Chapter 19 Back Then

The sudden change in the surrounding environment caused everyone to be on high alert. Hao Ren immediately took out his plasma spear and held it in front of him. "Is it a space transfer or an illusion?"

"No traces of mental interference detected, space-time distortion detected, confirmed as some form of spatial change," the data terminal rapidly analyzed the data changes recorded in that instant. "...But no traces of spatial transfer were found, we are still at the same coordinates as before."

"Same coordinates?" Hao Ren frowned. "This is still the same place as before?"

The data terminal stated its speculation: "We probably fell into a space overlapping with the real world, the location hasn't changed."

Lily's ears perked up instantly: "Could the 'boundary' that undead mentioned earlier mean this?"

Hao Ren shook his head, his gaze falling on the end of the corridor: "Not sure, let's go over there and take a look, there seems to be someone there."

The long corridor was brightly lit, with picture frames of portraits hanging on the snow-white walls. In the previous ruins, Hao Ren had seen these portraits after they had been burned, but now, in this seemingly time-reversed situation, he still couldn't see the true faces of these portraits: each portrait seemed to be shrouded in a hazy mist, a layer of constantly rotating and twisting white mist covering the frames, looking extremely strange.

His gaze fell on the corner of the wall ahead again. He remembered that there was originally a line of dying words written in blood there, but now there was only a bare wall, and a decorative vase was placed next to it.

At the end of the corridor was a wooden door, ajar, letting out some light, and the sound of people talking came from behind the door.

A low male voice was speaking: "...The human world seems to be in chaos again, the commoners of this country are hanging the nobles, another collapse of order."

Then a very young female voice sounded: "They are always in chaos, it's normal, after all, they are a race with very short lifespans, it's difficult for both the social structure and themselves to remain stable for a long time."

Another young male voice sounded: "We don't need to care about these things, worldly power can't do anything to us. I just returned from Paris, the Order's branch is busy hunting werewolves, they shouldn't have time to pay attention to such a distant place."

The young female voice sounded relieved: "That's good, confronting them head-on is always..."

The conversation suddenly disappeared, as if it had never happened, and Hao Ren had just reached the door at this time.

Lily stepped forward and carefully peeked through the crack in the door, then pushed the wooden door open.

On the other side was a very spacious room, furnished with comfortable velvet cushions and bright lamp stands, as well as an oak wine cabinet filled with drinks, seemingly a place to rest, but it was empty.

"No one..." Hesperides muttered to herself, "That voice was probably just an echo of the past recorded in space-time."

Vivian recalled the conversation she had just heard: "Judging from their tone, could it be that the family living here isn't human?"

Hao Ren opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, he suddenly heard the sound of conversation coming from the other end of the corridor again, and the sound seemed to be getting closer and closer:

The young male voice that he had heard before appeared again: "...I went to see Hercules's situation, he's in good spirits, but he's deeply troubled by nightmares, and there are some bad things circulating in the village where he's secluded, about nightmares and bloody murders."

The initial low male voice also appeared again: "The tall tales of country bumpkins, they probably confuse the sound of the wind at night with their own dreams. We checked the situation of that artifact before, it's still intact, don't be suspicious like those shallow humans."

"Yes, Master Mohabben. But Hercules's situation is indeed not optimistic."

"...I know, that time...he drew too much power from the artifact, and brought that thing out as well. Although we got rid of the long-standing shackles, he was polluted, after all, we should be responsible for this. Go get Sivil..."

The sound of conversation went from far to near, and even slowly floated past Hao Ren's ears, but the corridor was still empty, only the sound was wandering here—this situation could make ordinary people's hair stand on end.

Fortunately, Hao Ren's side were all knowledgeable fellows, they only felt that the situation here was a bit strange, except for Lily, who was relatively flustered and was currently trying hard to press her tail back down, everything else was fine.

Vivian pinched her chin, thinking as she said, "It seems that this family is just a group of unusual beings… By the way, I wonder if we can see the situation outside from here?"

Hao Ren was reminded, and immediately turned and walked towards the mansion's gate.

The heavy oak door was pushed open, and the situation outside the ancient house was presented to everyone, and this situation left everyone dumbfounded.

Outside the mansion was a vast open space covered with rubble and gravel, the front was open and unobstructed, all the previous forest vegetation had disappeared, although it was still possible to judge from the terrain that this was the small hill in the forest, but now all that could be seen around was a wasteland.

"Where are the trees?" Lily looked around in surprise, "How did it become like the Gobi Desert?"

"Xenomorphication..." Vivian bent down, picked up a handful of gray-white gravel from the ground, the gravel slipped through her fingers, making a rustling sound. "Don't forget this is a different space, everything is mutated, this sand...I haven't seen it anywhere on Earth."

"If I'm not mistaken, this mansion should be built right on a spatial rift or magic focus, it is located in two spaces at the same time. Now the mansion in the real world has become ruins, but this one in the different space is still intact, and because of space-time stagnation, many things inside have been solidified and preserved, including those echoes of the past," Hesperides, as the guardian of the Athens Sanctuary, was well aware of various异空间(yi kongjian) phenomena, she felt the surrounding magic as she gave her analysis, "What we see should be a projection of this forest in the異空間(yi kongjian)."

"But this is very strange," Vivian interjected.

Hao Ren casually asked: "What's strange?"

"The Earth is a place with very weak magical power, stable space, and thin magic. Except for those independent secret realms from the ancient mythological era, such as柯尔珀斯(Ke Erpus), it is rare for this kind of environment to appear naturally," Vivian explained, "Unless something induces the space here to break and overlap, such as...that artifact."

As soon as Vivian finished speaking, a rumbling sound suddenly came from high in the sky.

Hao Ren subconsciously looked up, but didn't find any lightning or anything like that, then he realized that this was another "echo" of the past.

Immediately afterwards, he heard a heavy footstep sound coming from far to near, as if someone extremely tall was walking towards this mansion. Although he couldn't see anyone, he still heard this sound coming to the door and heavily pounding on the oak door.

Several wet handprints appeared out of nowhere on the oak door.

"Hercules! Good heavens, what happened to you?!"

A slightly familiar female voice sounded out of nowhere, Hao Ren carefully identified it, and then suddenly realized that it was the rambling undead from before!

"It...it's breaking through the boundary..." an unusually hoarse and low voice came, "I...I dreamed that all things are burning, the dark side of the universe is about to unfold...the boundary is becoming...very fragile..."

"Hercules, your body..."

"That shard cut me, or it controlled my mind and made me cut myself," the hoarse voice sounded very weak, "Quickly prepare a ritual for me, I can still suppress it back."

At this time, a steady male voice interjected, seemingly coming from the corridor: "What's going on with the sound from the village?"

"...The Green family's house collapsed, crushed into powder by a powerful force out of nowhere."

"That thing has already entered our reality?!"

"A part of it, but soon it will be more than just a part." Hercules said weakly.

"Hathaway, you take Hercules to the tower first, I'm going to go to the village to see what's going on."

"Master Mohabben, but your body..."

"Don't worry, I'm just going to check the situation," Master Mohabben's voice was confident, "Don't forget, I was once the most powerful monster hunter master in this area!"

The echoes of the past gradually faded away, and the surroundings returned to silence.

Hao Ren and his companions looked at each other.

"I didn't hear wrong, did I?" Lily shook her ears, "I have four-channel sound! I shouldn't have auditory hallucinations, right?"

Vivian turned to look at the mansion behind her, her expression extremely subtle: "That's right, the people living in this place...are a group of monster hunters!"