“She Should Be the Only God”
The moment this somewhat absurd thought appeared in her mind, Wendy’s heart gave a sudden jolt.
She stood inside the escape boat and looked around. Aside from the main body of the Man-Faced Mosquitoes, which continued to buzz as they flapped their wings, every living creature aboard the boat was still trapped in the illusion she had created.
The Man-Faced Mosquitoes within the illusion had yet to be eliminated, and the guards were still anxiously working together to fend off their attacks.
They stood frozen in place, occasionally shouting things like, “Watch out!” or “Get out of the way!” It was obvious that the battle was extremely intense.
Inside the cabins, whose doors were tightly shut, the evacuees were also still trapped in the illusion. Hearing the continuous gunfire outside, they huddled fearfully in the corners of the cabins.
Yet in such a stable and orderly environment, where everything was seemingly under her control, Wendy sensed something slipping beyond her grasp.
She looked toward the last remaining Man-Faced Mosquito that was still trying to escape.
The words spoken by the Man-Faced Mosquito had stirred up a question that had been buried deep within her heart—
Why exactly had the Xenotypes been born?
Lately, she had found it increasingly strange. Almost every Xenotype she had encountered so far, with the exception of the Devourer Species, bore traces of Earth’s original creatures.
Eels, leeches, mosquitoes, spiders…
They had appeared during the Sea Tribe apocalypse, been sealed away, and then awakened again during the human apocalypse. So she had originally thought that this was simply one part of the apocalypse, and that these creatures had mutated because of it.
But now that she thought about it…
They seemed more like hybrids pieced together using the genes of Earth’s creatures as a blueprint, rather than creatures born naturally.
Wendy pursed her lips. Her deep-blue eyes remained fixed on the Man-Faced Mosquito in midair, emotions surging within them like waves.
If this assumption was true, then what kind of existence had created the Xenotypes?
Creating an entire species sounded almost exactly like something a god would do.
But if it really was a god, then why could it only use the genes of existing creatures to create such a—
Incomplete, filthy, half-finished species that seemed to have been forcibly stitched together?
She slowly clenched her hand.
The Man-Faced Mosquito within the space under her control sensed the pressure and began struggling frantically in terror.
The last Man-Faced Mosquito could not be killed just yet. She needed to investigate the secrets hidden behind them.
But if she wanted the guards to regain consciousness, she could not leave the Man-Faced Mosquito aboard the boat either.
She would hand it over to Hega Luoyin. The temple’s Chosen Possessors possessed spiritual energy and could control Xenotypes.
According to the inherited memories, if two Sea Spirits of at least the Chosen Possessor rank released spiritual energy simultaneously in two different locations, they could imitate the oceanic pathways between Magnetite Stones and temporarily create a spatial tunnel.
Royal spiritual energy was naturally vast and powerful. It did not conform to the rank system used for ordinary Sea Spirits, but it was undoubtedly higher than that of priests.
Therefore, it should be possible for her and Hega Luoyin to accomplish it.
With that thought, Wendy entered her consciousness space and clicked on [Act as Proxy].
Two action points were deducted.
Her field of vision instantly shifted.
Ten thousand meters beneath the sea, an elderly mermaid with white-and-gray hair seemed to sense something. She raised her head and looked toward the surface.
The old woman raised her staff. Spiritual energy coiled around it, gathering into a sphere of light.
Inside the escape boat, Wendy also released her spiritual energy.
The instant the two spheres of light formed, they seemed to resonate with each other. They suddenly connected across the ten-thousand-meter spatial barrier.
A small, glowing blue hole appeared inside the escape boat.
The hole was tiny, only about the size of a bowl. Looking through it, one could vaguely see the churning seawater within.
Perhaps because the tunnel had to span such an enormous distance, its light flickered intermittently, making it somewhat unstable.
Wendy immediately threw the Man-Faced Mosquito, which she had been holding suspended in midair, into the tunnel.
The next second, the tunnel closed.
Meanwhile, inside the consciousness space, a small black-and-brown dot suddenly appeared in front of Hega Luoyin.
The black-and-brown dot twisted continuously, seemingly attempting to attack.
The tiny old woman visibly shuddered before quickly using her spiritual energy to restrain it.
Wendy smiled and conveyed her orders to Hega Luoyin.
She watched as the old woman controlled the Man-Faced Mosquito and swam down into the temple, summoning all the Chosen Possessors.
Wendy then exited [Act as Proxy].
She looked down upon the blue planet that continued rotating beneath her.
Tiny points of blue light represented the awakened cities of the Sea Tribe. They flickered continuously, and when magnified, mermaids could be seen moving through them.
Beside the planet, at the very top of the transparent panel, were four icons shaped like scepters.
At first, she had thought these were abilities belonging to the Sea Tribe’s King.
But after sorting through the inherited memories, she discovered that the royal clan had only inherited one of the divine authorities from the gods—
“Dominion.”
Of the four scepter icons, only one was glowing faintly.
She touched the glowing scepter.
“Dominion”: You can control everything in the world.
The familiar description appeared just as it had countless times before.
Wendy stared at it for a moment before closing it and turning her attention to the other three scepter icons.
Four scepter icons.
Four divine authorities.
She already possessed “Dominion.”
So did the appearance of the other three authorities as icons within her consciousness space mean that she could also find some way to illuminate them?
And then—
Become a god.
Wendy lowered her eyes.
The red icon representing the Xenotypes churned within the ocean. She enlarged it and stared at it coldly.
The original gods had all fallen at the end of the First Solar Era.
Whatever had created the Xenotypes, when the apocalypse came and the ocean swallowed everything, she, as the Sea Tribe’s King, should be the master of the ocean.
She should be—
the only god.
The illusion was about to reach its limit.
Wendy exited the consciousness space, walked back to the second floor, and stood among the guards.
Then she released the illusion.
She had created a perfect ending for them, one that seamlessly connected with their existing memories.
In their memories, no matter how many bullets struck the original Man-Faced Mosquitoes, they remained completely unaffected.
The guards carefully dodged the creatures’ mouthparts while doing everything they could to maintain the defensive line. Their ammunition was almost exhausted.
But at that very moment, a turning point appeared.
A bullet accidentally struck one of the Man-Faced Mosquitoes in the throat.
The creature collapsed instantly.
The guards immediately realized what had happened.
That seemingly insignificant area was actually the weakest point of these monsters.
Thus, under Liao Chengyu’s command, all the guards turned their guns toward the Man-Faced Mosquitoes’ throats and concentrated their fire there.
At the very limit of their strength, they successfully counterattacked and killed the creatures, saving the escape boat.
“We… survived…”
Although the Man-Faced Mosquitoes in the illusion had been killed by bullets, in reality they had been crushed into pieces by Wendy.
But with the illusion concealing everything, no one noticed anything unusual.
The guards regained consciousness and looked at the scene before them, completely convinced that their memories were real.
Exhausted, they lowered their guns and cried tears of joy.
A short-haired female guard stood among the crowd. Her almond-shaped eyes narrowed into a smile as she watched everything before her, seemingly incredibly fortunate to have survived.
“That’s right. We survived.”
With the crisis over, Liao Chengyu began organizing the guards to settle the evacuees, tallying the casualties and clearing away the remains of the Man-Faced Mosquitoes’ hosts.
Wendy was responsible for leading more than a dozen guards in clearing away the remains.
This was the result of her illusion-induced manipulation.
People with stronger mental power were more likely to break free from illusionary control. When Liao Chengyu was assigning tasks, she saw the fragments scattered across the floor, the remains so mangled that they were barely recognizable, and seemed to notice something strange.
She frowned almost imperceptibly.
To prevent anyone else from discovering the anomaly, Wendy once again placed a layer of illusionary suggestion on Liao Chengyu, causing her to overlook the clue she had originally noticed and assigning the cleanup task to her.
The remains of the hosts were the only things that differed from what existed in the illusion. They could easily arouse the victims’ suspicions about the illusion.
Therefore, it was safest for Wendy herself to oversee their disposal.
After finishing cleaning up the scattered chunks and viscous remains, Wendy returned to the dormitory.
Feng Jianan was huddled in a corner.
Even though the alarm had already been lifted, she had clearly been frightened. She still held the dagger tightly in her hand.
In her memories, the mutated Wang Tianci had repeatedly scratched at the door, trying to lure her outside.
When he saw that she showed no response, he began violently pounding on the door, trying to break through.
All of the available forces had been occupied in the second-floor evacuation area.
The guards had failed to notice that a monster had already quietly broken through the defensive line and made its way upstairs.
The violent pounding on the door came again and again, making her heart tremble with fear. It felt as though the cabin door would be broken down at any moment, and death would soon come for her.
Alone in the cabin, desperate and helpless, Feng Jianan clutched the dagger Lieutenant Jiang had given her as if it were her final lifeline.
Illusions dragged people into fabricated scenes. The illusion itself was false, but a person’s consciousness was not.
Feng Jianan had no idea that she had been pulled into an illusion. The mutated Wang Tianci had long since died, but in her eyes, she had truly reached the edge of death.
She recalled the brief first half of her life.
When she had first arrived at Huai University, she had always felt out of place. Even though the teachers had praised her more than once, saying that she had great potential, she still felt inferior.
She could not help comparing herself to her roommates.
They all seemed to come from well-off families, and she could not stop wondering: Would they dislike her? Would they look down on her?
Pei Xiao rarely stayed in the dormitory, so the people she spent most of her time with were Tong Yu and Wendy.
Tong Yu seemed like a carefree little princess who had grown up surrounded by love and attention, while Wendy was like a dazzling sun—wherever she went, people naturally gathered around her.
The two of them were both locals of Huaijiang and seemed to have known each other even before entering university.
She envied them.
Back then, she thought that they must have come from similar backgrounds and had known each other since childhood. How could there possibly be room for an outsider in such a relationship?
So when they reached out to her in friendship, she chose to avoid them.
Her sensitivity and inferiority had caused her to lose the possibility of that friendship from the very beginning.
Later, she learned about Wendy’s background.
Unlike the only daughter of a wealthy Huaijiang family that she had imagined, Wendy was merely an orphan sponsored by the Tong family.
When she learned this, she felt a secret sense of satisfaction—but even more than that, resentment.
She was secretly pleased that someone else was like her, that she was not the only one who did not belong.
But she could not accept why Wendy, despite being an orphan, could receive support from the Tong family, fit into Huaijiang, achieve better results than her, and earn everyone’s admiration and affection.
Why, when they were supposedly the same, could Wendy live so much better than she could?
Such ugly thoughts even frightened Feng Jianan herself.
She knew they were wrong, but she could not control them.
Afraid that her jealousy would one day become a blade that hurt both Wendy and herself, she deliberately distanced herself from them.
Then Wang Tianci appeared.
His passionate pursuit and declarations of love filled the emptiness in her heart.
She thought that someone loved her too.
That she was not so worthless after all.
So even when, time and time again, she realized that something was wrong with Wang Tianci, and understood that this so-called love was nothing more than a false dream, she did not dare wake up.
She was sensitive, starved for affection, and burdened by inferiority.
Her gray childhood had left her forever trapped in damp mud.
She begged for her parents’ love.
She begged for Wang Tianci’s love.
She treated their brief and false affection as the light of her life, believing that they could pull her out of the mire in her heart.
But now, looking back, she realized that the only person who could lead her out of the mud and through the thorns had always been herself.
Within the illusion, Feng Jianan trembled in the corner and closed her eyes.
If she were to die today, the only things she regretted were giving up the career she had once been so passionate about, and the friendship she might have had.
Her first half of life had been so short.
Why had she made so many wrong choices?
Feng Jianan gave a somewhat self-mocking smile and tightened her grip on the dagger.
She had already prepared herself to face death.
Yet at this moment, her desire to survive reached its peak.
She still wanted to live.
To truly live once according to her own wishes.
Bang.
At that moment, she heard the familiar voice of Little Lieutenant Jiang, followed by several gunshots.
The terrifying sound of the door being battered ceased.
She did not know how much time had passed before the cabin door opened.
Warm light shone in from outside.
With tears streaming down her face, she raised her head and saw that reassuring, familiar figure walking in from the light.
She had survived.