew a conspicuous X on the chamber door. “It can’t be opened for now. Mark the location first, and come back to explore when we find suitable tools or methods.”