EDEH Chapter 146

The vote on whether to sacrifice one military officer to end the contamination arrived as promised.

But unexpectedly, this vote didn’t generate the imagined fervent discussion, and public participation was extremely low. From the initial announcement to six hours later, fewer than thirty thousand people had participated in the vote, while the main city currently had over five million residents with full legal capacity.

The ratio was less than 5%.

To avoid expanding the impact, the old general had even specifically limited the voting scope to within the main city, not affecting other safe zones.

This situation was very strange.

The entire city was filled with a discordant, fractured atmosphere—both calm and oppressively mad.

“Report! Currently, a total of 217 suicide incidents have occurred, not including 19 cases of deviants suddenly becoming violent, resulting in 531 deaths.”

The old general silently stroked the string of numbers on the paper report—

Everything had started after Sang Jue left.

Originally, in the seven days after Rift No. 2 collapsed and Eye of Paradise showed anomalies, only thirteen suicide cases occurred in the main city. But in less than three days after Sang Jue and Huo Yanji left for the Waste Waters, resident suicide rates began skyrocketing dramatically, throwing the city into chaos.

This phenomenon wasn’t limited to residents.

Outside the window, sudden sounds of commotion arose.

The old general was in the office on the top floor of the central building. To hear commotion from this distance indicated something terrible had happened below.

The old general took a deep breath as he leaned out the window, looking at the lighthouse in the distance covered by black clouds.

They hadn’t seen the lighthouse’s light for many days now.

“General, for your safety’s sake—”

“At a time like this, whose safety still matters?”

The old general strode quickly into the elevator, heading to ground level with the soldiers. The protagonist of this incident wasn’t an ordinary resident or mercenary, but a patrol soldier.

The patrol unit was a special military branch that had previously cooperated with regulatory departments to manage city security in a subordinate relationship, and was the military branch closest to ordinary residents.

However, at this moment, a deviant patrol soldier had suddenly “lost order,” going berserk and killing over thirty unprepared residents—including five women who had recently come up from the underground city and twenty-seven men—before being shot dead by the newly established order maintenance department.

Of course, what appeared as “losing order” to ordinary people couldn’t have happened in the eyes of the higher-ups.

Even though contamination index testing frequency for deviant civilians had decreased somewhat, it remained strict for soldiers and related departments. Semi-monthly testing was standard, and anyone approaching critical values would be transferred from their post for observation. There was no possibility of losing order while on duty.

The surrounding area was filled with panic, mixed with residents’ whispered discussions—some seeming to blame how the patrol could make such an error, how could they trust relevant departments in the future?

Others seemed to say this world was finished—residents were crazy, soldiers were crazy too, no one could escape.

Give up.

What was the point of struggling?

Suddenly, the old general met a direct, dark stare from the crowd. It was an utterly ordinary resident, probably someone others saw as a righteous brother, an honorable mercenary.

But now he seemed possessed by a demon, extremely eerie.

He suddenly jolted awake, his shoulder shaking. The soldier beside him noticed in time and asked: “General, are you alright?”

“…I’m fine.” The old general said, “Stabilize order here and wait for the chief patrol officer to arrive. I’m going to the research institute.”

“Yes!”

The old general arrived at the research institute, his cold, urgent footsteps jolting the researchers who were at their wits’ end. He directly asked: “Any discoveries?”

On the day “mental contamination” was discovered, the research institute had brought back a batch of research samples with military assistance—all residents who had shown abnormalities but hadn’t yet acted abnormally.

One researcher said: “We can’t detect mentally contaminated people in real-time like we can with genetic infection. Their physical condition shows no abnormalities—the only abnormality is their brain waves.”

But they couldn’t just grab residents to check their brain waves, could they? Moreover, mentally contaminated people either committed suicide or became violent, but the time between contamination and losing control was uncertain—maybe one day, maybe ten days.

To announce to the public at this time that some new “mental contamination” had appeared, that they needed to kill some people around them who looked normal but were actually abnormal… how could that be convincing?

The public would probably think the military had gone mad.

“Abnormal how?”

“All samples share one characteristic—their brain waves constantly jump back and forth between β waves and δ waves—”

The old general impatiently interrupted: “Speak directly.”

The research head explained: “Human brain wave states differ depending on condition. Normally, our brain waves are β waves, α waves when relaxed with eyes closed, and δ waves only during deep sleep…”

In other words, these samples seemed to be constantly jumping between consciousness and confusion.

“Even when β waves are detected, the activity frequency is far above standard. Normal range is 14-30 hertz, while the lowest brain wave frequency sample is above 60 hertz and still increasing.”

Whether conscious or confused, their brains were operating in a highly active state, which contradicted the eerily calm behavior observed in the city.

If they had time, perhaps they could understand the reasons someday in the future. But given the current rate of mental breakdown, humanity probably didn’t have much time left.

The old general took a deep breath and suddenly slammed his fist against the nearby wall.

The research head jumped in fright, hesitating for a long time before carefully saying: “Would you… like to have a brain wave test done?”

“…”

·

The scene from the video that Sang Jue had devoured appeared repeatedly in his nightmare.

The aged Doctor lay on the hospital bed, somehow able to speak again. She gazed motionlessly at Sang Jue before her, tears in her eyes, lips slightly upturned: “You’ve called me doctor so many times—could you call me something else just once?”

Without her speaking, Sang Jue could see her thoughts from the magnetic field frequency around her.

He blurted out: “Mama.”

But the Doctor before him quickly weathered away, her slightly upturned lips also turning to ash, scattering all over the floor, finally leaving only a skeleton.

“Don’t…”

Sang Jue’s eyes reddened, but suddenly he heard a sound from outside the hospital room door.

He carefully pushed open the door, discovering another identical hospital room with a new Dr. Anya lying on the bed.

She made the same request: “Could you call me mama just once?”

Sang Jue shook his head with red eyes.

The Doctor wasn’t angry, just asked with some disappointment: “Why not?”

Sang Jue climbed onto the hospital bed, carefully curling up beside the Doctor: “Because when I call you that, you disappear… you’ve already disappeared many times.”

The Doctor said: “I won’t disappear, Sang Jue. As long as you stay here, I’ll exist forever.”

Sang Jue asked: “Why don’t you call me little evil dragon?”

“Did the little evil dragon like that name?”

Sang Jue didn’t speak. He lifted the Doctor’s hand, wrapped it around his shoulder, and quietly instructed: “You need to pat gently.”

“Alright.” The Doctor patted his shoulder soothingly, “Our little evil dragon seems very sad. What happened?”

Sang Jue’s gaze wasn’t vacant: “Because you don’t want me anymore.”

The Doctor comforted: “I’m still here, little evil dragon.”

Sang Jue didn’t listen, saying to himself: “You threw me onto a strange planet full of people I don’t know. I met a human I really like, but in his heart, I’m not the most important.”

“So what will you do?” the Doctor asked.

“I want to devour him.” Sang Jue said, “But he’s in pain. He’s about to be torn apart.”

“Then devour him, Sang Jue.” The Doctor called his name again, “You’re the most powerful being in all worlds. No one can go against your will, not even a prince.”

Sang Jue fell silent, leaning against the Doctor’s shoulder without speaking.

After a long while, he murmured again: “I’m still sad… I can’t find you.”

“I’m right here, Sang Jue.” The Doctor gently stroked Sang Jue’s hair, repeating: “As long as you stay here, I’ll exist forever.”

Before the hesitant “okay” could leave his lips, Sang Jue heard a faint call.

“Sang Jue…”

This voice was familiar, carrying the speaker’s characteristic restrained love.

Sang Jue was stunned for a moment, then pushed away the Doctor’s arm, climbed down from the bed and said: “I have to go.”

The Doctor made one last attempt to keep him: “Doesn’t our little evil dragon want to stay?”

Sang Jue tilted his head, his gaze calm but his eyes very red. He said: “I’m not leaving you for Yanji. It’s because I still want to finish one last thing for you.”

The Doctor on the bed was aged, completely different from the beautiful, capable appearance in Sang Jue’s memory.

But their eyes were the same—gentle and loving, with infinite tolerance.

But after Sang Jue finished speaking, she slowly dissolved. Her gentle gaze gradually shattered, slowly becoming that puddle of unidentifiable sticky substance on the bed.

She was fake. Sang Jue knew.

From false illusions, he sought comfort from the already-dead in his memories.

He turned around and stepped out of the hospital room.

But when he opened the door, the main city appeared before his eyes.

The current main city was oppressed by layers of dark clouds, silent and still. Streets were littered with corpses, blood flowing like rivers. Bodies of humans and monsters intertwined, writhing, merging—grotesque yet revealing desperate death.

Everyone was dead. Everything Sang Jue disliked, didn’t care about, and loved no longer existed.

Monsters were dead, humans were dead, Huo Yanji was dead too.

In the distance, an upright figure stood beneath the gray lighthouse. Sang Jue instinctively called: “Huo Yanji…”

But that figure only turned back with difficulty, looked at him vaguely, then could no longer hold on and fell to his knees, bending the spine that had been straight for over thirty years.

Sang Jue caught Huo Yanji’s broad shoulders in time, not daring to look at his face, only mumbling: “Don’t die.”

No one responded to him.

The world was completely dark. The shadow of a giant monster stood beneath black clouds, countless trembling tentacles pierced through the earth, soil fell apart, forests and oceans reversed, land was buried by glaciers—

The world had changed masters overnight.

Humans who had once been self-satisfied, standing proudly at the top of the food chain, were so fragile—merely insignificant ants in the eyes of higher-dimensional beings.

Sang Jue held the corpse rigid for a long time, but the dead Huo Yanji gradually rotted away, not even leaving bones.

Finally, only tiny him remained standing in the center of the world, alone facing the enormous monster’s shadow—silent, lonely.

***