Were They Swallowed

“Master, that room... it seems to have been completely swallowed up?”

Liguang gripped his hand tightly, staring at the wall behind them.

The mosaic on the wall was slowly writhing.

Fang Qi squinted.

Just a few seconds ago, there was a complete door there.

But they had just come out of it...

And now the door was gone!

Together with the doorframe, it had been silently devoured by that kaleidoscopic pixel swamp!

There wasn't even a trace left on the wall.

This was...

Completely swallowed by the mosaic?

The moment they stepped out, this place got eaten. Somehow, it felt...

"...Not sure."

He pulled his gaze away.

The ground beneath their feet was already turning soft—the soles of his shoes were slowly sinking!

They couldn't stop.

"Let's go, Liguang."

He tightened his grip on Liguang's hand and turned to keep walking.

"We shouldn't stay in one spot."

"Oh, okay..."

Fang Qi led Liguang by the hand, continuing to navigate through the maze.

He frowned, lost in thought.

If they hadn't gotten out in time, and that room had been swallowed...

What would have happened to them?

But...

It felt like the door had deliberately vanished only after they left.

As if someone had intentionally erased that door once they were gone, but...

Didn't actually want to hurt them?

Strange...

Could this place really be alive...?

He shook his head firmly, gripped Liguang's hand tighter, and looked ahead at the endless corridor.

The mosaic was still everywhere, sprawling endlessly.

...No matter what, the only option was to keep moving forward!

...

After that, they came across a few more doors.

As usual, Fang Qi used the double-push method to test them.

Liguang tied the woven bag around her waist, gripping one of his arms with both hands, ready to yank him back at any moment!

And thanks to their efforts...

Sure enough, a few doors could still be pushed open!

But unfortunately, the interiors of these rooms had already been eroded beyond recognition by the mosaic.

Walls, floors, ceilings—all writhing pixels.

Any original furniture or tables and chairs had turned into blurry clumps of pixels—you couldn't even tell what they used to be!

Let alone finding anything useful!

One room after another, they entered several—all the same.

Another time...

"Master, watch out!"

"BANG!"

This time, the door even broke apart on its own!

The heavy metal door panel came off its frame the moment he touched it, slamming flat onto the mosaic-covered floor inside the room!

Then...

It shattered into pieces!

The fragments tumbled across the colorful pixels for a few rolls...

And were ultimately swallowed whole.

Liguang clutched Fang Qi's hand, staring at the floor and murmuring:

"Master, the door... it just crumbled..."

Fang Qi took a deep breath and stepped into the room with Liguang.

Again, just a mess of blurry pixel blocks.

The two looked around inside, and finally...

Fang Qi shook his head helplessly.

"Another room with nothing in it..."

He muttered.

Staring at the walls, which were eroded down to nothing but pixel remnants, a faint sense of anxiety began to bubble up inside him.

What the hell...?!

Ever since a while ago, they'd been wandering aimlessly!

Finding doors in a place like this and being able to enter them—there was some fun in the exploration...

But there was nothing inside!

Several rooms in a row, all eroded this badly!

Forget a charging pod—they couldn't even find a single intact metal rack!

His lips pressed into a tight line.

In this maze, was there really a complete device that could charge Liguang?

Could this method actually lead them to a way out?

...The floor beneath them was starting to soften again.

They couldn't stop.

Tsk.

He suppressed the irritation churning inside him and turned to head back out, pulling Liguang along!

"Liguang, let's go...!"

"Master!"

The silver-haired girl, who had been trailing behind him, suddenly stepped closer!

She looked up at him.

The white gauze over her right eye swayed slightly, and her amber eye blinked at Fang Qi.

"Liguang thinks she found a pattern!"

Her tone was a little proud!

Pattern?

Fang Qi looked at her with some surprise.

"What pattern did Liguang find?"

"A pattern about these doors!"

Liguang puffed out her chest slightly, then turned her head to look back at the path they had just walked.

"Liguang noticed that the more heavily eroded the branching paths are..."

She raised her hand and pointed behind them.

"...the more likely they are to have those 'doors'!"

Fang Qi was taken aback.

Was that true?

He thought back over the route they had taken.

Earlier, they had always picked paths with less erosion.

After all, some routes were so clogged with mosaic that they looked genuinely terrifying...!

But there were also times when they had no choice.

Some intersections were so heavily eroded that they had to hold their noses and hurry through.

That's exactly what the path they were on now was like!

And sure enough...

They'd already run into three doors along this stretch!

Huh?

Fang Qi's eyes slowly widened.

...She was right!

The more heavily eroded the area, the more doors appeared!

Sure, behind most of the doors were just swallowed ruins, but at least...

It was better than nothing!

Fang Qi immediately raised his hand and messaged Liguang's fluffy little head!

"Liguang, great job!"

The texture was fantastic!

The silver-haired girl squinted happily under the rubbing.

"Master, Liguang is smart even without using core processing power!"

"Smart, way too smart!"

"Hee hee!"

Fang Qi held Liguang's small hand and walked while thinking.

Heavily eroded areas had more doors.

What were those doors...?

They were entrances to some kind of space!

If you looked at it that way...

The more fragile, the easier it was to create gaps!

Those areas where the rules were severely eroded—the spatial stability around them would be worse...

Which meant cracks and bugs were more likely to appear!

To get out of here, what they needed were bugs!

A door wasn't just an entrance—it was also an exit!

Maybe they really could find a way out because of this!

But...

Fang Qi pressed his lips together.

Heavily eroded zones were definitely riskier than those relatively intact corridors.

But sticking to the safe paths had gotten them nowhere after all this time.

Continuing to loop around the safer corridors would just trap them in this maze forever.

Were they supposed to keep going until Liguang ran out of power?!

...Might as well gamble!

Fang Qi took a deep breath, tightened his grip on Liguang's hand by a fraction, and then...

A fork appeared up ahead once more!

One path was still fairly clear, and the other...

A path that was clearly about to be swallowed by the mosaic!

The mosaic on the walls was even starting to bulge, no longer flat!

But...

"Liguang, we're taking this one!"

He pulled her toward the more heavily eroded route!

Come on!

Great rewards come from great risks!

Liguang didn't stop him. She just held his hand even tighter, giving it a gentle squeeze.

—Wherever Master goes, Liguang goes.

That small gesture eased Fang Qi's tense mood considerably.

He squeezed her hand back.

It was so good to have his wife by his side!

...

The environment began to deteriorate rapidly!

The concentration of mosaic was growing denser and denser!

On the walls, those colorful pixels that had been sporadically scattered before...

Now they were merging into massive, sprawling blocks of color!

The frequency of the writhing grew faster and faster, as if...

Something was struggling desperately inside the walls?

It was enough to make a person's skin crawl!

Beneath his feet, the ground was no longer at the level of "solid when stepped on, but sinks if you stand still."

With every step Fang Qi took, he could feel the soles of his shoes being softly suctioned!

He even had to exert some force to pull his feet free!

And...

Fang Qi tilted his head slightly, glancing at the wall beside him.

Dark red characters were slowly scrolling across the pixelated surface.

Line after line!

Flickering in and out of view against the writhing mosaic backdrop!

[Critical error: buffer overflow...]

[Memory allocation failed at 0x7F...]

There it was again.

Fang Qi narrowed his eyes.

Though he couldn't really understand it, with all the "error" and "failed"...

It was probably some kind of error code, right?

[Stack corruption detected, thread terminated...]

[Fatal error: spatial integrity compromised...]

Uh...

Yeah.

Fang Qi kept his face expressionless.

Didn't understand a word.

He immediately looked over at Liguang.

Liguang's single amber eye was wide open, straining to focus on those rapidly scrolling characters.

She was biting her lip, brows furrowed tightly.

The white gauze over her right eye was reflecting the dark red of the wall, making Fang Qi's eyelid twitch!

If he hadn't known Liguang couldn't bleed, he might have thought...

"Master..."

Liguang suddenly looked at him with a pitiful expression.

A layer of disheartened moisture glistened in her amber pupil.

"...Liguang still can't understand it."

She finally lowered her head, her fingers curling lightly against his palm.

"If you put the Crimson Eye back in, Liguang could understand it."

"Master, should we...?"

As she said this, she even blinked that amber eye at him.

Put the Crimson Eye back in?

Fang Qi gave her a disdainful look.

"Don't even think about it!"

Unless we find a charging device, you're never getting the Crimson Eye back!

If the moment it went back in, he ended up with a drained-battery madwoman...

Then he'd go mad too!

"Oh..."

The silver-haired girl pouted and let out a sulky "oh."

Fang Qi pulled her along and continued forward.

"Come on. If we find a charging device, we'll put it back in for you."

"Mm!"

...

The surrounding environment changed again.

The frequency of the wall's flickering had sped up!

In the midst of the flickers, small patches of the original surface were occasionally revealed!

Fang Qi stared at the wall beside him.

The wall flashed suddenly!

Through the gaps in the pixels, the metallic color of the wall briefly showed through!

Then it was quickly covered again by the writhing color blocks.

In that instant...

Fang Qi caught a glimpse of a sign faintly emerging on the wall.

It seemed to be an internal layout diagram?

For the B2 level?

"Master!"

His hand was squeezed tightly by Liguang.

Fang Qi turned to look at her, only to see her also staring intently at the wall.

"That diagram just now, Liguang remembers it!"

"That's the emergency evacuation map for B2. This location..."

She immediately raised her hand and pointed toward the depths of the passage ahead.

"Another dozen or so meters ahead, and we'll reach that genetic door!"

Fang Qi's eyelid twitched!

Ah!

So they'd reached the deepest part of B2?

The genetic door... what lay behind that door...

"But..."

Liguang pressed her lips together, her tone turning slightly dejected.

"It might not be the same now."

She muttered softly.

"The space here is so chaotic now. The paths have already changed..."

Fang Qi looked ahead.

Ahead was a corridor with such a high concentration of mosaic that the walls were barely visible!

But...

He turned his head and gently pinched Liguang's cheek.

"I believe in Liguang!"

He winked at her!

"Let's keep going forward. The genetic door must be right ahead!"

The silver-haired girl blinked her amber eyes, then broke into a bright smile!

"Mm!"

The two quickened their pace.

Fang Qi directly pulled Liguang along, jogging forward into the corridor!

Mainly because...

The mosaic underfoot was noticeably softer than before!

Even though they were running fast, each step left behind a trail of depressions.

Turning a corner...

The view suddenly opened up!

A mosaic clearing.

Not large.

But to Fang Qi, who had just emerged from an endless mosaic corridor...

This clearing felt exceptionally spacious!

He also instantly recognized the size and outline of this space!

He'd been here many times. Even with the walls and floor turned into a pixel swamp, he could still recognize it!

This was the clearing in front of the genetic door!

But...

Fang Qi looked toward where the genetic door should be.

...There was no genetic door.

Gone.

The wall there looked no different from the surrounding walls.

The same mosaic, the same blurred outlines and flickering edges.

Uh...

"Master..."

Liguang also stared at that wall, then squeezed his hand again.

"That little door seems to be gone..."

"...Let's go take a look."

Fang Qi pulled Liguang over.

The ground in the clearing was soft; lingering too long in one spot caused one to sink.

They had to keep moving at all times.

So, they walked along the wall, making a full circuit.

Fang Qi reached out, testing every section of wall with the back of his hand.

Cold, soft...

Occasionally, he could feel the touch of metal.

But there was no door.

Fang Qi withdrew his hand and let out a helpless sigh.

Sigh.

He'd been hoping that if things really got desperate, he could open this door...

Maybe it would let them escape!

Hadn't Gu Xi said to open the door when he deemed it necessary?

Well, now was pretty necessary!

In a labyrinth, every door had to be opened!

But now, it seemed...

This door couldn't be opened anymore.

Whatever was behind it, he'd never know now.

However...

Wait a second.

Huh...?

Fang Qi tilted his head slightly.

Why did it feel like he'd forgotten something?

They were now at the clearing in front of the genetic door, and here...

Ah!

Fang Qi immediately whipped his head around and stared hard at the ground of the clearing!

On the ground, there was only writhing, colorful pixels.

Fang Qi stared blankly at the clearing.

No An Lian. No Lin Xiaoyou.

They had been lying right here before, right?

Where were they now?

They...

Ah.

Fang Qi's pupils trembled slightly.

They'd been swallowed by this mosaic.

...Swallowed.