CHAPTER 368: CHAPTER 310: OLD ROOTS OF PROFANATION

Zhou Xu quickly led his team to the cell doors and saw Prisoner No. 109—oh, rather, the Founder of "Dark Star Moment," the Deceit Bureau’s wanted criminal, the "Dark Star"—frantically shouting with an unusual sense of urgency.

"Shut up. Quiet down," a colleague instinctively barked, though unease crept into his heart as the strange occurrences from before resurfaced in his mind.

With an inscrutable expression, Zhou Xu said in a steady, seemingly normal voice, "Don’t worry. This Deceit Prison was meticulously constructed by the Deceit Bureau to detain players from the Deceit World. It’s the most secure prison there is. There won’t be any danger."

This was a test...

As a seasoned member of the Deceit Bureau, Zhou Xu was sufficiently cautious. Though he was 80% sure that this Founder of the hidden organization "Dark Star Moment" had already noticed the abnormalities in the Deceit Prison, the remaining 20% uncertainty prompted Zhou Xu to test him first and determine their next move based on the response.

"You bunch of idiots! Morons! Brain-dead numbskulls! How could you not notice such an obvious anomaly?"

The Dark Star’s face was etched with fear. His voice trembled with hysteria, completely disregarding whether his barrage of colorful insults would provoke the official "players" before him.

When he had first been brought into Deceit Prison, his mindset was relaxed, his face adorned with a cheerful grin. Outwardly, he appeared radiant, relieved to finally escape those deranged beauties and their physical torment—their terrorizing "We will become one forever." He couldn’t help but hum a tune to himself.

But as time passed, the storm in his heart subsided, and he began to notice the abnormalities in Deceit Prison, along with an utterly horrifying phenomenon.

Lying.

Everyone in Deceit Prison was lying.

This phenomenon wasn’t limited to deceitful lies meant to mask true intentions. It also manifested in everyday interactions. For instance, during conversations, inmates would always first engage in what seemed like a maliciously playful fraud before revealing their actual intentions.

At first, the Dark Star hadn’t thought much of it. After all, this was Deceit Prison; any player detained here was a heinous criminal. A little odd behavior or quirky habit wasn’t entirely beyond reason. But later, when an inmate in his cell completed a deception, he sensed an inexplicably sinister, fleeting burst of energy—something eerie and deeply unsettling that he managed to catch hold of.

Diving deeper into the terrifying phenomena within Deceit Prison...

It wasn’t until that moment that the Dark Star realized what was wrong. He understood that something terrible was bound to happen here, and he couldn’t help but scream involuntarily.

I just escaped the wolf’s den, and now I’ve landed in the tiger’s jaws. The Dark Star’s heart sank into despair as he prepared to share his findings with the Deceit Bureau members standing before him while sneakily berating their intelligence. But then he suddenly noticed that the two men weren’t angered by his verbal tirade. Instead, their eyes were fixed on him with an odd expression, studying him closely.

It was then that a spark of realization struck him, and his face lit up with excitement. "You know. You’ve figured it out, haven’t you? Hurry, get me out of here! Quick, we have to run! Something absolutely horrifying is going to happen. If we don’t leave now, it’ll be too late!"

To have discovered the issue so quickly... As expected of the Founder of a hidden organization and one of the top players.

Zhou Xu’s thoughts deepened,

but he had no intention of releasing the Dark Star. After all, the man was still a dangerous criminal. The "Dark Star Moment" he created had been involved in numerous heinous incidents. While direct evidence linking him to these acts was lacking, he was nevertheless someone that warranted extreme caution. Thus, Zhou Xu merely planned to make limited use of him.

But just then...

*Vera Vera.*

The piercing alarm suddenly blared, and crimson lights painted the dim walls and every face. The prisoners in the cells grew visibly restless, stirring into a mild commotion.

Unfortunately, the Deceit Prison’s innate sealing power deprived the Deceit World players of their abilities. Some of the inmates were even less capable than average humans, let alone being able to break out of their cells. All they could do was cry out in panic.

"How is this possible?" Zhou Xu’s colleague’s eyes widened as he listened intently to the report coming through his earpiece. He let out a cry of disbelief.

Zhou Xu asked in a low voice, "What’s going on?"

At this moment, the man had lost his composure as a prison guard. His face was ashen, his expression filled with chaos and shock. "Boss Zhou, this is bad. A hidden organization has infiltrated the Deceit Prison. The outer and middle layers have already fallen. Fortunately, someone from the sentinel team detected their movements. For now, we’re relying on the prison’s facilities to hold them off, but no one knows how long we’ll last."

Deceit Prison was supposed to be impenetrable. How could the outer and middle layers have fallen without the slightest warning?

Zhou Xu’s first reaction was disbelief, but then a memory resurfaced—when Deceit Prison was first established, there were rumors of infiltration by hidden organizations. At the time, however, those concerns seemed to have been fully resolved under Lord Lamp Holder’s guidance.

Could it be that the infiltrators had never actually been removed?

"Which hidden organizations?"

The colleague immediately replied, "The Death Cult and... the Hermit Association."

The Hermit Association? The terrifying hidden organization whose mission was to usher the Ancient Gods into this world—an organization that had nearly caused a catastrophe at the Diamond Building. It seemed likely that the abnormalities in Deceit Prison were also their doing.

I should have suspected this when Wang Chuan escaped prison.

"Contact headquarters. Deceit Prison needs reinforcements," Zhou Xu said without hesitation.

The outer and middle sections of Deceit Prison had already fallen. With the current security forces, there was no way they could hold off these two meticulously prepared groups for long.