...

The Dragon Rock Fortress was not far from the area Sun Hang originally oversaw. It took less than four minutes for the helicopter to take him directly above Dragon Rock Fortress.

On the mountain top of Dragon Rock Fortress, there is a platform covering an area of about one hundred acres. The dilapidated temple Sun Hang had seen in the video before was built on this platform — compared to the severely damaged neighborhoods in the urban area of Tianfu City, this temple was surprisingly well-preserved, even the six-story pagoda had not collapsed.

In the courtyard of the ruined temple, there was a huge fork-shaped marking, painted in bright red, looking quite fresh, clearly left not long ago.

"...Hiss... This is... Hiss... The landing spot for the first batch of infiltration group Hunters... Hiss..." The helicopter pilot's voice came through the headset. For unknown reasons, communication interference was extremely severe around Dragon Rock Fortress, cutting all messages into fragments, mixed with a lot of electrical noise, "I can only... Hiss... Drop you off here... Hiss... Good luck."

Sun Hang retracted the chain wrapped around the helicopter's landing gear and landed in the middle of the courtyard.

The helicopter didn't linger and quickly ascended, flying out of Sun Hang's sight.

On the way here, the helicopter pilot had briefly introduced Sun Hang to the history of this temple: It was originally called "Longyan Temple" and was built by a group of local wealthy businessmen from Tianfu City in the year 4643 on the yellow calendar, more than seventy years ago.

In the first few years after its completion, Longyan Temple was quite popular. But later, as various new tourist attractions around Tianfu City were developed, the number of visitors to Dragon Rock Fortress decreased year by year.

The temple gradually fell into financial trouble, compounded by unresolved power issues and no running water, the young monks couldn't endure the harsh living conditions and left to seek other paths... After the passing of the second abbot, "Master Huishan," Longyan Temple was abandoned.

However, ironically, after Longyan Temple was abandoned, more people came instead — homeless wanderers, publicity-seeking adventure streamers, local hiking enthusiasts from Tianfu City... Now, besides the buildings, most traces in Longyan Temple were left by these people rather than the monks who once lived here.

The copper cauldron once used in the courtyard for burning incense was nowhere to be found, whether sold by needy monks or stolen by those who came later, the ground only bore the four concrete bases smeared with cement and a ring of char marks from incense ashes on the surrounding slabs.

The courtyard walls were littered with ads for certificate-making, seal carving, and infertility treatment, along with many "So-and-so was here," "So-and-so

Yellowed urine stains and chunks of mold spread across wall bases, and the northwest corner of the courtyard, possibly sheltered from the wind, had a wall entirely blackened with soot from campfires.

Apart from the area marked by the Hunters, the rest was piled with trash — cigarette butts, plastic bags, drink bottles, dried and weathered feces... It was hard for Sun Hang to imagine what it was like when incense flourished here.

According to the command center, after the first batch of four infiltration group Hunters landed at Longyan Temple, they split into two groups of two to explore in southern and northern directions, and six minutes later, they lost contact. Subsequent infiltration group Hunters were recalled to the Garuda immediately after landing before they could even decide on a direction to explore.

What Sun Hang found strange was, less than twenty minutes had passed since the four Hunters went missing, but their presence had entirely vanished — no, not only them, but even the subsequent infiltration group Hunters' presence vanished, as if they had never come to this place.

"This temple... is a bit eerie."

Sun Hang scanned his surroundings and decided to check out the main hall first.

This was also the choice made by the first batch of Hunters who landed on Dragon Rock Fortress.

The main hall of Longyan Temple was very dilapidated, with one side of the roof collapsed, a spotlight from a drone above shone through the broken openings inside, making the broken Buddha statues seem to sway continuously, adding an eerie feeling to the hall.

As soon as Sun Hang stepped into the main hall, he immediately noticed something was wrong.

The tremors and vibrations generated by the movement of Dragon Rock Fortress had disappeared, the hall felt like a safe haven unaffected by the external environment.

"Is it another Gen-type mysterious creature?" Sun Hang muttered to himself, "No wonder this temple hasn't collapsed... But is it an independent mysterious creature, or part of Dragon Rock Fortress' transformation?"

Vaguely, Sun Hang felt as if there were several gazes from above staring at him, yet when he looked up, he found that the Buddha statues in the hall all lacked heads.

The damage to the statues varied, but all shared the common trait of missing everything above the neck.

Without heads, there would be no eyes, so where did this feeling of being watched come from?

Sun Hang raised his flashlight, sweeping the beam along the beams — in typical horror movie plot developments, the protagonist would discover something unsavory lurking on the beams, but unfortunately, after several checks, Sun Hang found nothing but dust and cobwebs.

Just as he lowered his head, that familiar feeling of being watched returned immediately— this time, he didn't look up, instead, countless mycelium hidden in the shadows struck out abruptly, attacking the direction the gaze came from!

A piercing scream sounded from the rooftop, and several translucent, blurred figures became visible for a moment. After breaking free from the mycelium's assault, they landed on the ground, swiftly crawling towards Sun Hang in a quadrupedal motion!

"Humanoid mysterious creatures? Camouflage abilities? They can conceal their presence too?"

Sun Hang licked his lips, feeling a bit excited — these mysterious creatures' aura wasn't strong, but their abilities piqued Sun Hang's interest.

In the blink of an eye, B2796 transformed into a colossal Zhanmadao. With Sun Hang's sweeping horizontal slash, the blade unexpectedly extended threefold, slicing through the rushing mysterious creatures at once.

Blood splattered, the invisibility completely failing, and lying not far from Sun Hang were four human corpses still wearing the standard combat suits issued to Mysterious Creature Hunters by the Xiazhou Federation.

"Huh? Are these the four missing Hunters?" Sun Hang was startled for a moment, just as he intended to examine them, the severed limbs began to squirm peculiarly, and in the next second, the bodies of the four Hunters merged into a formless mass of twisted flesh.

This mass of flesh did not immediately attack Sun Hang but withdrew a considerable distance, hiding its body and presence once again.

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