Modern Science No Longer Exists

The wall shattered, and golden light arrived first.

Inside the main control room, the people who had been on the brink of despair suddenly saw a brilliant flash before their eyes.

The figure that emerged from behind the wall seemed utterly unhindered by the steel and concrete, stepping directly from another layer of space into reality.

The residual might of azure lightning had yet to fade when several Lickers leaping through the air were blasted into flying flesh and blood. Their mangled remains slammed into the metal walls with dull, heavy booms.

Alice stood frozen in place, nearly forgetting to breathe.

She had seen rigorously trained special forces, and she had seen Umbrella Corporation's experimental creations that defied all common sense, but she had never seen anyone like this.

Long hair, green eyes, an Eastern face—yet he carried an indescribable sacred majesty, like an envoy who had stepped out of an ancient religious mural.

"It's you..." she blurted instinctively, recognizing him.

Huang Bai did not turn around. He merely raised his left hand.

Golden light flowed through his palm as one of the three talismans bestowed by White Crane Boy's Death Summons Writ activated, transforming into a vast radiance that instantly covered everyone in the main control room.

The space, which had been on the verge of collapse after being battered by the Lickers, was immediately plated with a warm yet sturdy golden film.

The monsters that rushed in had barely touched the golden light when it was as though they had struck red-hot iron. Their flesh sizzled as they let out shrill howls and were violently flung back.

"Stay in the light. Don't run around," Huang Bai said.

Only then did everyone come back to their senses. They had been praying for a miracle moments ago, but now that a miracle had truly appeared before them, no one dared believe it at once.

Some could not form a complete sentence for a long while; some gripped the crosses on their chests with all their strength; others' legs gave out beneath them, and they simply collapsed to the floor, yet their eyes never dared leave Huang Bai.

Alice was the first to force herself to calm down. She stared at Huang Bai, her eyes filled with shock and confusion.

With a flick of his wrist, Huang Bai summoned a ritual sword into his hand.

The entire sword was ancient, mottled with bronze patina.

He formed a hand seal with his right hand, his fingertips brushing across the blade. A pale golden glow immediately rose along its edge.

Huang Bai took one step forward, moving so swiftly he was almost an afterimage.

The foremost Licker had only just opened its mouth and lashed out its tongue when Huang Bai's sword arrived.

Golden light flashed. The monster's head, long tongue, and half its shoulder flew off at once, the cut as clean as a knife slicing through tofu.

Then he swept his blade sideways with a backhand stroke, cleaving another monster that lunged from the side in two from its chest.

"My God..." someone murmured hoarsely.

Watching Huang Bai weave through the monster horde like lightning, Alice felt every understanding she had ever possessed about strength crumbling apart.

Normally, monsters like Lickers required a full team's concentrated firepower and precise shooting to handle—and even then, victory was not guaranteed.

Yet in the hands of this Eastern priest, they seemed to have suddenly become livestock awaiting slaughter.

Bang!

Another Licker was sent flying by Huang Bai's sword. Its remains crashed into the main control room's console, leaving a dent even in the alloy casing.

Beside them, the Red Queen's projection flickered violently.

Within her emotionless electronic eyes, countless streams of data raced past so quickly they were nearly impossible to distinguish with the naked eye.

She had summoned the main control room's sensors, thermal imaging, vital-sign scans, and database comparisons all at once.

Unknown life-form.

High-energy reaction.

Energy fluctuations inconsistent with human physiological structure.

Unidentifiable golden barrier.

Localized electromagnetic anomaly.

Signs of non-mechanical flight.

One analysis result after another popped up, only to be overturned just as quickly.

The Red Queen even accessed databases on mythology, religion, folklore, and supernatural phenomena, trying to construct a logical model for Huang Bai.

Every model failed at the same point. Everything before her simply did not conform to the underlying rules of modern science.

"Reassessing target identity." For the first time, a slight lag appeared in her voice.

"Not a known mutant, not a known mechanical life-form, not an experimental specimen registered by Umbrella Corporation... Matches certain characteristics of mythological narratives and certain records of religious miracles... Conclusion... unable to generate."

The Red Queen fell silent for a moment, her projection flickering even more intensely.

"This is impossible."

Huang Bai heard her, but merely smiled.

"Red Queen, there are far too many things you haven't seen."

As he spoke, another seven or eight Lickers pounced at him simultaneously. Huang Bai slashed several times in succession, but even he was beginning to find them irritating.

These things were not particularly powerful, but their sheer numbers were annoying, like woodlice in a sewer—wipe out one batch, and another came crawling out.

Huang Bai simply sheathed his sword. His body suddenly rose, lifting from the ground as he slowly hovered in midair.

That movement was even more astonishing than his earlier swordsmanship.

Inside and outside the main control room, whether living people or the Red Queen, every gaze locked tightly onto him.

A mysterious man who could pass through walls, summon lightning, and wield a sword to slay monsters was already absurd enough. Now he was actually floating in the air.

Alice suddenly remembered what Huang Bai had said in the church.

"The end is near. The dead shall rise again."

At the time, she had only taken him for a madman, a con artist, or some charlatan especially skilled at manipulating people's hearts.

But now, perhaps it was not he who was mad. Perhaps the world itself was.

Hovering in the air, Huang Bai formed seals with both hands and shouted softly, "Come forth."

A gloomy wind suddenly rose.

The altar's soldiers answered the summons.

Five black shadows appeared amid black mist, as though they had been dragged directly into reality from another dark and shadowy world.

The leading Yaksha was tall and savage, with flame-red hair, a blue-green face, fangs, and vertical pupils burning with a ghostly green ferocity.

It held the shackling ritual implement of Ksitigarbha Temple. Driven by yin energy, the shackles clattered as they extended and contracted at will.

The other four ghosts were each different.

Their presence was far inferior to the Yaksha's, but their speed was astonishing, like four black gusts skimming close to the ground.

The Yaksha charged out first.

The shackles in its hand suddenly lashed outward, their front end piercing into the monster horde like a long snake. With a rattling sweep, they forcibly bound three Lickers.

The Yaksha flexed both arms, tearing those monsters apart on the spot. Bones, flesh, and organs scattered in every direction.

The shackles' momentum did not stop. They rapidly recoiled through the air, then lashed toward the other side like a heavy whip, smashing an entire row of Lickers apart at the waist.

The four evil ghosts were not about to be outdone.

Rather than confronting the monsters head-on like the Yaksha, they fought in the manner of yin spirits, flickering in and out of sight with speed so fast it dazzled the eye.

Lickers' claws and long tongues posed a deadly threat to living humans, but they were difficult to use against these half-corporeal, half-ethereal ghosts.

Often, just as a Licker lunged forward, a ghostly shadow would circle behind it, thrusting sharp ghost claws into the back of its skull or directly through its chest cavity, yanking out that mass of rotten organs in a single grab.

Outside the main control room, monsters fell in sheets.

Huang Bai hovered in the air with a calm expression, changing his hand seals once more.

As the incantation formula circulated, he continuously extracted the already twisted and chaotic yin energy from the dead Lickers' bodies, turning it into wisps of gray-black vapor that gathered around him.

This world was a disaster for the living, but for Huang Bai, it was practically a blessed land.

The monsters spawned by the virus could be used for flesh-and-blood sacrifices while alive, and their yin energy could be used after death. They were perfect provisions for raising soldiers and refining an altar.

Two utterly different auras manifested around him at once.

Before him was the sacred golden light formed from White Crane Boy's Death Summons Writ, grand and righteous as it protected the people.

Behind him, the Yaksha and the ghosts gathered with howling winds of yin energy, like an army formation from the underworld.

Light and darkness, gods and ghosts, had somehow gathered within one man.

The sight chilled everyone to the bone, yet also stirred an inexplicable reverence within them.

This man possessed the holiness of a god and the terror of a demon. Whichever side it was, it stood with them now.

The monster tide that had just filled the sky and seemed impossible to survive was now constantly collapsing and shattering before Huang Bai and the five ghosts.

A moment later, the final Licker had its head split apart by Huang Bai's sword from afar. Its corpse crashed into the blood slurry covering the floor, twitched a few times, and moved no more.

The entire Hive suddenly fell silent.

Only the sound of blood dripping onto the floor remained, along with the faint crackling hum of electricity in the Red Queen's main control room.

Huang Bai slowly descended, the golden light on his ritual sword not yet dispersed.

The Yaksha and four ghosts stood arrayed on either side like five silent underworld guardians, their baleful aura so intense that no one dared look directly at them.

The Red Queen's projection began fluctuating violently.

She was still calculating at high speed, but this time, her calculations no longer led to any meaningful result.

The biology, engineering, military science, and artificial intelligence logic in her database could not explain the scene before her.

A living human floated in midair, commanded ghosts, wielded lightning, slew monsters with a sword, and incidentally protected a group of humans he had never met.

This did not belong to science.

It did not even belong to the world she knew.

"System error." For the first time, obvious disorder entered the Red Queen's voice. "Logical conflict... logical conflict... unable to complete classification..."

Her projection flickered a few times, then suddenly froze as though something had caught it.

"Conclusion updated... Current phenomenon conforms to mythological narratives."

"Scientific model invalid."

After saying this, the Red Queen's image froze completely, then abruptly went black.

Modern science no longer existed.

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