[The mental state of the host is detected to be unstable, please take tranquilizers and special medications promptly.]
Many people have their tranquilizers in the form of cigarettes, but Lu Yan doesn't fancy smoking. His tranquilizer comes in the form of mint-flavored candies.
On the monitor, Lu Yan's level of distortion rose to 147, then began to slowly drop.
Lu Yan glanced at the person on the ground and asked, "He's not playing possum, is he?"
The system's tone was disdainful: [Nah, they won't. When it comes to close combat, the mental-type Harbingers are pretty weak. They're all about fanciness, quite irritating. Besides, you know, a lot of Harbingers don't have good mental states, which makes the mental-type ones even more annoying.]
Next was the anticipated scavenging session.
Lu Yan noticed Chen Anzhi carried quite a lot, mostly scented cosmetics and skincare products. This work is uploaded and organized by Sī Tù for online reading by netizens.
System: [Assisting items for hypnosis, you can use them too. But I don't think you'd bother with makeup.]
[Candles, with hypnotic effects. Effective on humans. Shelf life: 3 years.]
In the system's language, the scented aromatherapy items Chen Anzhi used for sleep aid were all uniformly referred to as candles.
[A pocket watch, for hypnosis. Beneath the watch is a piece of human skin with a hand-painted doctrine of paradise. It's a pass to the 'divine realm'.]
Lu Yan pried the watch open, finding a thin piece of human skin inside, painted in dark oils to create a peculiar starry pattern that, when stared at for too long, induced dizziness, almost something cult-like.
After gathering the loot, Lu Yan efficiently disposed of the bodies.
He could already hear the pollutants flapping in the air; it wouldn't be long before these pieces of flesh would be swallowed by them.
On the map, the sole red dot extinguished, leaving 23 blue ones.
This meant there were still 23 students contaminated mentally.
Lu Yan headed towards the nearest light point.
...
...
The assistant had once praised him, saying Lu Yan was undoubtedly the best hunter.
But Lu Yan had never thought he'd end up hunting 'people'.
Most importantly, Lu Yan had to consider the consequences of information asymmetry.
He might be mistaken for a murderer, and while he didn't care much, he also didn't fancy facing a military court.
The first light point Lu Yan encountered was someone he knew well.
Director Hu was on night duty today, sitting beside the extinguished campfire. Because of his poor mental state, he kept pinching his thigh whenever he felt drowsy.
Lu Yan remembered Director Hu was a renowned surgeon in K City, always striding proudly through the hospital corridors. Whenever a patient couldn't afford the hospitalization fees, he always found ways to reduce their medical bills.
After practicing medicine for thirty years, he'd received more commendations than all the awards Lu Yan had ever received.
Perhaps due to his gentle nature, Director Hu had unconsciously fallen into hypnosis since day one, becoming a follower of the paradise doctrine in his dreams.
Lu Yan's hand rested on his bow for what seemed like ages without releasing the arrow.
He asked the system, "Is this mental contamination truly irreversible? Would the Kingfisher be of any use?"
System: [The Kingfisher can reduce distortion but won't erase their spiritual imprints.]
"He looks no different from an ordinary person."
[You always show mercy in places I don't understand, Host.] The system's voice sounded intrigued, [Even if you don't kill him, after a while, perhaps just a few hours later, that entity will descend upon its vessel. Vessels can feel too; they'll feel the excruciating pain of their soul bursting. Even without any physical harm, it'll feel like torture. They die in endless fear and agony.]
[Compared to such a death, the current one might seem more fortunate.]
A vine descended from the treetop above Director Hu's head.
It was a pollutant silently closing in on its prey.
The arrow Lu Yan had been preparing on his bowstring for a long time finally found its use. The arrow deeply pierced the vine, causing the bloodsucker vine to shriek sharply in pain.
This sound immediately woke Director Hu and the two teammates still in their sleeping bags.
The teammates hastily unzipped their bags, and Director Hu, looking at the pollutant beside him, patted his chest in lingering fear.
Lu Yan leaped from the tree like an agile cat, landing noiselessly.
"Ah, Xiaolu!" Director Hu stood up, his face instantly grateful. "That arrow, it's definitely yours! The accuracy was spot on. Enough said, I'll write a letter to the hospital director recommending you for the position of emergency room director at K City's First People's Hospital!"
"Thanks, but I've already got that." The hospital had promptly promoted him before he arrived in Yanjing.
Director Hu was momentarily speechless. "Why are you here?"
Lu Yan: "I came here to discuss something with you."
"What is it? As long as it's not about marrying my daughter, it's negotiable."
Lu Yan succinctly yet swiftly conveyed the seriousness of the situation: "Director, have you ever had contact with an organization called the 'Paradise Doctrine'? You might have been mentally contaminated."
"The S-level pollutant from the divine realm wants to descend through the believers. Anyone who attended the dream congregation of the Paradise Doctrine will bear its mark."
"In this exercise, Tang Xunan is involved, and some high-level pollutants have decided to kill him, including the 'True God' skilled in mental contamination."
"Its consciousness will simultaneously project onto the believers. Those who become vessels won't withstand such a powerful mental force and contamination, dying directly. What I'm doing is destroying its vessel before the pollutant descends, preventing greater losses in the future."
"If the True God descends, the consequences could likely level the entire City P."
Lu Yan omitted some middle links, but if Tang Xunan failed, the outcome was almost certain.
Director Hu's teammates were puzzled: "How do you know all this?"
Lu Yan: "I have a talent called 'Cross-Species Communication.' I heard it when these insects and plants were discussing."
As he spoke, a man-eating vine descended from the tree, its sturdy stem hiding sharp teeth, aiming to bite Lu Yan.
Lu Yan caught the vine bare-handed, twisting it into a coil, then tossed it aside.
"In my team, there's also a defector from the divine realm. I've interrogated him a bit."
"..."
For some reason, it sounded very unreliable.
Director Hu's expression turned unnatural halfway through, and after hearing it all, he fell silent for a while. "I see... How do we destroy those containers?"
"Let the containers die naturally," Lu Yan said, keeping his gaze fixed on Director Hu's eyes.
One teammate sensed the off atmosphere and nervously reached for their weapon.
Another tapped on their electronic device in anger, "Why did the distress signal fail? Where's the signal?!"
Little did they know, upon noticing the scarcity of distress signals, the oversight team had already sent people into the contaminated zone to investigate.
Unfortunately, the mushrooms covering the ground had already awakened.
"What he said, it's probably true," Director Hu suddenly spoke, "For the past two months, I've been having a recurring dream. I dreamt of light and hope... and someone chanting 'bliss and eternity' in my ear. They said that's where the happiness of souls resides."
"Every time I wake up, I feel fear amidst contentment. Because all of this is too much like the rumors of a divine realm... but I dare not dwell on it."
Director Hu rambled on, words disjointed perhaps due to his confused thoughts. He held his head, trembling, appearing quite pitiful.
"Dr. Hu," a teammate stepped forward, asking with a sympathetic heart, "Surely, there must be another way?"
Their pleading eyes turned to Lu Yan.
But Lu Yan simply shook his head in silence.
"I don't want to die, Dr. Lu." Fear contorted Director Hu's old face as tears streamed down, "My son's household registration, my grandson's school district... none of it's settled. I...!"
Lu Yan raised the bow in his hand, "I'm sorry, truly."
"That's enough!" Another teammate stood in front of Director Hu, "It's just your word against his. Based on a few sentences, you'd take his life?!"
"Special Operations Personnel Oath, Page 2, Line 3," Lu Yan said, "We all memorized it on the first day of training."
"To snuff out danger in its cradle, I am prepared to sacrifice at any time."
At that time, Lu Yan had complained to the system, calling the oath utterly anti-human. But in the end, quite a few truly treated it as a creed to abide by.
The teammates' expressions faltered, then their hands holding weapons dropped weakly.
This was a scene Lu Yan had anticipated long ago. [I'd call this the price of foolishness.]
"I understand what might happen," Lu Yan calmly replied, "But I'll still do it this way, it'll make me feel human."
Lu Yan looked at Director Hu, "Household registration and school districts, if I make it out alive, I'll see to it. You can choose to do it yourself or let me."
In terms of spiritual power thresholds, Director Hu's team was no match for Lu Yan, not even combined.
Director Hu cried for half the day, finally calming down.
He said, "Let me do it myself, at least I'll be mentally prepared."
After saying that, he took out his surgical knife from the protective suit's pocket. Despite years of medical practice, it was the first time he held a knife trembling like this.
After Director Hu's death, red halos emerged from his body, converging into a palm-sized human figure.
The red halo on the tiny figure changed to white.
The bright and gentle white figure had a distinct pattern on it, identical to the one Lu Yan had obtained from the human skin paper.
The little figure bounced forward and eventually disappeared into the ground like a puddle of water.
[Red is the color of contaminated souls. After believers die, their souls are divided by the Almighty, weighing their lifetime of good and evil.]
[The Almighty devours sinful souls for sustenance, like Chen Anzhi, who vanishes directly upon death. It also guides virtuous souls to the divine realm, much like Director Hu.]
[In a certain sense, the Almighty is indeed constructing a "pure land of bliss."]
"Why does it do this?"
[I guess it really enjoys the feeling of being a "god."]
Lu Yan used the white fabric from Director Hu's body to craft a flower and placed it on the corpse.
Everyone present saw the peculiar white figure and the eerie pattern on it.
No one doubted the truth of the situation anymore, yet the atmosphere grew even more oppressive and silent. Teammates emitted soft sobbing sounds near Director Hu's body.
"That traitor told me," Lu Yan spoke up, "There are a total of 23 contaminated individuals. Before that existence descends, I'll systematically eradicate the containers. Besides, I hope you all can spread this information as much as possible."
Lu Yan unwrapped a mint candy, placing it in his mouth, "Whether others believe it or not, I'm not ready to be in custody this soon."
Deep within the botanical garden.
An immensely colossal banyan tree rooted deeply at its core.
Its vines extended far into the distance, an unknown length. The canopy obscured the sky, visible even from dozens of miles away.
The tree seemed alive, its trunk slowly heaving as if breathing.
But on closer inspection, its branches were adorned with terrified human faces, frozen at the moment of their last breath, becoming the tree's nourishment.
Death and vitality continuously intertwined.
At the top of the tree trunk, there was a vague giant face, with lowered brows and eyes, looking compassionate yet merciful.
On the ground, blue mushrooms grew, emitting dazzling fluorescent colors.
A bird flew by, and green vines suddenly shot out, delivering the bird into the giant's voracious mouth.
The botanical garden entrance was already overrun by vines, impenetrable.
But at this moment, these plants were rapidly growing, sapping nutrients from their host, and then withering away.
Where the yellow dust passed, no grass grew.
07 trailed behind Tang Xunan, saying, "I can simply burn it."
"Leave it," Tang Xunan's reply was too brief.
The eerie silence here was unsettling.
The gigantic faces on the banyan tree opened their eyes and said, "He's coming."
So, a wind swept through the botanical garden without cause. These wildly growing branches started giggling, chanting the same words, their tones growing sharper, "He's coming, he's coming, he's coming!"
Devour him.
Or destroy him.
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