Chapter 8

Chapter 008

Lu Yan couldn't remember the last time he'd been chased like this.

Probably back in school, during a track meet. He'd been fast, healthy, always leaving seven or eight classmates in his dust.

He never thought he'd feel that same frantic, heart-pounding sensation again years later.

A quick scan showed pollutants converging from every direction. No safe zone in sight.

Screw it. He picked the most direct route to his destination and ran.

You are not a pollutant, but you coexist with the King Fish. Therefore, your blood holds immense attraction for things formed by these parasitic fish infections.

No kidding.

Aberrations swarmed toward him. Their numbers weren't overwhelming yet, but their grotesque, twisted forms were enough to turn anyone's stomach.

Adrenaline spiked through Lu Yan's veins. "Shouldn't you have mentioned this earlier?"

The system's retort was firm. How is that my fault? If your spiritual power threshold wasn't so pathetically low, I wouldn't be operating like an amnesiac! Turn left. There's an SUV. Keys are inside. Also, I suggest you take off your clothes.

The slime from the fish-man's tentacles kept the wound on his arm weeping. Fresh, dark blood had soaked through a large patch of his sleeve.

That heavy scent of blood would draw the aberrations like a beacon.

The left turn revealed the SUV—and several particularly frenzied mutants.

A frog-man launched itself through the air, aiming to tackle him. Lu Yan's kick sent it skidding three meters back.

He punched through the driver's side window, slid inside, and turned the key—ignition, gas pedal, all in one fluid motion. "Won't this, you know, damage public property?"

It won't, oh Bodhisattva of a man. Now strip.

"..."

Lu Yan had been a law-abiding citizen for over two decades. The fear of ending up in a police station made him compromise. He didn't take off the shirt. He just ripped the blood-soaked section of fabric free and flung it out the window.

If the bleeding didn't stop, he could rip off more. Much more economical than tossing the whole shirt.

Behind the vehicle, a crowd of bizarre-looking pollutants descended into a brawl over the bloody rag, piling on top of each other in a frenzy that resembled some deranged fan meet-and-greet.

Finally, a three-meter-tall fish-headed brute triumphed over the weaker frog-men, gulped down the bloody fabric, and resumed its pursuit, nose to the wind.

The SUV's tires screeched as Lu Yan swerved, barely avoiding a frog-man hurling itself at the windshield.

He lived downtown, where traffic was a nightmare. He preferred walking to work, so after getting his license, he'd barely driven.

He never imagined his return to the wheel would be a high-stakes chase scene. At least the streets were empty.

Thud. Thud. Screeeech. Pollutants slammed against the vehicle's sides. Nails—or something like them—scraped across the roof, throwing sparks.

After shaking off the lower-tier threats, the main pursuers became clear.

Two fish-men. Three frog-men. All significantly larger than their normal counterparts.

They have reached E-Class pollutant standards. Possess low-level intelligence.

A nauseating stench of fish and rot filled the cab.

The 7L engine roared at its limit, but it only gave him a slight edge over the chasing pack.

Aberrations with a hint of intelligence were different. They'd learned to spew viscous stomach acid at the tires. The rubber sizzled and smoked under the assault.

Feels like an eternity, doesn't it? Hard to believe only six minutes have passed. Good news: The Pollution Disease Control Center has noticed the anomaly. Reinforcements are imminent.

The road ahead was a blur. The SUV plowed through one pollutant after another. The endless tide of mutants converging made his scalp prickle.

His ears were filled with their guttural roars.

But Lu Yan knew panic was a death sentence. Every move was measured, precise.

The sound of crashing waves echoed in his mind again, soon drowned out by the thunderous whump-whump-whump of helicopter blades.

A row of blinding searchlights speared the ground, drawing some of the heat.

Squinting through his scope, Lin Sinan squeezed the trigger. The frog-man halfway through leaping onto Lu Yan's vehicle jerked and fell, its disgusting tongue lolling. "Target located. Lin-One, Lin-Two, rappel down for cover and extraction. Medical team on standby." Finding the target didn't ease the tension. He took two more shots as he spoke. "Mission priority is highest."

With suppressing fire from above, Lu Yan's desperate situation finally eased.

He seized the chance, shoved the door open, and bailed from the leaking SUV. Scrambling onto the roof, he waited for the helicopter's rescue.

The rescue ladder was almost within reach when an excited shout pierced the chaos right beside his ear.

—"I'm here, I'm here! Where's the healer?"

Almost before the words finished, a pair of arms scooped him up around the waist.

The speed was blinding, like a sudden gust of wind.

From the helicopter, Lin Sinan's furious roar echoed. "Bai Qiushi! You goddamn lunatic!!"

In the span of a few breaths, before Lu Yan could even process it, Bai Qiushi's feet touched down on the rooftop of a department store.

The pollutants below lost their target, erupting in furious bellows. They mobbed the building's base, a seething mass. The fish-men raged impotently against the sealed doors while the frog-men began their slow, deliberate climb up the walls.

Bai Qiushi glanced down at Lu Yan in his arms and grinned. "Well, aren't you a pretty one."

His appearance was striking. Most arresting were his silver eyes, within which four pupils continuously rotated—a sight both eerie and mesmerizing.

Lu Yan said, "Thanks. Can you put me down now?"

"Nope. I'm here to protect you." Bai Qiushi's tone was cheerful but firm. "It's still not safe."

Still holding Lu Yan with one arm, he turned a cold gaze to the swarming mass below and uttered four distinct words: "Unmoving. As. A. Mountain."

[Talent - Heavy Pressure]

This talent wasn't highly ranked on the registry. But paired with Bai Qiushi's spiritual power threshold nearing 9000, it became a scythe of death against these low-level pollutants.

Below, the densely packed crowd seemed to be struck by an invisible, colossal weight.

Regardless of size or type, every pollutant was instantly flattened into pulp. Blood sprayed. None were spared.

Bai Qiushi set Lu Yan down gently. "So? Pretty cool, right? Oh, I'm Bai Qiushi, by the way."

He flashed a smile that could almost be called harmless.

If not for the pair of razor-sharp fangs it revealed, which looked every bit as dangerous as any pollutant's.

In Lu Yan's mind, the system provided a more detailed readout.

[Bai Qiushi. Height 172 cm, hence the 6 cm lifts in his boots... Ah, irrelevant.]

[Spiritual Power Threshold: 8700. Pathological Progression: 42%.]

[Confirmed Talents: Barrier, Teleportation, Heavy Pressure.]

Lu Yan shook his offered hand briefly. "Lu Yan."

*

K City, Pollution Disease Control Center.

On the second day of the outbreak, Lu Yan had considered calling this very place. The system had stopped him. Now, after twenty stumbling, desperate days, he was here by their invitation.

The Center had provided him a small private room to clean up.

[Hm. Good news: While you haven't awakened a second talent, they've mistaken you for a healing-type Awakener. Their data on healers is limited—too few cases.]

Lu Yan stood under the shower.

With the water mains dead, his shower was filtered rainwater, boiled and stored. It felt like an unbelievable luxury.

He asked mentally, "You always warned me against contacting the Control Center. You're deeply wary of the Research Institute. Why?"

He wasn't worried about surveillance here. His conversations with the system were entirely internal.

The system was silent for a moment. [An Awakener is not limited to one innate talent. Beyond what awakens within, more can be... acquired from external sources.]

[For the future of humanity, they perform complex surgeries. To strip a system like me away and graft it onto someone they deem more suitable.]

[The stripping process causes irreversible brain damage. Intellectual disability. Cerebral atrophy. Brain death. And the host—the 'mother vessel'—must remain conscious throughout.]

[The Institute is not a monolith. Some pursue lofty ideals. Others see the Pollution Disease merely as a stepping stone. The filth hidden within is considerable.]

[You think the Pollution Disease emerged only in recent decades. There were precedents last century. Awakeners appeared sporadically. There will always be foolish ordinary people who think they can control us…]

[Also, as I've said, pollutants evolve far faster than Awakeners. Many now approach the level of 'gods,' though the Institute's files simply label them all 'S-Class Pollutants.']

……

……

Lu Yan's wounds were cleaned and dressed. After his shower, he even had time to dry his hair.

A staff member escorted him to an office.

Lin Sinan rose to greet him, pulling out a chair with a warm, professional smile. "Doctor Lu. I didn't expect our next meeting to be under these circumstances."

At the head of the conference table, Bai Qiushi had his feet propped up on the polished wood, looking thoroughly bored. "Don't try to cozy up. I'm the one who rescued him."

"Your emotional state is unstable. Wait outside." Lin Sinan pointed toward the door.

"The man standing before you is the Deputy Director of Special Operations, head of the Second Division. Is that any way to speak to your superior?" Bai Qiushi snapped.

Lin Sinan chose not to dignify that with a response.

The room had no windows. Only one door for entry and exit.

Lin Sinan worked to keep his expression warm and approachable. "There's no need to be nervous. We'll just run a simple test first."

He raised a device that looked like an electronic thermometer and swept it over Lu Yan.

Two lines of numbers appeared on the display: "Spiritual Power Threshold: 174. Pathological Progression: 1."

Bai Qiushi's eyebrows shot up. "Only one?"

It was unbelievably low. Hard to imagine the calm-faced young man before them had been fighting for his life in a sea of pollutants just an hour ago.

Lu Yan withdrew his hand. "Does that mean something significant?"

"Not at all. The readings are excellent. A threshold of 174 is quite good for a recent Awakening. The average is around one-fifty, usually."

Lu Yan almost felt bad mentioning his initial spiritual power had been a solid zero.

Lin Sinan's gaze grew intense. "Doctor Lu, since your Awakening, have you sensed… an inkling of your ability?"

[At the end of the last century, the head of the Research Institute, Qiao Yu, compiled a Periodic Table of Talents on his deathbed, ranking all known abilities by strength. I, "Omniscience," am ranked sixth… Frankly, I don't understand the ranking. I feel I should be in the top three. Especially since a purely restorative talent like "Revelation" took first place. Humans and pollutants share this talent sequence.]

Lu Yan didn't understand it either. It just proved information was valuable everywhere, enough to rank a particularly chatty system at number six.

[Currently, there are only three known healing-type Awakeners left in the world. Their talents are [Revelation], [Resurgence], and [Fusion]. The only remaining unknown healing talent is [Devour].]

[That's what you'll be impersonating.]

"Aren't healing talents afraid of being stripped?" Lu Yan asked internally.

[Stripping isn't guaranteed to succeed every time. And not everyone at the Institute is rotten. Explaining further would be padding the word count, so I'll stop.]

After the brief internal exchange, Lu Yan looked up at the man across from him.

He thought for a long moment before answering. "I feel… a little hungry."