The Strange Realm: A Deduction

Tianshu City, an iron behemoth where steam mingles with spiritual energy. Shen Mo kneels before the gates of the Xuantian Sect, the words “outcast” branded across his chest as onlookers jeer. Three years ago, he was hailed as an outer disciple prodigy. Three years later, he bears the burden of eight innocent lives on his own shoulders. Everyone says the only use for this trash is to die in the Chosen Trial and serve as a stepping stone for the sect’s young master. But no one knows that Shen Mo holds a “Deduction Compass” in his palm, picked up on the edge of a strange domain. Each time he uses it, he sacrifices an emotional memory to simulate a completely different path to turning the tables. In his first deduction, he finds three fragments of strange artifacts in a garbage heap and pieces them together into a steam dagger capable of cutting through spiritual-energy shields. In his second, he predicts every detail of the trial examiner’s bribery and plants the entire chain of evidence on the sect’s public notice board in advance. In his third, he sees himself standing at the tribunal of the Seven Sects and Five Clans, facing the master who once personally expelled him. The deduction tells him that to turn the tables, he must willingly trespass into the forbidden zone of emotional numbness, because only unbearable hatred and pain can summon the “Primordial Strange One,” which feeds on emotions. As the trial bell rings, Shen Mo tears open the still-healing brand on his chest, and blood drips into the steam pipes. He whispers into the void, “You wanted to see me die, didn’t you? Then watch how a sinner drags all of Tianshu City down into the strange domain with him.”