Being stared at like this made Yang Tao feel uneasy. However, they didn't attack him as he had expected, so he didn't make the first move either.
He walked closer, and the villagers started talking.
"Haha, another curious one wandered in! But he's dressed kind of weird."
"Didn't someone else come in a few days ago? Brought some strange stuff too."
"Yeah, now that you mention it… where is that guy? Haven't seen him since."
"He's doing something over in the east part of the village."
Hearing this, Yang Tao figured they were talking about the investigator sent by the paranormal bureau.
Instead of interacting with the villagers further, he decided to head east and find that investigator to get a better idea of the situation.
At that moment, Zhang Qiang contacted him through the group chat. "How's it going, Leader? What's happening inside?"
Yang Tao replied, "Nothing yet. Just some villagers chatting. I'm going to find the investigator who came earlier and see what he knows."
Before long, Yang Tao spotted the person the villagers had mentioned—a young man holding a device of some kind, scanning the area.
When he saw Yang Tao approaching, he immediately became wary. Yang Tao probably didn't look too friendly right now.
"Who are you?" the man asked.
Yang Tao replied, "I'm a friend of Zhang Qiang from your paranormal bureau. Do you know him?"
The man paused to think, then said, "Zhang Qiang? You mean the new consultant?"
Well, well, Zhang Qiang really pulled it off—he actually joined as a consultant.
Yang Tao nodded and asked, "You've been here for two days. What have you found?"
"The mist is getting thicker. Two days ago, it was 150 meters from here. Now it's only 20 meters. It keeps spreading inward, but I have no idea why."
Hearing that, Yang Tao fell into deep thought.
As a "normal" Steve, he had no special abilities like spiritual sense or observation skills. Otherwise, he could just scan the area and figure out what was going on right away.
Scan?
Yang Tao suddenly remembered that he had the Revelator Goggles with him. These goggles could reveal things that were invisible to the naked eye.
The moment he put them on, the thick fog around him disappeared—or rather, through the goggles, the fog simply didn't exist.
Yang Tao carefully observed his surroundings through the goggles, looking for anything unusual. That's when he noticed a crack in the sky, emitting some kind of energy.
"So that's the cause of the fog—the crack in the sky!"
He took off the goggles and looked again, but all he could see was the dense fog.
Yang Tao now understood that this wasn't just ordinary fog, but some kind of strange energy. Otherwise, why wouldn't it disperse? And how could it make people lose their sense of direction?
He put the goggles back on and moved closer to examine the crack in the sky. But he had no idea how to deal with it.
Just then, a massive eye suddenly appeared within the crack, staring directly at him.
Yang Tao shuddered.
Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the eye vanished. In the distance, faint screams could be heard.
…?
What just happened? Did it really show up just to look at him?
What Yang Tao didn't know was that his robe was infused with twisted elements. Any hostile creature that looked at him would be affected by the distortion and fall into madness. However, his distortion level was still too low to affect stronger beings.
"You stare into the abyss, and the abyss... blushes?"
Ignoring the eye from before, Yang Tao pulled out his staff and aimed at the crack, firing a ball of raw energy.
The moment it made contact, the energy exploded, and the crack shrank slightly.
"It actually worked!"
Since it was effective, he wasted no time and kept firing raw energy at the crack. Before long, the crack was completely sealed.
With the source of energy gone, the surrounding fog began to thin out and fade away.
Seeing that the problem was solved, Yang Tao disappeared on the spot, leaving behind a group of stunned researchers.
---
Read 10 advanced chapters on my patreon
patreon.com/GustinaKamiya
---