Night.

Late at night.

The clock was ticking.

On the old wooden table were three strangely shaped oil lamps, the lights flickering slightly.

Jiang Ge lay on his side on the bed, his body unable to move, numb and cold.

Struggled to open a gap in the eye.

As his eyes adjusted to the light, his pupils narrowed into a tiny dot.

In front of his vision, beyond the light of the oil lamp.

An eerie figure stood there.

has no facial features, and his whole body is pitch black.

can only vaguely see that it is a human form......

That seems to be a shadow.

Not his shadow, though......

So whose shadow is this?

Jiang Ge didn't know.

But he knew that now, the shadow was watching him.

Obviously he didn't have eyes, but Jiang Ge could feel the gaze that the shadow threw at him, full of malice and appetite.

It almost tingled his skin.

"Here we go again......"

Jiang Ge's heart was cold.

His name is Jiang Ge, a traverser who wears the womb.

It's been 23 years since I came into this world.

A month ago, he finally finished his studies and graduated as an outstanding graduate of Ryugu University.

And got a trainee lecturer appointment letter from Ryugu University.

He became the youngest lecturer of ancient literature in the history of Ryugu University.

It's really rooted in this world.

This should have been something to celebrate.

But just as he was jubilant and ready to move out of his current rental building and into the lecturer's dormitory at Ryugu University, the unexpected happened.

He received a gift.

The giver was his former landlord.

An old lady surnamed Guo believes in an unknown sect called Bailongjiao.

The gift is a book-

A canon of the Worship of the Dragons.

When he received the gift, he was still a little happy.

Because in this canon, there seems to be something hidden in what he has been seeking.

But after he read the canon.

The nightmare began.

The shadow that haunted him appeared......

At first, he didn't notice the shadow.

I just feel that my spirit is getting worse and worse, and my body is getting weaker and weaker.

I thought I had some kind of disease, but I couldn't find out why I went to the hospital several times.

Until in the middle of the night, he woke up in a daze.

When I opened my eyes, I saw this shadow.

A faceless, pitch-black head, clinging to his face.

Penetrating his mouth and nose with organs that cannot be seen by the naked eye...... Something sucking out of his brain.

Obviously terrified to the extreme, but he couldn't move like he was now, and he couldn't do anything.

He could only feel that something was slipping out of his head little by little, and his body was weakening with it......

And soon, he also figured out what he was being sucked on.

That's his soul......

It was from that day onwards, every day after midnight, that shadow appeared.

Whenever I am watched by the shadow.

He would be in a state of immobility, and then he would be sucked into his soul......

He tried an unknown number of ways to get rid of the shadow.

Prayers, holy water, charms, ritual instruments, ......

He used everything he could think of, but none of them worked.

The only thing that worked was the firelight, which could block the shadow's footsteps a little.

But as time passed, he found that the shadow seemed to be getting stronger because it had sucked his soul.

The blocking effect of the lights is fading.

By now, the shadow had even been able to suppress the glow of the lights.

Originally, three oil lamps were enough to illuminate his room.

But now he is suppressed by this shadow to the point that it can only illuminate his bed.

The clock is still ticking.

Jiang Ge desperately wanted to open his eyes and stare at the shadow.

But it didn't take long for sleepiness to come over and the eyelids began to fight.

When the eyelids finally closed, he was too tired.

At this moment, one of the three oil lamps on the table, the flame suddenly shook violently, dimmed, and then extinguished!

The range of the firelight suddenly narrowed, barely illuminating a small part of the bed.

The shadow darkened, and the shadow instantly came to the edge of the bed.

On a faceless head, a hideous face that was somewhat similar to Jiang Ge faintly appeared, clinging to the firelight and Jiang Ge's face.

The eyes are full of impatient appetite and greed.

The night is still long......

…………

Dawn.

"I slept again?!"

Jiang Ge woke up from his sleep and sat up from the bed.

Then he immediately looked at the three oil lamps on the table.

But when he saw the scene in his eyes, his pupils shrank sharply.

"Extinguished a ......"

The three oil lamps were specially made by him.

There is a windproof lampshade, the oil tank below is enough to burn for three days and three nights, and the wick is also of special quality.

But now, one of the three oil lamps that should not have been extinguished has been extinguished!

"That shadow is stronger again!"

Jiang Ge rushed to the bathroom, and looked at the face in the mirror that was upright, but pale and bloodless, and his face became even more ugly.

"It can't go on like this!"

"If you can extinguish one lamp, you can extinguish two, three lights...... Sooner or later, it will be able to break through the line of defense of the lights. ”

"Tonight, tonight, this must be dealt with!"

Jiang Ge rinsed his face with cold water to calm himself down.

Washed up, changed into an unobtrusive outfit, and walked out of the lecturer dormitory of Ryugu University with a gloomy face.

Through a lot of research, he has already guessed the origin of that shadow-

It is a creation that originates from the "invisible art" in the world!

The world he has traveled through and lived in for more than twenty years is not as simple as it seems.

Beneath the exterior of the ordinary world, there is a "secret" hidden from mortals.

In fact, under normal circumstances, he would not be able to touch these things.

But he has a golden finger.

A research slot that can be used to interpret books and literature.

As long as he puts the book in the research tank and reads it, he will be able to remember and grasp all the knowledge in the book.

With the help of this golden finger, he deciphers books and acquires knowledge.

Rise through the ranks in your studies, show your talents, and become a well-known polymath.

And this is also the reason why he was able to cross the class limit of the trench as an orphan from a nursing home and become the youngest lecturer at Ryugu University.

And while reading a large number of books, acquiring knowledge.

He also gradually discovers some unusual information hidden in the book.

Piece this information together over and over again.

He was amazed to find that this information was combined into a grotesque and strange world that subverted ordinary people's cognition.

At first, he only thought that it was a legend or a strange story, but it was just a groundless conjecture of the author of the book.

Because he had also tried the so-called "secret ritual", but it didn't work.

It wasn't until he deciphered a special 'knowledge' from that Worship Dragon canon......

Until the one that haunted him, the shadow appeared......

He had to believe that the world depicted in the book was real—

"The present world in which mortals live is only the surface of the world.

And what is wrapped in the skin of the world is filled with a bloody flesh skeleton, and the world is ......"