Chapter 148

Chapter 148

Tang Xian’an found Shen Qingyang’s accusation utterly unreasonable.

He wouldn’t just die for Lu Yan—he’d chop himself into mincemeat for the man’s dinner if needed. Though, having lived over a century, his meat was probably tough and stringy. He wasn’t sure Lu Yan would like the taste.

But arguing about it now was pointless. Especially with Shen Qingyang looking about as stable as a house of cards in a hurricane.

Tang Xian’an didn’t lower his blade. His voice was gravel. “Step aside.”

Shen Qingyang’s gaze frosted over. “Killing you works too.”

A slow, dangerous smile touched Tang Xian’an’s lips. “Try it, loser.”

Then he looked down and pressed a firm kiss to Lu Yan’s unconscious cheek.

They were agonizingly close to their destination.

That did it. Shen Qingyang’s tentacles literally quivered with rage, tips splitting open into snapping, toothy maws.

The golden arc of Huangchen became a blur, a whirlwind of steel that severed dozens of writhing appendages in the space of a breath. Chunks of flesh and sprays of deep blue blood filled the air.

Shen Qingyang didn’t care about the losses. With enough tentacles, one was bound to slip through and snatch Lu Yan away.

The relentless assault was a problem. The ambient pollution here in Laleye was a constant, gnawing pressure. High-intensity combat was pushing Tang Xian’an’s own aberration index steadily higher. If not for the preemptive pollution source surgery, he’d have succumbed before Lu Yan did.

The violent motion jostled Lu Yan in his arms, drawing a faint, pained whimper.

Time to end this.

Dragon wings erupted from his back in a shower of golden light. Huangchen wove a lethal dance, carving a path through the forest of flesh. Within the nest of thrashing tendrils, he found the core—Shen Qingyang himself.

The pommel of his blade cracked against Shen Qingyang’s jaw. A reverse flick of the wrist laid open his throat.

“All power, no skill. Looks like no one ever taught you how to fight.”

Shen Qingyang crashed to the ground, skidding to a halt against a stone pillar in a cloud of dust. Blue blood pooled around him. Gurgling, he clutched his throat, but the tentacles sprouting from his back multiplied again, lashing out as if he felt no pain.

With his innate gift, Life Drain, he was desperate to sink his hooks into Tang Xian’an and tear away flesh and vitality.

Tentacles burst not just from his back, but now from his mouth, his eyes. He was a bleeding, terrifying spectacle.

“You’re right… no one taught me,” he rasped, the sound like a broken bellows. “My mother abandoned me at birth. My father was a rapist. I don’t blame her. I was found in a dumpster. Raised like an animal.”

“I am the trash at the bottom of the world.” He pushed himself up on shaking arms. “Only Lu Yan… never looked at me with disgust.”

If I had never seen the sun, I could have endured the darkness.

“You want to save him?!” Shen Qingyang’s voice was a raw, tearing scream. “So do I! Give him to me! He’s dying!”

A black tentacle wormed its way from his one remaining eye. Tendrils sprouted from every orifice. The grievous wounds broke his control; the human facade melted away.

What remained was a monster. A puddle of shifting black sludge studded with writhing tentacles. Dozens of deep blue eyes dotted its form, each reflecting a different madness—some wept with profound sorrow, others burned with naked hate and envy, a few stared with chilling detachment.

Tang Xian’an slowly lowered his blade. After a heavy silence, he asked, “How?”

The thing that spoke no longer sounded like Shen Qingyang. “We are both… vessels. For the ancient god the Deep Sea Society worships. We each hold… a part of it.”

“The difference is, Lu Yan was chosen as a vessel from birth. I was selected… after my aberration.”

“He is the vessel for the spirit. I am the vessel for the flesh. The old god will descend into him. Then it will consume me… to complete its final, perfect evolution.”

The black mass spat a clot of blood. “Let Lu Yan consume me before he loses himself. Let the new god replace the old, before the descent. Gift 17, Life Drain… it can give as well as take. I told you… I would prove I’m the one most suited for him.”

The creature struggled, its upper half reshaping into a crude human form.

Shen Qingyang raised a trembling tentacle, pressing it against his own thin chest, over the heart. A low, choked laugh escaped him. “I am the perfect vessel. I can save him. Can you?”

The tentacle plunged into the gaping wound at his throat.

With a sickening, wet sound, a violently pulsating blue heart was dragged out into the open air, cradled in the slick appendage.

“I’m dying.” His voice was finally calm, punctuated by ragged gasps. He bowed his head. “Please… give him to me.”

Looking at the monstrosity before him, only two words flashed through Tang Xian’an’s mind.

Absolute lunatic.

***

Lu Yan’s eyes fluttered open.

A sliver of consciousness returned, but his mind felt thick and slow, burning with feverish confusion.

It took a long moment to remember where he was.

Laleye. With Tang Xian’an.

Yet the face hovering above him was Shen Qingyang’s.

Shen Qingyang looked gaunt, features stretched and hollow.

“Doctor.” Shen Qingyang held his hand, face pale as ash.

Lu Yan tried to pull away, but realized it wasn’t Shen Qingyang holding him. From the split in his own left palm, countless thin, white filaments had emerged, piercing Shen Qingyang’s skin like IV lines.

The memory surfaced through the haze. K City. The Prevention Center. Shen Qingyang in a cage. White threads from his palm, connecting them.

Back then, it was to heal.

Now…

A deep, gnawing thirst. A ravenous hunger.

He understood with chilling clarity. He was using Gift 21, Devour. After the symbiotic King Fish within him died, the gift had passed to his control.

He tried to speak. His throat was raw fire.

Shen Qingyang’s finger gently touched his lips. “Anything you say now may become real, Doctor. But it will also consume you. Don’t speak.”

Lu Yan was paralyzed. He strained to move his gaze, searching for Tang Xian’an.

All he saw was a faint, white dome of light enclosing their small space.

Beyond it came the relentless shrieks and howls of monsters.

Gift 6, Omniscience, activated.

Tang Xian’an was outside the light.

The blade in his hand, Huangchen, was chipped and dull. The deep-sea pollutants attacked without end. At his feet lay shattered golden scales. The hand gripping the sword was fully draconic, flesh torn and bloody. The scent of his golden blood mixed with the multicolored gore of his foes—a strangely enticing perfume.

The city around them had sunk into a massive crater, on the verge of being pounded into the abyss.

Killing Tang Xian’an wasn’t the goal.

Their target was Lu Yan, protected within the light.

As fully-evolved pollutants, they possessed a silent, cunning intelligence. Many of their kind already littered the ground, felled by this man’s blade.

He looked moments from death, yet he kept rising, a tenacity that bred primal fear.

At the entrance, the Captain of the Noah watched with keen interest, but dared not take a single step forward. The entire city was shrouded in a dense, black mist whose mere proximity sparked heart-pounding terror.

Lu Yan saw more.

Outside, the moon had quietly stained itself blood-red.

At Prevention Center headquarters, panic reigned. Reports flooded in from worldwide monitoring stations: “The pollution epicenter is at sea!”

“The Tyrant—we’ve lost contact! His line is dead!”

“Last confirmed location for the Tyrant and Di Ting is near the epicenter!”

On the satellite map, the ocean swirled with a massive, vortex-like black hole. It churned slowly, spewing dark vapor—the precursor to a leviathan’s awakening.

“Find Alpha! Get Alpha!” the Director roared. “The sea is too far! Stabilize the cities first! Latent S-Class pollutants are emerging!”

With Tang Xian’an absent, Ning Huai was now the highest-ranking combatant.

Humans only detected a spike in pollution values.

But for every mutant on land, sea, and air, it was a deep, instinctual terror. A suppression written in their very blood, the prey’s primal fear of the ultimate predator.

Lu Yan saw—

Coastal pollutants fleeing onto land in mindless panic. Land-based mutants scrambling into mountains or burrowing underground. Floating sky-islands racing desperately for the poles.

“Doctor Lu.”

Shen Qingyang’s gentle voice pulled Lu Yan back.

His gaze finally focused on the face before him.

Shen Qingyang's lips were still curved in that faint, terrible smile. Thick, blue tears—or was it blood?—streamed from his eyes, tracing paths down his hollow cheeks.

"You're so tired," he whispered, his voice a frayed thread of sound. "Rest now. When you wake, everything will be better. You were always smarter than me… you'll know what to do. This… this is all I can give."

"Will you remember me, Lu Yan?"

A profound, inescapable weariness washed over Lu Yan, pulling him down into the dark.

He was so tired.

……

……

Laleye.

The colossal white moon took a step forward.

The movement seemed ponderous, slow. Yet in the space between one heartbeat and the next, it stood before Tang Xian’an.

"I have come," it spoke, its voice slow, gentle, like a mother's lullaby, "for my child. It is nearly time for its birth, is it not?"

As Jiang Yue began to move, the gathered pollutants parted like a foul sea, clearing a path.

With each earth-shaking step of the behemoth, the ground trembled.

The detection unit on Tang Xian’an’s person had an upper limit of 15,000 on its pollution index.

Long before Jiang Yue drew near, the needle on the gauge had already slammed against that peak.

"Tang Xian’an." Shen Qingyang’s voice was a strained thread in his mind. "There isn't enough time. We need a little more."

Tang Xian’an possessed an incomplete form of time. He could push it forward, but never pull it back.

He had never tried to stop it.

Accelerating time for an object was like draining a few batteries. Halting time across an entire area? That required the output of a nuclear power plant.

There was no power plant here. Only him.

His golden eyes ignited like twin suns. "Understood."