There are really a lot of monsters inside the lockdown zone.

Beside the delivery van, Gu Mian swung his guitar bag and sent the humanoid monster in front of him flying; this was already the fifth monster he'd run into since coming in.

They'd all run out from the forbidden area.

When he'd just crossed the statue and walked this way, nothing seemed off yet, but as Gu Mian went deeper, the monsters gradually increased.

Within the lockdown zone there's an Upper Class People residential area and a lower-class residential area, plus some public facilities, like that huge museum next to him.

Gu Mian had no idea what used to be on display there; anyway, it was completely empty now, with a few creepy shadows flickering inside from time to time—probably some monsters had made their nest in there.

This trip to the Paradise World wasn't for grinding monsters and leveling up; as long as they weren't blocking his critical path, he had zero childish urge to provoke them.

Thinking that, Gu Mian swung backhand and sent another monster lunging from behind flying.

The robot dog on the van clearly also sensed something was wrong. It didn't chase after them to conduct a happiness survey; instead, it pulled its camera deep back into its neck, looking terrified.

Gu Mian took a moment to grab the map on the hood and confirm his location.

This place had already turned into a dead city devoid of life; everywhere he looked were derelict buildings, even the moonlight dimmer than in places that still had people.

Gu Mian squatted down and used the glow of the headlights to make out his position.

"There's a museum next to me, and around the museum is a ring-shaped Upper Class People residential area…" He searched the tiny map and quickly got a hit.

"Got it. This is the God's Ring Residential Area, and that museum next to it is called the 'Miracle Museum'. From here to the Secret Forest I still need to drive another half hour." Gu Mian's gaze paused for a moment at the Secret Forest on the map, then shifted to the "Prisoner Cave" marked within the Secret Forest area.

The map was pretty rough. He remembered that in the Circus instance, Lu Yi had told him the Evil God statue was dug up when the Upper Class People were digging a tunnel.

Back then someone wanted to build a cave in the forest to imprison lower-class people. As they dug down and down, they suddenly broke through into a huge hollow space, and then found the Evil God statue.

Thinking about it like that, the place where the Evil God statue sat was practically a tomb; if the Upper Class People hadn't happened to dig there, no one would've discovered it.

Prisoner Cave, Prisoner Cave… Gu Mian silently repeated the cave's name twice. It lined up perfectly with what Lu Yi had said; the Evil God statue should be in that cave.

That thought made him feel a bit strange.

Gu Mian folded up the map and stood, wan moonlight filtering through the clouds to brush across his shoulders.

He stood where he was and opened the prerequisite quest for the "Postman" profession instance.

Among the ninety-nine delivery addresses, "Secret Forest" and "Prisoner Cave" were right there in plain sight.

The items to be delivered were very simple.

The forest needed a branch, the cave needed a rock—both could be sourced on-site.

The other three addresses inside the lockdown zone needed similarly simple items.

Compared to the other addresses with things like "two chunks of fresh bird droppings that fell from three meters above ground" and "a gorgeous chandelier stepped over by a hundred different people," the five deliveries in the lockdown zone were ridiculously easy, and the five addresses were practically clustered together.

It was like five human traffickers enthusiastically pulling Gu Mian over, asking him to come "play" in their van.

That short, long-bearded old man from earlier was also super suspicious; he practically had "I want you to go to the lockdown zone" written across his face.

Suspicious. Extremely suspicious.

But the Evil God's allure was just too strong; Gu Mian couldn't help wanting to take a look.

On top of that, this was a Low-Dimensional World. In theory, if a Low-Dimensional World was being this solicitous, it should be in a hurry to deliver equipment to him.

With that in mind, he impatiently got back in the van and floored it toward the Secret Forest.

He had no idea how long he'd been driving; without a watch he couldn't tell the time. He only knew the moon in the sky was climbing higher and the monsters nearby were getting more and more numerous.

The monsters were just like the ones he'd seen last time in the forbidden area—no longer human-shaped, throwing themselves at any moving thing they saw.

On the way, Gu Mian also took care of a few monsters that still had gas masks on.

Judging from their outfits, they looked like the Order Guard who'd chased him through the mine last time. Most likely after these people died in the forbidden area, their corpses turned into monsters too.

Come to think of it, that was pretty fantastical.

Back at the hospital, Jin Hu had told him the residents in the forbidden area had turned into monsters for no reason. Back then, Gu Mian didn't know about Low-Dimensional Worlds, and just assumed it was some random backstory the game made up to increase difficulty.

Looking at it now, it was kind of freaky; the situation was a bit similar to the Seventh World.

The Seventh World had originally been nearly perfect, but it got cursed from Earth and became saturated with negative emotions, until everyone in it ended up monsters.

Now people in this world were turning into monsters too. Could this place also have been cursed from Earth?

But things here were way better than in the Seventh World: only the residents in the forbidden area turned into monsters. Could it be that the Paradise World found a way to seal the curse before it had time to spread?

Gu Mian recalled the Evil God statue he'd seen in Jin Hu's hospital earlier. Could the statue really block the curse from spreading?

If it really worked, he should steal a few statues from here and see if he could ship them to Xingyun in the Seventh World.

Of course, that was just wishful thinking. Right now all the passages between worlds were cut off; forget transporting items, even people couldn't pass through.

As he was thinking that, a massive structure appeared in front of him.

It was very dark here, but the structure was so huge that he spotted it from far away.

No, maybe it didn't count as a "structure."

Gu Mian silently stared at the gigantic "wall" several hundred meters ahead.

"The Evil Eastern Valley, huh?"

It was a sheer, solitary cliff rising straight from the ground, stretching north to south without end. The cliff face was uneven, and he could vaguely see bulges along the rock.

Gu Mian lowered his head and checked the map. That man hadn't been lying—NPC Street had originally been built here.

He searched around but didn't see it.

The area was very open, and that street was really abstract; if there were something that conspicuous nearby, he should've spotted it at a glance.

Gu Mian searched again, unwilling to give up. The man had said they left in a hurry and abandoned a lot of property; maybe he could rummage around and find something good.

Weird.

He'd been looking along the base of the cliff for half a minute and still hadn't seen any buildings nearby.

That was when he noticed the robot dog had jumped onto the hood, its camera raised, staring at the distant cliff.

Following its gaze, Gu Mian quickly spotted something off.

Those bulging "rocks" on the cliff face were laid out in a very deliberate pattern. They were almost all at the same height, and every so often there'd be another bump. Looking closer, there seemed to be a rope between those protrusions, connecting them together.

The more he looked, the more he realized something was wrong.

Wrong—those weren't rocks and ropes at all; they were buildings constructed into the cliff face and the catwalks linking them!