The System Arrived Four Years Early, but the Anomaly Is Still a Juvenile

Chapter 302

The dormitory Fang Mingyue had arranged for Shen Ge was located near the Exploration Corps command post. Since he didn’t have any roommates for now, after she left, Shen Ge closed the door and checked around to make sure there weren’t any surveillance devices. Once he was certain, he decided to use the power of the Dream Fragment to try and lock onto its presence in this world.If he could “lock” it, then he could temporarily leave this place using the Dream Fragment’s power—and then come back.

The issue with the New God Cult probably wasn’t going to be resolved in a day or two, and Shen Ge had already been “missing” for nearly a full day.

In “reality,” Cheng Shengnan’s condition still wasn’t stabilized. According to Li Xiang, they had at most two weeks to complete the transfer. So Shen Ge needed to verify as soon as possible whether transferring through the dream world was even feasible.

On top of that, the Asian Anti-Anomaly Research Conference was right around the corner. If he went missing now, and the Mutant Organization decided to stir up trouble behind the scenes, he’d lose a golden opportunity to strike back.

And then there was Dr. Chen, whose situation was becoming more complicated by the day. If he didn’t use this chance to find him, it might become even harder later on.

Shen Ge channeled the Dream Fragment’s power, “locked” the location, and began spreading his anomaly domain to open a passage and transfer himself out.

The “lock” succeeded. The domain spread successfully. And then… nothing.

“?”

Couldn’t connect to reality?

“This is no joke.” Shen Ge’s heart skipped a beat. He tried pouring more Dream Fragment energy into the domain, expanding it to its maximum reach, covering the entire shelter.

He found he could easily influence people in any part of the shelter—whether through hypnosis or materialization—but he couldn’t find a passage leading back to “reality.”

“There’s not a single anomaly space nearby. How is that possible?” Shen Ge was genuinely baffled. This completely contradicted what Fang Mingyue had told him earlier. The main reason Daijing had fallen so fast was that the place was swarming with chaotic, twisted overlap zones.

But now? He couldn’t find a single one. He tried extending his domain further outward. In the past, the key to leaving a dream world had always been the “spire.” But this time, the spire held no clues whatsoever.

“Seriously? Do I have to pull another Sakura Island move—travel to the ‘future’ and find the Anomaly King to get out? Or do I have to… ‘die’ once?” Shen Ge frowned. Given a choice, he certainly wouldn’t go with the “die once” option—the risk was way too high.

After all, in previous dream worlds, “death” happened when only his consciousness had entered. This time, his physical body had come along for the ride.

Shen Ge withdrew his domain, rubbed his forehead, and sat down on the edge of the bed, feeling a headache coming on from this bizarre situation.

“System, scan the surrounding area.”

Since the “spire” route was a dead end, Shen Ge had the system scan for the locations of high-rank anomalies instead, starting with the Anomaly King.

Based on Fang Mingyue’s description, the Anomaly King was almost always in a “dormant state.” That could mean one of two things: either it had absorbed enough anomaly energy from other high-rank anomalies to enter a mutation phase and needed to hibernate, or it was afraid of being discovered by other high-rank anomalies. After all, among anomalies, a lower rank didn’t necessarily mean it feared a higher one.

[Now scanning for anomaly spaces.]

[Scanning in progress—]

Soon, the system marked the hiding spots of high-rank anomalies on the [Map]. The number was far smaller than Shen Ge had expected—barely over thirty anomalies at Rank 4 or above.

Rank 2 and 3 anomalies were the most common, and most of them were hidden inside collapsed spires—specifically, the buildings less than eight stories tall, standing about a kilometer from the shelter.

This world’s development trajectory was completely different from any previous world. Following old patterns to find a way out clearly wasn’t going to work.

After a moment’s thought, Shen Ge decided to use the Dream Fragment’s power to “check” the high-rank anomalies one by one. If he could find an ancestral anomaly aura similar to the “Anomaly Eye” in the spires from before, he could re-establish a connection with “reality” and open a passage.

Of course, there was a faster way: consume most of the Dream Fragment’s power to accelerate the world’s collapse and forcibly absorb the Dream Fragment sustaining this world.

But that approach was risky—and there was no guarantee that the Dream Fragment power Shen Ge held could break through the world’s backlash during collapse. Plus, it would essentially mean dooming a world already on the brink of extinction.

Shen Ge could tell himself that the people here had nothing to do with him, that he didn’t need to care about the shelter’s survival, and just leave for “reality.” But he couldn’t bring himself to personally kill the familiar faces in this world. At least not yet—not when this wasn’t the only option. And besides, even that method wasn’t guaranteed to work.

With the system locking onto the high-rank anomalies, Shen Ge could, on one hand, hunt them to replenish his anomaly energy and system points, and on the other, search for a more stable way to break the deadlock.

A few hours later, just as Shen Ge was deep in his detection work, a knock at the door interrupted his thoughts. “Shen Ge, are you resting?”

Fang Mingyue’s voice came from outside. Shen Ge got up and opened the door to find her standing there. She was still wearing the same combat uniform, but her hairstyle was noticeably different—she’d clearly tidied it up. She looked completely transformed, and her whole demeanor seemed more vibrant, no longer carrying that lifeless, gloomy air.

It was clear that a person’s “appearance” really did affect their mindset. Fang Mingyue wasn’t ugly—far from it, actually. She’d only looked like a monster because of the disfiguring injury. Now that Shen Ge’s “magic healing hands” had restored her looks, it was no wonder she was in such high spirits.

“Did I disturb your rest?” Fang Mingyue asked.

Shen Ge shook his head. “I was already up. What’s going on?”

“This anomaly incident hit the New God Cult hard. Do you remember He Jingwen—the cult priest who caused trouble for you the day before yesterday? He’s gone missing. The cult values him highly since he’s a deserter from the Exploration Corps, so they’ve applied to the council to form a joint search party to look for survivors on the outskirts.” Fang Mingyue summarized last night’s emergency council meeting in a few brief sentences.

As a team leader, she naturally wasn’t qualified to attend a meeting of that level. She’d only heard about it after the two corps commanders—who attended—briefed the team leaders afterward.

According to Deng Yuqi, she wasn’t exactly thrilled about wasting manpower on a traitor. But on one hand, it was a council directive; on the other, quite a few Exploration Corps soldiers had also gone missing in last night’s anomaly incident. They could afford to skip He Jingwen—but they couldn’t abandon their own people.

Normally, this kind of mission would be led by several team leaders working together. But this time was different. The Exploration Corps had gained an extraordinarily powerful “newcomer,” and that newcomer seemed to share some special bond with Fang Mingyue. So naturally, the task of “drafting” him fell on her shoulders.

After hearing the “orders” relayed by Fang Mingyue, Shen Ge couldn’t help but laugh—half amused, half exasperated. This was Deng Yuqi’s style. Once she confirmed someone’s strength, she’d squeeze every last drop of value out of them, all while calling it “showing appreciation.”

“Sigh. Leadership’s empty promises taste the same no matter where you go.” Shen Ge couldn’t help but remark, then agreed to Fang Mingyue’s invitation.

After that, Fang Mingyue took him to the Exploration Corps armory to pick out gear. Shen Ge wasn’t impressed by any of it, so he just grabbed some standard-issue equipment.

While Shen Ge was making his selections, both the Exploration Corps and the Anomaly-Hunting Corps were busy organizing the members for the search-and-rescue team.

As for the instigator of this operation—the New God Cult—they had gathered a group of hooded figures in their “church,” huddled around candlelight like some kind of cult, holding a secret meeting.

“Your Eminence, Priest He Jingwen has been taken care of. This time, we’ll definitely capture that ‘mutant’ before the Exploration Corps and Anomaly-Hunting Corps can react,” said a man in a cloak.

Then, a figure wearing a cloak embroidered with special patterns spoke in a low, heavy voice: “Priest Lu, your mission this time is extremely important. Keep a close eye on that man. He can freely enter and exit anomaly domains without being affected, and he can even rescue people trapped within them. I suspect he is the ‘Savior’ spoken of in the prophecy. Only by obtaining his power can we find hope for survival in this apocalypse.”

One of the priests looked confused. “Your Eminence, if he really is the ‘Savior’ from the prophecy, why not cooperate with him and seek a way to survive together? Why oppose him—even try to steal his power? Judging by the surveillance footage, the power he displayed is far beyond what any ordinary person…”

“Shut up, Priest Jiang! His Eminence has his reasons for thinking this way. Since when do get to question his decisions?” another priest barked angrily.

The man quickly bowed his head. “Forgive me, Your Eminence. I never meant to question your decisions. I just thought that directly antagonizing the ‘Savior’ might be too risky. If the mission fails, there’ll be no room for reconciliation.”

The Bishop said calmly, “There’s no need to worry. I’ve already prepared a contingency plan—I’ve planted an unexpected pawn within the Exploration Corps’ search team. For this operation, Priest Lu will be the obvious threat, and the pawn will be the hidden blade. As long as nothing goes wrong, we’ll capture the ‘Savior’ without a hitch.”

“As for why I chose the most dangerous path—that’s for the good of the New God Cult. You’ve all read the . I’m sure you remember the description of the ‘Savior’ vividly. Don’t forget the most critical point: the number of people led to hope by the ‘Savior’ will be less than one percent of the original population. In other words, maybe fewer than a thousand people will find a chance at ‘survival.'”

“And our New God Cult has grown rapidly—in just a few years, our followers have expanded to nearly twenty thousand. Have you all forgotten our doctrine?”

The moment the Bishop finished speaking, the priests chanted in unison: “No, we have not forgotten! The New God Cult will never abandon a single survivor!”

“Will never abandon a single survivor!”

“Will never abandon a single survivor!”

The Bishop laid out a detailed plan for dealing with Shen Ge, assigning tasks to each priest before dismissing them.

After everyone had left, the Bishop rose, walked behind the statue—a dark, misty figure—and pressed a hidden mechanism, entering a secret chamber.

Once inside his private quarters, he shrugged off his robe and tossed it onto the sofa. He opened a cooler, pulled out a bottle of red wine, poured himself a glass, and savored it as he walked over to the monitors.

The wall held no fewer than thirty surveillance screens. Half of them showed key areas around the shelter; the other half covered more discreet locations inside.

“Hmph. ‘Savior’…” he muttered, swirling his glass. “Just a lab rat injected with mutant cells. If those Exploration Corps idiots weren’t so useless, I’d have gotten my hands on a mutant cell sample long ago.”

“Anyone can be the ‘Savior.'”

“Why should it be you?”

Just as he was lost in his fantasy of obtaining mutant powers and ruling the shelter with an iron fist as the “Savior,” he suddenly felt a cold draft. He turned around instinctively—and saw that the secret door leading to the “church” was wide open.

“That’s strange. I could’ve sworn I closed it.”

Muttering to himself, he walked over and locked the chamber door securely.

…

…

…

The next day, Shen Ge followed Fang Mingyue from the Exploration Corps’ zone to the No. 3 Defense Line. Since this was the site of the anomaly incident, repairs were still underway.

“Pretty efficient. In just one night, most of the area’s been cleared up.” Shen Ge looked at the bustling crowd and couldn’t help but remark.

Fang Mingyue explained, “We don’t have a choice. Surviving in the cracks between so many high-rank anomalies means we have to seize every second. The shelter has fewer than a hundred thousand people total—take away the elderly and children, and that leaves about ten thousand. Everyone else is a soldier, ready for battle at any moment. Even those ten thousand elderly and children do whatever they can to help out in the shelter.”

Shen Ge mused, “I suppose only in such desperate times—with the population so drastically reduced—could there be this kind of unity.”

That said, the whole New God Cult situation proved that no matter the circumstances, there’d always be at least one bad apple spoiling the bunch.

As they talked, they passed through a passage formed by collapsed buildings and entered an old structure. There, Deng Yuqi and Tu Doubi were each leading a squad of Exploration and Anomaly-Hunting Corps soldiers, huddled together as if discussing the specifics of the rescue operation.

“Captain Fang, Shen Ge.” Deng Yuqi spotted them approaching and waved them over to join the briefing.

Seeing Shen Ge wearing the Exploration Corps combat uniform, Deng Yuqi nodded approvingly. But when she noticed his standard-issue gear, her brow furrowed. “If I remember correctly, the armory has several anomaly-energy weapons. Why’d you only take standard equipment?”

Fang Mingyue looked helpless. “I told him about those, but he insisted on the standard gear. Said they… ‘feel right in his hands.’ As for the anomaly weapons, he said they’d be more effective in other team members’ hands, so he didn’t want to ‘waste’ them.”

“How is that a ‘waste’? You…” Deng Yuqi started to say something, but then she suddenly remembered the anomaly-energy detector Shen Ge had contributed to the Corps.

Wait a minute… Could it be that Shen Ge had more of this “high-tech” stuff?