Lin Ye sat in the high-backed chair. Though the ordinary-looking study around him remained completely unchanged, in his perception, it had become entirely different.

The grain of the desk, the books on the shelves, the dust-free floor and walls… these things were like some kind of foreign objects he couldn't comprehend at all, crowding around him.

Even he himself seemed to have turned into some kind of foreign object. Every beat of his heart, every expansion and contraction of his alveoli, blood flowing through each section of blood vessel, electrical signals transmitting between nerves… the various different 'sensations' not only prevented him from returning to a normal state, but instead kept pushing him towards an increasingly abnormal position.

Just as Lin Ye was about to lose himself in the various 'sensations,' a piece of white epidermis was placed on the desk.

Complex and chaotic runes were carved on the white epidermis. Looking at these disordered runes, Lin Ye, amidst the chaos, gradually began to adapt to this state.

"You… okay…?"

The chaotic runes danced before Lin Ye's eyes. When he understood these runes, Lin Ye also rose from the high-backed chair, breaking free from that abnormal state.

After standing up, Lin Ye, following the lingering abnormal sensation, reached his hand towards the bookshelf.

Space and time could no longer restrict his movements. A pale red book appeared in his hand.

It was the first book on the bottommost shelf.

Lin Ye directly placed the book into his loot space. The residual abnormal state made him feel like he was holding a small piece of the Red Sea. Only the system's loot space could contain a book of this tier.

After obtaining the book, Lin Ye quickly left the study. Only after closing the study door did he let out a slight sigh of relief.

"Thank you. I felt like I almost couldn't come back."

Lin Ye handed the white epidermis towards the space behind him.

"No… need… thank… If… no… qualification… I also… couldn't… help you."

The white epidermis was soon handed back.

"I want to give you a gift. Is there anything you want?"

Lin Ye tentatively asked, but he felt the other party probably wouldn't be interested in anything he had.

"Anything… is fine."

This reply gave Lin Ye a sense of extreme politeness.

"This is for you."

Lin Ye took out a piece of Flesh and Blood Essence and mutated it into a red jellyfish. However, this time he only used Molding and mutation runes, without adding any complex structures.

This was just a simple jellyfish.

"Thank… you… I… like it."

The jellyfish floated backwards and then vanished, as if swallowed by an invisible maw.

"That's good… Are there any other places to go here? It seems I can't go back for now."

With no movement for so long, Lin Ye wasn't sure which side had the problem.

"You… want… to go… back?"

Lin Ye had just returned to the hall. A tendril grew out from a nearby pool of red fluid, impaled with a strangely-shaped red creature.

Faintly, some human features could be seen on parts of its body. Additionally, fragments of fabric grew from its body, seemingly belonging to one of the assassins who had surrounded Lin Ye earlier.

"If I kill it, I can go back?"

This strange creature was clearly the assassin who had entered the black box earlier. Lin Ye had considered this possibility before.

"Correct… You want… now… go back?"

Lin Ye took the white epidermis and quickly wrote his reply. He was already proficient at carving these runes.

"Yes. Will those people outside go back with me?"

"They… will… Goodbye."

The other party didn't wait for Lin Ye's reply. The moment Lin Ye took the white epidermis, the tendril tore apart the red creature impaled on it.

It shook its body somewhat uncomfortably. To it, such a lowly creature wasn't even qualified to become food.

"Goodbye."

Lin Ye's vision went black as he was teleported into a pitch-black space. It seemed to be inside some kind of black box.

The Alienation Beast and the two children were teleported beside him. Due to the cramped space, the Alienation Beast could only curl up and lie on the floor.

The lid of the box automatically opened, and the four walls fell outward. Lin Ye stepped out of the box. They were still trapped inside the black box, but the surrounding buildings had lost their original appearance, transforming into bizarre ruins of various different styles.

The Female Captain had left her box a step earlier than Lin Ye. At this moment, she and her team members were observing the surrounding architectural ruins and collecting information about them.

Other boxes around them also opened automatically. Some squad members crawled out one after another.

However, not all team members could emerge alive. Even with the Alienation Beast's warning, some members still failed to walk out of their boxes.

"The portal still can't be used. We can only collect some information about the black box here. I just don't know if we can even take this information back."

The Female Captain walked over and said somewhat matter-of-factly.

As an exploration captain, she had long considered this kind of outcome, but she hadn't expected it to come so quickly.

"The black box's main body should be somewhere in this city. As long as I can find that main body, I should be able to end this ritual… But the problem now is, I have absolutely no idea where that main body was placed. As the center of the ritual, it seems to block the flow of information between the main body and the outside world."

Lin Ye had previously tried to locate the black box through the ritual, but he had failed.

"Maybe I can send people to search for it using the simplest method, bit by bit. But this city is too big. If we can't use spiritual perception, it's very difficult to find a box of unknown shape in a short time… We don't even know if it *is* a box."

The Female Captain said somewhat helplessly.

"That is indeed a problem. If there's really no other way, we can only wait for the ritual to end."

Lin Ye also had no method to quickly find an unknown object in a city of this scale. As for the others, even that Action Squad Captain might not know the box's location.

"Will the black box let us out when the ritual ends?"

The Female Captain didn't think so. The black box was very good at blocking information exchange, and the simplest way to block information exchange was to kill them all.

"I don't like begging others to spare me. Usually, when I encounter situations like this, I take the initiative to do something."

No one could lock Lin Ye up, because he had many things he could use for mutual destruction. He just hoped the black box wouldn't force him to that extent.

Lin Ye suddenly turned his head to look into the distance. A massive figure was approaching them step by step. But as the figure drew closer, its body rapidly shrank. By the time it arrived before Lin Ye and the others, it had shrunk to normal human size.

The Action Squad Captain, looking no different from before, stopped wordlessly less than a hundred meters away from Lin Ye and the others.