Exorcist in America

"Livestock" refers to all consumable food, implying that humans are nothing more than nourishment for others.

"Oh, perhaps the term 'toys' could also describe the situation of humanity."

As York walked towards the living room sofa, he recalled entering the rift.

Inside the rift, the experiences were much the same as before, always requiring them to fend off the energy bursts within the channel.

He was unaffected, but Aretha expended a lot of energy because she had to use her created inner-outer world to counter these destructive energy bursts.

Thus, she needed to maintain and repair the damaged parts of her inner-outer world simultaneously.

Repairing it required even more mental strength.

So, upon arriving in this strange yet familiar world, Aretha already looked exhausted, constantly weak and listless.

Fortunately, their arrival point was in the suburbs of this city, which allowed them to settle down relatively quickly.

The culture, technology level, and language of this world were essentially the same as the real world.

Although there were differences in names, similarities could still be found.

For instance, the city here was called Twistmoon, while in the real world it was New York, the pronunciations were quite similar.

After settling down, and in the absence of sufficient information to trigger random tasks, he continued the approach from the second rift world, Chaos World, using the ocean of the internet to search for useful information to trigger random tasks.

After all, the hacking skills learned could not be wasted in a world with such a similar setting.

Strangely, no matter how he searched, he could not find anything unusual or abnormal.

In the ocean of the internet, this world seemed truly ordinary like the previous one, lacking anything strange or extraordinary.

No matter how he hacked into national-level confidential archives, he still couldn't find more useful information.

Sparse paranormal events or mysterious alien files did not trigger any random tasks.

Had he not experienced two rift worlds before, he would have been completely clueless about where to start.

Because he had the background of these two rift worlds, York knew there was a significant problem with this world.

The absence of anything, any events, was enough to indicate how deep the underlying darkness was.

Unable to find more useful information from the ocean of the internet, he began to truly understand this rift world.

That meant trying to integrate and live in this world.

Merely two months later, combining real people's discussions and the internet, he finally found something odd.

That was why there were so many vegetative or mentally ill people, so many that hospitals could not accommodate them all, leading to the construction of one mental hospital after another.

According to an old shop owner aged over seventy, he had witnessed the construction of thousands of mental hospitals in his lifetime.

York still remembered the talkative old shop owner saying, "You know, there might be more mental hospitals than actual hospitals now, and they still can't fit all the patients."

He even joked exaggeratedly, "I wonder if the owners of these mental hospitals have made a fortune. Honestly, I've thought about selling this shop and opening a mental hospital myself!"

The number of mental hospitals being greater than actual hospitals, and most patients being either vegetative or completely unresponsive, was already noteworthy.

Moreover, it was said that many mental hospitals were built in bustling areas, more exaggeratedly located than normal hospitals.

Just this fact alone was enough to draw attention.

Because he was a fusion of two worlds, there were no such situations in his past or the real world.

First: The number of mental hospitals in this world far exceeded the number of regular hospitals.

Second: They were not located in the outskirts but in busy urban areas.

Third: Most of the patients were either unresponsive or vegetative.

Considering the situation and knowledge from his past and the real world, this was indeed outrageous.

Normally, hospitals offer a wide range of general medical services, including internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, etc., covering a broad spectrum of medical needs that are more commonly required and more extensive.

Mental hospitals, however, are specialized medical facilities for a specific group of people.

Therefore, for mental hospitals to outnumber regular hospitals to such an extent was truly extraordinary.

So he began searching the internet for information on this topic, and indeed, just as the shop owner had described, there were more mental hospitals worldwide than regular hospitals, and they were overwhelmed.

He thought this might just be a characteristic of Twistmoon.

But it wasn't. This was not unique to Twistmoon but was the case in every country, every city.

This was very strange, so he began taking Aretha out to investigate in person.

What happened was that they found something very strange at the very first mental hospital they visited.

It was eerie and unusual.

The strange thing wasn't ghosts or monsters but the nurses and doctors at the mental hospital.

To the naked eye, they appeared as normal humans, without any anomalies, but to him and

 Aretha, these people exhibited the auras of two souls.

What did this indicate?

Along with the sight of those listless patients in the mental hospitals, feeling their weak, almost vacant soul forces, York finally understood.

These normal humans with two soul auras seemed much like the soul-stealing described in novels he had read in his past life.

To put it simply, soul-stealing involved one soul entering another person's body to take it over.

What was eerie was that these strange beings seemed just like ordinary people, without any special abilities except for the ability to take over human bodies.

Because of this, he and Aretha began to observe these strange beings like voyeurs, watching the doctors and nurses at the mental hospitals.

After spending nearly half a month, he finally discerned their true nature through their behavioral patterns.

Unable to name these beings, he simply referred to them as "dirty things." He didn't know what spawned these dirty things, but they could take over a victim's body through physical contact with an open wound, taking over their identity, spouse, children, and wealth.

Importantly, the original body would become a vegetative or unresponsive person, explaining why there were so many patients and mental hospitals.

That's why he used the terms "toys" and "livestock" to describe the plight of humans.

He had uncovered the true face of this rift world.

Of course, knowing this, York did not act hastily but continued to follow this lead, exploring further.

Because this was a rift world related to random tasks and significant rewards like +100 attribute points and closing spatial rifts, he couldn't just assume the world was as straightforward as it seemed on the surface.

Moreover, random tasks had not been triggered even after discovering this, indicating that he still had much to learn and hadn't reached the root of the issue.

This investigation, which took about a month of on-site exploration and internet searches, led to some disconcerting discoveries.

The vast majority of the high-ranking officials in this world turned out to be dirty things.

Yes, whether they were corporate executives, police officers, mayors, or even the president, the high echelons of humanity were mostly these dirty things.

And normal humans were completely unaware of this, unwittingly reduced to mere playthings by the dirty things, which is why he felt that humans were merely livestock and toys enclosed by these beings.

Moreover, these dirty things controlled the population of humans, maintaining a certain number for their amusement, killing, or other cruel games.

The variety of their games was unimaginably vast, even to the point of being sickening.

A wife who was originally very kind and faithful suddenly changes, cheats on you with many men, but in reality, it's just a dirty thing that has taken over your wife's body and is playing with you.

A husband who was a good man one day goes crazy, kills your parents and his own children, and abuses you, but that's just a dirty thing that has taken over your husband's body and decided to have some fun with you.

Many more tragedies are essentially shadowed by these dirty things.

That's why he felt this rift world represented the despair of knowing the truth.

York walked over to the sofa and sat down, picking up a notebook from the coffee table and looking at the apartment complex blueprints on the screen.

"Uncle York, what are all these?" Aretha sat beside him, leaning in.

In her eyes, it was a 3D map of building after building, marked with floors and room numbers in red and black, along with names and identities.

"All the dirty things in this complex and their identities," York said calmly, pointing to Building No. 2 on the diagram.

Aretha followed his gesture and saw Nelson in Room 406 of Building No. 2. She smiled genuinely, her eyes gleaming fiercely like a little tiger ready to pounce.

"Uncle York, are we really going to take care of them tonight?"

"Yes," York nodded, looking at the layout of the complex.

Just in this apartment complex, through investigation and 3D mapping, he had identified exactly 1690 dirty things.

Each dirty thing represented one family, so 1690 indicated 1690 families.

Considering the complex had a total of 2305 units, 1690 was a terrifying number.

This meant their workload for the night would be enormous.

But it couldn't be helped. Since the random task had been triggered, startling the snake was no longer a concern.

After dealing with these dirty things, they could simply move on.

"We've already found a way to resolve this random task."

York looked up into the virtual space in front of him.

[...]

[Condition Met: Random Task Triggered, This World is Seeking Salvation]

[Task Requirement: Cleanse the World's Filth, Make the World Clean]

[Reward: +100 Attribute Points + Close Spatial Rifts and Return]

[Accept/Decline]

[...]

York chose to accept.

[Acceptance Successful]

[...]

Listening to the mechanical voice in his ear, York looked at Aretha.

"Aretha, I need your effort tonight, pull them all into your inner-outer world."

Saying this, York extended his hand and gently touched the top of Aretha's head, watching her eyes squint happily, and he smiled warmly.

"Let your guardian, Triangle Head, brutally torment these damned dirty things."

"Uh-huh!" Aretha nodded.

Watching Aretha, York also felt a sense of relief.

Having Aretha here greatly increased the success rate of the random task, enabling him to find a targeted solution, which eased his burden significantly.

If he had come alone this time, he would have been utterly clueless about how to complete the random task, and why?

Because the humans of this world were unaware of the existence of dirty things, meaning that, in their eyes, any action he took against these wolf-in-sheep's-clothing dirty things would be considered a crime, an act of a brutal, monstrous murderer.

This was problematic enough, but more troubling was that there were more dirty things than humans in this world, and they controlled all high-level positions, meaning they could control this world's social media, weaponry, and all sources of truth available to humans.

They could turn black into white and white into black, directly leading humans to stand against him.

Thus, completing the random task meant opposing this world.

Furthermore, due to the coexistence of humans and dirty things, any action he took was hindered.

Carrying out a large-scale purge risked harming innocent humans, making it virtually impossible unless he was cruel-hearted, which he knew he wasn't.

That left only one method: a series of secretive, individual cleanups, which wasn't really feasible.

It was like asking one person to slaughter thousands of chickens; it would take a long time, let alone millions of dirty things—it might take decades and he might not finish.

He had never imagined that humans, his own kind, would become his greatest obstacle at this moment.

"If only they were all dirty things," York sighed inwardly.

"Otherwise, it wouldn't be so troublesome and cumbersome."

Thinking this, York looked at Aretha, who was smiling with her eyes squinted, and felt truly fortunate to have brought such a helpful ally.

Because of Aretha and her inner-outer world, he could think of a targeted, perfect way to complete the random task without harming humans.

"Book friends are indeed impressive; they can come up with such a setting from just this."

"Right, the source is indeed one of my childhood traumas, The First Commandment. I just watched it again, and the aftertaste is really strong, the ending is explosive."

"Sorry, I can't go to The First Commandment because my handling method might be censored, so I had to write it this way. Please bear with me."

"Also, if you think this book is okay, please subscribe more. The book's data is really too low, now it can't even reach a thousand monthly tickets. If not, then please feel free, haha, the main thing is not to force."

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