Chapter 150

Lu Yan withdrew his fingers from the other’s grasp.

He took a step back, his gaze dropping instinctively to his own palm.

The King Fish had been unconscious for a long time, but in life, it had always been gentle and obedient.

Had his brother not admitted it himself, Lu Yan would have found it hard to believe it would consume its master at the final moment of its evolution.

Yet, considering the system’s repeated warnings, it wasn’t so difficult to understand after all.

His expression gradually settled into calm. “Why did you call me here?”

His brother tilted his head slightly, his eyes a deep, unfathomable crimson. “It wasn’t me calling you, brother. With Shen Qingyang… only one last piece remains before you can return to your place.”

“Perhaps it’s time you learned the truth.”

He snapped his fingers.

All of R’lyeh seemed to hit rewind. Time and space flowed in a bizarre reversal.

Before them, the corpse of the great dragon repaired itself from ruin to wholeness, until, at a certain point, it vanished entirely.

In the distance, the sound of a steamship’s horn echoed, as if they had arrived at a dock.

The figure before Lu Yan extended a hand, his tone gentle. “Take my hand, brother.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Lu Yan grasped his brother’s palm.

“This is twenty-eight years ago. Where it all began.”

The sea’s gentle surge carried them both to the city’s entrance.

Lu Yan saw a whaling ship—the very Noah captained by the Octopus Captain.

Now, that same vessel lay anchored at the edge of R’lyeh.

“We’re here, we’re here!” At the bow, a young Lu Cheng trembled with excitement. “My foresight was correct. This is the place, this is it!”

Luo Yi, not yet transformed into an octopus, produced a waterproof camera. “We’ve finally reached R’lyeh. Let’s take a group photo, everyone. Boss!”

A merchant, belly round and full, waddled cheerfully from the cabin. “The Oceanic Shipping Group invested tens of billions. Finally, we see some results.”

He was Andrew, master of the Crowman Manor and Luo Yi’s employer.

For the photo, over a hundred people filed out of the cabin, arranging themselves in rows before the Noah, faces bright with smiles.

Luo Yi was about to press the shutter when he noticed one person missing from the frame.

His gaze shifted to a figure nearby, shrouded completely in a black robe.

“President,” Luo Yi called out. “Aren’t you joining us?”

A woman’s voice replied, “I dislike being recorded.”

She was the President of the Deep Sea Society—a woman whose age was anyone’s guess.

And that voice was achingly familiar to Lu Yan.

It was his mother, Jiang Yue.

In Lu Yan’s memory, she was a petite, gentle, long-suffering woman who later took her own life, unable to endure Lu Cheng’s abuse.

Here, however, the attitude of those around her was one of deep respect, bordering on awe.

“Confusing, isn’t it?” His brother’s voice came from behind. “It’s simple. Know Plato’s ‘Allegory of the Cave’? The world is a vast cage. Everything you know of reality comes from shadows cast by firelight upon a wall. What you saw… was merely what they wished you to see.”

Luo Yi pressed the shutter, capturing the gathered followers of the Deep Sea Society.

This was the origin of the photograph Lu Yan had found behind the oil painting at Crowman Manor.

Before them, the city of stone pillars stood solemn and imposing. Lu Cheng licked his lips. “Let’s go in.”

The group of over a hundred, armed with an assortment of weapons, crept cautiously into the city.

They dared not speak, eyes wide with awe at the immense, staggering marvel.

The city held no dwellings, only towering stone pillars reaching for the sky. Exquisitely carved reliefs adorned each pillar, beautiful in a profoundly unsettling way. They stood in dense, orderly rows, a city that seemed born from geometric paradox.

And now, each pillar was connected by a thick, white umbilical cord.

All cords led in the same direction—toward the very heart of the city.

Lu Cheng’s expression turned fanatical. He spread his arms, breathing in the free sea air, trembling with excitement. “This is R’lyeh… the place that nurtures god! We’ve arrived before the god’s descent! It’s like the dream. We can obtain the god’s embryos…”

Without intervention, these embryos would mature, then drift with ocean currents to every corner of the world. Eventually, they would grow into powerful pollutants.

A light shone in Lu Cheng’s eyes. “God truly exists! Assemble the embryos, and you have the complete deity!”

The merchant narrowed his eyes slightly, toying with a metal sphere in his hand. “I’ll take one embryo. Jennifer and I are most eager for a child.”

Behind him, other voices rose, one after another. “I’ll have one as well.”

“And I. We paid such a price to reach this place. We cannot leave empty-handed.”

The upper echelons of the Deep Sea Society revealed their cold, greedy natures.

They had spent untold time and fortune seeking R’lyeh. Charity was never the goal.

Lu Cheng stared in disbelief. He couldn’t fathom such human arrogance—the belief they could control a deity. A flicker of anger crossed his face. “This is the city of god! Such words… beware the karma of your speech!”

The President cleared her throat softly. “Lu Cheng, lead the way. We worship the Ancient God. We believe It is the origin of all, the source of power. Bringing the god back into the world is our ultimate purpose.”

This Lu Cheng was still young. His agitation slowly subsided.

He walked ahead, flashlight held high, moving forward in silence.

As the group pressed deeper, subtle aberrations began to appear on the followers’ faces.

Their features slowly shifted toward those of fish-men. Yet no one seemed to notice, continuing their quiet advance. Or perhaps, if anyone did notice, they chose not to speak.

These ordinary followers were, from the beginning, sacrifices offered by the Deep Sea Society to the god.

After an unknowable length of time, Lu Cheng finally halted.

He looked up at a massive, suspended tumor of flesh.

The crimson sphere dripped with blood, emitting a peculiar, fishy odor. Its surface seemed alive, blistering with small sacs. From time to time, fish eggs burst from these sacs. The transparent eggs did not hatch; they were simply carried away by currents to every shore.

Nor did these eggs contain life. What emerged from within were wisps of black mist.

They were the world’s original pollution sources.

For over a century, the ocean had been quietly warping.

Countless umbilical cords fed nutrients into the fleshy mass. It pulsed with a slow, rhythmic breath, like a slumbering beast.

Everyone present heard the tumor’s deep, resonant breathing.

Jiang Yue whispered, “What now?”

Lu Cheng’s face was blank. “I don’t know. I only saw this moment in a dream.”

A foreign mercenary spoke up first. “Aren’t the embryos supposed to be inside? Cut the damn thing down. It can’t eat us, can it?”

“Don’t be reckless.”

“Got a better idea? We just stand here and wait?”

Different factions argued fiercely. They were like beggars who’d found a gold mountain but had no tools to mine it, pacing in restless anxiety.

On land, they hadn’t been so impatient.

But proximity to the pollution source magnified the worst parts of their personalities.

In the midst of the argument, someone’s finger slipped, squeezing a trigger.

A bullet struck a relief on a stone pillar.

In that instant, everyone froze, as if time had stopped.

The moss-covered ground trembled faintly.

The slumbering city seemed to awaken all at once.

The instrument in Jiang Yue’s hand shrieked an alarm. Her face paled. “Retreat!”

The warning came too late.

The white umbilical cords shot toward the crowd like sharks scenting blood. Ordinary humans were powerless against them, swiftly wrapped and crushed into pulp, then absorbed as nutrients into the fleshy tumor.

At the same time, torrents of seawater erupted from the moss, quickly rising past their calves.

The crowd scattered in the surging flow. Jiang Yue seized Lu Cheng’s wrist. “Come with me! We take an embryo now!”

With that, wings unfurled from her back, carrying them both into the air.

Chaos erupted. Many followers, overwhelmed by the sudden spike in pollution, mutated directly into pollutants.

They had believed themselves perfectly prepared. Faced with absolute power, they finally understood their own fragility.

Jiang Yue carried Lu Cheng to the surface of the tumor. It throbbed like a colossal, beating heart.

Her gaze turned icy. Drawing the blade at her waist, she drove it deep into the fleshy sphere.

Her face went deathly pale. Her entire body shook, drenched in cold sweat, as if confronting some immense terror.

Yet her hand remained steady.

The sphere split open along a massive seam. Lu Cheng gritted his teeth. “I’ll go in and find it!”

Jiang Yue turned, screaming to the others, “Any with gifts, stop hiding them! Do you want to die here?!”

Luo Yi chuckled darkly, his body distorting as octopus tentacles sprouted, tangling with the oncoming umbilical cords. The remaining Awakened drew their weapons.

The seawater continued to rise, Jiang Yue's voice growing more urgent. "Lu Cheng! Are you done? We're out of time!"

From within the pulsing mass, Lu Cheng's voice came, strained. "I can't find the embryo, I..."

He emerged, covered in gore, his face a mask of stunned disbelief. "I only found this."

In his hands, he held a crimson fetus.

Its features were indistinct, blurred, with no eyes yet formed. It looked like a premature infant, perhaps six months along. At the base of its spine, a small, vestigial tail remained.

Most critically, it did not breathe. It was a stillborn, malformed thing.

Beneath its thin, translucent skin, one could see the incomplete tangle of its organs and bones.

And within its stomach, like a clutch of strange pearls, were seven small, spherical eggs.

Lu Yan's hand rose unconsciously to his own abdomen, to the place just below his stomach. To the scar that felt like it had been carved there by a butcher's knife.

A lifetime of abuse, of being Lu Cheng's living patchwork doll, had inured him to the map of scars across his skin. Most had faded with his regenerative gift, vanishing without a trace.

All except one. A faint, persistent line just above his navel.

His brother's hand settled on his shoulder, lips brushing his ear with a whisper. "This is the truth you wanted. We were taken from your stomach, each grown into a separate being. And you... you are the source of it all."

His voice was a soft, insidious current.

"Are you satisfied with this truth?"

"Brother."