Antonitovan Bush.
In the process of Red Nut Gray Hole gradually degenerating into a playground for horror stories, the man who played a key role could be described as the instance's biggest shit-stirrer.
As a squad captain of the city fire department, Howard Smith naturally had no qualifications to access a figure of this level. He could only use various methods and public channels to learn information related to him, roughly figuring out where this person went, what meetings he attended, or where he gave speeches. Trying to find valuable content from this kind of information was obviously extremely difficult; therefore, the investigation process recorded in Howard's notebook was basically like a headless fly, completely lacking direction.
However, after Howard changed the direction of his investigation and began investigating the mayor's actions, things became slightly different. Because the mayor himself often had to attend various activities in the city and made more frequent appearances, more clues could be discovered.
[Military]
This word was heavily emphasized in Howard's notebook.
In the hundreds of events the mayor attended within a year, about 20 involved personnel from the military. The content of these events consisted of seminars and commercial launches regarding the conversion of military technology to civilian use.
Howard never quite figured out what that military technology product was. The mayor and military representatives spoke in flowery language at the launch events... going round and round, Howard couldn't distill anything useful, only seeing the words [Buy, Buy, Buy]. However, immediately following this, his investigation discovered that a company responsible for operating this product had settled in the city, yet one could hardly see anyone entering or exiting this company, as if the company itself were merely an empty shell.
Rustle—
Gao Hai flipped to the next page, his gaze sweeping around a few times to confirm there were no abnormalities outside the car before he continued reading the content above.
Regarding this suspicious company, Howard didn't conduct any secret infiltration investigations; he didn't have the skill for that. He just found an opportunity to install a surveillance camera in a corner near the company. Then, after monitoring for a full month and a half, Howard finally captured footage of personnel entering and exiting twice. Both times were in the middle of the night, and the direction the vehicles took after leaving the company pointed to the same place.
Red Nut Gray Hole.
[Some of those people are undoubtedly from the army; their style of conduct shows it. I can't really make out what the other part is, but those people are holding some strange-looking research equipment. Maybe they are researchers?]
[They entered Red Nut Gray Hole in the middle of the night. I don't know what they did inside, and I don't have the authority to retrieve the surveillance footage of Red Nut Gray Hole during the night phase.]
[It's just that I heard several night-shift security guards hired by Red Nut Gray Hole have gone missing. Originally, I always thought those security guards encountered those anomalous things, but... perhaps they actually went missing for some other reason?]
[I don't know what those people actually want to do.]
[But... could the anomalies in Red Nut Gray Hole be related to them?]
In the notebook, the sentences left by Howard appeared somewhat chaotic.
Gao Hai could sense Howard's complex emotions when writing these sentences.
He couldn't help but recall the second loop, during the process of his group fleeing the timeline where the security guard was, the moment he made the Rescue Team member run into the [Gentle Slope].
At that time, Gao Hai hadn't noticed anything other than the white-dress anomaly.
But that thing appeared immediately after the Rescue Team member shouted "I am human," appearing before the Rescue Team member had even fully run into the [Gentle Slope] area. Then, in the next moment, the Rescue Team member was attacked by that thing, and Gao Hai himself was swept into the fork of the [Blood Vessel].
At that time, he hadn't been able to pay timely attention to the situation from the Rescue Team member's perspective, but he indeed hadn't discovered any anomaly.
No, did I really not discover anything?
Gao Hai closed his eyes.
Perhaps it wasn't that he didn't discover the problem. It was just that the problem was hidden very secretly, so secretly that he didn't immediately pay attention to it.
He began trying to recall what he saw at that moment.
The pitch-black cavern.
The mountain cave shrouded in darkness.
The sound of running footsteps.
The gaze of the terrifying anomaly.
Besides that, was there really nothing else?
No.
It wasn't like that.
Gao Hai remembered the scene he saw at that time.
In the darkness, in the gloomy cavern swept over by the flashlight beam. There was a part of the darkness that wasn't illuminated by the flashlight.
It was black...
It was black... clothes!
Gao Hai suddenly recalled it.
That's right.
After the Rescue Team member ran into the [Gentle Slope] area, after running into the [Gentle Slope] that the security guard rules said not to approach, he saw black clothes—the pitch-black, full-body tactical suits belonging to the soldiers of the research base.
Because it was too rushed at the time, Gao Hai hadn't noticed the existence of those people, but now, after a little recollection, he realized what had happened.
The research base itself was built after the Red Nut Gray Hole's horror story outbreak and the cavern was sealed. But soldiers and researchers had often entered the cavern for operations long before that, back when Red Nut Gray Hole was still in operation.
The [Gentle Slope] had always been a danger zone, a high-risk area one could not go to in any timeline, and not entirely because of the existence of that white-dress anomaly. Even if that thing didn't appear to launch an attack, players would still encounter massive threats there. This is because the anomalies formed by the soldiers and researchers are active in the [Gentle Slope] area, and they are very likely to adopt an attitude of total extermination toward anyone who appears before them.
"So, what exactly is in the [Gentle Slope]? Even though supernatural events had already started appearing behind the Great Slide, why was the activity area of these people still restricted to the [Gentle Slope] side, and that thing under the fissure... Does the Great Cliff itself have some special significance?"
Gao Hai successfully obtained the answer to one question, but then had to fall into doubt over the subsequent questions.
He still couldn't figure out where the issue lay with the [Gentle Slope] and the [Great Cliff].
That blood-stained, bloodthirsty anomaly formed from a woman in a white dress... Gao Hai could confirm the other party was formed during the research base period; it was something born only in the final period of Red Nut Gray Hole. Before it, there shouldn't have been an anomaly of the 'core obsession' level inside that fissure.
But the military and researchers' focus on the [Great Cliff] had started long before that. If there were no anomalies inside the fissure, what were they researching?
[The memories of the lost guide the unquenchable fury]
Gao Hai suddenly thought of this hint again.
Of the hints for this instance, aside from the last one which was obvious—not to speak the fact that he was [Human] to avoid the pursuit of the white-dress anomaly—the other three hints had actually remained indeterminate.
The God Usurper had no leads, the Agreement had no leads, and the so-called Lost Ones... Gao Hai originally thought those tourists might be the Lost Ones, but their behavior really didn't match [Fury]. Could it be that he actually hadn't found where the so-called [Lost Ones] were yet?
And... the proof of the agreement. He wasn't entirely clueless about this thing; although he couldn't be completely sure, it should be this.
Gao Hai lowered his head to look at the silver ring lying in his palm.
Andres and Hedal's wedding ring. This was Andres's Obsession Item; this object bore the brunt of his thoughts and emotions. Just like Li Zhaodi from Shirakawa Apartments, whose Obsession Item was her only toy, the Obsession Item itself was sometimes the answer and could explain many problems.
In the final moment, before Andres's consciousness plunged completely into darkness, his wish wasn't [Leave the Cavern]; by then, he no longer believed he could leave that place alive. So his true wish, his strongest, true wish when he realized he was certain to die, was [Return to his wife's side]. And this ring, as the item bearing Andres's obsession, as long as Gao Hai could hand it to Andres's wife, he could complete the breaking of the obsession, allowing Andres to rest in peace completely.
Speaking of which, the wife of Andres I saw in the memory was wearing a white dress... Hey, hey, don't tell me?
Previously, because he hadn't noticed, Gao Hai hadn't thought to that level yet. But now, once he started connecting the dots, he couldn't help but begin to realize the similarity between the white-dress anomaly that killed him and the wife, Hedal, in Andres's memory residual.
To be honest, the face and body shape were no longer recognizable as the same person; that female anomaly in the Great Cliff had been completely twisted, looking nothing like a human. However, that set of clothes was the same. Although one was pure white and new, and the other filthy, tattered, and stained with fresh blood, those two white dresses were indeed the same outfit.
"Is this a case of 'the whole family must be together neatly'?... Did the research base really act so inhumanely to this extent?"
Gao Hai, having understood many issues, sucked in a breath of greenhouse gas, then put away the notebook he had mostly finished reading, preparing to leave this place to investigate other Lands of Lingering Regrets.
As a result, the moment he opened the door, Gao Hai felt the ominous aura enveloping him from all directions. Lifting his head, he saw bloated firefighters, constantly dripping water, standing around this fire truck, all staring expressionlessly at Gao Hai, completely blocking every direction he could see.
Saying this is the second time, right? Do these anomalies like ambushing people this much?
Gao Hai grumbled in his heart. Then, as the anomalies stepped forward, Gao Hai opened the black umbrella. Losing their target, the anomalies turned their heads blankly to look for Gao Hai, and then, unable to find him, they gradually retreated.
Not far away, Gao Hai, who had already slipped away from these things, walked to a wooden door that looked somewhat high-end. He opened the door and slipped inside in a flash.
And what was inside that door was...
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