Quick Travel to the Clouds

Chapter 753 Challenge Dungeon 9

However, what they didn't know was that Yun Chu had already detected their gathering movements through the barely perceptible spores of fire-iron flying ants scattered in the air.

She stood in front of the small attic window of the convenience store, toying with several jade array symbols from the world of cultivation, engraved with intricate cloud patterns.

"Coming to my doorstep to play with me? Then don't blame me for being impolite." She muttered to herself, a sly glint in her eyes. What she needed was to trap them and create chaos, not a direct confrontation.

Just as the five investigators stepped into the edge of the "key investigation area" with a radius of about 150 meters centered on the Starlight Convenience Store, Yun Chu flicked her fingertips, and five array symbols silently embedded themselves into five inconspicuous corners of the convenience store's roof.

An invisible and extremely obscure spiritual energy fluctuation rippled out like water, quickly enveloping the designated area.

【Minor Five Elements Bewildering Trapping Array】—A low-level trapping array with no offensive power. Its main function is to interfere with perception, confuse direction, and create slight visual and auditory distortions. The effect varies depending on the mental control of the array setter. It may be ineffective against cultivators.

But it works surprisingly well for trapping investigators who rely on modern investigative methods and their own senses, especially late at night when they are already on edge.

The first to notice something was wrong was "Falcon." He was hurrying along a familiar alley, intending to approach the convenience store warehouse from the back.

As he walked, he suddenly felt that the walls on both sides of the alley seemed longer than he remembered, and there were more corners.

He stopped and looked at the locator on his wrist. The pointer on the screen was slightly wobbling and deviating, unable to steadily point in the direction of the target.

"Captain, my sense of direction is a bit off; the positioning device seems to be experiencing slight interference," Falcon reported in a low voice over the channel.

“Me too,” came Silver Fox’s cool voice. “I clearly remember that the back door of the target building is at the left turn at the end of this street, but after turning left just now, I saw a completely unfamiliar dead end. The visual reference point doesn’t match.”

"The communication signal is intermittent and has static." The sound of the arc light was mixed with a buzzing sound.

“Night Owl, I tried scanning this area with the ‘Map Reconstruction’ skill, and the spatial data returned showed slight distortion and overlap, as if… this area is covered by an unreal ‘shell’.” The “Crypt Machine”, skilled in analysis, spoke with a grave tone.

Night Owl's heart sank. They hadn't encountered a physical trap, but something far more troublesome—spatial or sensory interference!

Is it due to the dungeon's mechanics, or did that player finally resort to a more advanced interference method?

"Stay calm, move closer to me, and report the most prominent landmarks you can see right now," Night Owl commanded, attempting to re-establish the coordinates using physical landmarks.

However, under the influence of the trap formation, landmarks also become unreliable.

What A sees as a convenience store sign might be the outline of a tree from B's perspective; what should be the sound of teammates' footsteps coming from nearby might be the distorted and amplified cry of a wild cat drifting from afar.

The side streets seem to move on their own, leading familiar paths to unfamiliar destinations.

They were like trapped in an invisible maze, or like the legendary "ghost wall," where the target was clearly not far away, but they could never get close, always circling around in the same area.

Attempting to force a breakthrough or use wide-range detection skills will trigger even stronger sensory confusion and may even cause a brief feeling of dizziness.

That night, five well-trained investigators, who should have been hunters, wandered aimlessly around their chosen "hunting ground" all night long.

They tried various methods to break the spell: energy neutralization, logical deduction, violent probing, and even suspected that each other was under a spell. They conducted several mutual verifications and mental resistance tests, but to no avail.

As dawn broke, the invisible disturbance that had enveloped the street quietly receded like the tide.

When the five reunited, they all looked exhausted, confused, and unable to hide their frustration.

They looked at each other with the same weariness and confusion in their eyes, realizing that they had all experienced the same strange night.

“It’s not a dungeon mechanic,” Night Owl finally concluded, his voice tinged with suppressed anger. “It was that player. He/she possesses abilities we didn’t know about before, abilities that can significantly impact the environment.”

"Priority adjustment: Identify this 'maze maker' and list it as one of the highest threat targets."

The investigators suffered a setback on the fifth night, but instead of backing down, it fueled their fighting spirit even more.

They adjusted their strategy, abandoning large-scale ground investigations and instead utilizing the high authority of the command center, combined with limited surveillance data retrieval, high-altitude observation, and informant networks.

In an attempt to pinpoint the source of the anomaly from a more macroscopic and indirect perspective, while simultaneously strengthening their own protection, they wore more amulets (low-level items that can be exchanged within the instance) to resist mental interference and energy anomalies.

However, they underestimated the abundance of Yun Chu's "inventory" and the creativity of her pranks.

On the sixth night, Yun Chu did not set up any formations.

She used the Fire Iron Flying Ants to pinpoint the respective duty locations of the five investigators that night: Night Owl and the Cipher Machine were analyzing data at the command center, Falcon and Arc Light were conducting mobile patrols on the perimeter, and Silver Fox was monitoring the vicinity of the Starry Center.

Then, she used five [Basic Unlucky Charms].

This type of talisman has a single effect and a short duration (about 12 hours). It causes the target to experience minor troubles for a period of time, such as having trouble even drinking water, but it will not cause any real danger to their life.

The talisman was dismantled into an invisible "aura of misfortune," which was silently absorbed by the fire-iron flying ants onto the hems of the five people's clothes, personal belongings, or objects such as doorknobs and chairs where they had briefly lingered.

And so, on this day:

While Night Owl was analyzing critical surveillance data streams at the command center, the main control panel screen suddenly went blank and crashed without warning. After restarting, he discovered that the archived clues he had just finished organizing had mysteriously disappeared.

He wanted to drink coffee to perk himself up, but the cup inexplicably cracked, spilling scalding coffee all over himself and wetting a paper report next to him.

The cipher machine attempted to use its sophisticated brain to calculate the possible principles of the "maze" and the location of the spellcaster, but inexplicably made a series of wrong calculations on several basic parameters, leading to completely different conclusions and wasting a lot of time.

He wanted to retrieve a file from the database, but the access control system, which usually worked without any problems, suddenly malfunctioned, locking him out for a full ten minutes.

While patrolling the perimeter, Falcon first stepped on a "landmine" that some irresponsible NPC had left behind while walking his dog. While cleaning it up, he discovered that the sophisticated instrument he carried, used to detect residual energy, had suddenly run out of power.

He switched to the spare one, which immediately emitted a burnt smell when opened.

When trying to contact teammates using the communicator, the channel was filled with jarring static and strange crosstalk music.

The arc light's encounter was even more "exciting".

His reconnaissance vehicle, disguised as an ordinary vehicle, first had its tires punctured by some unknown thumbtack. After finally finding a secluded spot to change the tires, the lift got stuck.

I wanted to call for backup, but the car radio was malfunctioning.

In the end, he had to walk to find a repair shop nearby, but a sudden downpour soaked him to the bone.

Even more outrageous, the utility pole he was leaning against while sheltering from the rain was "leaking electricity"—a very weak induced current, but enough to make his whole body go numb and his hair stand on end.

Silver foxes are relatively "lucky," but they're still not much better off.

While she was monitoring the area near the Starry Center, the person she was tailing suddenly changed his itinerary without any reason, leaving her waiting for half a day in vain.

Trying to get a closer look, I stepped on the edge of a loose manhole cover and almost twisted my ankle.

The memory card in the miniature device she carried with her for recording and taking pictures suddenly malfunctioned, causing all the suspicious footage she had previously captured to be lost.

I wanted to buy a bottle of water to calm down, but the vending machine swallowed my money and didn't dispense the water.