Chapter 43: Clash of Psychics

A musty odor permeated the gloomy air.

The reception desk and sofa in the lobby were still there, covered in a thick layer of dust, and the floor was littered with trash. Every few steps, one could spot discarded instant noodle packets and plastic water bottles, suggesting that someone had once used this place as a temporary haven.

"Why hasn't the Bureau discovered this breach until now?" Chen Xuan asked in a low voice.

Over the past two days, he had learned quite a bit from Lin Qing about otherworldly incursions and ability-users. No one knew precisely when these anomalies had begun, but by the time they started having a serious impact on the present world, it was already the early 21st century. He had to admit, this timeline was somewhat later than he had expected, which meant the Limit Bureau was barely older than he was.

"There is a machine inside the Limit Bureau that can detect the gravitational ripples caused by an incursion, but most of the time it only records static," Lin Qing explained. "Only when the scale of the incursion expands and occurs repeatedly, with the same waveform appearing multiple times, will the machine recognize it."

"Doesn't that mean undiscovered breaches exist everywhere in the world?"

"That's why there's a saying within the Bureau: the world is already riddled with holes, and the Bureau is merely patching them up one by one. But don't worry too much; breaches possess a rather peculiar attachment effect, meaning they tend to cluster and appear in specific locations, such as the city you live in."

He had heard Lin Qing mention this before.

An incursion sounded mysterious, but once materialized, it resembled a door or a room through which one could enter another world. Furthermore, there were corresponding relations; for instance, missions involving the rescue of Joan of Arc were more likely to appear within medieval European settings. When Chen Xuan first heard this, he immediately thought of the heavily criticized Window of the World in the city, where everyone joked that the owner was a bumpkin, never imagining that the underlying concept was so fashionable.

The so-called otherworlds were, in essence, Earth—Earths of various kinds.

At least he no longer had to worry about receiving aliens.

Climbing the stairs beside the lobby to the second floor, the light grew abruptly dimmer, and the musty smell intensified. Slippers and towels were scattered all over the hallway; clearly, these items were deemed not worth moving and had simply been left behind. Chen Xuan curiously peered into one of the rooms and noticed a few packs of unopened condoms resting on the coffee table.

Breaches possessed an attachment effect.

If it had attached to the other side of an illicit parlor, then whatever lay beyond was likely no respectable place either.

"Am I guessing correctly?" Chen Xuan thought for a moment and decided to ask.

"It wasn't written in the intelligence reports, but judging by Lady Fei's abilities, she's probably an expert at carousing."

"Has the Limit Bureau never been over there to take a look?"

"Interfering with another world has always been considered a major taboo by the Bureau, and the constant back-and-forth travel of ability-users only accelerates the expansion of breaches. Therefore, unless it's to apprehend someone or for special reasons, they generally don't venture deep inside."

In other words, Crazy Judy transforming into a witch to disrupt the royal court was indeed targeted at him, Chen Xuan thought.

However, they didn't know that he didn't need to rely on breaches to travel back and forth between worlds; staying right inside his shop allowed him to arrive instantly at a customer's location.

Moreover, opening the shop didn't seem to be detectable by the Limit Bureau either; otherwise, judging by the frequency of his contact with Liu Shuyue, the Bureau would have tracked him down long ago.

He had asked Lin Qing whether ability-users brought about the incursions or if the incursions created ability-users, and her answer was the latter.

To this day, the reason behind the appearance of breaches remained a mystery, though it was certain that every otherworldly incursion brought about mutations, with individual abilities being merely one of the manifestations. Many people lived through their lives in obscurity even after acquiring abilities, simply because they remained unaware of how fundamentally they had changed. The Bureau referred to such individuals as Latents.

In contrast, there were the Awakened, who actively used their abilities for personal gain. Among the Awakened, there was a rare breed drawn to the breaches that had induced their mutations, allowing them to travel between two or more worlds while keeping their whereabouts even harder to track. The Bureau called them Roamers.

According to the Limit Bureau, the danger level of these three categories increased sequentially.

Lady Fei was a Roamer.

She was most likely born in that other world, and had she not traveled back and forth multiple times, causing the breach's waveform to be filtered out by the machine, she wouldn't have drawn the attention of the Limit Bureau's enforcement squad.

Chen Xuan stopped at the doorway at the end of the corridor.

Behind the door was a spacious private parlor, large enough to accommodate a dozen people simultaneously. The "breach" mentioned in the intelligence report was located on the door of the parlor's restroom.

"I've arrived."

"Alright, now we just wait for her to show up," Lin Qing replied.

To be honest, Chen Xuan was rather tempted to push that door open and take a peek at the world on the other side. But the thought that doing so would prematurely attract the Limit Bureau ultimately made him decide against it.

Looking around, he found a relatively intact chair and sat down. "How long is this going to take?"

Lady Fei's time of death was recorded as 9:00 PM.

"She will definitely show up today."

"And if she doesn't, that proves your theory is wrong, right?"

Silence fell on the other end.

For some reason, Chen Xuan suddenly felt a hint of sympathy for her. After all, her upholding mission was to prevent human extinction, and she firmly believed she could accomplish it here. But if the two worlds turned out not to align, it meant the very foundation supporting her convictions would vanish entirely.

Could a person who had lost their conviction still manage to live on properly?

"Sigh... what a pain," he muttered suddenly, letting out a sigh.

"What happened?" Lin Qing's voice instantly tightened.

"I looked around and found that only this parlor has a restroom, but the restroom has turned into another world. If I need to go, doesn't that mean I have nowhere to do it?"

"Huh?" The young girl's voice pitched up an octave. "I thought the Limit Bureau had arrived! For a small matter like that, just find any empty space and take care of it!"

"Fair enough."

"Shopkeeper... are you deliberately teasing me?"

"She's here."

"You don't need to notify me if you want to use the restroom."

"It's Lady Fei."

Chen Xuan suddenly noticed the broken door opening. Even though only a crack was revealed, he could glimpse that the scenery inside definitely did not belong to an abandoned restroom. Then, a woman darted out and stood before Chen Xuan. She was utterly startled the instant she spotted a stranger in the room, and the two stared at each other in blank dismay, neither making a further move.

"You... are you sure?!" the voice on the other end asked after a pause.

Her tone was even more agitated than Chen Xuan's.

Naturally, the woman wouldn't pull out her ID card, nor would she introduce herself right off the bat. Yet Chen Xuan knew that the woman before him was the Lady Fei from the intelligence report—her appearance was even more striking and alluring than in her photograph, and even standing completely still, she radiated an unspoken charm that made one yearn to draw close to her.

She wore a cinched long dress whose style made it impossible to tell which era it belonged to, with the neckline pulled quite low and held together in the middle by only a single thread, as if a casual tug could pull it entirely wide open.

"You..." The woman snapped back to her senses, a hint of panic flashing across her face as she covered her chest with one hand. "...Who are you?"

"Whatever she says, don't let her trick you!" Seeing that he hadn't replied yet, Lin Qing quickly emphasized, "She is quite adept at charm, disguising herself as a vulnerable victim."

Chen Xuan could feel it.

Although she didn't show a shred of hostility, her expression displaying only the panic and fear of encountering a strange man, the "Voice of Trust" conveyed endless, creeping malice that made one's hair stand on end. This was the first time he had experienced such intense malice—ten times stronger than the colleague who had blocked him before.

He hadn't intended to swallow Lin Qing's intelligence entirely without reservation; what kind of person she truly was required his own personal observation before reaching a conclusion. Yet right now, Chen Xuan had to admit that Lady Fei's inner self and outer appearance were worlds apart.

"You've killed so many people—did you never think you'd face a day like this?" Chen Xuan intentionally asked in a harsh, probing tone, while simultaneously pulling out his QR code scanner and switching the Voice of Trust to Cicada Shell Escape. The four abilities—Thousand Thoughts Sword, Divine Eye Technique, Heavenly Glow Art, and Cicada Shell Escape—were the most combat-suitable combination he could currently muster.

"Killing people? I don't know what you're talking about—" On the surface, the woman looked utterly astonished, but a gust of chilling wind suddenly stirred behind her. Something leaped out from behind her back, sweeping across the ceiling and lunging downward at Chen Xuan!

She was attacking just like that?

She really didn't stand on ceremony...

Chen Xuan saw it clearly: it was a semi-transparent chain.

It looked concealed and swift, but under the gaze of the Divine Eye Technique, it moved as sluggishly as dropped-frame animation.

This was likely the "Usurpation" ability.

An ordinary person caught by it would perish without visible illness, their cause of death resembling sudden cardiac arrest, whereas an ability-user caught by it would lose one of their abilities for the opponent to use.

To resort to lethal force after just a single questioning sentence—what kind of person Lady Fei was went without saying.

Chen Xuan feigned being caught off guard, stumbling forward as if to dodge the sneak attack, barely evading the claw strike.

The woman did not miss this opening; she drew a handgun from her waist and raised it to fire directly at the unsteadily balanced Chen Xuan!

This was supposed to an ability battle, so why did everyone still love using firearms?

Fortunately, the Divine Eye Technique had now reached Level 4 with the shopkeeper's level upgrade, stretching his slow-motion perception to nearly two seconds. Before Lady Fei could even pull the trigger, he had already anticipated her aim: the first shot would miss wide, and the second would clip his shoulder. Lowering his shoulder to dodge both shots, and before she could squeeze the trigger a third time, he clamped a hand onto her wrist, pulled her toward him in a fluid motion, and swung his fist with his right hand, landing a solid strike squarely against her cheek!

Lady Fei was knocked completely dazed by the punch, spinning half a circle before her knees buckled and she dropped to the floor, vomiting a mouthful of blood mixed with a few broken teeth.

Their positions had precisely swapped as well.

Now Chen Xuan stood before the breach's doorway, while Lady Fei was stranded in the middle of the room. Even if she realized the situation had turned dire, she had no way to escape back to the other world through the breach.