Detective Agency of the Bizarre
Chapter 440 - 440 297

440: 297.

Entering Shadow Town 440: 297.

Entering Shadow Town “Huff—huff—huff—”

Rapid breaths echoed in the confined space.

An indescribable stench permeated the air, but to Oliver, it was as if he smelled nothing; he breathed deeply and erratically.

In his view, the foul odor inside the garbage bin was far more comforting than the terrors outside.

Swallowing hard, Oliver moistened his throat with saliva and steadied his breathing.

He carefully climbed out of the wet heap of trash and gently pushed the lid open a crack, peering outside.

The terrible dark-red clouds surged, casting everything on the ground in a hellish hue.

The drizzle of red rain fell; Oliver knew it was actual blood.

Through the crack, Oliver saw huge bat-like shadows occasionally fly over the town.

There were heads floating in mid-air, creatures with six limbs crawling, dark figures lurking in the shadows spying on their surroundings, and beetles the size of fists with human faces…

These wanderers had left the town nearly devoid of living people.

And now, more often than not, they would find each other and engage in ferocious battles, like two rival factions of monsters.

“This place has turned into a house of monsters!”

Oliver cursed silently, looking towards the right side of the street.

The towering silhouette of the lighthouse stood at the end of the street; its top was an eyeball with blood vessels as big as a cabin.

It was closed now, but when it opened, a piercing, terrible sound would emit from the eye.

Whenever this happened, the monsters in the town would riot, attacking everything that moved—including their own kind—in a frenzy.

He had escaped from that area, together with one…

two companions.

And now—

“Ah————”

A sudden scream that arose from somewhere pierced through the blood-rain-soaked night sky, lasting but a moment before abruptly stopping.

Now, he was on his own again.

Oliver thought.

Gently closing the lid, Oliver sat back down into the cold, slimy trash.

Consumed by fear, Oliver felt neither hunger nor cold; he wondered how he could escape.

The Eyeball Lighthouse loomed before the only exit from Shadow Town.

Oliver hadn’t even approached the lighthouse when, because he and his survivor companions met another survivor, they were chased by a ghostly woman in a white dress, her face hollowed out.

The outcome was as it now stood: he hid in a garbage bin, and the chances for those two townspeople didn’t look good.

What puzzled Oliver was that this was the third time such an incident had occurred.

Joining forces with a survivor, then encountering other survivors, only for the face-hollowed ghost woman to appear and kill everyone…

If the survivors they met were being chased by the ghost woman, why did it always happen after meeting the second survivor?

Was it merely a coincidence?

Oliver couldn’t understand it.

Come on, think of something, Oliver, Jojo is still waiting for you at home…

Oliver relentlessly pressed himself in his mind, and suddenly, he considered a terrifying possibility.

What if…

each second survivor they encountered was the evil spirit itself…?

…

Enshrouded by thick meaty wings, two silhouettes traversed the gray earth.

From a distance, they resembled two lumps of writhing, peculiarly ugly monster eggs.

Their gaze pierced through the torn openings on the wings, looking ahead.

The oppressive towering black tower stood at the obligatory entrance to Shadow Town, its colossal eyeball wrapped in flesh film.

Allen Thorne had told Lu Li that the eyeball on the lighthouse would randomly open at certain moments, and then a disturbance would ripple through Shadow Town.

If one wished to enter, they should avoid approaching during these periods of unrest.

At that moment, the huge unopened eyeball steadily floated above the lighthouse.

As they neared Shadow Town, the surrounding light dimmed further.

The gloomy and dark environment resembled a return to a violent storm, the sky pulsating with a blood-like red glow.

The closer they got, the more intense the oppressive feeling from the towering black tower became, and the unsettling presence alerted Lu Li that something truly horrifying was happening in the town.

Less than a hundred meters from Shadow Town, they could already see the lighthouse blocking the road ahead and the three-person district behind it.

Lu Li stopped and turned to Jojo, saying, “Are you sure you want to go in?

I might not be able to protect you if we encounter danger.”

“Mhm!

Don’t worry, I’ll take care of myself.

If it gets to the point where I’m dragging you down…

don’t worry about me.” It was her plea for Lu Li’s help that brought her here; if she were to let the people helping her take risks while she hid in a safe place waiting for news, then how would she be different from those scum?

“Mhm.”

Turning back, the two approached the abruptly interspersed black lighthouse at the intersection of the three-person street, circling its rough base, stepping into the boundary of Shadow Town.

Magma-like dark red surged in the depths of the clouds, peculiar shadows fleetingly traversed the sky above the town, blood rain poured down, portions of buildings had collapsed, limbs and viscera strewn across the streets but no intact bodies to be seen, muffled roars echoing in the air—

The broken wooden sign planted in the ground at the roadside with “Welcome to Shadow Town” added a mocking irony to the scene.

Even without exceptional perception or intuition, Jojo could still feel the ubiquitous oppression and evil in the air, as if stepping into a legendary hell.

Lu Li led Jojo into a dark alley by the roadside, starting to shed the meaty wings that enshrouded him.

Jojo followed his lead, removing hers and rolling on the ground to coat her clothes with mud and the blood-stained puddles.

After these preparations, Jojo got up and walked softly to Lu Li, who was surveying the street from the entrance of the alley, and whispered, “Where are we going to find my brother…?”

Shadow Town was not large, but finding a person there was not easy, especially with both visible and invisible oddities everywhere.

“The Police Station here.”

Lu Li used his gaze to pinpoint areas in his intuition that made him feel uneasy.

Some remained stationary, while others moved around.

“Will he be there?”

Hope surged in Jojo’s heart, only to be promptly doused by Lu Li, “Impossible.

We are going there to look for the Police Station’s investigation files, which might contain information about Officer Oliver’s investigation.”

Jojo glanced out from the alley, the dark red streets and the rich scent of blood in the air made her uncomfortable: “But we don’t know where the Police Station is.”

“I know.”

During his last visit, for safety, Lu Li had memorized the location of the Police Station in Shadow Town, which was less than two hundred meters away from here, but—

Groveling six-legged monsters, unidentifiable forms, and more bizarre creatures roamed the streets.

They were not densely packed, occasionally engaging in mutual combat due to conflicts, but this didn’t mean the streets were open for Lu Li and Jojo to pass.

Looking up at the sky, patrolling Night Devils circled at high altitudes, and oddly-shaped black spheres of various sizes wandered at the height of the rooftops.

They had no path to follow.