Long-term salvation

"Your wife and daughter are still alive and under the control of Mobius Corporation—the culprits of this incident. They are powerful but by no means invincible—you obviously need my help, and we can talk about it along the way... Can you use a rifle?"

"I am a citizen of the United States after all."

"This is the best. Just like in horror movies, in this kind of world, having guns and not having guns are two completely different styles."

Rhode said as he pulled out a chest mount from the storage space. After watching the decadent detective put it on, he tossed him an M4 rifle and a few incendiary grenades and instructed:

"Incendiary grenades are difficult to make. You'll also need to collect flammable projectiles and related materials along the way, such as Molotov cocktails, flame pots, and manure pots."

"Hey, that last one has nothing to do with flames anymore, right?!"

After a few complaints, Sebastian felt his mind gradually return to normal. The resolute detective of the past was returning. A trace of sadness crossed his heart as he slung his rifle around his neck with the gun belt, patted his cheek, and hurried to catch up with Rhode.

Rhode stepped over the sadist's corpse and walked out along the corridor. The dilapidated corridor was not spacious, and could only accommodate two people walking side by side. At the end stood an iron door. After opening it with a key, he saw a maze of wards, medication rooms, medical research laboratories, and other common hospital wards and corridors.

Open a door and you might find a boiler room or a sewer overflowing with rancid blood and human remains. Here, the darkest and cruelest aspects of human consciousness are shaped and molded. Intense negativity slowly and unstoppably tears at the veil, blurring the line between reality and the otherworld.

Reaching out to wipe a bit of old blood from the wall, Rhode crushed it with his fingers, and it immediately dissipated like powder. But if he looked at the wall, the marks on it had not changed at all, as if as long as no one was "observing", it would return to its most basic appearance.

"Those two bastards, Mobius and Ruvik, don't realize what they're doing. If they truly throw Crimson City into the otherworld, the resulting rift could send the entire state's civilians into hell... The foolish actions of the intelligent with ill intentions are often more threatening than the foolish."

Rhode sighed and heard some noise. He turned his head to look at the decadent detective who was slowly walking down the corridor and asked:

"Detective, how many companions are you bringing with you?"

"If we don't count the dead officers, there are four of us, including me," Sebastian said, then asked back, "What about you? I don't even know your name. How many people do you have here?"

"You can call me 'Rod,' Rod, not Lord and Road... Why do I have this strange sense of déjà vu? Never mind, it's not a big deal. I have a strong enough helper to keep a vigilant eye on Mobius's troops in the real world, as well as attack helicopters and armored vehicles. I believe you should have seen them before coming to Lighthouse Mental Hospital."

"But they all flew away, away from the city."

"The spiritual world has its own battles, and the real world is no different."

As Rod said this, he opened the last door - at this moment, a chainsaw suddenly appeared and chopped down without hesitation!

Rhodes instinctively raised his shotgun and pulled the trigger. The powerful impact caused the sadist's body to stagger slightly, and the chainsaw immediately slashed through Rhodes' chest as he turned sideways! After firing the second shotgun shell, Rhodes stepped on the wrist of the "resurrected" monster, using the force of the latter's raised arm to roll over and pass by:

Pulling out the revolver from his waist, Rhodes fired three shots at the back of the monster's head!

The bullet, which was enhanced to injure creatures from the inner world, flew out of the chamber, causing massive damage to the monster formed by the murderer's malice and madness - the bullet pierced through the left occipital bone, disrupting the diseased and corrupted brain, and ejecting brain matter, foul blood, and festering eyeballs from the eye sockets!

Sebastian, his face covered in filth, numbly wiped off the filth, retched a few times, stepped over the sadist's corpse, and quickly walked to Rhode's side. He looked at the monster, which was gradually turning into bloody foam and dissipating, with lingering fear, and complained:

"You just...no, nothing. Wait, didn't you just kill this monster?"

"We are in the consciousness world, detective, and we are hated by the rulers of this world," Rhodes casually reloaded his shotgun. "Because of this, anything can happen here. For example - look at the direction we came from. Isn't there a new sadist standing there?"

Sebastian looked in the direction of the sound and saw a monster holding a chainsaw slowly emerging from the end of the corridor.

"Shit!"

The decadent detective turned his head and was about to ask Rhodes what to do, but he saw that the latter had already run to the elevator room at the far end of the corridor, and was now leaning half of his body out, looking at him with a puzzled look.

"Why are you still standing there?!" Rhodes asked in surprise.

"I, you! No...wait for me!"

Hearing the roar of the chainsaw behind him, the decadent detective ran away in panic - fortunately, although he usually spent his days drinking, he still often chased criminals and his skills had not declined much, otherwise he would have to dance tango with that monster in the straight corridor!

Sebastian rolled into the elevator in a rather awkward manner, causing the steel railing to close before the chainsaw could hit him, leaving behind only the sadist's impotent and furious howls.

"I thought you were going to fight that monster!"

"Trying to kill a self-regenerating monster in an eternally repeating world? You've got quite the imagination, Detective." Rhodes exhaled slowly, pondering his next move. "First, let's try to find survivors, or rather, those who haven't been corrupted by Ruvik's madness and darkness... Be careful, Detective. Once we leave, we might be facing a crumbling city. The threat posed by those collapsed buildings is no less than that posed by the monsters."

"...For God's sake, I really hope some good news comes out of your mouth."

"A true word from the mouth endures forever, but a lying tongue lasts only a moment."

"...I'm not a devout believer, I'm just used to it."

"Oh! Then you will definitely become a qualified agent or investigator," Rhodes said, feeling the elevator under his feet pause, the railing slid to the side, and the elevator door slowly opened.

To Rhodes' surprise, outside the door was not the endless purgatory, nor the Lighthouse Mental Hospital, but the corridor in Hill Villa.

Leading the still nervous Sebastian inside, Rhodes followed his intuition and opened the door at the end of the corridor. It was the reception room in Hill Manor, which he was very familiar with, and so was the person sitting inside.

"Rod!" Abigail jumped up from the sofa and tried to launch a rocket headbutt at Rod's abdomen. "Mu Ji and I rescued two unlucky guys. I asked Pickman to drag them out of a car!"

The black cat lying by the fireplace meowed weakly, and it was obvious that this task was a bit difficult for it.

Putting his hand on Abigail's smooth forehead to prevent her from bumping into him, Rhodes turned his head and saw the black-haired girl looking back at him solemnly, a trace of worry flashing across her cute face. At her side were two officers from the Crimson City Police Department.

The two men were sitting on the sofa with steaming hot tea in their hands and a few open books in front of them. They looked much more relaxed and leisurely than Sebastian.

"Joseph, and Connery!" Sebastian screamed. He then noticed that the blood on his body had been washed away at some point, and only the weapon in his hand remained unchanged. "You are all still alive!"

"Of course we're still alive, Sebastian," Joseph Oda adjusted his glasses and put down the cup in his hand. He patted Connolly, the driver who had brought them here, and said with a tone full of relief at having survived. "The black-haired lady saved us, and the blonde is protecting us to prevent us from being assimilated into that world... But no matter what, I'm very happy to see you're alive, old friend."

"Me too, Joseph, me too." Sebastian looked around the reception room and saw only his colleagues from the police station and Rhodes who was interacting with the two girls. He pursed his lips and asked, "Where's Kidman? How is she doing?"

"Kidman..."

"That Ms. Kidman must still be alive," Rhodes said calmly, stroking Asuka Iki's head and pinching Abigail's face as she tried to stuff sour lemon candy into her pocket.

"After all, she's a Mobius agent. She won't die that easily."

Sebastian and Joseph: "...Huh?"

Chapter 139: Regrouping (3K)

Julie Kidman, an agent of Mobius.

Her childhood was spent in the Cedar Hill Parish around Crimson City, but it was obvious that young Kidman did not get the experience a child should have, simply because her parents believed in the Cedar Hill Church, an ancient and mysterious cult with close ties to Lighthouse Mental Hospital and Mobius Corporation.

After running away from home, wandering around the city, and returning home to find that the villagers and parents were missing, and even Cedar Hill Church was closed and blocked, the bewildered Kidman was soon targeted by Mobius, who needed young people like Kidman who had "no relatives, no friends, no ideals" and were easy to control.

In this way, after a series of training and development, Kidman became an agent stationed in the Crimson City Police Department, specifically keeping an eye on the internal information of the police department and his boss Sebastian.

"Of course, after this incident broke out, Kidman was also asked to ensure the survival of 'Leslie', the precious experimental subject... If I'm not mistaken, the real-world Mobius should have sent a team to recover the STEM system, but they were intercepted by the assistants I arranged in advance."

As Rhodes spoke, he put down the teacup in his hand and saw that the tea was spinning in two different directions as he expected, forming two small whirlpools.

This is the dream house opened by Abigail and Asuka Iki. It is like a drop of sea water taken from the vast ocean, which was transformed and solidified. Many semi-independent areas in the other world are like this, like branches extending infinitely from a towering tree.

If the depth of the inner world is divided into levels, then the dream hut should be in the [Twilight Zone·Hell] or even closer to reality.

At least according to Rhodes' own estimation, he would have to spend dozens of hours here to gain a few pollution points in the other world.

"Wait, putting aside who Leslie is... you're saying," Sebastian was caught off guard by the news, "that a mastermind agent has been quietly lurking in the police station for so long? And what is the STEM system?"

"The STEM system can bring together the thoughts of multiple users to create a virtual world that's infinitely close to reality—it just requires a human brain as the 'host' to run it. And that brain is Ruvik's. This explains why there's so much darkness and horror within. As for why this is done... well, I can only suggest you read more science fiction movies and novels. Human desires rarely exceed the limits of our imagination."

"As for Kidman, my advice is to leave her alone for now. She's not going to be any bad."

Rhode spread his hands, a helpless expression on his face. After those fragmented memories related to The Evil Within resurfaced in his mind, he decided to recruit this conscientious Mobius agent into his fold. He hoped to work with Sebastian's wife, Myra, who had already infiltrated his organization, to teach those arrogant and overconfident masterminds a lesson.

But for now, Rhode still needs to hide something from Detective Sebastian:

"If you don't intervene now, you'll thank her in the future, Detective. Kidman will assist your wife... Never mind, that's for the future. At least don't rush her into it right away."

"Wait! Why is this related to my wife again?!"

Seeing the increasingly bewildered Detective Sebastian, Rhodes said no more. Instead, he stood up and walked to the door of the Dream Cabin. He took the chest mount handed to him by Asuka Iki, and then took the shotgun and rifle handed to him by Abigail and put them on his back.

After fully arming himself, Rhode turned his head to look at Sebastian and said slowly:

"Listen carefully, Detective Sebastian. No matter how many schemes the enemy has, no matter what happens to your wife and daughter, you must escape alive from this world created by STEM and Ruvik's madness. Or do you think you can stay here forever?"

"I...I understand. Let's focus on the present first and think about the future later."

Sebastian sighed, turned around and hugged his partner and colleagues, and walked towards Rod with their blessings. Joseph and the other two were in a state of near contamination before they were rescued. If they were out of Abigail's protection, they would only become The Haunted, a kind of monster whose human consciousness was connected with STEM and then eroded and contaminated by Ruvik, retaining roughly the appearance and a little bit of consciousness they had in life.

These trivial human consciousnesses are spread throughout the STEM space, becoming Ruvik's spies and accomplices.

Standing by the door, Rhodes reached out and touched Abigail's little head, and asked with a smile:

"Can you teleport us to the nursing home? Leslie was adopted there. I guess we can find Dr. Jimenez along the way."

"Of course you can, although the accuracy won't be very high," the girl said, shaking her head, looking quite adorable. "And Ruvik might chase us. After all, in this world, we're just guests, and he's the host."

"That's the best. I haven't been able to accurately locate him... It's time to change the target," Rhode said, but suddenly remembered that Ruvik would invade safe houses in the game, so he reminded Abigail and Asuka:

"Be careful, the Dream House is not completely safe."

"I'll be looking forward to his invasion, Rod."

The blonde girl said with a smile. Under the light, shadows covered the upper half of her face, leaving only a keyhole emitting a faint purple light, as if something was peeking out from there!

Just by looking at the eyes behind the keyhole, Rhode felt dazed, which made him quickly look away and said unhappily:

"Alright, alright, I know you're powerful, just shut it up before you attract other people or something else!"

"Hey hey hey."

The keyhole gradually disappeared, leaving only the girl's smooth forehead. Rhode couldn't help but flick it. After receiving a painless rocket headbutt, he walked out of the reception room and stood in a corridor similar to the one at Hill Villa.

Simply standing there, Rhode could clearly sense Ruvik's frenzied mental power being amplified and resonated by STEM. In search of Rhode and his companions, who had suddenly vanished, this mental force pressed in from every angle, sticking to the floor-to-ceiling windows of the corridor, leaving traces of wailing faces and bloody handprints.

In this spiritual world, Ruvik brazenly displays his presence, as if he were a child who had just gotten a pistol and was showing off his "power."

Honestly, it was difficult to capture and reverse track Ruvik's consciousness, but fortunately, Rhodes and he had the same goal:

Find Leslie Withers

Ruvik wanted to find this boy whose mental fluctuations were very similar to his and use him as his new body in the real world, and Rhodes was there to make sure that didn't happen.

"I can't believe I'd actually come out with you," Sebastian muttered. After this thought came to his mind, the decadent detective gradually regained his former charm and even had the leisure to trim his stubble. "But the Dream House is a great place, but it's too small."

"Maybe it will be as big as the station in the future, Detective," Rhodes replied with a smile. "In places where you haven't noticed, this little house is slowly growing."

Especially after Asuka Iki joined Abigail's late-night secret meeting... Rhode didn't even know what the girls were secretly conspiring, but he didn't have the hobby of prying into little secrets, so he had to let them do whatever they wanted.

Besides, it's not impossible for the system to release those two melon-flavored kids in Azure and the Infinite Orbital Force in Nikkei in the future. A train that shuttles between the other world and the real world, even if it can only move between the [Twilight Zone and Limbo], sounds pretty exciting. But then again, will this special vehicle produced by the system have a shielding mechanism?!

Rhodes didn't want himself and the passengers on the car to become a classic example of "rashly entering the subspace without opening the Geller stance."

Thinking about all these things, Rhodes reached out for the door handle and opened the door.

Outside the door is another world:

There were no stars, no moon, and no clouds. The night sky was empty, and the sticky darkness dripped down from time to time, completely extinguishing the lights somewhere - yes, there were still some lights in this village scattered with wooden houses and broken statues, but they were more like bait to attract ignorant people, luring them to walk in and become the owner's meal.

Some faint whispers and cries could be heard from afar, making it hard to tell whether they were the victims' dying echoes or a new bait. Rhodes had seen similar things several times during those three hellish days.

After a brief listening session, Rhode, not noticing anything unusual, raised his rifle and flicked on his tactical flashlight. There were bonfires and torches burning nearby, slightly impacting the thermal imaging capabilities of the goggles. It was hard to say whether this modern equipment would still function properly in a situation like STEM's... Perhaps later, they could organize a training session against an otherworldly world where observational methods were severely disrupted?

Rhodes thought so as he looked along the crooked village in the direction of the flashlight.

A gravel road wound its way up the hill, where stood a taller brick building. It was obviously Rhodes's destination, but it was blocked by a thick wooden door.

The nursing home is right there.

Chapter 140: Searching for Leslie (3K)

"This door is not easy to open," Sebastian reached out and knocked on the wooden door. It was more like a wall than a door!

"There's no room for maneuver here... Never mind, let's just conduct targeted blasting. I'm going to try to break the chains."

As he spoke, Rhodes reached into his storage space and pulled out a small piece of plastic explosive. He squeezed it a few times and wrapped it around the chain connecting the wooden door mechanism. He then began to arrange the detonator to detonate the explosives and extended a thin silk thread to a safe distance.

Just as he was about to make his preparations for detonation, Rhode heard incoherent shouting and a man's terrified cry for help. After exchanging a glance with Sebastian, Rhode shoved the detonator into the detective's hand and instructed:

"Once the explosives go off, there will definitely be a big commotion. Watch out for the right moment. I'll go see what's going on."

"clear."

Rhodes quickly ran in the direction of the sound, but after a few steps, he saw a man in a white doctor's coat staggering towards him, and behind him were countless ghosts and monsters - from various types of ghosts, sadists with chainsaws, to monsters that Rhodes had never seen in his memory, all of which were closing in on him, wanting to tear the soul and spirit of the man in front of him into pieces and take them for themselves!

The hatred and rage stemming from Ruvik surged through the horde of monsters, driving them forward.

As for the fleeing man, Rhode also knew him. Because of this, he leisurely lit a cigarette, looked at the man who was almost lying at his feet, gasping for breath, and said with a sneer:

"That's really embarrassing, Dr. Marcelo Jimenez. I wonder if your mentally ill patients felt the same way when they were sent to that guy Ruvik for human experiments?"

Marcelo Jiménez affirmed and greatly encouraged Ruvik, also known as Ruben Victoriano,'s interest in anatomy and brain nerves, and taught him a lot of medical knowledge. He even sent patients from the Lighthouse Mental Hospital as samples for human experiments. Later, when the STEM device had certain results, he contacted Mobius Corporation again.