Chapter 1006
[The Pre-Heavenly Kingdom]
Chapter 1006 [The Pre-Heavenly Kingdom]
Let's rewind a little bit.
The lines beneath their feet were bright red, like freshly peeled blood vessels, and the seeping liquid still writhed slightly in the night wind. The entire formation resembled a gaping maw.
The moment he stood still, the world suddenly fell silent.
Then came... whispers.
It wasn't a whisper, but a tremor emanating from the bones, a roar seeping from the blood.
They intertwined, roared, and wailed, piecing together an indescribable and terrifying resonance.
The scene before my eyes began to collapse.
In the darkness, a blurry, gigantic shadow appeared.
It has no clear boundaries, only an endlessly churning vortex. It is as black as ink, yet at its center flashes a faint green light, like a single eye.
It gazed at Lupercal.
—An unprecedented sense of disgust suddenly rose in his heart.
This aversion is not simply disgust, but an instinctive resistance, a suffocating feeling of being deprived of freedom deep within one's life.
"No...no..." he murmured, his childish voice tearing through the air.
Lupercal wanted to leave, wanted to take a step, but his whole body felt as if it were bound by invisible chains.
Dark tentacles emerged from the patterns of the five-pointed star, climbing up his legs inch by inch, pulling at him, trying to completely engulf him.
A sharp pain shot up my spine and into my head.
He fell to his knees and let out a painful wail.
This was the first time he had ever felt real pain. His eyes felt as if they had been pierced by something, blood flowing down the corners of his eyes, rolling into the red array of patterns, splashing out eerie ripples.
He raised his head.
Through his blurry vision, he looked at his "parents" standing outside the formation.
In an instant, it felt as if a hole had been torn open in his heart—the Krag and Ina before him no longer resembled his parents; their outlines were distorted and hollow, their faces devoid of flesh and blood, displaying only the same emptiness and greed as the monster from before.
Then came the vortex; the parents' expressions began to resemble a vortex.
Strangely, he could see their expressions within the vortex.
They are laughing.
They laughed, watching Lupercal kneeling in the center of the formation.
In Lupercal's eyes, that smile was nothing short of monstrous.
Uncontrollably, an unprecedented impulse rose within Lupercal.
Kill them.
Kill them.
Kill them!!!
"Ahhhh——!"
He raised his head, his youthful voice tearing through the night sky, yet carrying an indescribable distortion.
The next instant, his left eye suddenly bulged.
Blood vessels burst open, the whites of the eyes crumbled, and a dark shadow wriggled out from the depths of the pupils. It was not flesh and blood, but a monster with a hard shell—its six long legs forced their way out of the flesh and blood, emerging from its eye sockets.
Click——click——
The sound of the carapace rubbing against the bones pierced the silence.
When the monster had fully emerged, Lupercal's left eye was now just an empty hole, yet it gleamed with a deep, cold light.
The monster was about half an arm's length long, entirely black, with coarse, stiff hair that seemed to be woven from shadows. It lay on Lupercal's shoulder, its six legs gripping his ribs as if they were driven into his flesh, nailing him to the ground.
Strangely, Lupercal did not show any signs of pain.
Those youthful faces were still delicate and pure, but their eyes were empty and cold, like a doll.
He no longer expresses negative emotions, even though his eyes had just been forcibly opened and torn open.
Instead, there was a mysterious quiet and indifference.
The sound of the wind suddenly stopped.
The fine hairs on the monster's legs trembled slightly, sensing every breath around it. It had no eyes, no mouth, yet it pinpointed the location of its "parents" with pinpoint accuracy.
Krag and Ina's smiles froze instantly; they finally realized that the child in front of them was no longer a child.
Lupercal lowered his head, a subtle, indescribable curve appearing at the corners of his youthful lips.
The spider monster on its shoulder simultaneously raised its shell, emitting a low, silent hiss.
Under the cover of night, the crimson pentagram rekindled its light, but this time, it was not for summoning—but for devouring.
Kragg and Ina stood frozen in place, their eyes fixed on the strange spider-like monster perched on Lupercal's shoulder.
Its carapace was jet black, and its leg hair stood on end, like a shadow peeled off from a nightmare.
"This...is impossible...impossible!"
Krag's voice was hoarse, and he was on the verge of collapse.
"He swallowed the tentacles of the Great Fifth Truth, something that... how could it possibly be... controlled!"
Ina couldn't help but scream, her voice filled with madness: "This is not the truth! This is...this is betrayal!"
Before she could finish speaking, the spider monster suddenly moved.
Its carapace opened, revealing a twisted mouth, like an opening pieced together from countless fine threads and sharp teeth, which suddenly opened towards the two of them.
The air suddenly turned cold.
Before the two could react, their necks suddenly tightened, as if invisible appendages were gripping them. Their vision began to spin, and their eardrums roared.
Krag immediately covered his ears and let out a hoarse scream.
Ina collapsed to the ground, her hands flailing wildly, her eyes unfocused, and intermittent sobs escaping her lips. She felt something being forcibly poured into her head, a mixture of burning pain and coldness, like insect eggs drilling holes in her flesh.
"what--!!"
Pain ensued. Their minds were in complete chaos; their reason was torn apart, and mania and fear exploded in their minds.
Kragg's head slammed heavily to the ground, his neck convulsing violently as if he had lost control of his muscles.
Ina's eyes rolled back, she sobbed incessantly, and her hands gripped her throat tightly as if trying to pry out that invisible thing.
They began to instinctively seek out the darkness.
The two staggered as they crawled toward the shadow of the blood-red pentagram, muttering to themselves:
"Darkness...we want darkness...we want to return..."
Just as this terrifying process was progressing towards its fifth stage, Lupercal suddenly moved.
He raised his head, and his eyes, which should have been innocent and clear, now gleamed with an eerie light.
However, what came out of his mouth was a child's suppressed plea.
"No...please...no..."
The voice was weak and trembling, like crying or begging.
The spider monster on his shoulder suddenly paused.
Its open mouthparts froze in mid-air, its sharp appendages trembling slightly. Those unseen senses, belonging to "smell and hearing," seemed to genuinely hesitate.
The air was incredibly oppressive.
Krag and Ina's agonizing screams abruptly ceased at that moment.
The spider monster did not make any further moves.
Its mandibles slowly retracted, resting back on Lupercal's shoulder. Its carapace undulated, as if in a low hiss. Lupercal remained standing in the center of the array, the monster on his shoulder silent, only the faint rustling of its carapace breaking the silence. The child's face was now pleading, his clear pupils glistening with tears. He whispered repeatedly, "No...no..."
However, he was not met with pity.
Krag and Ina's faces were contorted with pain and mania, their eyes bloodshot and drool dripping from their mouths, yet they still gripped the old firearm tightly. They stared at each other, their expressions ferocious, almost insane.
"Die! Die! Die!!!"
The desperate roar shook the night sky.
Their fingers simultaneously pulled the trigger.
—Bang! Bang! Bang!
A series of flashes of fire exploded in the darkness, accompanied by a piercing roar.
The bullet flew straight toward Lupercal's head, who was standing at the center of the pentagram.
"don't want--!"
The boy's shouts echoed amidst the gunfire, carrying with them a broken, mournful cry.
His terrifying power took effect once again.
"If there is any other harm, then a life must be paid for with a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a brand for a brand, a wound for a wound, a beating for a beating—"
This is a whisper from the depths of one's blood.
The bullet did not pierce Lupercal's young body, but instead instantly reversed, turned back, and became an invisible echo.
Krag and Ina's pupils contracted sharply. Before they could even comprehend what had happened, the flashes from the gun barrels refracted back in their own direction in an instant.
--boom!
A devastating explosion rang out.
Both of their heads jolted simultaneously, as if struck by a heavy hammer.
The next moment, blood and white brain matter spurted out as their heads were violently blown open. The blood mist stained the five-pointed star on the ground, and the smell was sweet and pungent.
They have incredibly creative ideas.
The night sky over the mining area fell silent amidst the echoes of gunfire and screams, leaving only Lupercal's young figure standing alone, the spider monster on his shoulder wriggling slightly, as if sensing the sorrow and emptiness in his heart.
Amidst the bloodshed, the boy's eyes held no joy of victory, only a chilling silence born from facing death and betrayal for the first time.
The boy stared blankly at the blood mist and wreckage before him.
Krag and Ina's heads had turned into a blurry mass of flesh, and blood meandered along the lines of the five-pointed star, seeping into the black soil, as if offering sacrifices to some invisible altar.
Lupercal's pupils trembled, his heart pounded in his chest, and then something indescribable burst forth from the depths of his heart.
"Click, click, click—"
The voice was deep and strange, like the sound of an exoskeleton cracking from his shoulder.
The spider that had been perched on his left shoulder now swelled wildly, its carapace tearing through fleshy veins, its limbs stretching through the air and rapidly extending. In the blink of an eye, it had grown as tall as a skyscraper, its six black limbs stretching across the night sky, casting a heavy shadow that completely shielded the boy's youthful figure in the center.
The presence of the colossal object made the air heavy, the ground collapsed, and the patterns of the blood-red pentagram were torn apart, as if everything was making way for its expansion.
And at this very moment,
"boom!"
An invisible force spread out from Lupercale's body.
It is unseen, yet it truly exists.
The air seemed to be pushed aside by the flow of water, and the dust and blood were forcibly separated. It was a transparent barrier, yet it also seemed to be the condensation of some kind of roar from the depths of the soul.
At the same time all this was happening, the Möbius strip happened to appear in this location.
As light and shadow poured down, Xia Xiu's figure landed from the void.
The silver "Lever of Heaven" in his hand paused slightly, and the dust and blood mist automatically separated, not daring to get even a little bit of it.
However, when he looked up, he suddenly stopped in his tracks.
The scene before me was truly... bizarre.
As Xia Xiu saw, he saw the boy with whom he shared some indescribable connection.
It was a twelve-year-old boy, his thin figure standing in the center of the shattered, blood-red five-pointed star. His innocent eyes were empty and lifeless, yet shocking bloodstains seeped from the corners of his eyes, tracing dark red lines down his cheeks.
Behind the boy was a giant spider.
The pitch-black limbs parted the night sky, their carapaces covered in barbs, as if announcing the return of some ancient and ferocious ruler.
It crouched behind the boy, towering like a skyscraper, and the ruins of the entire mining area trembled and creaked in its shadow.
Even more terrifying was the invisible aura emanating from the boy.
It wasn't an aura, nor a spell, but a primal, pure rejection. The air was pushed aside, dust suspended in mid-air, and even the blood was abruptly blocked as it fell, as if a transparent yet absolute "barrier" stood between them, isolating the boy from the outside world.
Xia Xiu's golden pupils narrowed slightly as he traced the texture of his cane with his fingertips.
He gazed at the boy, a strange tremor rising in his heart—this was the first time he had witnessed the moment when the "perfect embryo" truly awakened.
"Looks like I'm too late..."
Xia Xiu looked around, his gaze sweeping over the scorched bloodstains and collapsed ore. His silver staff paused slightly, and he couldn't help but let out a low sigh.
The void twisted slightly, and the phantom of Amund appeared. He stood with his arms crossed, gazing at the boy before him, a complex, cold light in his eyes.
“One of the derivative fields of Ajiba radiation… Yes, this is the ‘Barrier of the Heart’.”
His voice was low, as if he were confirming something to himself, but it quickly turned into a muttered deduction.
"From [God's Blind Spot]... wait, that means someone took out a sealed world entity from the Little Garden World and forcibly stuffed it into an abnormal weaponization experiment... ha, that's a subpage level of 'Existence'... these old guys have guts, they even dared to extract fragments of that level."
Upon hearing this, Xia Xiu's golden pupils suddenly narrowed, as he keenly grasped the key point.
"God's blind spot?... What did your Demon King do behind the backs of the entire Kingdom of Heaven?"
Armand spread his hands, his expression one of innocence.
"This has nothing to do with me. [God's Blind Spot] is under the jurisdiction of the Tactical Theology Department. I wasn't the one who made the decision to extract this thing. It was a few other old guys who did it. They secretly accessed the taboo stuff of the Theology Department and made it up."
"To be honest, the history of the Tactical Theology Department is even longer than that of the Kingdom of Heaven today. You could even say that it was one of the precursors of the Kingdom of Heaven."
He gently shook his head, his tone as if he were unveiling a long-forgotten piece of ancient history:
"In the earliest times, civilization still had to contend with the abnormal and the sacred. It's just that the methods used back then were more primitive and cruel than they are today. People at that time often used rituals, stone tools, blood sacrifices, and tribal ceremonies to 'contain' or 'drive away' monsters and miracles that descended upon the cradle of civilization. The two sides fought against each other, and the records left behind are incomplete, but from the scattered scrolls and clay tablets, we can still see how they used religion as a weapon."
He paused, then casually gestured in the air to create the phantom image of an early altar.
"The Tactical Theology Department was born out of such conflict, and it can almost be considered one of the precursors of the Kingdom of Heaven."
At that time, it was nothing more than a patchwork of secret societies, knightly orders, alchemist guilds, and supernatural research societies from various places.
"Later, these organizations were gradually unified and put together the first Heavenly Kingdom think tank—Eden."
"Regarding Eden's true form... it's connected to a certain terrifying book."
"Don't think I can reveal any deeper things now, because there are many things we knew in the past, but we don't know now—that's how the members of the resolution assembly are, wavering between understanding and confusion."
I should have known more about the history and truth of the theology department in the past, but now I am merely a data ghost. In becoming a ghost, I automatically forfeit the right to know the whole truth.
Amund's eyes flickered, and then he said:
"However, I can tell you some common sense bits and pieces."
For example, Mu, the strongest angel in Heaven—whose ancestral birth was acknowledged during the transition of leadership—is now a defender of Heaven, but was previously…an original member of the Department of Tactical Theology.
"No one knows how long he has lived. As a living fossil of the Kingdom of Heaven, he participated in almost all the important events of the Kingdom of Heaven. Sometimes I can't help but guess that he also participated in the history of the Glorious Era. He may have already existed during the time when Yann was active."
"As for why Mu was able to live so long, both I and my past decision-makers felt it was related to the miniature world under the jurisdiction of the Tactical Theology Department—[God's blind spot]."