A Strange World?
After confirming his identity, Xu Mo returned to his home.
There was no need to rush into understanding everything about this world. His first step was to check the watch beside him and confirm the flow of time. With the lessons from last time, he knew this was critical—if time here moved much slower than in his original world, he would have no choice but to abandon it. Otherwise, before he could gather enough points, Thanos might already have snapped his fingers back in his Marvel world, leaving him at a loss.
Fortunately, the comparison was clear: the time ratio between the two worlds was one-to-one. Only then did Xu Mo breathe a sigh of relief.
Next, he began searching online, hoping to uncover clues about this world. But the results disappointed him. Just like the previous crossover, the internet offered nothing unusual. Everything appeared ordinary—too ordinary.
As he pondered this, his phone rang. The screen displayed a name: Jason.
When he answered, a youthful voice spoke from the other end:
"Xu, Carl found an abandoned town online. They say all sorts of strange things happen there, so we decided to explore it for our graduation trip. Do you want to come?"
"A weird town?" Xu Mo's eyes narrowed.
"Yeah, it's called… something-Ling!" Jason's voice faded as he asked someone nearby for confirmation. After a moment, he returned.
"Right—Silent Hill! Cool name, right?"
Xu Mo froze. Silent Hill?
The words hit him like a bolt of lightning. He instantly understood the nature of this world.
"Hey, Xu, are you listening? Are you coming or not?" Jason's impatient voice snapped him back.
"Of course I'll go."
"Great! Tomorrow at the school gate. Don't be late." Jason hung up.
Xu Mo lowered the phone slowly, a faint smile tugging at his lips. A world where strange spirits and evil forces exist? Perfect. A mage couldn't ask for better terrain.
---
That night, after ordering takeout and eating, Xu Mo prepared to rest. This body was still an ordinary human, drained from the day's earlier… activities at his neighbor's house. Sleep came quickly.
But a scream outside jolted him awake.
Before he could react, a panicked voice cried at his door:
"Xu! Open up!"
He recognized it instantly—it was the young woman who lived opposite.
Opening the door, he found her standing there in pajamas, hair disheveled, chest heaving as if she had run for her life. Without hesitation, she threw herself into his arms, tears streaming down her face.
Xu Mo frowned. Could this be fallout from earlier? Another mess left by this body's reckless behavior?
Still, he had to address it. "What happened?"
Through sobs, she managed to say:
"Paul… Paul is dead!"
"What?" Xu Mo was stunned. "You killed him?"
"Of course not!" she blurted, shaking her head. But her fear was unmistakable.
---
Half an hour later, police cars lined the street outside her villa. Neighbors, roused by the commotion, clustered behind the cordon.
Several officers emerged carrying a bulging body bag.
Xu Mo sat in the back of a squad car with the woman—her name, he now knew, was Belica—as officers took their statements. Eventually, she was taken to the station for further questioning. After all, her husband had died inside a house where only the two of them lived, making her the prime suspect.
Xu Mo, however, had already pieced together the truth.
Paul had died from massive blood loss, his chest torn by three deep gashes. According to Belica, she had woken to strange noises, only to find her husband collapsed on the living room floor, his clothes drenched in blood. Terrified, she had fled, fearing the killer was still inside.
The odd part? She hadn't been stopped while escaping.
But when Xu Mo examined Paul's body with his mental power, he sensed a lingering trace of gray energy—resentment, the mark of a vengeful spirit. Combined with Silent Hill's existence, the answer was obvious: Paul had been killed by something supernatural.
"Ghosts, then?" Xu Mo muttered, lips curving into a smirk.
Later, back home, he investigated further. While no official records of supernatural events existed, he found chilling statistics: across America, annual accidental deaths exceeded three million.
That number was far too high. Even in his Marvel world—with alien invasions, supervillains, and cosmic threats—the annual figure barely topped half a million. Here, the death rate was six times greater. Adding illness and natural causes pushed total annual deaths beyond five million.
Worse still, the number grew each year. At this pace, deaths were outstripping births. Left unchecked, this country could become overrun with spirits within a century.
But to Xu Mo, that wasn't necessarily bad news. The more spirits, the more points he could reap—so long as humans and spirits remained balanced, ensuring a steady harvest.
Having reached this conclusion, he returned home and slept peacefully.
From the evidence, Paul's killer had been a vengeful spirit with a specific target. Belica survived because she wasn't the object of its wrath.
And even if it had been an indiscriminate killer? Xu Mo chuckled. With the Darkhold in hand and Sithorn's legacy within him, he wasn't afraid of any ghost. If something from this world could still harm him, he might as well smash his head against the wall and be done with it.
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