Tao Qingqing’s fear was not caused by the beam of light itself—even though it could certainly harm her, with caution, it wouldn’t be a big deal.
What terrified her was that she couldn’t comprehend the meaning behind that attack at all. If a magnifying glass could emit a laser, what was the point of firearms? She didn’t understand where that attack came from or why it had happened, as if it was some absurd farce unfolding before her.
If looking at the sun through a magnifying glass could lead to death, then maybe just taking one step forward would cause the ground to open into an abyss that would swallow her whole.
There was no doubt that the little boy who had been hit by the laser must have died, but from his behavior, he didn’t seem like a dead person at all, and the reactions of others were also eerily disturbing.
She swallowed hard and, shocked, said to Wen Wen, "Did you see that? There’s something wrong with this town, something very wrong!"
Wen Wen looked at her puzzled and said, "What did I see, a child stealthily touching you? You, a grand vampire, shouldn’t be so petty. Be more generous."
Tao Qingqing widened her eyes. It was one thing for ordinary people not to notice the anomaly, but even Wen Wen hadn’t noticed?
"Just now, right there, that little boy looked at the sun with a magnifying glass and the magnifying glass emitted a beam of light that pierced directly through his head!"
Wen Wen touched her forehead helplessly and said, "Are you sure your brain isn’t having problems? If that had happened, wouldn’t I have seen it? If you want to convince me, bring some evidence. Empty words aren’t enough to make me believe you."
Tao Qingqing pointed to the ground over there and said, "That ray of light, it not only pierced through his skull but also made a deep hole in the ground. Even if you didn’t see the sunlight, you should at least..."
"So, where is the deep hole then?" asked Wen Wen, spreading his hands.
When Tao Qingqing turned her head to look, she froze. The asphalt ground where the little boy had been was as smooth as new, without any sign of damage.
Wen Wen patted her shoulder and headed toward the hotel. "It seems you’ve experienced an illusion. You’re really not suited to be my assistant. You should rest more when we get back."
Tao Qingqing looked at the undamaged ground and felt an eerie vibe emanating from the very bones of the town: "Is there something wrong with me, or is everyone else the problem..."
Although she had Disaster Level strength, she was initially just a little vampire who hadn’t seen much of the world. All her advancements had taken place within the Sanctuary, so her knowledge of the Superpower World was limited. But she knew that the current situation had deteriorated to an extreme.
"What the hell is that Wen up to? Did he really notice nothing, or is he pretending to test me?"
As she pondered, Tao Qingqing saw a little girl playing with a large, black-and-white spotted shepherd dog.
The little girl was Third Master Tian’s daughter, and that large shepherd dog was the very corpse Tao Qingqing had dug up before. Its body was even starting to decay, yet the little girl hadn’t noticed anything!
Tao Qingqing rubbed her hair and, gritting her teeth, said, "This place has truly gone mad!"
Wen Wen, who had been monitoring the situation through chains, saw the same thing as Tao Qingqing, and was very familiar with the purpose of the Fake Wen Wen in the Illusionary Realm, for the moment not mentioned, but the attack from that thumb-thick beam of light.
Because that was the technique Wen Wen casually used to kill the first layer ghost when he was passing through the Endless Stairs!
That technique was absolutely real, and the damage it caused was real as well, which meant that the entity setting up the Illusionary Realm could use the techniques of superpower users who challenged the Endless Stairs to kill people!
"The reason it deliberately created a legend of the Endless Stairs was to lure superpower users into entering the Illusionary Realm to adventure, thereby learning or mimicking their techniques."
"But why would it do that? If it’s like Tao Qingqing guesses, that it aims to take revenge on the townsfolk, it could just directly take revenge. Unless... it doesn’t have the ability to attack on its own and must mimic to fulfill its vengeful purpose."
Wen Wen opened the Ranger Terminal, retrieved the information of Demon Hunters who had explored the Endless Stairs before, and the third one to do so was an Exploration Realm superpower user.
This superpower user had an octopus-like soft body, a body that could drill into any narrow hole, even into the bodies of people or monsters. After successfully drilling inside, he could control the bodies of his victims.
Third Master Tian was probably killed by this ability, which could explain the dog’s mouth’s abnormal expansion and the suction cup marks inside it.
Additionally, the little boy and the ’resurrected’ sheepdog were also worth noting. If "The Endless Stairs’" purpose is to take revenge on all the townspeople, then by letting the creatures it had already killed wander around the town, it’s probably to make the townsfolk feel a deeper level of despair.
Any moment in the town, someone could be killed by a bizarre attack, but the townsfolk have no idea, even thinking everything is normal. Should such a scene erupt all at once, it would completely shatter the sanity of ordinary people.
Wen Wen stood up and muttered to himself, "It seems that after it was discovered by me, it’s become more desperate... It could start a mass killing out of desperation at any moment, so we can’t drag this out any longer, we need to figure out a solution quickly."
He immediately found Moyadi, who was observing with the supporters, shared some of the intelligence he possessed with him, and expressed a desire to resolve the incident as soon as possible.
Moyadi didn’t ask where Wen Wen’s information came from. After hearing Wen Wen’s information, he buried himself in a pile of documents, taking out a bunch of papers and frantically scribbling and sketching on them.
The papers were filled with all sorts of inscrutable lines, and Wen Wen knew that Moyadi was using his method to observe the Illusionary Realm.
After about ten minutes, Moyadi stopped, wiping the sweat from his forehead and said, "I already know the true face of this thing. It’s that Heaven Stone that was broken up by the townspeople over two hundred years ago!"
"The Heaven Stone, wasn’t that thing destroyed by the townspeople?"
Wen Wen frowned, finding it difficult to imagine how such an event could be related to a stone.
Moyadi shook his head and said, "It was broken up, not destroyed... The stone itself was just an ordinary large rock, but according to the patterns in the documents, it seemed to be part of a huge city wall..."
"I don’t know where in the Federation such a large wall exists, but that immense wall must be extraordinary, thus it was endowed with a certain mystique."
"And human worship itself carries power, the nearby residents’ centuries of worship made the stone increasingly powerful..."