What kind of twisted creature was that? It resembled nothing Ye Yuzhi had ever encountered among any known species. It stood taller than a human, yet bore the features of a crow, and also something akin to a mole.
At the same time it evoked the shape of an ant, but its decayed flesh invoked the unsettling image of a rotting human body. It was as if the natural barriers of reproduction between species did not exist for this thing at all, and perhaps the creature itself did not belong to the realm of anything real.
Ye Yuzhi felt a chill creeping up through his bones. He sensed he might not survive this encounter. There was no clear reason for that certainty. It was a pure instinct that rose sharply from the depths of his mind.
Just as he was about to draw his gun for one last desperate struggle, another voice suddenly came from behind them.
It was the voice of an elderly woman, somewhat stern and old fashioned in tone. “That is enough, Anthony. I thought you understood that this area is under the church’s jurisdiction.”
Anthony clicked his tongue impatiently. He released his grip and turned around. “This is not the same. I am willing to give you face for other matters, but not for this young man.”
Ye Yuzhi locked eyes with the bizarre winged creature before him. He still had no idea how much radiation it would take to mutate something into such a shape, but since it simply stood there without attacking, perhaps he could move for now.
He took a small step backward, making sure it did not react, then cautiously glanced behind him.
Standing backlit by the faint light was an old nun completely enshrouded in a black robe. Her face was hidden, yet her presence radiated overwhelming force.
“There is no difference,” she said calmly. Her eyes shifted to Ye Yuzhi, who was peeking out nervously, then returned to Anthony. “You promised me you would not force anyone.”
The two of them stood in a silent stalemate for a while. In the end, it was Anthony who yielded first. His expression did not soften, and he grumbled his unwillingness openly.
“You understand nothing. Faith in my Lord is the one true path. Only my Lord’s radiance can grant real salvation.”
He paused, and a strange smile spread across his face again, that same inexplicable joy that earlier had made Ye Yuzhi uneasy. “But it will not be long. Even ignorant people like you will soon witness it. The true God.”
Anthony stepped around Ye Yuzhi, swung himself easily onto the back of the strange creature, and lowered his head to look at him.
“I will come for you later. The glory bestowed upon you by the Lord remains upon you always.”
He added softly, “I hope you remember soon what it is you are meant to do.”
With that, the grotesque creature lifted off into the sky, carrying Anthony with incredible speed. Even though it was daytime, its movement was so swift that not a single ordinary resident noticed anything unusual.
Ye Yuzhi stared blankly at the place where they vanished. A sudden thought struck him. Was he going to end up as a fanatic of another cult after escaping one?
Otherwise why would Anthony speak to him like that? And Anthony’s appearance… it was stranger than the monstrous creature itself. Just looking at him filled Ye Yuzhi with a sense of creeping dread.
The old nun was still gazing at the sky. She sighed softly as the falling snowflakes settled on her white hair. She stepped toward Ye Yuzhi and tapped his shoulder gently with a hand that felt as dry and brittle as an old branch.
“Come with me.”
She led him through narrow paths, turning several corners, until they arrived at an aged rear entrance of a church. She opened the door and gestured for Ye Yuzhi to follow.
Inside, rows of candles decorated the hall. Some before the statue were already lit. Others placed along the pews awaited ignition. The place looked as though people were preparing for a gathering, but since preparations had not been completed, there was no one else present.
The nun closed the door and turned to him. He stood there with no idea how he was supposed to act or what he should say. She watched him in silence for a long moment, then sighed.
“It is Sean, is it not?”
Ye Yuzhi clutched his bag and nodded. “Thank you for reading earlier.”
He did not ask how she knew who he was. After encountering Anthony, it no longer seemed impossible that others might know him too.
The nun walked past him to the candles, lighting them one by one. She murmured prayers under her breath, then finally lifted her gaze.
“You should not have come back.”
Right now, he understood absolutely nothing. His assigned arrival task remained a mystery. Anthony had targeted him for unknown reasons. And most importantly, he needed to understand what had happened before he arrived in this world. Ye Yuzhi clenched his jaw and spoke.
“I am very sorry, but I cannot remember much of what happened before. Could you please tell me what happened to me in the past?”
The nun froze, apparently surprised that he had lost his memory.
“Please, tell me about Anthony, the Anthony Hospital, and the God he was speaking of. What exactly is going on? I really need to know!”
Saying so much at once made him sound breathless and agitated. He genuinely wanted answers. He wanted to know why he had come to this place, why he carried another person’s name, and why he had been tasked with summoning some so-called evil god. Who was that god truly?
There were simply too many questions. From the moment he awakened in this world, they had weighed on him endlessly. But he did not know how to deal with people, so he had withdrawn whenever dealing with his so called teammates. He had retreated again and again until now. This encounter told him clearly that he could retreat no farther.
Anthony was far too strange. Just remembering the expression on that man’s face made Ye Yuzhi feel faintly ill. He hugged his bag tighter and looked at the nun with pleading eyes.
The nun studied him for a long time. Her voice was gentle when she finally spoke.
“I understand.”
She reached out and touched his head lightly. “My poor child. None of this should have been yours to bear.”
She guided him to a pew where the candles had not yet been lit. In the vast empty hall, her voice slowly began weaving the past.
“It began twenty years ago, when Anthony obtained that book. No one knows where he got it, only that the book was filled with strange incantations and forbidden techniques. After reading it, Anthony changed completely. He grew intense and fanatical. Under the name of healing all people, he began using the contents of that book for illegal experiments in his private hospital.”
“At first, he used rabbits. Then he secretly began using patients. Later…”
Her gaze shifted to Ye Yuzhi.
“He sought out patients like you, children with rare and incurable conditions.”
“I do not know what that book truly was, but I can tell you this. It was absolutely evil. It twisted the gentle Anthony into a dangerous and obsessive man. It changed living human beings into something else entirely. What he was doing was an act of blasphemy.”
“If only I had understood earlier. If only I could have stopped the tragedy.” Her voice trembled. Tears welled in her eyes as she pulled him into an embrace.
“My Sean, my poor child. You should never have returned.”
“They want to use you as a living sacrifice. They want you to become the vessel through which something monstrous descends into this world.”
“And Anthony… Anthony. May the Lord forgive me. I should never have saved him. That unclean existence should have died in that fire!”
Ye Yuzhi’s pupils contracted sharply.
Meanwhile, in Anthony’s estate.
“Unidentifiable components.” Jiang Xing placed a test tube filled with a separated golden liquid onto its rack. He glanced back at the others. “With the current technology of this era, it cannot be analyzed.”
Du Yun finished swallowing a piece of pastry and stood up. “Let me try an inspiration skill.”
[Inspiration 6/80, extremely difficult to succeed. You suddenly remember seeing a similar description in Sophia’s notes.]
A faint mechanical prompt echoed in her mind. She suddenly remembered seeing a similar description in Sophia’s notes. In her memory, she was sitting on a swing, beside a blond girl wearing a silk dress.
They had a notebook spread across their laps. The girl had been smiling as she pointed at the written words, yet Du Yun had been far too busy admiring the girl instead of the text.
When she came back to herself, she exhaled quietly and said with a casual tone, “It is golden honey wine.”
They had already suspected the source before, but this time they confirmed it. After speaking, Du Yun climbed onto the nearby bed, wrapped herself in a blanket, and curled up.
Jiang Xing looked baffled. “Are skills really that tiring?”
“Let us step outside and give her some rest,” Xia Jienan said. He motioned for Jiang Xing to clean up the instruments on the table. “Do not clutter her space.”
When the door closed behind them, Xia Jienan added, “We will talk about everything in detail later. She has her reasons. Right now, we should investigate quickly. You take the study. I will check the third floor.”
Jiang Xing glanced at the door once more, then nodded. “Got it.”
Xia Jienan took out his pocket watch. It was not yet four. As he headed toward the stairs, he silently activated a skill.
“I want to use stealth.”
Another mechanical prompt echoed. He succeeded.
[Stealth 32/50, normal success. With cover, ordinary people cannot detect your activities for the time being.]
Relieved, Xia Jienan turned and moved swiftly up the stairs.
The third floor layout differed from the second. Three heavy wooden doors lined the corridor. The first room near the stairs appeared to be a small reception room.
The two farther down were much larger, even more spacious than the study on the second floor. Using the decorations as cover, Xia Jienan started investigating from the first room.
Its door was unlocked. He pushed it open slightly. As he had guessed, it was an elegantly furnished reception room, clearly Anthony’s private lounge.
He checked the surroundings carefully. The robotic game master even provided an automatic detection confirmation indicating no one was inside. Only then did he step in.
The room was not cluttered. After a quick sweep, he found no hidden passageway. He circled the shelves, then cautiously inspected the desk. The surface was spotless. Anthony clearly kept his things neat.
Xia Jienan tugged at the drawer. It was not locked, but there was almost nothing inside, only a few pens and a single photograph.
He did not take it out. He leaned closer to look.
The old black and white photograph was simple. It showed only one figure. Someone who looked exactly like the person he had just photographed earlier.
No, not exactly human.
A whisper crawled into his ears.
A sanity check failed.
[Saity check 0/1]
At that moment, he heard the sudden beat of wings outside the reception room window.
OOC mini-drama:
Ye Yuzhi: Ah, how about I let the two evil gods on my body fight each other first?
✦ ✧ ✦
Nycreth
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
No propaganda here. Only coffee.
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
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ChaptersChapter 1 · Guerrero’s Lair (1)Chapter 2 · Guerrero’s Lair (2)Chapter 3 · Guerrero’s Lair (3)Chapter 4 · Guerrero’s Lair (4)Chapter 5 · Guerrero’s Lair (5)Chapter 6 · Guerrero’s Lair (6)Chapter 7 · Guerrero’s Lair (7)Chapter 8 · Guerrero’s Lair (8)Chapter 9 · Guerrero’s Lair (9)Chapter 10 · Guerrero’s Lair (10)Chapter 11 · Guerrero’s Lair (11)Chapter 12 · Guerrero’s Lair (12)Chapter 13 · Guerrero’s Lair (13)Chapter 14 · Guerrero’s Lair (14)Chapter 15 · Guerrero’s Lair (15)Chapter 16 · Guerrero’s Lair (16)Chapter 17 · Guerrero’s Lair (17)Chapter 18 · Guerrero’s Lair (18)Chapter 19 · Guerrero’s Lair (19)Chapter 20 · Guerrero’s Lair (20)Chapter 21 · Guerrero’s Lair (21)Chapter 22 · Guerrero’s Lair (22)Chapter 23 · Interlude (1)Chapter 24 · The interlude (2)Chapter 25 · The interlude (3)Chapter 26 Part 1 · Calling in the Wind (1)Chapter 26 Part 2 · Calling in the Wind (1)Chapter 27 · Calling in the Wind (2)Chapter 28 · Calling in the Wind (3)Chapter 29 · Calling in the Wind (4)Chapter 30 · Calling in the Wind (5)Chapter 31 · Calling in the Wind (6)Chapter 32 · Calling in the Wind (7)Chapter 33 · Calling in the Wind (8)Chapter 34 · Calling in the Wind (9)Chapter 35 · Calling in the Wind (10)Chapter 36 · Interlude (4)Chapter 37 · Interlude (5)Chapter 38 · Interlude (6)Chapter 39 · Interlude (7)Chapter 40 · Interlude (8)Chapter 41 · Interlude (9)Chapter 42 · Welcome to Doville (1)Chapter 43 · Welcome to Doville (2)Chapter 44 · Welcome to Doville (3)Chapter 45 · Welcome to Doville (4)Chapter 46 · Welcome to Doville (5)Chapter 47 · Welcome to Doville (6)Chapter 48 · Welcome to Doville (7)Chapter 49 · Welcome to Doville (8)Chapter 50 · Welcome to Doville (9)Chapter 51 · Welcome to Doville (10)Chapter 52 · Welcome to Doville (11)Chapter 53 · Welcome to Doville (12)Chapter 54 · Interlude (10)Chapter 55 · Interlude (11)Chapter 56 · Interlude (12)Chapter 57 · Interlude (13)Chapter 58 · Interlude (14)Chapter 59 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (1)Chapter 60 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (2)Chapter 61 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (3)Chapter 62 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (4)Chapter 63 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (5)Chapter 64 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (6)Chapter 65 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (7)Chapter 66 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (8)Chapter 67 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (9)Chapter 68 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (10)Chapter 69 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (11)Chapter 70 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (12)Chapter 71 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (13)Chapter 72 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (14)Chapter 73 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (15)Chapter 74 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (16)Chapter 75 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (17)Chapter 76 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (18)Chapter 77 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (19)Chapter 78 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (20)Chapter 79 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (21)Chapter 80 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (22)Chapter 81 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (23)Chapter 82 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (24)Chapter 83 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (25)Chapter 84 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (26)Chapter 85 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (27)Chapter 86 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (28)Chapter 87 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (29)Chapter 88 · Tunnel in the Dark Night (30)Chapter 89 · Interlude (15)Chapter 90 · Interlude (16)Chapter 91 · Interlude (17)Chapter 92 · The Promise of Hamelin (1)Chapter 93 · The Promise of Hamelin (2)Chapter 94 · The Promise of Hamelin (3)Chapter 95 · The Promise of Hamelin (4)Chapter 96 · The Promise of Hamelin (5)Chapter 97 · The Promise of Hamelin (6)Chapter 98 · The Promise of Hamelin (7)Chapter 99 · The Promise of Hamelin (8)Chapter 100 · The Promise of Hamelin (9)Chapter 101 · The Promise of Hamelin (10)Chapter 102 · The Promise of Hamelin (11)Chapter 103 · The Promise of Hamelin (12)Chapter 104 · The Promise of Hamelin (13)Chapter 105 · The Promise of Hamelin (14)Chapter 106 · The Promise of Hamelin (15)Chapter 107 · The Promise of Hamelin (16)Chapter 109 · The Promise of Hamelin (18)Chapter 110 · The Promise of Hamelin (19)