Disorder

Lynch felt a chill run down his spine, a cold dread in his heart. It seemed he had been teleported deep into the tall grass in the blink of an eye.

Oh no, he thought. He had underestimated the bizarre and unpredictable defensive measures of this world, and even more so, the extraordinary experts who wielded them.

He had intended to use his lurking ability to scout the enemy's movements from a distance. Yet, even a hundred or two hundred meters away, a slight misstep had landed him in a trap. His vigilance was still too lax.

But there was no time for self-reproach. Self-preservation was paramount. Lynch immediately stopped moving, lowered his presence to a minimum, and listened quietly to the surrounding sounds.

Insects chirped incessantly, and the wind rustled the tall grass.

Everything seemed normal; there were no people, no signs of an external attack.

Perhaps it was just a passive, defensive trap?

Regardless, this was no place to linger. The immediate priority was to break through the trap while maintaining safety and stealth, and reclaim the initiative.

Rubbing his face to regain composure, Lynch pondered for a moment. Without moving his feet, he activated his silence ability, using his cane to part the tall grass, searching for the farmhouse.

The farmhouse was still there, its light now only fifty or sixty meters away. The distance had actually shortened.

Lynch stared at the farmhouse, deep in thought. He couldn't panic now; reckless actions would only lead to a dead end. To break through the trap, he first needed to understand its mechanism. Right, he told himself, careful, observe the details. A small situation like this won't stump me.

Repeatedly reminding himself, Lynch surveyed the barrier-like tall grass around him, contemplating his current predicament. Then, he sharply shook his cane, the blade springing out and transforming into a serrated form.

He gathered a handful of tall grass beside him, cut it, and scattered the blades one by one onto the ground. Simultaneously, he moved towards the distant farmhouse. After five or six steps, his hand was empty, so Lynch immediately grabbed another handful, cut it, and continued to scatter a few blades where he had walked.

Looking down at the grass blades by his feet, a smile touched Lynch's lips. These were markers. If he continued to walk like this for a while, marking his path with broken grass blades, he would be able to discern what was happening around him when an anomaly occurred.

As he strategized, Lynch instinctively glanced back, intending to confirm the broken grass behind him. However, the smile that had just appeared on his face froze.

There was no broken grass on the ground behind him. Not only the ground, but even the roots of the grass he had just cut were gone. Only a handful of blades remained in his grasp.

Hiss, he thought. Is this really spatial transfer? Did the grass field move the grass?

No, that's not right. My position changed just now. It's probably me who moved. No, I need to try again.

Lynch looked around, front and back. This time, he didn't cut the tall grass. He raised his cane, extended its tip, and then plunged it directly into the soil.

The soil wasn't particularly dry. Although it was hard to leave footprints, the tip could still pierce it. Lynch dragged his cane, drawing a shallow, seemingly continuous scratch mark in the dirt.

Let's try this, he thought. Neighbor bless me, I hope this works.

Silently, he bowed to the crimson moon overhead. Lynch pressed down with his hand, dragging the cane across the ground. One step, two steps, three steps...

After three steps, he abruptly turned back. The tip of his cane was still in the dirt, but there was no scratch mark on the ground; it looked as if the cane had just been plunged in.

It was confirmed. It seemed he was constantly shifting position within this patch of tall grass. There were a few possibilities. One was that the space in this area was divided into separate blocks, and the connections between them were disorienting, causing him to move back and forth.

No, that's not right. There wasn't a single broken blade of grass behind me just now, and no marks were left on the ground. That means my position had just been reset. Coincidences can't happen twice in a row; it's impossible that I just happened to turn back to observe right after my position switched each time. So, I must have been instantly teleported.

But what were the exact trigger conditions?

As he pondered, a sudden rustling came from the grass beside him. The next moment, a dark shadow burst out of the foliage, lunging straight at Lynch.

It was too sudden, startling Lynch. He instinctively dodged a few steps to the side, cold sweat breaking out on his back. But under the moonlight, he quickly saw it was a large field mouse, scurrying past his feet.

Hmm? I moved a few steps, why didn't my position change?

As this thought occurred to him, Lynch's gaze was already following the mouse.

Is it because it's here? Or is it because by staring at it, I have a reference point, so I'm not changing position?

His heart stirred. Realizing he might have accidentally found the key to breaking the situation, Lynch turned and chased after the field mouse, dragging his cane behind him to leave a scratch mark in the soil.

The field mouse scurried away in a panic, with Lynch in hot pursuit. In the darkness, rapid footsteps and rustling grass could be heard. Thanks to Cat's Favor, Lynch genuinely followed close behind, like a cat chasing a mouse.

He had taken more than ten steps; he hadn't lost it, and neither of them had shifted space. There was hope.

Lynch's heart lifted. As he ran, he glanced back.

Ha, the scratch marks are still there.

His eyes lit up, and his steps became lighter. Lynch grew even more excited, turning his gaze back to the front, afraid of losing the mouse.

However, in the time it took to glance back and then turn his head forward again—at most a second—the field mouse, which had been frantically scurrying ahead just a moment ago, suddenly vanished into thin air.

What's going on?

A shiver ran down Lynch's spine. He instinctively stopped, blinking hard. In fact, he hadn't imagined it; in the brief moment he turned his head, not only had the field mouse vanished, but even the sound of it parting the grass as it ran had disappeared.

It hadn't moved away; it had simply vanished.

Damn it, was I still teleported? But at least, by following it, I could leave marks behind...

Lynch turned back again. His cane was indeed still stuck in the dirt, but the several-meter-long drag mark he had seen earlier had vanished from before him.

A vein throbbed on Lynch's forehead. Both attempts had failed; everything he had just done seemed to have been in vain.

No, not in vain, he thought. With a slight shift in his thinking, Lynch's eyes lit up.

So that's it! I understand now. What a cunning trick.

A surge of excitement filled Lynch's heart. His mind suddenly opened, and he made a bold conjecture.

The mysterious world possessed a strong subjective idealism; the act of observation often had a powerful effect on mysterious elements.

Just now, he had observed a reference point outside the concept of the tall grass—the field mouse. Thus, he, the field mouse, and the tall grass had conceptually formed a stable triangular structure, where the spatial positions of all three would not change.

When he stopped observing the field mouse, its spatial position changed. But because he simultaneously shifted his observation target to the abstract goal of the 'scratch marks' on the ground, he, the marks, and the grass field became relatively stable. So the field mouse vanished, but the scratch marks remained.

However, Lynch immediately stopped observing the scratch marks and turned back to look for the field mouse. By then, the field mouse had already moved, so at that moment, he lost all reference points and was also displaced.

It was a pure flight of fancy. If he hadn't read so many novels in his previous life, he would have struggled to come up with such a bizarre analysis. But the more he thought about it now, the more plausible it seemed.

If this conjecture was correct, what should he do?

The most obvious reference point was certainly the farmhouse. As long as he kept observing it, he should be able to walk directly towards it. But the tall grass was too high and constantly swayed, often obstructing his view. Once his sight was blocked, he would likely have to start all over again.

What if he kept drawing lines on the ground and observing them? That was also a method, but the direction would be too easy to deviate. If he stopped observing the marks to correct his direction but couldn't find the farmhouse, he would have to start over again.

It was a dilemma. Hmm? No, wait.

Lynch frowned, then waved his cane to draw a cat's head on the ground. He stood there, looking around for a moment, and when he looked down again, the cat's head was still at his feet, its position unchanged.

So that's it.

Lynch let out a breath, looked at the scratch marks, then at the distant farmhouse, and nodded thoughtfully.

The solution was found. Let's see what other tricks it has up its sleeve.

I'm coming.