Chapter 108

Chapter 108

The only building in Cangqiong Base that could be considered remotely impressive was probably the Special Operations Department building.

It was a two-story tiled house. In an era where building a home meant starting from scratch by producing cement, its very existence was a minor miracle.

Due to Ning Huai's unique physiology, the interior ceiling stretched five meters high.

This building wasn't just the department headquarters; it was also his home within the base.

[Ning Huai's body is too large for ordinary houses. Before this building was erected, he used to just coil up and sleep by the village entrance. The people in the base couldn't bear it and insisted on building him a proper place. Ning Huai called it a waste of resources and refused.]

[Then, while Ning Huai was away on a mission, they built it for him in secret.]

Ning Huai led them to his den and gestured with his chin to the others. "You lot, out."

Within the base, his word was law.

Lu Yan sat down across from him. A ceramic cup held boiled water with two jasmine flowers floating in it—a mark of high hospitality here.

"You have five minutes," Ning Huai said, tapping ash from his cigarette. "Convince me. I'm not like the others. When I accepted this mission all those years ago, I knew that once the sea fog rose, no one inside could leave. And no one from the outside could get in. There was never any 'outside rescue' to wait for."

In the base's early days, the official line had been about uniting their strength and awaiting rescue. It was a lie, a fragile thread of hope to cling to in the desolate apocalypse.

Every human in the Divine Kingdom was a pawn sacrificed on the board.

One pair of his eyes fixed on Lu Yan. The other two pairs, however, seemed to possess a will of their own, scanning left and right. Ning Huai's field of vision was far broader than any normal human's.

Lu Yan lifted the teacup and took a sip. "I came alone. The reason I could reach the Divine Kingdom is because I found a piece of human parchment."

He produced the parchment stamped with the pork seal and handed it to Ning Huai.

This skin had been instrumental in reaching the kingdom, thoroughly exploited until it was useless.

Decades ago, the Holy One had deemed the human body too cumbersome and shed its own flesh, leaving only a flowering brain behind. It hadn't anticipated that the moment it committed that act of self-destruction, the brain flower's aberration level would skyrocket past 100, transforming it into a pollutant.

The desiccated body was later fashioned into many such pieces of parchment.

It was hard to say whether the pollutant was the original Holy One, or just that brain flower.

Though the parchment in Lu Yan's hand had lost its vitality and the tattoos had vanished, its instinct to seek out the main brain still functioned like a homing beacon within the sea fog.

Ning Huai's expression shifted to one of genuine surprise. "This thing exists outside the island too?"

He explained, "The Holy One can inflate this parchment and hide a secondary brain inside. It's made from the Holy One's pre-pollutant body, so it doesn't register any pollution value. The inflated bodies aren't very sturdy, though, and they don't bleed… We learned that the hard way, after it fooled us over twenty years ago."

Mental-type pollutants were always tricky, full of strange tricks.

One of his blade-like limbs extended, its tip resting lightly on Lu Yan's arm. "May I make a cut?"

[Because humans live here, Ning Huai has cleared the nearby area of pollutants.]

"Go ahead," Lu Yan replied.

The sharp limb drew a fine line across Lu Yan's wrist. Crimson blood welled up.

Once his identity was confirmed, Lu Yan bandaged the small wound.

Ning Huai seemed puzzled. "A cut that small should heal easily."

Awakened ones usually possessed remarkable physical resilience.

Lu Yan didn't want to reveal too much. "One of my aberration directions involves a coagulation disorder."

Ning Huai's eyes lowered slightly. "My apologies."

"Caution is correct," Lu Yan said. "You're responsible for tens of thousands of lives in this base."

Ning Huai's gaze grew distant for a moment. He looked young, but his deep purple eyes held an abyssal depth. "How many years has it been outside?"

"Forty-five."

"What's it like now?"

The questions felt familiar to Lu Yan. Professor Qiao had asked similar things within Tang Xun'an's dream.

Lu Yan gave a brief summary of the outside world. A look of profound relief, fragile and fleeting, passed over Ning Huai's face.

"Good."

That the outside still maintained order… was good. It meant their sacrifice hadn't been entirely in vain.

A cough suddenly wracked Ning Huai's frame, triggered by the smoke. He covered his mouth, his body convulsing with the force of it.

What he coughed up wasn't blood, but clusters of translucent spider eggs. The spiderlings inside showed no signs of life.

Many pollutants, especially insectoid ones, reproduced by creating eggs to spread their corruption. The Ant Queen, the Silkworm Mother—they all followed this pattern.

Ning Huai was indeed close to becoming a full pollutant. A murky aura of decay clung to his brow.

He tossed the eggs into a nearby waste bin with a look of disgust. "I haven't asked yet. Why are you here?"

"Accepted a mission," Lu Yan stated, his tone matter-of-fact. "To kill the Holy One."

He said it with the casualness of someone announcing plans to grab grilled brain skewers after work.

Ning Huai's eyebrows shot up. "You? A B-Class Awakened, with an upper limit of 8000 spiritual power. If that's all, isn't that a bit… reckless?"

The Holy One was among the world's earliest S-Class pollutants. Back then, humanity's strongest fighter, Tang Xun'an, hadn't even broken 7000 spiritual power.

The fact that they'd managed to trap the Holy One on Changjia Island was already a miracle born of desperation.

Moreover, after decades of development, the Divine Kingdom was far more formidable now. It housed over a dozen high-level pollutants alone.

Lu Yan met his gaze squarely. "There's also you."

His chances of taking on the Divine Kingdom alone were practically zero. But the existence of people like Ning Huai turned this impossible task into something with a sliver of hope.

Having survived for years within the kingdom without fully turning, these Awakened had developed a unique immunity to the Holy One's mental assaults.

And if they could locate the main body, those brain flowers themselves possessed little combat power.

"My talents include Mental Remolding," Lu Yan continued. "I can alter a believer's faith, rewrite their memories. Each school has five slots for 'honor students.' My plan is to mentally hypnotize one school, replace the list, and then go to the Divine Kingdom in those students' places to participate in the Hunt."

"The Hunt is an annual frenzy for the pollutants within the kingdom. Almost all pollutants granted secondary brains by the Holy One participate. They also form the core guards of the Central Divine Court."

"I plan to kill those pollutants, then deal with the Holy One's main body."

This was the fastest method Lu Yan could devise. Brainwashing one school's worth of people had to be easier than brainwashing the entire lower strata of the kingdom's devotees.

The kingdom operated on faith and the Holy One's mental control. Damage the main body, and its power—even through divine projection—would be severely weakened.

As for changing the devotees' mindsets, that would likely take years of correction. Most of these devotees hadn't even completed nine years of compulsory education. Re-teaching them to read and learn basic societal norms would be a project in itself.

Ning Huai felt the urge to smoke again, but tobacco here was a luxury. Even he was rationed to one cigarette a day.

"Its brain has no combat power, that's true," Ning Huai said. "The problem is, anyone who gets within a certain range is pulled into its consciousness space. I've never seen anyone resist its mental attacks. Many of my comrades died that way."

It was their tradition.

Medical and scientific capabilities on the island were severely limited. For an Awakened, having their aberration level break past 100 was almost an inevitability.

Of the 21 Awakened who originally stayed, 12 had died fighting pollutants. Four others, sensing their aberration levels climbing too high and their time running out, had chosen to charge the Divine Kingdom alone, hoping to take the Holy One with them.

Of those four, only one had ever made it before the Holy One. That person, too, had eventually fallen to corruption within the endless cycles.

If Lu Yan hadn't come, Ning Huai had planned to walk that same hopeless path himself soon.

Even if it was hopeless, so what?

Even in extinction, they couldn't let these pollutants think humanity was so easily broken.

"I've already experienced the Holy One's mental attack once," Lu Yan said. "I'm confident I can resist it a second time."

"I don't believe you." Ning Huai's reply was absolute.

Everything about Lu Yan defied common sense. Ning Huai couldn't believe anyone in the world could resist the Holy One's mental assault, let alone injure even a faint projection within its consciousness space.

Lu Yan considered for a moment. "I have no proof, it's true."

A slow smile spread across Ning Huai's face. "But whether I believe you or not, I'll go with you. Because in over forty years, this is the closest thing to hope I've seen. I'll also relay the message to the leaders of the other bases. Of the original 21, only five of us remain. Our aberration levels are all high. I imagine they'll be eager to join this operation. We've been training successors in our bases for years, just in case."

Whether they succeeded or not, to die in battle was probably the best end they could hope for.

Lu Yan removed his glove. "To be honest, I also possess a healing-type talent."

A fissure opened in his palm, revealing a row of sharp teeth along the edges and the faint glimmer of a small, golden cross within.

"I can't promise a full recovery. But I can lower your pollution level. Before we enter the Divine Kingdom's territory, I can provide some basic treatment."

You're just hungry, the System commented.

Though he'd eaten a few sea snakes at the bottom of the ocean, the taste had been far from pleasant.

He wished the System would remain silent and not voice such blunt truths.

Ning Huai let out a low whistle of amazement. "Talent 14, Mental Remolding, plus a healing talent. How did headquarters ever let you come here? Aren't they afraid you'll die?"

Lu Yan's gaze swept over him.

"Ning Huai, possessor of Talent 8 – Fission. Ranked several places higher than mine. Didn't headquarters let you in?"

[Talent 8 – Fission] functioned almost like cloning. The fissioned bodies possessed no independent thought, retained eighty percent of the original's combat strength, shared its pollution level, and could fission further.

If Ning Huai willed it, one man could become an army.

However, with each successive fission, the copies grew progressively weaker. Against pollutants, they were largely useless.

After combat, these fissioned bodies were actively reabsorbed by the original. The main body would then enter a period of severe weakness.

Ning Huai considered this and conceded the point.

He extended a hand, accepting Lu Yan's offer of treatment.

The pollution source within Ning Huai tasted like plum wine, heady and intoxicating.

Lu Yan placed his signal-dead phone nearby, using it as a makeshift monitor.

As the treatment progressed, Ning Huai's pollution level strained downward, dropping from 94.7 to 86.5.

Treating Ning Huai caused Lu Yan's own pollution level to rise by 0.7.

With a spiritual power threshold of 7500, Lu Yan was now a fully-fledged Awakened healer. The increases to his pollution level had stabilized.

He took a special anti-pollutant pill from his pocket and swallowed it, offering two to Ning Huai as well.

Before this mission, Tang Xian'an had stuffed several bottles of the pills into his pockets.

A single pill could start a bloody fight among ordinary Awakened outside, but Lu Yan had more than he could ever use.

Logically, dropping below 90 should have caused some visible change in Ning Huai's appearance.

Lu Yan studied him for a long moment but detected no difference.

Don't bother, the System chimed in. His office has no spare pants. He's not going to retract his legs.

"..."

My mistake.