From wholeness to fragmentation, everything happened in the blink of an eye.
The entire Research Base was torn into shreds in an instant.
The ground collapsed, shattered, and split apart, transforming into various incomplete zones at different elevations.
The Red Nut Gray Hole further down had collapsed even more completely, torn into pieces large and small like a toy in the hands of a bratty child. These fragments scattered, some falling directly into the endless darkness to vanish, while others barely maintained their structural integrity as they floated, though their condition appeared precarious at best.
Crack— Crack—
Amidst the sounds of fracturing, stones of all sizes continued to plummet, falling into the darkness below, dropping into a void where nothing existed.
Just like the final stage of the Shirakawa Apartments, this place had entered the countdown to destruction and collapse.
But, it was not enough.
Gao Hai raised his head, looking at the debris of rocks and building wreckage suspended in mid-air around him.
It had restabilized.
Although this place was shattered into a complete mess, the fact remained that it had stabilized again and ceased to collapse further.
Gao Hai knew why this was happening. This place could not be thoroughly destroyed and dissipated yet because there were two core obsessions supporting this instance. Liberating only one of them was not enough to completely destroy this place; the other core obsession had to be liberated as well.
Andres had been liberated, but Hedal—this obsession had not yet been freed.
But this shouldn't be. Why hadn't she been freed?
At that moment just now, the instant Hedal in her blood-soaked dress entered the Freezing Zone, she should have completed the final slaughter. This obsession should have been liberated.
Could it be that Fulen still had some trick up his sleeve?
Gao Hai stood up, balancing on a dilapidated corridor that had been reduced to half its original size.
The door in his hand led to an endless void on the other side. In the moment the collapse occurred, Chika Fujiwara naturally couldn't hold onto the door as steadily as Gao Hai. Consequently, that door had fallen from where the three girls were positioned and was now repeating an unending fall within the infinite void.
He couldn't continue forward with that door anymore. To play a platforming game on building fragments and rocks separated by gaps of varying sizes, Gao Hai certainly couldn't carry that wooden door with him.
With some regret, he tossed the door away, watching it plummet into the darkness. Gao Hai then looked upward again. The sky above was also endless darkness, but within that darkness, the fragments of buildings and rock seemed to be emitting light themselves, allowing Gao Hai to continue discerning the structure of this place. Furthermore, at the highest point of this shattered area, Gao Hai saw a winding staircase leading to a relatively intact platform. Without a doubt, that was the exit of the Red Nut Gray Hole.
Reaching that place would be no easy feat. Once he fell into the void here, Gao Hai was certain he wouldn't respawn like Steve or die instantly during the fall.
Moreover, even if he could go up and reach the exit, he couldn't do so right now. After all, he had to achieve a perfect clearance to leave this hellhole. That meant he now had to find the reason why Hedal's obsession hadn't been completed, and find that Fulen who should have died long ago but for some reason was still alive.
"Phew—"
Deep breath, jump, land.
Gao Hai successfully crossed a platform and landed in another area.
It was also at this moment that he received a communication from Maki's side and clarified the root of the problem.
"To think he could even pull a trick like a fusion form? Does that mean if we want to get rid of him, we have to find a way to separate this guy from his fused state?"
Having understood the root of the problem, Gao Hai was a bit dumbfounded and couldn't help but complain.
The reason Fulen survived and wasn't killed by Hedal was simple: the pure anomaly Fulen that had blocked Maki and Kaguya in the Prison Area had appeared in the Freezing Zone, and then the two Fulens had directly fused together.
The power of an anomaly could split a person into two individuals; Gao Hai had already experienced this back at the Shirakawa Apartments. Fulen must have drawn inspiration from the human experiments on Lixer, thereby splitting himself into two individuals. The pure anomaly Fulen was likely formed using his corpse that had been killed in the Research Zone; this anomaly was merely a puppet-like existence, completely controlled by the other Fulen.
And after the two sides fused, because Fulen had once again acquired the identity of an 'anomaly,' Hedal's power could not exterminate him. She could only destroy his body. Furthermore, due to the collapse of the entire instance, Hedal, as a core obsession, could not carry out her execution in her complete form, leading to Fulen actually having a way to flee.
Of course, this was not a method without downsides. After becoming an anomaly, Fulen's consciousness would also be affected by the anomaly's power. He would become unable to act according to his own cognitive abilities, instead leaning towards the behavioral patterns of an anomaly, subject to a greater degree of restriction by the rules.
Currently, Hedal was entangled with Fulen. The two anomalies had landed together on a building fragment of the Base's Research Zone. Due to the anomaly's influence, Fulen was obsessively trying to conduct experiments, while Hedal was crushing and tearing Fulen's body apart over and over again. However, because the opponent had completely turned into an anomaly, she couldn't kill him. The scene for a time was incredibly bloody, nearly causing Chika Fujiwara, who was seeing this kind of horrific image for the first time, to vomit on the spot. The expressions on the faces of Maki and Kaguya, who were watching this scene nearby with Chika, weren't pleasant either.
After all, a pile of crushed, rotten meat struggling and squirming to perform experiments... such a scene was truly difficult to face calmly.
The problem now was how to separate Fulen, forcing the part of him that was 'human' to obediently come out and die, rather than stalling for time here attempting to drag out a wretched existence.
As Gao Hai jumped between various platforms while pondering this problem, a rescue worker, swollen all over and dripping water incessantly, suddenly popped up on a platform. It nearly grabbed Gao Hai and pinned him to the ground, forcing him to scramble and jump to another platform to avoid it.
He had almost forgotten—the destruction of the core obsession did not lead to the elimination of the subordinate obsessions. The fuel his watch absorbed was, in fact, these subordinate obsessions and the residues of the instance itself. He just didn't know why this absorption had to be established on the premise of the instance core disappearing and the instance itself gradually collapsing. Currently, Gao Hai had only liberated one of the two obsessions and hadn't yet met the conditions for the instance's collapse, so this function could not be activated.
{Maki, you guys must be extremely careful over there. The other anomalies are still active, and because this place is collapsing, the anomalies from every zone are now mixed together. You must pay attention to your surroundings when moving.}
{Mm, I got it. We will be careful. Hai-kun, you too—you must protect yourself.}
After the brief conversation, Gao Hai stopped his steps once again.
In front of a half-collapsed sentry box, Shelby, Ed, and Wang Gui were sizing up the surrounding situation. Seeing Gao Hai appear, Shelby walked to the front of the group.
"Mr. Gao, it's great to see you're okay. Do you know what's going on right now?"
It was apparent that this player had likely never witnessed the phenomenon of an instance collapsing. Although her expression was still relatively calm, a slight tremor in her tone betrayed the fear in her heart.
"Someone cracked the core obsession, causing this instance to collapse. It seems to have stabilized temporarily, but I'm afraid this place will fall into complete destruction before long. Look up—do you see that platform at the very top? That is the exit. The rules within the instance have already begun to plunge into chaos and fail. As long as you can reach that place alive, you should be able to safely escape the instance. Hurry up; I'm going first."
After giving a rough explanation of the situation, Gao Hai turned around, intending to leave.
"Instance collapse... I actually encountered such a thing? Exactly what kind of expert could achieve this? This instance clearly just started its fixation phase; there was no way to obtain intelligence on many things in advance... No, wait, Mr. Gao, aren't you coming with us? It should be very dangerous to continue staying here, right?"
Although Shelby hadn't seen an instance collapse, she had obviously heard of such situations. Thus, upon hearing what Gao Hai said, she immediately understood and revealed an expression of immense astonishment.
However, seeing Gao Hai turn to leave, and realizing the current danger of this place, she spoke up to stop him, somewhat unable to understand why Gao Hai didn't plan to leave under these circumstances. Even for those hunters who hunted Obsession Items, they shouldn't stay under these conditions. After all, once an instance collapsed, the Obsession Items associated with it would lose their effect. An instance in this stage of collapse should have absolutely no value for any player to remain in.
"I still have teammates who haven't come over. I have to go with them. You guys leave quickly; this place is very unsafe. Those ghostly things have all become active."
Gao Hai had already walked to the edge of this rock fragment, looking around to find a suitable foothold. To be honest, he hadn't found a single suitable foothold because almost every fragment had the silhouettes of anomalies moving about. Tourists, explorers, the Rescue Team, security guards, staff members... this cavern had swallowed too many human lives. So many that even with the place shattered like this, there was still a considerable number of anomalous things filling the map.
However, these anomalies seemed to no longer possess any special killing abilities. Avoiding them was probably just like dodging zombies; as long as he wasn't touched, there shouldn't be too much of a problem.
So the priority now remained getting to Maki and the others as soon as possible, and then finding a way to separate Fulen's human side from his anomaly side.
Speaking of which, it probably wouldn't be that easy for the three players behind him to return to the surface. But this wasn't something he could help with. Moreover, in this situation, he couldn't possibly spare the energy to help these people; he could only wish them luck in fending for themselves.
"These monstrosities that have lost themselves... as long as you avoid them carefully, it won't be a big problem. I can help you find a path to leave."
A calm man's voice suddenly rang out at this moment.
Gao Hai raised his head and saw a middle-aged man with a stubbly beard, wearing firefighter clothes, standing on a rock fragment at a higher elevation.
That face seemed somewhat familiar.
"Leave these three players to me; I will guide them out safely. Consider it my duty."
"However, their problem is a small one. Mr. Gao, the problem you need to face is the big one. You don't know how to kill that bastard, right?"
As he spoke, the man jumped down from above, landing beside Gao Hai.
The sensation from the Blessing... Not human? It seemed to be an anomaly, but there seemed to be a certain difference from a complete anomaly? What exactly was this...
Gao Hai didn't speak. He first took a careful step back, but then, due to a sense of familiarity in his heart, he remembered exactly where he had seen the man before him. He couldn't help but freeze on the spot, not knowing what to say.
"Speaking of which, I haven't introduced myself yet. I'm truly sorry."
"But there's no need to be nervous. After all, since your people escaped from the Prison Area, I have been watching from the shadows until now. Knowing what you want to do isn't difficult."
"As for my name, just call me Howard. Perhaps you already know who I am; that would be even better. After all, that can save a lot of time. I'm not sure... how much longer the time I can lucidly help you will last."
As the man said this, he revealed a somewhat stiff smile to Gao Hai. The firefighter shoulder patch on his body seemed to be flickering with a faint luster.
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