A convoy of heavy-duty armored vehicles sped across the dilapidated, desolate wasteland of a street.
Inside the vehicle cabin, Ston sat composed in the rear row, holding a tablet as he lowered his head to earnestly review the newly received video footage regarding the wanted fugitive, Zhuang Xingyu.
Graduating from the Federal Law School for four consecutive years at the top of his class and having recently passed the bar examinations to become the youngest newly minted grand justice since the “Great Catastrophe,” Ston wore the deep blue uniform of the judiciary, his pale, cold face bearing an expression of extreme detachment.
Ston lowered his gaze slightly, his long, slender eyelashes casting a faint, dark shadow beneath his eyelids. His slender, slightly upturned outer eye corners concealed a cold yet lethal allure.
With a high-bridged nose, pale red lips, and chiseled facial contours, he sat with his long, straight legs crossed. Even while seated, one could discern his tall and upright stature.
“Justice, please take a look.” Xiao Chen, the judicial assistant seated beside Ston, turned sideways and pivoted the screen of his notebook computer toward him. “This is the live broadcast transmitted from the perimeter wall.”
Hearing this, Ston shifted his gaze to the computer screen in Xiao Chen’s hands.
On the screen, a brave female reporter was broadcasting live from a few hundred meters in front of the perimeter wall, with a chaotic battlefield unfolding behind her.
“Everyone can see behind me that the Wall of Nüwa hailed as the ultimate barrier protecting the people and renowned as an impregnable fortress is currently suffering through the most severe and critical crisis since its construction.”
The camera pulled back, revealing the heavily armed troops standing in strict formation before the Wall of Nüwa. Over a hundred anti-aircraft guns and mortars stood densely lined up beneath the wall, their muzzles facing outward in unison, keeping a constant, unblinking aim upon the upper regions and surroundings of the perimeter wall.
Beyond the barrier, the piercing, shrill cries of avian predators and the deafening roars of wild beasts echoed intermittently. The sound carried immense momentum, resembling the clamor of ten thousand roaring beasts; it was enough to send chills down one’s spine even through a screen.
Suddenly, a gigantic flying bird appeared in the pale gray sky, soaring past the outer perimeter of the Wall of Nüwa with a whistling rush. In the blink of an eye, it carved an arrow-like silhouette across the sky within the interior of the wall.
An outburst of gasps erupted from the crowd beneath the Wall of Nüwa, followed by a commander frantically shouting through a megaphone: “All units, pay attention! Aim! Aim! Damn it, when did those reporters cross the safety perimeter? Squad One, move out and chase them away!”
The camera began to tremble in terror, yet dutifully strained upward to track the flying bird across the sky.
In the voiceover, the female reporter’s commentary trembled in tandem with the shaking lens.
“Everyone… can see that the pollutants from outside the Wall of Nüwa have flown to the inside of the wall! It actually broke through the high-voltage electrical grid covering a radius of tens of thousands of kilometers above the Wall of Nüwa and flew inside!”
On the screen, a mutated bird of an unidentifiable species flew closer and grew larger. When its pitch-black wings were fully extended, its total wingspan was visually estimated to be nearly twenty meters.
Compared to this massive physique, the flying bird’s head was disproportionately small, with no visible eyes, but its beak was sharp, long, and hooked, while its talons were fierce and powerful, resembling two large, heavy iron hooks.
“…This… this pollutant seems to be flying toward us,” the reporter’s voice was laden with fear. “We…”
Not far away, the squad tasked with protecting the reporters had already rushed to the front. While roaring at the reporters to hurry into the vehicle and retreat beyond the safety perimeter, the soldiers aimed their weapons at the flying bird and opened fire into the sky.
The footage began to spin wildly, inducing dizziness in anyone staring directly at the screen, coupled with the screeching cacophony of gunfire, human voices, and bird cries all of which served to underscore the chaos and danger currently prevailing near the Wall of Nüwa.
“Ah!”
Accompanied by a piercing shriek, the transmission cut out.
Quiet descended once more within the vehicle cabin. After a long silence, Xiao Chen spoke in a hushed voice: “I wonder if those two reporters are alright.”
Ston did not respond, shifting his attention back to the tablet in his hands to continue browsing.
In the video, Zhuang Xingyu still bearing human form was stripped to the waist as he lay upon an iron bed within a laboratory, tightly bound by black leather straps and covered densely with medical monitoring patches.
A bespectacled scientist in a white lab coat walked over to Zhuang Xingyu, first inspecting the monitoring equipment beside the bed before producing a thick syringe filled with a liquid emitting an eerie blue glow, injecting the entire contents directly into Zhuang Xingyu’s intravenous blood vessels.
Noticing how intently Ston was reading, Xiao Chen beside him could not resist shifting slightly and casting his gaze toward the tablet in Ston’s hands.
“I heard that before Captain Zhuang… went missing, he was out by the perimeter wall executing a classified mission,” Xiao Chen murmured softly. “That serum they injected him with was clearly meant to enhance combat capabilities, and the entire experiment was led by Dr. Duan… Who could have guessed that when he returned, he would turn into that kind of state just, just like those pollutants.”
The footage from the previous laboratory video had ended, seamlessly transitioning to the next.
At a long-abandoned airfield, a battered and bruised Zhuang Xingyu, escorted by seven or eight heavily armed soldiers, walked with a staggering gait toward a modified van.
As the van doors slowly slid shut, Zhuang Xingyu sat inside. Seeming to sense a camera filming him, he raised his head to look outward.
Stuan’s body and face were largely obscured in darkness, leaving only a pair of eyes distinctly visible through the gaps of the iron bars.
One black pupil, one red pupil alluring and bizarre, definitively not something belonging to a human.
Ston pressed the pause button, sharing a prolonged gaze across the screen and space-time with the Zhuang Xingyu depicted in the footage, before slowly uttering: “Precisely because things are suspicious, a thorough investigation is all the more necessary.”
Twenty minutes later, Ston’s convoy reached its destination a prison constructed above ground.
Ever since the outbreak of the nuclear war 34 years ago referred to by contemporaries as the “Great Catastrophe” the environment had deteriorated drastically under the influence of nuclear contamination, plagued by blowing sand and extreme diurnal temperature swings. Plants, animals, and humans alike had suffered varying degrees of contamination, spawning mutations that breached cross-species limits.
The surface of the earth was no longer habitable for mankind.
To preserve humanity’s viable forces and sustain the spark of civilization, the Federation mobilized the full strength of all mankind to construct subterranean cities far away from the nuclear contamination zones, screening and admitting healthy, young citizens into them to continue living.
Ston’s parents were among the fortunate ones who gained entry into the subterranean city back then, subsequently giving birth to him. However, due to material shortages and medical standards regressing by decades, Ston’s parents passed away successively during his childhood, leaving his mentor, Cao Rui, to raise him to adulthood.
Given the limited space within the subterranean cities and the exorbitant costs of expansion, the Federation elected to place prisons on the surface following the Great Catastrophe.
Just like the one before their eyes, it was a facility remodeled and reinforced upon the original site of a pre-catastrophe prison.
Although the interior of the Wall of Nüwa was relatively secure, the surface remained inferior to the subterranean levels. Consequently, the prison authorities still dispatched an armed squad of dozens to greet Ston’s contingent at the prison gates.
“Justice, Assistant Legal Chen,” the leader of the armed squad greeted them, “the suspect’s hazard coefficient is extremely high, which is why he is detained separately in the reinforced holding cells at the rear of the prison. Please follow me.”
Ston expressed his gratitude, then alighted from the court vehicle alongside Xiao Chen, driving with the squad leader to the reinforced cells.
It was currently 9:00 AM, but due to weak sunlight and heavy windblown dust, surface visibility was roughly equivalent to dusk prior to the Great Catastrophe.
The vehicle drove onward within the interior of the prison for nearly ten minutes before coming to a halt in front of a row of sheet-metal housing units.
Alighting from the vehicle, Ston followed the lead of the squad leader, walking several dozen meters along the row of sheet-metal cells before halting in front of the third one.
The squad leader drew a lightweight remote control the size of a thumb from his uniform breast pocket and handed it to Ston.
“Justice, the suspect has now mutated into a pollutant. Please under no circumstances treat it with the attitude you would accord a human. We have already restrained the suspect’s limbs with iron chains. If you observe any behavior from it that threatens your personal safety, please do not hesitate—press the switch directly.”
The squad leader pressed his thumb lightly against the red dial on the remote control by way of demonstration, then explained: “Once the switch is pressed, the chains will instantly discharge high-voltage electricity exceeding tens of thousands of volts. The suspect will be shocked into convulsions or even shock within a single instant, ensuring your personal safety.”
Ston lowered his gaze to sweep across the small remote control without accepting it, merely asking: “Tens of thousands of volts? Won’t that electrocute the suspect directly?”
“To reiterate, the suspect has mutated into a pollutant; you cannot approach it with mindset tailored to ordinary human suspects.”
The squad leader reiterated with an intensified tone, then thrust the remote control directly into Ston’s hands.
Ston accepted it, though a slight frown knit his brows. The squad leader, assuming he was feeling fearful, softened his tone in reassurance: “Our personnel will protect your safety on the side throughout the entire process; this is merely just in case.”
“Many thanks.” Ston put away the remote control and nodded slightly toward the squad leader. “Please open the door.”
The heavy iron door emitted an ear-piercing grinding noise as it slid open. Ston followed behind the squad leader and several soldiers as they walked inside.
The lighting within the holding cell was dim, and an overwhelming, dense stench of blood assaulted their nostrils.
Inside the cell, there was a simple set of tables and chairs, and further inward lay an iron cage forged from iron bars as thick as an adult man’s arm.
Inside the iron cage, Zhuang Xingyu lay sprawled on the floor, his blood-stained wings draped across his body without the slightest hint of movement, looking as though he were already dead.
Ston signaled for Xiao Chen to stand behind the table and activate the camera to record the law enforcement proceedings, before proceeding toward the iron cage on his own.
The squad leader, standing guard by the door with his weapon raised, immediately issued a verbal warning, but Ston merely waved a hand to indicate all was well, continuing forward without looking back.
Arriving right up to the iron cage, Ston halted, looking down condescendingly at the prostrate figure of Zhuang Xingyu.
His injured right wing had been crudely bandaged, looking almost as if he had tended to it himself. Owing to the massive wings on his back, Zhuang Xingyu wore no upper garments, clad only in a loose-fitting pair of striped prison trousers and barefoot. The overlapping wounds covering his body had already stemmed their bleeding, leaving dried bloodstains smeared all across his exposed flesh.
Ston raised his foot and kicked the bars of the iron cage, producing a dull, heavy thud.
Hearing the sound, Zhuang Xingyu steadied himself against the ground, finally lifting his head slowly to fixate upon Ston.
In the dim lighting, Zhuang Xingyu’s scarlet eyes flickered with the cruel, cold-blooded brilliance of a savage beast. He swept his gaze up and down Ston for a long moment, then actually extended the tip of his tongue to lick his cracked, parched lips, breaking into an eerie, spine-chilling smile.