Chapter 109

Chapter 109

The people at the base had pants ready for Ning Huai by the next day.

He put them on.

He still refused to wear a shirt, however, relying on the natural chitinous plates covering his torso—a blatant disregard for proper masculine virtue. Since there were minors in the base, he eventually relented and covered up. The three pairs of eyes on his face, though, remained impossible to hide.

That same morning, Lu Yan met the remaining members of the vanguard team from the original Divine Kingdom operation decades ago.

That operation had gathered some of the world's finest Awakeners.

Following a voluntary principle and a lottery, headquarters had selected twenty-one individuals as the vanguard to infiltrate the Divine Kingdom.

Now, over forty years later, only five members remained, including Ning Huai.

Being Awakeners with considerable spiritual power thresholds, most of the five were preserved in their physical prime, appearing outwardly young, though a deep weariness was etched into their expressions.

Ning Huai had already relayed the full account via his earlier transmission.

Since joining the Special Operations Department, Lu Yan had attended many meetings. This was probably the most rudimentary venue yet. Dust motes danced in the air of the small, earthen-walled room. Daylight streamed through a high window, falling upon the central round table.

It was hard to believe that a place this simple would host a discussion deciding the future of every human on Changjia Island.

"If this were twenty years earlier," one Awakened rumbled, his voice like grinding stone, "I'd be the first to volunteer, no questions asked. But now… I can't bring myself to gamble on a newcomer. He has no idea what the Divine Kingdom is truly like."

His body resembled a mass of giant boulders, moss visible in the crevices between stones.

Lu Yan matched him to the list from the vanguard files.

Boulder. Formerly a B-Class Awakener from Zone 6.

"If we die," Boulder continued, "the pollutants in the Divine Kingdom will have nothing left to fear. They'll hunt the surviving humans without restraint. I've given up on saving the Devotees—that's an impossible task. My daughter is only seventeen. If I die, what will become of her?"

Another Awakened spoke slowly. "Assassinating the Holy One… Have you forgotten how 'Azure Bird' died?"

A heavy silence descended upon the room.

[Azure Bird. A-Class. A rare dual-type Awakener, proficient in both psychic and combat disciplines. Talents: Natural Manipulation, Dreamwalking. Mutation direction: Avian. During the internal strife within the Divine Kingdom, Azure Bird attempted to assassinate the Holy One. He never returned.]

[Before Ning Huai took over, Azure Bird was the commander of Skyreach Base and the captain of the vanguard team.]

Lu Yan had wondered why Ning Huai, a giant spider, would name the base "Skyreach."

It turned out the name was Azure Bird's legacy.

In fairy tales, the azure bird was a symbol of freedom—a creature that brought hope and granted wishes.

"I won't join this operation," the second Awakener said. "Purely because I believe it's a meaningless sacrifice. With all due respect, after decades without rescue, the outside world has surely abandoned Changjia."

Boulder couldn't hold back a cold snort.

By protocol, Lu Yan shouldn't interject in their meeting. But he remembered the notice on the Awakener forum, the "Divine Kingdom Operation" perpetually pinned to the top of the mission board. He found himself speaking, his tone calm yet carrying a strange, compelling weight.

"They haven't. The outside world never abandoned this place. If they had, Changjia would have been scoured from the map with nuclear fire the moment the sea fog blockade went up."

Boulder's stony frame shuddered. He clenched a fist and slowly bowed his head.

Lu Yan wouldn't blame those who wanted to quit. Placing trust in a stranger here required immense courage.

The Divine Kingdom was true apocalypse. Those struggling within it could no longer see hope. They were no longer the passionate youths of decades past.

More importantly, Lu Yan was confident. Even if only Ning Huai joined him, they could resolve this.

"I came to Skyreach Base seeking allies," Lu Yan stated. "But I'm not here to force anyone. Whether you participate or not, I will proceed with the plan as intended."

He didn't have time to waste in the Divine Kingdom. The countdown to Tang Xun'an's death pressed on him, a weight stealing his breath.

Sometimes, Lu Yan felt his attachment to Tang Xun'an wasn't that profound.

As the system would say, the world was full of Awakeners with tails. Some were big and soft, others round and stubby. Weren't they all more pleasant to touch than a cold, scaly dragon's tail?

But he refused to accept the outcome. Lu Yan hated all uncontrollable variables.

He could choose to let go.

But fate could not take Tang Xun'an from him.

After speaking, Lu Yan left the meeting room for some air.

The base was built into the mountains, but from the peak, he could see the ocean in the distance, shrouded in endless white sea fog.

The Devotees of the Divine Kingdom probably never knew what lay beyond that sea.

Ignorance wasn't always painful.

But for those who knew, it only deepened the sorrow.

A white seabird took flight from the shore. Lu Yan said to the system, "I want this fog to vanish forever."

To ensure the floating Divine Kingdom in the sky would no longer cast its shadow over humanity.

[You're starting to sound like a savior. Don't go learning from Tang Xun'an. If your life gets too hard, it'll break my heart.]

Lu Yan thought for a moment. "For the first twenty-some years of my life, aside from wanting to kill Lu Cheng, I had almost no goals. Then I heard Lu Cheng was dead. My purpose vanished, and I just drifted."

"Later, I learned Lu Cheng wasn't dead, just transformed into a pollutant. My goal became killing him again. Now… it seems different."

Different, meaning even if Lu Cheng died, he now had new reasons to keep living.

Lu Yan had always found everything easy.

He'd once read a theory that humans carry different innate talents in their genes—for singing, painting, writing. Some talents lie dormant; others are born in the wrong era.

But Lu Yan had never felt challenged in any field. In elementary school, he was picked for the choir. Without any training, his first note made him the lead singer, and they later won a national gold medal. In middle school, he joined a basketball tournament, listened to the rules minutes before the game, and played so well the older students on the opposing team trembled at the sight of him.

The entire world seemed to lay its doors open before him, awaiting his whim. It was only a matter of whether Lu Yan wanted to or not.

He cared about nothing, not even his own life. So his emotions remained flat—rarely feeling genuine joy, never trembling with fear.

In the past, Lu Yan didn't like this world, though he couldn't say he hated it either.

But having someone he cared for had made him feel a faint attachment to it all.

The system stayed silent for a long time. Just as Lu Yan grew tired of the seascape, it spoke, its tone warm with approval. [As long as you're happy.]

*

Having left midway, Lu Yan didn't witness the rest of the meeting.

In the end, two individuals chose to believe Ning Huai and join the Divine Kingdom operation.

Unsurprisingly, both were Awakeners with high mutation levels, who felt their time was running out. The remaining Awakeners would wait quietly for the outcome of this final gamble. Victory meant celebration; defeat meant struggling on, surviving as best they could in the Divine Kingdom.

Ning Huai didn't reveal his true plan, simply telling the others in the base he was heading out on a mission.

As the departure time neared, he uncharacteristically refrained from bustling about like a mother hen. Instead, he went to the hills behind the base.

He had lived over a century, most of it spent on this foreign island.

He had walked every inch of this base's land with his own two feet.

Ning Huai finally stopped before a cluster of roses.

Conditions were crude; there were no proper tombstones here. They had planted a few stubborn roses instead.

Fortunately, thanks to mutation, these wild roses were tenacious. Over a dozen years, they had blossomed into a dense sea of flowers.

He sat at the edge of the blooms and lit a cigarette. "I'm going to avenge you. A new Awakener from outside arrived in the Divine Kingdom recently. His ID says he's only twenty-seven. Very young. Told me he has a way to kill the Holy One. I know I'm gambling. But I don't seem to have any other choice."

The past, the history belonging to humanity, had been erased. The Devotees lived in peaceful, tranquil harmony on this land steeped in faith.

They believed souls ascended to a Pure Land after death, guided by the Holy One to be reborn anew; even death in the maw of a pollutant was a divine blessing.

The base had once tried to rescue humans being tamed by pollutants, but the Devotees saw them as heretics, even secretly passing information to the Divine Race to curry favor.

Decades of battling pollutants hadn't worn Ning Huai down.

But in that moment, he had felt a soul-deep exhaustion.

"Only ten years have passed since you died. These ten years have made me want to die of weariness." Ning Huai narrowed his eyes slightly, picturing the man whose face had grown hazy in his memory. "How did you endure for over thirty years before that, Azure Bird?"

The side effect of overusing his talent was forgetfulness.

Lu Yan arrived on a motorcycle but left in an off-road vehicle.

His traveling companions were all his Seniors from the Special Operations Department.

One drove, another rode shotgun, and a third, whose massive frame couldn't fit inside, perched on the roof.

The journey was filled with their eager, rapid-fire questions.

Tired of repeating himself, Lu Yan simply demonstrated his Psychic Sculpting ability, downloading a compressed data packet about the outside world directly into their minds.

The flood of information hit them instantly.

The Senior codenamed "Tiger" stared, dumbfounded. "That ability is way too convenient! If I'd met you folks earlier, I wouldn't have had to take the College English Test four times!"

Another, codenamed "White Wolf," was more shocked by the content. "All these years... and the Tyrant is still alive?!"

Lu Yan couldn't help but glance over.

Tiger offered a sheepish grin. "Sorry, kid. We were from the Second Team back in the day. We didn't exactly get along with the First Team. That Tang guy went too hard on missions. Pissed our team leader off."

In the memories Lu Yan had shared, the leader of the Second Team was now Bai Qiushi—a name utterly foreign to them.

"It's not that I have a problem with him personally," White Wolf explained. "It's just... his lesion rate was already sky-high over forty years ago. Most people's abilities Awaken naturally. His combat talents were transplanted. The corruption started at a dangerous level from the very beginning."

Tiger shrugged. "Gotta respect the results, though. The man solved a ton of Pollution Disease cases way above his pay grade. He was the one who ended the Calamity, too..."

"But the Divine Kingdom operation? No." White Wolf's tone was matter-of-fact. "His mental state was unstable. Word was, it was a side effect of traveling to the future and altering key points too many times. He lost half his 'Time' ability in the process... Became a real gloomy bastard. Frequent psychotic breaks."

"Heard a rumor about that," Ning Huai chimed in from the driver's seat, perking up at the gossip. "They say he fell in love with someone. In the future."

Lu Yan couldn't stop himself. "Who?"

"I carried him out of the Calamity's zone once. He was babbling about it."

Ning Huai thought for a moment, then said slowly, "Sounded like... 'Yan Yan'? That was the sound, anyway. Probably a sweet girl."

The system piped up immediately. [Yan Yan. Yan-Yan. Yanyan.]

Lu Yan, sitting in the back seat, slowly lowered the knife he had begun to raise.