DEMON GROUPI ACCIDENTALLY ENTERED THE EVIL CHAT!

Three nights passed in the same routine.

Every night, Yuan Lin would put on his black "work uniform," sneak out of his apartment like a shadow, and spend hours in the cold junkyard. He would sit among mountains of dead technology, pulling the last remnants of their dying energy into his body. And the result?

He looked at the mental interface before him and felt a wave of bitter frustration.

[Cultivation Progress: 0.0042%]

After three nights of hard work, enduring the cold, and avoiding security guards, all he got was a barely noticeable increase. It wasn't just about the slowness; it was about the quality. The energy he was absorbing was "dirty," filled with informational noise that left a constant, dull headache in his head. It was like trying to fill the tank of a luxury car by collecting spilled drops of gasoline from old vehicles.

He sighed, feeling the exhaustion seep into his bones. The pleasant ache he had felt at first had turned into chronic fatigue.

"I can't keep going on like this", he thought sharply, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "I'm spending my nights inhaling the dying souls of microwave ovens for scraps of power. My followers in their world surely aren't sitting in junkyards. There has to be a better way. A way befitting a 'Lord'."

This was the first time he thought of his title not as a mask, but as a goal. A standard he had to live up to.

The next day, during his lunch break at work, he sat alone in a quiet corner of the cafeteria, closed his eyes, and opened the chat group. It was time to exploit his authority. He could no longer tolerate this ignorance.

He found that Wu Tian, Xue, and Mo were active. He took a deep breath and crafted his words with extreme care, turning his desperate question into a test of wisdom.

[Lord of Eternal Chaos]: @Everyone I have been contemplating the nature of energy in the realm of solitude where I currently reside. The ambient chaos here... is thin and unrefined. It lacks essence.]

He waited a moment, allowing his words to sink in.

[Lord of eternal Chaos]: This raises a question to test your knowledge. Beyond the obvious sources like the hearts of dying stars or the depths of the abyss, where can one find the purest and most potent forms of primordial chaos in a world that is still evolving?]

The replies came quickly, each one eager to prove their worth.

[Demon Monarch Wu Tian]: My Lord, ancient battlefields where entire armies were slain! The souls of the dead and the ringing of steel create potent chaos!]

[Grand Treasurer Mo]: Forgotten ruins, Sire. Where powerful treasures and artifacts have decayed over millennia, releasing their chaotic essence into the earth.]

They were good answers, but not what he was looking for. Then, Xue's reply came, as precise as a dagger's thrust.

[Dark Fairy Queen Xue]: Sire, your wisdom is unparalleled. Even in the lesser realms, chaos is not evenly distributed. It gathers in places where the "skin of reality" is thin. We call them "Chaos Rifts" or "Gray Veins." They are often found in places that have witnessed great tragedy, geological stress, or where a supernatural event occurred in the past.]

Yuan Lin felt his heart pound. "Chaos Rifts." The keyword. He had it.

He closed the chat, his mind spinning. He had completely ignored the noise of the cafeteria around him. He was in his own world, a world of cosmic secrets.

"System", he commanded in his mind. "Search for 'Chaos Rifts' or 'Gray Veins' in this world."

[New keyword acquired: "Chaos Rift." Cross-referencing with local world data...]

[...]

[...Scanning...]

[One potential location with a compatible energy signature has been detected within a 50-kilometer radius.]

Yuan Lin felt a rush of adrenaline. He had found something.

After work, he returned to his apartment quickly, skipped dinner, and sat directly in front of his computer. He asked the System to display the location on the map. A map of the city and its outskirts appeared, then began to zoom in, until it settled on an old, dilapidated building in an isolated area north of the city.

A flashing red dot appeared over the building, and with it, an information window from the System.

[Location: "Blackwood" Mental Asylum.]

[Status: Abandoned since 1972.]

[Analysis: High concentration of chaotic emotional residue and psychic tearing detected. Probability of finding a "Chaos Rift": 68%.]

Yuan Lin felt a thrill of excitement, but the System wasn't finished. A final line appeared in bright red.

[Warning: Location also shows the presence of unstable phantasmal entities. Extreme caution is advised.]

He stared at the last words. Phantasmal entities. Ghosts.

So, haunted places in his world were real, but they weren't haunted by the spirits of the dead. They were places where reality itself was "sick," where chaos was leaking through its cracks.

He had found his path to "pure and dangerous chaos." But this path was leading him straight into the heart of a haunted and dangerous place in his own world. This was no longer about stray dogs in a junkyard. The danger level had just escalated significantly.

He looked at his reflection on the dark screen. His eyes were shining with the light of the blue interface. He no longer saw the fear in them that he used to see.

"Stray dogs in a junkyard... phantasmal entities in an abandoned asylum..." he thought, a cold smile forming on his lips. "It seems every new level comes with its own monsters."

He stood up and put on his black "work uniform." It was an easy decision. His frustration with his own weakness and slow progress was far greater than his fear of the unknown.

"But", he added to himself. "The price is worth it."