"Oh? Does your ability work on dangerous entities?" Sun Hang was instantly intrigued.

"That depends on the type of entity. For example, those spirits born from resentment have emotions that are easy to sense—simple, persistent, intense grievances, or anger... But the vast majority of dangerous entities either have no emotions at all, as still as dead water, or their emotions are extremely chaotic, making it impossible to distinguish specific feelings... Especially the latter, which is very dangerous for me," Shino said.

"Dangerous? Your ability has negative effects?" Sun Hang asked, "How is it dangerous? Emotional backlash?"

"When I'm sensing a target's emotions, my consciousness substitutes the target's main body, and those chaotically emotional entities create an intensely disorienting feeling during substitution... It's like ingesting toxic mushrooms by mistake. If you're not careful, you can get lost in it and never find yourself again," Shino said, his face showing a glimpse of fear.

Clearly, he had such an experience before.

...

Another twenty minutes passed, and there was still no sign of the drone returning.

Shino continued to attempt communication with the warship, but the communication channel was filled only with harsh static.

The fisherman used the serrated back of a short knife to saw off straight branches and, after sharpening the tips, made them into simple spears.

The female Hunter stood at the forest edge, gazing at the beach covered with corpses, lost in thought.

Sun Hang inexplicably felt a wave of drowsiness. He yawned and leaned against a relatively comfortable tree trunk, planning to take a short nap. But unexpectedly, as soon as his eyelids closed, an indescribable gravity dragged his consciousness downward into the ground.

In a daze, Sun Hang felt as though he was speeding through an underground tunnel. When his consciousness shifted from blurred to clear, he suddenly found himself in a deep corridor where the floor, walls, and ceiling were riveted steel plates.

"Where is this?" Sun Hang mumbled to himself, "...Is it a dream?"

He tried pinching his cheek.

He could feel the pain.

Moreover, he could smell a mix of rust and sea salt lingering in the corridor, and the feel of his shoes on the ground was astoundingly real.

"So... where am I?" Sun Hang recalled the maps and some old photos from before they set out. If he wasn't mistaken, the abandoned research facility on Nameless Island had similar escape tunnels underground, designed for tsunamis and earthquakes. Once excavated, these escape routes were reinforced with four meters of reinforced concrete and steel plate frames.

According to the former Siberian Federal Engineering Bureau's assessment, these tunnels could easily withstand earthquakes above magnitude eight. Even if surface structures collapsed, they wouldn't.

"Is this really the escape tunnel for the abandoned research facility? And why am I here?" Sun Hang was filled with confusion, "Teleportation? Transmission?"

He tried to imagine himself teleporting one meter forward, but nothing happened.

That kind of intention-realization ability seemed to be ineffective here.

He tried summoning mycelia, but there was no response.

"Has my ability been sealed? No, I must be in a dream, a very realistic dream," Sun Hang analytically thought, "Or maybe my body remains on the shore near the trees, resting against a trunk, while my consciousness is here..."

"Does this mean I'm currently an awareness entity?" Sun Hang attempted to punch the wall. With a "boom," the muffled sound echoed far down the tunnel. The pain shooting through his fist made him grimace... But the next second, the pain disappeared, the echo faded, and even the bloodstains on the metal wall vanished.

Everything returned to its initial state.

"So... whether it's pain, sound, or anything else, do they only exist in my perception?"

"What if I don't perceive them..."

Sun Hang threw another punch, this time his fist passed through the wall without any obstruction as if the wall didn't exist.

"Does this mean I can walk through it entirely?"

Sun Hang closed his eyes and walked a few steps toward the wall, but upon opening them, he found himself in a completely blank world.

It was like a game scenario where the player character had glitched through the scene model. Behind the steel plate, there was no four-meter-thick concrete wall or tunnel carved into rock. Before Sun Hang's eyes, there was only emptiness, nothing but emptiness.

"..."

Sun Hang had no choice but to step back into the corridor.

"Since I'm here, I should make the most of it," accepting his situation, Sun Hang decided to follow the corridor further.

Since this appears to be a virtual "model world," as long as he "doesn't want" to be harmed, nothing can threaten him.

If anything goes wrong, Sun Hang can hide in the "blank area" where nothing exists.

If this truly replicates the abandoned research facility's internal structure one-to-one, then there is no better chance for exploration.

In such unmarked corridors, it's difficult to determine how far one has traveled through spatial perception, so Sun Hang opted for the most primitive yet useful method—counting footsteps.

Sun Hang controlled his steps to be around a meter each. After counting to one thousand four hundred forty-seven steps, the uniform corridor finally changed—a staircase appeared in front of him.

Sun Hang climbed the steps, reaching a hermetically sealed door with a valve at its end. The door's coarse workmanship featured large rivets densely lining the door frame. In the corner, there was an almost unreadable Russian steel seal, and beneath it, a translation in the Xiazhou language read: "Siberian Federation, Saint Petersburg Engineering Bureau product."

In the old photos of the abandoned research facility, this type of airtight door appeared frequently.

Sun Hang gripped the rusted valve and tried to turn it... but the entire valve was completely rusted, refusing to budge regardless of his strength.

Sun Hang kicked the door, causing clinking sounds from inside the hatch, as though small components had fallen from the door's structure.

He guessed that even if he managed to turn the valve, the door might not open.

"Damn, that was dumb." Sun Hang suddenly slapped his forehead. "Why bother opening the door... I could just pass through it, couldn't I?"

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