Godslayer: A random filename extension?

"Hey buddy, we've arrived at our destination. I'd love to show you around a bit more, but all the roads ahead are narrow alleys with lots of stairs, so our taxi can't go any further."

"Okay, thank you, sir. I can walk the rest of the way myself."

Lin Linhou gave the driver a five-star rating for his driving skills and took out his phone to check his watch.

Holy crap, the straight-line distance on the map is at least 40 kilometers, and this driver sped him over in less than 20 minutes? Or rather, ten minutes or so!?

200 km/h the whole way? Treating suburban roads like highways?

No, sir, this car is definitely modified! Is this some kind of airplane?

Lin Linhou swore that this was the most thrilling taxi ride he had ever taken in his two lives, feeling as if the car was "flying" for at least half the journey.

[Ding, skill copied: Class A Motor Vehicle Driving - Akina Mountain God of Speed.]

Great, you're lucky. You've copied this driver's skills in one go; who knows, you might need them in the future.

After resting for a while to recover from the discomfort caused by the bumpy ride, Lin Linhou activated the system radar and began to search the road in front of him.

……

[Lin Hou, Lin Hou! Hey! Wake up!]

Duang!

If it makes a sound, then it's a good start.

The system's friendly physical call instantly snapped Lin Linhou back to reality.

This feature is really useful.

"Hiss~~ Ah~ Eh~ Ya~ But you don't have to smash it so hard."

Lin Linhou squatted on the ground in pain, clutching his head, and only got up after a long time.

At this moment, he felt a deep empathy for a certain Tom Cat meme from his past life.

[What was wrong with you just now? You suddenly stood there dumbfounded, turning around, and wouldn't respond no matter how much people called you.]

That's why the system had to use physical methods to communicate.

Lin Linhou recalled that he was also somewhat uncertain.

"just……"

Lin Linhou was searching along the way when suddenly his gaze seemed to be unconsciously drawn to an advertising billboard.

"A thought seemed to echo in my mind: Let's explore the area ahead later."

"And as the view suddenly went dark, my body involuntarily turned around and left."

"Then, it was as if a new idea suddenly popped into my head: I wanted to go to the intersection and eat a bowl of noodles, and I actually did it."

If the system hadn't directly given him a blow—no, a "window"—it would have been a different story.

He felt he would most likely forget the first half, and only remember that he suddenly wanted to eat a bowl of noodles when he got here, and then he actually turned around and went to find a noodle shop to eat noodles.

[Oh, that sounds like some kind of mental barrier. Try it again now.]

"okay."

Two and a half minutes later...

Duang! ! !

"Ah~ Ee~ Ya~!"

"Why am I getting beaten up again? So you don't have a solution for this barrier?"

[I never said I had a solution; I just wanted you to try again.]

Lin Linhou: ……〒_〒

Are you sure you don't just want to smash me?

[I've located the mental barrier. Try again, and I'll see if I can help you become immune to its effects.]

"alright."

Two and a half minutes later~

Duang! ~~~

"Hiss~~~~"

[It seems you can't be immune. Lin Hou, your mental strength is too weak.]

"You just want to blackmail me, don't you!"

Damn it, I was inexplicably forced to cosplay as Sun Wukong, and in a short period of time, I felt like I had been hit in the head three times.

[I've thought of another way, how about...]

"Stop! Halt! Let's get this straight, if I fail again this time, don't hit me on the head. Just let me go to the intersection to eat noodles, okay?"

Lin Linhou felt that this noodle dish was still edible, at least better than being hit.

Lin Linhou rubbed his head. He felt that if this happened a few more times, he might really get a concussion or amnesia.

Fifteen minutes later...

"Boss, another bowl of noodles, this time with extra meat sauce."

At a noodle shop at the street corner, Lin Linhou was eating heartily, having not eaten dinner yet.

Indeed, although things don't happen more than three times, Lin Linhou's fourth attempt still ended in failure.

There's no way around it; our strength doesn't allow it.

The invisible wall is too hard; he can't get through it (??? ? ???).

But it can also be considered a blessing in disguise, for example...

The noodles at this noodle shop are really delicious; you'll want more even after you're full.

So Lin Lin promptly dialed the police after dinner, and soon his uncle arrived and took the boss away for questioning.

The reason for this was simply that he had just tried to replicate his boss's cooking skills, and a skill window popped up:

[Gained skill: Precise control of poppy dosage.]

Lin Linhou: ('-')? ...

In this way, Lin Linhou got several thousand yuan in reward money for reporting the crime for free.

After this little incident, it was already past midnight. Lin Linhou took another route to the target location and found that the strange mental barrier had long since disappeared.

Following this were some ordinary police cordons around the crime scene, and police officers, criminal investigators, or forensic personnel entering the area.

But Lin Linhou definitely couldn't get in; he could only join the crowd of onlookers in the excitement.

This should have been a quiet time of night, when everyone should be home or asleep, but the scene was chaotic and noisy, with sirens blaring, heart-wrenching cries and screams, and people around speculating and discussing.

After listening to the discussions of the onlookers for a while and listening to the police officers' attempts to disperse the crowd, Lin Linhou roughly understood what had just happened.

It seems there's a psychopath who killed several high school students on their way home from school in this alley, and the victims' deaths were extremely gruesome.

The earlier beam of light was explained as a brief burst of flame caused by an accidental gas pipeline well blowout.

The people crying and being restrained by medical staff in the field, seemingly fearing that something might happen to them, appear to be the parents of these victims.

It makes sense; for any parent, such an unexpected disaster is indeed hard to accept.

You made breakfast and sent your child off to school happily this morning, only to be told by someone that it was goodbye forever.

You prepare dinner, but the figure that enters your home never comes. When you go out to search, all you receive is the devastating news that your child has been murdered.

What's scary isn't parting itself, but the fact that it happens so suddenly.

To outsiders, this may just be a news item, but only those involved can understand what a broken world it is, with only a gray sky to look at.

[It's true, only those who have experienced the same thing can truly understand. If only we were stronger.]

Lin Linhou shook his head. As the saying goes, the less ability you have, the less responsibility you bear.

Although he was unaware of the current situation, he had done his best, but unfortunately, he couldn't even get into the scene of the incident.

Furthermore, judging from the bloodstains at the crime scene, these students were probably murdered even before I arrived here by car.

The cries echoing in his ears made Lin Linhou reflect on his past.

"Perhaps, in a sense, I was actually quite happy in my past life."

Why do I say that?

"Because when I leave, probably no one will really be sad about it, which is a kind of luck."

Lin Linhou mingled in the crowd, watching the unfamiliar uncles and aunts in front of him who were being helped up and were almost crying and collapsing to the ground.

He thought to himself that the scene of his car accident in his past life would definitely not be similar.

It's good that no one mourned my death.

Your kindness is heartbreaking.

[Forget it, let's leave. The main character of the story isn't among these people.]

[However, now that we've confirmed some clues, let's find a place to get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow we can try to stake out the area near the school.]

Although the system's radar still failed to detect the protagonist, the system did detect the residual aura left by destiny in the surrounding area.

It feels like you're waiting at a certain location between 19 PM and 20 PM to start a dungeon, but then the dungeon closes later, and when you come back to the location, it says the quest has timed out and the relevant personnel have left.

[I confirm that the so-called protagonist of this world was present at the scene of the incident. According to the police officers at the scene and the surveillance footage, only some students leaving school and the fleeing serial killer entered the alley; there were no other unrelated persons.]

[Therefore, the protagonist's identity can be basically confirmed.]

"I understand, so... there's only one truth!"

"The protagonist is that runaway serial killer. He probably wanted to cultivate by sacrificing young and strong high school students to make something like a youth-cultivating Gu worm, so he lured those high school students to the alley where he was lying in ambush."

Lin Linhou frowned. How was he supposed to befriend such a protagonist? Kidnap a few young, delicious-looking girls as a greeting gift?

No way, I've always been law-abiding and have no intention of learning from Dior how to be inhumane.

He couldn't do something like this—a celestial being caring for his clansmen—in a short time.

Or perhaps he would feed himself to the demon?

As the saying goes, "If I don't go to hell, who will?"

Then I'll say: If you want to refine Gu, I can revive you. But for your sake, we'll join forces and become even stronger.

[......]

[What are you imagining?! (??_? ?)]

The system sensed that if it had eyes, it would be twitching and silent at this moment.

[What I mean is that the main character will most likely be a high school student who walks home from school together.]

[Then the target suddenly gains superhuman abilities and escapes from the killer's clutches; isn't this the normal story progression?]

Since the other party is likely a high school student, and there is only one high school nearby, even if their radar coverage area is small, blocking a school gate is still no problem.

As long as the protagonist passes through the school gate on his way to and from school, wouldn't the mission be considered half completed?

"That's right! Great idea!"

……

"What's wrong, Lao Zhao? Is there something wrong with Wujie Kongyu?"

With the mission temporarily concluded, the members of Squad 136 gathered to exchange information. However, Chen Muye, the team leader, noticed that Zhao Kongcheng had been pondering over one of the boards in the Wujie Airspace for quite some time.

Zhao Kongcheng shook his head. There was nothing wrong with the board itself, but there were some problems with the records of its use that were transmitted back after it was retrieved.

"This sign shows that it exerted four spiritual suggestions on a specific group of people in a short period of time tonight."

He had never encountered a situation like this before.

Therefore, Zhao Kongcheng suspected that there might be something wrong with the board in the Wujie Airspace.

"Oh, then it shouldn't be a problem with the board. It probably means that a very unlucky innocent passerby appeared tonight."

Chen Muyi seemed to have thought of something, and then explained that under normal circumstances, there is only one situation that would cause this phenomenon to occur.

It means that the person being hypnotized was unexpectedly released from hypnosis.

“Similar things have happened before. Since the suggested routes given by the No-Rules Airspace are usually consistent, there may be occasional exceptions…”

Chen Muyi mentioned a classic example: a passerby turned around and was about to leave when there was a particularly slippery paving stone on the road.

Then the passerby fell and hit his head. The physical impact naturally dispelled the hypnosis. The passerby was in a hurry and needed to pass through the restricted area. He didn't think much about it. In addition, the dispelling of hypnosis would have a very short-term amnesia effect. So the passerby continued to the restricted area of ​​the no-rules airspace.

As expected, the passerby was hypnotized again, then turned and left... slipped... bumped his head... the hypnosis was lifted... brief amnesia... hurriedly returned without thinking too much... and was hypnotized again... and so on.

"It's like being curious about the taste of Meng Po's soup and repeatedly drinking it. It is said that the passerby slipped on the same paving stone 39 times, and finally ended the cycle by falling unconscious and bleeding from his head."

Chen Muyi said that in the future, all we need to do is set the departure prompts in the no-control airspace to be random when the same target is repeated.

I had never encountered this situation before, so I had forgotten about this precaution when using the no-fly zone over the years.

Zhao Kongcheng: ...

The rest of Squad 136: ...

Did that innocent, unlucky citizen also bump his head three times somewhere tonight?

Is he alright now? Did he also fall into a coma somewhere after leaving for the fourth time?

"I hope he's not dead."

Hongying silently clasped her hands together and prayed for the innocent passerby. After all, if a citizen died at the hands of the mysterious, they could avenge the victim. But if the death was due to the mishandling of prohibited items by this small team, then the responsibility would be much greater.

"This... no, I need to go back to where this board was placed and check it out. Remember to let me know if there are any updates to the mission."

While he was at it, Zhao Kongcheng also wanted to find the kid who had used the power of the Divine Void tonight.