Chen Bugu was startled for a moment.
Eye Gene Lock?
Decipher progress: 30%?
Inference?
Chen Bugu felt as if something had changed in his eyes.
In a world full of shattered ripples, the withered leaves, originally blown by the wind, could now produce trails of afterimages.
No! Those weren't afterimages!
Chen Bugu was surprised to find that he could see the trajectory of the withered leaves, and his visual world automatically deduced their future state.
After several tests, Chen Bugu roughly understood the use of Inference; it was similar to Observation Haki from 'One Piece'.
Currently, his Inference limit was the state of an object two seconds later.
As Chen Bugu was experiencing the changes in his body, he suddenly heard a sound from the guard room.
He looked through the guard room window at Lin Lin, who had already sat up.
Lin Lin was holding her head, feeling dizzy and disoriented.
"Why am I here?"
She mumbled to herself, seemingly having no memory of what had happened before.
"You don't remember anything?"
Chen Bugu stood outside the window; seeing that Lin Lin seemed to have recovered, he asked.
"Chen Bugu? Why are you here? Didn't you go to the Outpatient Building with Teacher Lin?"
"Then do you remember where you went?"
"I... I think..."
Lin Lin was momentarily stunned by Chen Bugu's question.
She seemed to have been going to Ciyun Building with Yan Kuan and Wang Bin, but she couldn't remember anything.
She vaguely recalled that after they split up, she followed Yan Kuan and the others to Ciyun Building, and Wang Bin seemed to have found a lot of food in the hospital cafeteria.
"I think I was eating in the cafeteria; we found a lot of steaming hot food, it was so rich, like sweet and sour pork, braised hairtail, spicy crayfish..."
Lin Lin's voice grew softer and softer, but her face grew paler and paler.
She had already realized that something was wrong.
How could there be such food, and how could it be steaming hot, in this hospital that had been abandoned for many years!
"What's wrong with me?"
Lin Lin looked at Chen Bugu with a pale face.
"You fell into an illusion. The 'creeper' that covers the hospital's exterior walls is a plant-type magical beast called Vine Dream. It releases spores into the air. After we inhale them, the spores parasitize our bodies, and we become nutrients for the spores to grow, falling into an illusion."
"Your Holy Light has a calming effect. You'd best use Holy Light on yourself immediately, otherwise you might quickly fall back into the illusion."
Lin Lin's face changed upon hearing this, and she hurriedly cast a Holy Light on herself.
"Then how did you escape the illusion? What about my sister and the others?"
"I rely on Decipher to keep myself from falling into these illusions. As for Xiao Xiao and the others..."
Chen Bugu hesitated for a moment, then explained everyone's current predicament one by one.
"You mean, my sister and the others have already been controlled by 'Vine Dream', and even if we do nothing, we will die here because of the spores?"
Lin Lin's face grew even paler.
"Yes, and unfortunately, this place has become a Secret Realm, just like Yu Tan Tunnel. Without killing 'Vine Dream', we have no way to leave this place."
Lin Lin gave a bitter smile after hearing this, as if she had made up her mind.
Then, she interrupted her own Holy Light, instead converting it to maximum power and applying it all at once to Chen Bugu.
"What are you doing?"
Chen Bugu felt the wounds on his palms healing rapidly. These were from when he had grasped the branches of 'Vine Dream' earlier, and the branches had scraped bloody marks on his palms when they were pulled away.
"You'll go, right? After all, if you don't, we'll all die here. You don't seem like someone who would just give up. I just hope you can save my sister and the others."
"I don't have much mental power left. Instead of wasting it on myself, I might as well use it all on you at once and help you recover from your injuries."
As Lin Lin spoke, her face became even paler, and blood seeped from her nostrils.
"From now on, it's up to you."
After saying this, Lin Lin fell straight down, clearly in a state of mental power exhaustion.
Chen Bugu hadn't expected Lin Lin to have expended so much mental power in the previous illusion, nor had he expected her to use all of her remaining mental power on him in the end.
However, this also gave Chen Bugu a revelation: the others' mental power was also running low.
Killing 'Vine Dream' was a certainty.
If 'Vine Dream' didn't die, he would.
Even if there hadn't been Lin Lin's interlude just now, Chen Bugu had already decided to try and kill 'Vine Dream', he had to do it before his mental power was exhausted.
After all, he had been constantly using Decipher to arm his eyes, and his mental power was continuously being consumed; he didn't have much time to keep waiting.
Moreover, with the protection of Decipher, Vine Dream's most powerful illusion ability was rendered ineffective against Chen Bugu. Plant-type magical beasts are not skilled in close combat, and even as a Black Iron Four Star, armed with Fireball, he might not be without a fighting chance.
Furthermore, 'Inference' and Lin Lin both gave him greater confidence.
No sooner said than done, Chen Bugu took a deep breath, then quickly ran towards the Inpatient Department.
The world before his eyes was still 'rippling', but Chen Bugu had slowly gotten used to it.
'Vine Dream' perhaps sensed the human's peculiarity, that he was not controlled by it, so this time it directly extended many branches to attack Chen Bugu.
Chen Bugu had just rushed to the entrance of the Inpatient Department when he found that almost all the space around him was sealed off by branches.
Those branches surrounded him, and the crescent-shaped leaves on them suddenly flashed with a metallic luster.
The ability of Inference helped Chen Bugu see the trajectory of all branches two seconds later. He precisely found a gap that would appear in two seconds and sprinted with all his might towards that direction, preparing to dodge in advance.
Unexpectedly, the branches were too fast, forcing Chen Bugu to activate 'Bullet Time' prematurely.
After activating 'Bullet Time', in a 0.2x speed world, coupled with the help of Inference, Chen Bugu finally narrowly escaped the first encirclement.
He moved like a loach, flexibly Breaking free from the cage of blades woven by 'Vine Dream', then turned around and rushed into the Inpatient Department.
The first-floor lobby of the Inpatient Department was as gloomy as the Outpatient Building.
The moment Chen Bugu ignited a Fireball, he already saw Bai Ting and the others, all pale-faced, blood seeping from their nostrils, lying unconscious on the ground.
And chillingly, besides Bai Ting and the others, there were several skeletons on the ground, their owners having been dead for an unknown period.
The true body of 'Vine Dream' must not be these branches; such a large plant-type magical beast's true body surely couldn't be hidden.
The lobby on the first floor of the Inpatient Department was empty and could be seen at a glance.
And at the stairwell, countless branches flew in succession, seemingly to block this path.
At this moment, Chen Bugu was almost certain.
The true body of 'Vine Dream' was upstairs!