Chapter 70: Pilgrimage |
The computers in the Command Center were equipped with remote control software for the autonomous drones. Shi Rang returned to the Command Center, executed an indirect jump, and successfully launched his vision into the sky.
His mastery over his abilities grew by the day, as if he had been born a phantom navigating the endless currents of the data stream.
The drone sent him into a steep dive. With its rotors whirring rapidly overhead, the camera locked onto the coordinates of the Isolation Wall—
Several figures were squeezing through a blast-made hole, infiltrating the quarantined anomaly zone and sprinting toward its depths.
An open-top off-road vehicle was parked on the other side of the Isolation Wall, heavily suggesting they had no intention of using it for a return trip.
The machine gun mounted beneath the aircraft automatically locked onto the intruders and immediately opened fire. A sweeping arc of bullets chased them down, instantly tearing through two of the runners. The survivors attempted to return fire, but failed to hit the rapidly ascending aircraft. Forced into cover, they ducked into the nearest apartment block, hiding within an anomalous building where the drone could not follow.
The drone continued its assault, strafing the windows to flush out the fleeting silhouettes darting behind the glass, while sporadic return fire echoed from the shadows.
Through the violent shaking of the camera caused by the recoil, Shi Rang noticed something strange. Although this group wore Kevlar and carried heavy firepower, their tactical movements were incredibly sloppy. They lacked the coordinated cover fire of the seasoned militant factions that used to openly clash with the Alliance and The Bureau. Even as their comrades dropped dead around them, they never once paused. They clearly had zero intention of planning an extraction—their only goal was a suicidal sprint deep into the quarantine zone.
What alarmed Shi Rang the most was that every single one of them had completely shaved off all their body hair. Beneath their tactical gear, glimpses of bare skin revealed grotesque, writhing tattoos. Zooming the camera in, he saw dozens of black and red eyes inked into their flesh. Disturbingly, these tattooed eyes seemed to blink and widen in tandem with the intruders' movements, staring directly through the lens at Shi Rang himself.
'Those tattoos on their bodies look almost alive. Is this the source of the Cognitohazard?'
'Was Researcher Sammy telling the truth? Does that unknown Entity actually possess Divinity?'
'But I have never written a single thing about gods in the Records!'
'How in the world did the Midnight Visitor get connected to this thing?'
The rapid response team dispatched by the Command Center was already cordoning off the building, trapping the targets inside since there were no other exits. The drone ceased its suppressing fire, having just received an automated command to return to base.
Shi Rang quickly overrode the autopilot for a brief moment and zoomed the camera in. At the edge of a shattered window pane, he spotted one of the Cultists glaring up at the aircraft.
Those eyes, brimming with fanatical hatred, seemed to pierce straight through the digital feed, furiously locking onto the man who had orchestrated their slaughter.
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After confirming that the flying murder machine had broken off its assault, An Dewen ducked back behind the shattered drywall. He smoothly swapped out his magazine while silently offering a prayer.
He had never been particularly skilled with military hardware, but sometimes, forcing a piece of lead through a Heretic's skull was simply a more direct method of persuasion than relying entirely on Divine Grace.
"Found it!"
Another Follower shouted from down the hall, pointing excitedly at a heavy door that opened up to a descending staircase. His face was flushed with unconcealable joy.
"Hurry! The Divine Corpse is down in the basement!"
Clutching his rifle to his chest, An Dewen scrambled after him, diving into the dimly lit stairwell.
He didn't bother asking about the Followers who had been gunned down outside. He knew that even in death, their final moments were filled with the glorious honor of bleeding for their god.
"It is right below us! The Divine Corpse is here!" the Bishop cheered, leading the frantic charge down the steps. "Yes! It descended here! This is the sacred ground our Lord revealed to us! It must be!"
An Dewen stayed glued to their heels. But as they spiraled further down into the darkness, a sobering realization hit him: there were only three of them left.
Brute-forcing their way through The Bureau's defensive perimeter was tantamount to suicide. Their only true advantages—aside from their Divine Grace and the quarantine zone's proximity to the downtown area—was knowing exactly which path led directly underground. After all, their deity had been whispering the directions in their minds all along.
When they first set out, their raiding party consisted of nine devoted Followers. While breaching the outer perimeter, their secondary vehicle was caught in a hail of gunfire, spiraling out of control and crashing into a storefront, instantly claiming four lives. Then the drone had shredded two more outside. Now, only three of them remained to claim the Divine Corpse.
The path of pilgrimage was truly paved in blood.
'Rest in peace, my brothers and sisters. I will pray that your souls ascend to the Divine Kingdom.'
For more than a decade, The Bureau and the Alliance had aggressively hunted the Star Child Order, nearly driving them to extinction. Countless brothers and sisters had been slaughtered or dragged away in chains, their holy relics stolen, desecrated, and hoarded by Heretics.
The boons bestowed upon them by their Lord were tremendously powerful, but the sheer, overwhelming barbarism of the Heretics always seemed to tip the scales.
This world was utterly corrupted, devoid of any place for purifiers like them.
Half a month ago, the Bishop had gathered every surviving Follower in the Tenth District for a massive conclave. Once again, they attempted to summon the Blood Red God to the mortal realm, begging Him to cleanse and sublimate this rotting world. That night, as An Dewen knelt in the viscous, pooling blood of the Sacrificial Offerings, listening to the guttural screams woven into their chanting, he had braced himself, ready to reaffirm his Belief just as he always did...
But that was when the miracle occurred.
The Divine Corpse Fragments—holy relics that had remained completely dormant for years, utterly unresponsive to their bloody Sacrificial Offerings and self-mutilation—suddenly levitated into the air. Gripped by some invisible, magnetic force, the fragments shot into the sky like crimson meteors, blazing out past the coast of the Tenth District and soaring straight toward the south.
The sight of their most sacred artifact ripping itself away left the congregation in a brief state of stunned silence—which immediately erupted into ecstatic, tearful frenzy.
A miracle! It was a genuine miracle!
They zealously tracked the trajectory of the falling stars, eventually confirming that the Divine Corpse had crash-landed directly into this specific Residential Area in Green Island City.
Yet, the Heretics had beaten them to the punch once again.
By the time the Cultists arrived, The Bureau had already cordoned off the entire neighborhood, staking their vile claim in a brazen attempt to steal the Divine Corpse for themselves.
Desperate to decode the Divine Revelation, the Order mustered every last ounce of their local manpower and launched this suicidal strike.
They knew they were marching into a meat grinder. But if even a single one of them managed to pierce the blockade, the Order would emerge victorious.
The spiraling stairs abruptly ended in a sealed basement. At first glance, it appeared to be a dead end. However, as the Bishop led An Dewen and the final Follower—who was sweeping the area with his Flashlight—their ragged breathing smoothly transitioned into a low, guttural chant.
The reinforced concrete of the sealed basement began to violently shudder under the weight of the eerie, ear-piercing hum.
The solid wall dead ahead began to rapidly decay. The dirt and stone behind the concrete melted away, dissolving into a massive, earthen tunnel that tunneled deep into the bedrock, warmly beckoning them forward.
"Right ahead! It must be just ahead! I can feel the divine power radiating through the soil... just a little further..."
The Bishop eagerly plunged into the dark corridor.
A thick, overwhelming scent of freshly cut grass washed over him, completely at odds with the stale underground air. It was remarkably reminiscent of the crisp, damp scent of a forest just after a midnight downpour, yet breathing it in sent a violent wave of vertigo crashing through his skull, nearly paralyzing his limbs on the spot.
But as the clustered black eye tattoos scattered across his bare skin rapidly flushed crimson one by one, he forced himself upright. Gritting his teeth, he put his head down and forged deeper into the tunnel.
The narrow corridor physically contorted to accommodate their passage, smoothing itself out into a sloped earthen road stretching deep into the abyss. Thick beads of sweat poured down the unblemished patches of An Dewen's skin, rolling over the ink in such profusion that it looked as if his tattooed eyes were weeping. The Divine Grace usually shielded his body from physical trauma and blessed him with superhuman endurance, but as more and more of his black eyes vanished from his skin, a crushing sensation of suffocation seized his throat. The grassy scent lingering in the tunnel was now so intensely cloying that it left a metallic, bitter taste on his tongue; the air itself had become lethally thick.
Unaware that his lungs were actually being starved of oxygen, he stumbled blindly after the others, his vision swimming as he began to drift further and further toward the rear.
Watching the sluggish silhouettes of the Bishop and the other Follower slowly pull away, An Dewen yanked out his Ritual Dagger and violently slashed his own forearm. Stoked by the sudden flare of pain and the rush of Divine Grace it triggered, he managed to stagger forward, desperately closing the gap.
They blindly marched onward along their harrowing pilgrimage, plunging straight into the heart of the empty darkness. The very trembling of the earth solidified their Belief; even drenched in sweat and leaving a trail of their own blood in the dirt, absolutely nothing could force them to halt their advance.
"An Dewen! Keep up! We are remarkably close to the Divine Corpse!"
The Bishop eagerly urged him on.
"Can you feel that tremendous vibration? We are almost upon it!"
Of course, An Dewen felt it.
This latest tremor was incredibly violent, raining a cascade of loose gravel onto his head. The physical impact caused the Divine Grace inside him to writhe with sudden agitation, but a quick, fervent prayer swiftly forced it back into a dormant calm.
Up ahead, the Bishop began reciting his guttural incantations once more, focusing on a new wall of solid earth that had blocked their path.
The earthen barrier dissolved into a fine mist. The Follower's Flashlight swept into the cavernous darkness beyond. Its beam couldn't pierce very far, but it didn't need to—because out in the pitch-black distance, several other Flashlight beams were already sweeping back and forth, cutting directly toward them.