003.
When Qiao Luan finished paying and stepped out of the supermarket’s front doors, a furious verbal altercation laced with all sorts of profanities erupted behind him, accompanied by mutual shoving.
Returning to his rented apartment in the residential complex, he boiled some water, casually ripped open a box of spicy beef noodles, and sat on the sofa holding the bowl of noodles. While eating, he continued browsing threads related to “Old Gods”, fishing in troubled waters to share his perspectives and accumulate drawing chances.
As time passed, more and more bizarrely terrifying exposés surfaced online. By evening, the atmosphere across the internet grew tense and stagnant, resembling a taut string on the verge of snapping at any moment.
Most terrifyingly, all threads were permitted to remain open for public discussion; no cyber police locked threads or banned accounts.
In the hearts of many, this served as a signal emitted by the authorities.
And this was likewise the joint, secondary-best consensus reached by all high-ranking leaders across the Five Continents following their joint conference.
“Excessive coincidences constitute facts.” Ye Chengcan, the supreme commander of the 6th Base, slammed his fist against his desk with a loud crash during the video conference. Dizzy with anger, his words ran rampant: “Are those old fogies’ brains actually not working properly? Can’t they see those anomalies? The citizens of the Yuping District still haven’t woken up; do they think everything is fine?”
During the afternoon joint conference, all leaders of the Five Continents voiced their perspectives regarding the current anomalies across the Five Continents and the speculation that the game was about to descend into reality. The majority of the leaders maintained an overly optimistic mindset or rather, they were being overly cautious
It wasn’t that they hadn’t noticed the anomalies worldwide, nor that they lacked related speculations deep down, but they wished to avoid bearing the consequences casually.
If precision equipment across the Five Continents failed to capture monsters on November 5th, and if the mist at the ends of the world failed to appear on November 6th, what should be done?
How would others view the authorities at that point? Would they consider them a laughable joke?
Ling Chengsi fell silent for a long while before finally saying: “Their hesitation also holds a logic of its own. However, the signal has already been broadcasted now. If things truly reach that juncture, everyone won’t be entirely unprepared.”
Pausing briefly, he asked: “How is the collection of content and information regarding the game “Old Gods” coming along?”
On the day the anomalies occurred, “Old Gods” had already ceased downloads. Not only that, but all information it left behind on web pages vanished completely within a certain timeframe, including the game’s development studio, as if it had materialized out of thin air.
Furthermore, searching the keywords again yielded only a single icon:
A silhouette sat silently at the summit of a high mountain, with a massive red sun hanging behind it.
“All players in Sector 6 who have played this game “Old Gods” have been summoned by us, and the other sectors are doing the same. We’re just waiting for them to share their information.”
As Ye Chengcan spoke, he fell silent for two seconds, then lifted his eyes to gaze straight at Ling Chengsi across the screen through the monitor: “Brother Ling, if monsters are truly captured tomorrow, what should we do?”
“Does that question even need to be asked?” Ling Chengsi replied calmly, “Trading your life to save more people’s lives wasn’t that what was said from the very beginning?”
Ye Chengcan burst into laughter: “You’re right.”
Time ticked toward midnight on the 5th.
Inside the 1st Base, several “Old Gods” players gathered together, nervously refreshing the threads on the Bizarre Tales Forum.
【Nothing else going on today, I just don’t want to see the authorities release news. Please [hands clasped together]】
【I’m begging you, I’m begging you, I’m kowtowing to you all, heavens, show some mercy.】
【Who understands this? I genuinely feel like a long time has passed, and when I look at the wall clock, it’s only 00:05. I’m seeing pitch-black darkness over and over again.】
“There’s probably no shortage of people seeing pitch-black darkness right now,” Zhao Tianyu muttered, touching his wildly hammering heart and slowly exhaling a breath, “I really, fucking don’t want to encounter this kind of absurd stuff. I’m only twenty-two years old!”
“The way you say that makes it sound like anyone wants to encounter it.” His companion wanted to smile, yet failed to pull off a laugh.
Because, right after the refresh a split second ago, the Bizarre Tales Forum page spawned an additional thread dyed red:
[At 00:05:13 on November 5th, the Fifth Continent Intercontinental Daily released the latest news: The Fifth Continent’s 16th Sector fleet captured a winged mutant fish (attached with high-definition video). Visually estimated, the mutant fish exceeds 100 meters in length, and its body is covered in black armored scales capable of easily resisting bullets.]
Zhao Tianyu tapped open the video. When he clearly saw the mutant fish appearing within the clip, he froze in place, muttering unconsciously: “Abyss monster, serial number F192.”
F represented the lowest tier of monsters in “Old Gods”.
Yet for humans, despite F192’s low tier, its danger remained impossible to take lightly.
Moreover, its appearance implied
“Old Gods” had truly descended.
The apocalypse belonging to humanity and the carnival of monsters had finally arrived.
At 3:00 AM, the Yuping District, falling under the jurisdiction of the First Continent’s 3rd Military Base, once again experienced ground-shaking tremors. The Yuping District had remained under the monitoring scope of the 3rd Military Base ever since anomalies first occurred there, and now that the strange phenomena had regenerated, it instantly commanded everyone’s attention.
Rumble.
The continuous rolling hills revealed a heavy sense of oppression beneath the pitch-black night sky, their contours undulating through the infrared thermal imaging lens. Maintaining tranquility for less than five seconds, countless animals rushed out of their burrows to flee, while birds spread their wings and emitted sharp screeches. An enormous fissure abruptly appeared in the depression between the mountain ranges; as the fissure grew wider and wider, countless shattered rocks, trees, and animals were dragged into it.
At a glance, it resembled an ordinary earthquake.
Yet such a notion was quickly overturned.
“Look!” The inspection personnel stared fixedly at the display on the screen, their eye sockets involuntarily widening in shock.
The monitor for the central area where the mountain fissure erupted displayed that countless animals previously sprinting suddenly halted their forward progress. They stopped in place, collapsing onto the ground one after another in complete silence, just like falling dominoes.
“Are they dead?” The person in charge observing from the side frowned deeply at the scene, finding it utterly baffling as they asked as if talking to themselves, “But why did they die? We didn’t see what kind of thing harmed them.”
The speculation left everyone silent, their expressions exceptionally grave.
“Killing so many animals all at once, including even large wild beasts the situation behind this is truly ominous.” Someone sighed softly, then turned to look at the others: “Should we report this now?”
“Report—”
“Wait.” The inspection personnel abruptly interrupted the leaders’ dialogue. The several leaders looked over simultaneously, watching as the animals in the second zone—which had initially been completely unharmed—began to replicate the tragic fate of the first zone, collapsing one after the other.
“What the hell is going on here?”
“Wait a bit longer. I keep feeling like I’m about to touch upon the crucial point.”
Amidst extreme silence, time flowed slowly. A full half-hour later, a burst of light erupted in the eyes of the inspection personnel. Grasping the A4 paper filled with formulas in his hand, he spun around abruptly: “I figured it out! It’s the wind!”
Handing the A4 paper to the leaders, he spoke rapidly: “The weather forecast for the Yuping mountain region indicates a Level 3 wind force in the mountain area tonight. Calculated at a wind speed of 4 meters per second, blowing from the center of the mountain fissure to the boundary between the first and second zones takes roughly 4 minutes which matches precisely with the time the animals in the second zone initially collapsed.”
“Is there any possibility that these animals aren’t dead at all, but rather encountered the same issue as the citizens of the Yuping District and fell into a deep slumber? I checked the epicenter and wind force levels of yesterday’s earthquake in the Yuping District; the conditions match up almost completely!”
“Wanting to verify this speculation is simple; just send people into the mountains to check whether those animals are dead or not.” The several leaders exchanged glances; one of them quickly turned and walked away before speaking again: “Something definitely exists underground, we just don’t know when it will show itself. We can’t meddle in other matters either, so let’s hand these speculations and information over to the 3rd Base first.”
At 6:02 AM, the first ray of dawn illuminated the Yuping District.
Mid-air, a helicopter bearing the insignia of the 3rd Base rotated its rotor blades. A man codenamed Falcon sat by the open sliding door of the helicopter, gazing downward to fixate on the massive fissure running through the mountain range. This fissure had shown zero movement since it initially expanded in width to both sides.
However, over the past few hours, they had also acquired some useful intelligence for instance, a specialized colorless substance genuinely existed within the fissure; it drifted far away carried by the wind and induced fainting in animals.
“Are we just going to keep hanging abov—”
Before he finished speaking, the fissure beneath their feet suddenly began to widen. Falcon’s pupils narrowed, and he immediately ordered: “Let’s move, fast!”
The helicopter rapidly accelerated away from directly above the fissure, and the width of that chasm expanded once again. Just as the party thought their chosen position was sufficiently secure, a startling shout rang out directly in the ears of Falcon and his team: “Quickly leave! There’s something coming up from underground!”
Bang!
Countless rock fragments and debris splashed upward from below. Swaying unsteadily, the helicopter gained altitude once more. Looking down, dust and sand blocked most of their line of sight, yet the heart of everyone inside the helicopter felt as though it had been draped over with a heavy, gloomy shroud. Before they could ease the tension of their racing hearts triggered by their sixth sense, a massive shadow began to climb steadily upward, progressively eclipsing the helicopter.
Falcon’s fingers tightened convulsively around the grab-handle of the sliding door, his gaze inching upward along the shadow.
At that exact moment, the people observing the Yuping Mountains via surveillance video felt their throats seized in a death-grip. Pairs of pupils constricted in horror, staring fixedly at the screen as that figure which drilled out from beneath the earth, grew taller inch by inch, and then towered immensely above the high-altitude helicopter appeared incomparably gigantic.
It closely resembled a human, possessing many human characteristics such as a head, neck, torso, and limbs, all distinctly delineated. Yet its face bore no facial features; a pair of hammer-shaped antennae extended outward from its smooth forehead, and massive spiderweb-like butterfly wings sprouted wantonly from its upper spine.
At this very moment, it slightly lowered its featureless head, raising its right hand which had been dangling at its side to an upright position. That entire hand was actually capable of completely engulfing the entire helicopter.
Crack.
The helicopter was crushed into a pile of scrap metal right within its grasp.