It was a small bag of garbage—a black garbage bag, tied tight with a knot, with a tiny torn hole on its side through which a squashed paper cup could be seen.
Duncan stared blankly at the familiar bag of garbage, his mind swirling with confusion and endless questions. He had indeed speculated that the "vast void" inside Alice’s Mansion might eventually undergo so transformation. When he had just heard the headless butler ntion "foreign invasion," he had also guessed what sort of bizarre and indescribable thing might have entered the mansion, but he had never imagined this scenario.
That bag of garbage, he had thrown it out himself—not long ago, when he had vaguely realized that the barrier between him and his holand might already be insurmountable, after he had carefully cleaned his bachelor apartnt. He had organized this bag of garbage and thrown it into the black mist outside.
Now, it appeared inside the "vast void" of Alice’s Mansion, taking the form of an "invading foreign object."
With complex and subtle emotions, Duncan stepped forward toward that "invading item."
The vast void left by the disappearance of the room at the end of the corridor seed like a sinister and terrifying abyss. The floor and walls around the void were fragnted and twisted like gnarled teeth, and that black bag was at the end of the broken floor. Honestly... Duncan even found the scene sowhat comical.
However, the servants in the mansion were extrely nervous, and the terrifying headless butler even cried out in a sowhat flustered manner when he saw Duncan walking forward, "Guest! Do not approach there, it’s dangerous!"
"Dangerous?" Duncan didn’t know what expression to make. He turned to look at the butler, his lips twitching, "It’s just a pile of quiet... refuse."
Nevertheless, the butler and the servants still stood at least ten ters away, their low, rumbling whispers filled with panic and fear. Although they were headless, Duncan could almost feel their bewildered, chaotic gazes trying to peer yet retreating constantly out of fear.
It was as if... what they saw was not a harmless black bag, but sothing far more terrifying and indescribable.
"Guest... guest..." The headless butler suddenly spoke, his voice deep and trembling, "Do not be deceived by appearances, please slowly keep your distance from it and move toward , be careful not to awaken this growing shadow..."
Growing shadow?
Duncan’s brow furrowed montarily, as if confirming the "guess" that had flashed through his mind just a mont ago—were these servants seeing sothing else?
He turned back to look at the black bag at the edge of the broken ground.
In a certain mont, he saw that black plastic bag suddenly... "flicker."
Like the screen of a malfunctioning monitor, or as if suddenly a layer of light veil had covered its surface, Duncan saw it flicker montarily, and in that brief change of light and shadow, it seed to have... transford into sothing else.
Duncan quietly watched it, as if anticipating more changes—and then, the second flicker occurred.
This ti, he caught the fleeting image.
He saw a mass of shifting shadows covering the nearby floor, the edges of the shadow spreading out like nurous sharp thorns trembling and quivering, with black material churning and spreading from the center of the shadow, which also concealed countless eyes and tongues.
However, as soon as he focused intently, that thing would imdiately revert to a simple pile of "refuse," and the eerie image he had glimpsed seed rely a shallow illusion in his mind.
Duncan silently watched this scene, many speculations gradually converging in his heart, and after a long while, he suddenly turned his head to speak to the "butler," "Has there been a ’foreign invasion’ here before?"
His voice was oddly hoarse.
"Occasionally," the butler hurriedly responded. "The mansion is sealed, but sohow, ’external’ things always connect here, they... often bring significant trouble."
"Bring significant trouble?" Duncan frowned.
"Yes... Foreign objects do not belong to the mansion, they can be like diseases to this place, causing so parts of the mansion to decay or distort, and it often takes a long ti to recover..."
Duncan listened quietly, pondering for a mont before asking, "So how do you deal with these foreign objects?"
"The mansion will ’digest’ them itself," the butler responded. "You can just patiently wait on the side, the Cleaner should appear soon, and should be able to properly handle the invading foreign objects."
"Cleaner?" Duncan’s tone carried a hint of confusion.
"It is a part of the mansion, the most ancient part, responsible for removing the destructive ’entities’ from the mansion, after which the mansion will slowly return to the state before the invasion... Ah, it’s here now, look, guest—"
The butler suddenly raised his arm, pointing to the ground not far away.
A mass of mud-like substance had appeared there at so point, slowly spreading out.
That "mud" was dark in color yet had a tallic quality on its surface, as if mixed with countless crystalline particles. With its slow movent, it continuously refracted fragnts of light like starlight—it moved and spread, seemingly consciously approaching the invading "foreign object."
Part of its edge morphed, forming tentacle-like extensions. It actively stretched forward to touch and probe, and then slowly "covered" itself over the "growing shadow."
Duncan did not interrupt the process, he just stared at the scene, not missing any detail.
The "waste" itself was of no value to him, why the waste appeared here, the bizarre phenona he had observed just now, and the secrets hidden in the mansion were the key points.
For him, the crucial piece of information was already there when he saw that small bag of trash appear inside the mansion.
The engulfing happened silently, and the "Cleaner," a "soft-bodied organism," quickly covered the small bag of trash completely. Duncan could faintly feel that sothing disappeared within the body of the "soft-bodied organism," which shimred with a tallic sheen and tiny specks of light.
The surrounding servants seed to finally breathe a sigh of relief.
However, the next second, Duncan saw the "soft-bodied organism" that had finished devouring slowly turn "itself" around. Its edges were undulating, looking like an elevated structure resembling a head that was now steadily facing this way.
The hallway plunged into tension and dead silence, all the servants tensed up, quieting down.
The "Cleaner" word its way over, under Duncan’s watchful eyes, it approached like a living blob of sli, neither fast nor slow.
There was neither a sense of goodwill nor hostility.
Duncan’s nerves gradually tensed, with faint green flas flowing between his fingers, he was wary of this thing called "Cleaner," and he was quickly thinking about how to deal with this blob of "sli" without causing much damage to "Alice’s Mansion" if it attacked, and how to leave this place.
But the Cleaner just stopped about two ters in front of him.
The "sli" halted in front of Duncan, its soft body structures gently recoiling. It seed to be cautiously observing sothing, Duncan wasn’t sure if it was an illusion...
Duncan even felt that he observed a perplexed emotion in the blob of sli, similar to that of a sli.
It had intelligence, it was trying to observe and understand the uninvited guest—but it couldn’t comprehend.
It seed as if the existence of the uninvited guest had already exceeded so kind of "logic" installed within the mansion.
After a mont, the Cleaner seed to end a certain "loop," abruptly shifting its attention away from Duncan, as if nothing had happened, it turned direction and slowly crept towards a dark corner nearby.
Duncan blinked, puzzled by the scene, and after a long while, he turned to the butler, "What does this an? Does the ’Cleaner’ not welco ?"
"This... I’ve also never encountered this," the butler’s voice also seed quite puzzled, "It’s my first ti seeing the Cleaner engage in these additional activities after performing a cleaning, normally, it would never linger after completing its task..."
Duncan furrowed his brow, didn’t ask further, but instead walked towards the edge of the broken hallway, to where the Cleaner had conducted its "cleaning task."
That small bag of "trash" had completely disappeared, having undergone bizarre and mysterious changes, and then consud by a mysterious and mystical force, leaving no trace behind.
But how had it arrived here?
Duncan stood on a broken floor tile at the edge of the hallway, craning his neck to look into the vast, endless darkness outside.
For a mont, he even thought he was about to see his own "cottage"—it might be floating not far away, enveloped in a mist, just like... those countless old world fragnts of this world.
But he saw nothing, the end of the hallway was only boundless darkness, the large void inside Alice’s Mansion seed not to lead anywhere.
An emotional impulse nearly drove him to step out into the darkness to seek the so-called answers, but in the last mont, rational force pulled him back.
He instinctively felt a threat from that endless darkness, Intuition told him—now was not the ti, he was not yet able to return safely from that darkness.
"Guest?"
The voice of the headless butler ca from behind, interrupting Duncan’s wild thoughts.
Duncan took a deep breath, took a step back, and returned to the relatively stable corridor.
"I should leave," he said softly, "take back to the garden."
In the real world, Duncan suddenly blinked—his senses quickly returned and he was fully alert within two seconds.
Alice was still sitting obediently in front of him.
In the real world, only a mont had passed.
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