In the mountains, darkness reigned. The moon slipped into the clouds, and a strange atmosphere hung over everything.
Xu Ye stared at Zhou Ye, who stood blocking him, somewhat stunned.
The young man's sturdy body trembled slightly, and his hands were unsteady on his gun. Sweat covered his temples, yet he remained firmly planted in front of Xu Ye.
Holding a large black gun, Zheng Chengdong glanced over and said quietly, "Don't be surprised. Ordinary people like us are cannon fodder to begin with. We throw our lives at Aberrants so the Awakened can figure out what's happening and strike when the time is right."
"There are too few Awakened. Losing even one is a huge blow. There are probably only a few hundred in all of Sky City. You should count yourself lucky you became one, kid."
Zheng Chengdong's words left Xu Ye silent.
The searchlights swept inch by inch across the surrounding mountainsides. Alice emerged from between Xu Ye's brows, coiled its tail, and sat elegantly on his shoulder, looking around.
"Wooo-"
"Xu Ye, did you hear something?" Alice pricked up its ears.
Just as it finished speaking, a searchlight landed on a rock.
A rat sat on the rock with its back to them, rustling as though it were gnawing on something.
A moment later, the rat seemed to sense something. Everything below its neck remained motionless, but its head suddenly stretched upward, then twisted around to stare toward the Ninth Squad.
"Grandpa!"
A faint, shrill, eerie voice came from the rat's mouth, carried on the mountain wind into everyone's ears.
"Is that... fucking... rat talking?" One team member wore a look of utter disbelief.
Everyone's gaze snapped toward it. Dozens of people stared at the large black rat covered in short fur, their eyes trembling with fear.
"Grandpa, your grandson's right here!"
Under the bright searchlight, the rat saw them and flashed a humanlike smile. It held a mostly eaten eyeball in its paws and remained perfectly still, watching everyone with a shifty gaze.
It made their skin crawl.
The next second, rat after rat jumped up from below the rock. Their necks were twisted in the same way, and they shouted in strained, piercing voices.
"Grandpa!"
"Grandpa!"
Soon, the entire rock was covered with rats calling for Grandpa.
It was bizarre and absurd.
"I'm afraid Li Kang isn't the Pollution Source. It's that old man who lost his grandson..." Meng Chengfei murmured.
The beams crisscrossed, and one searchlight fell on a tree. Its once-ordinary branches began shaking wildly. The entire thick trunk twisted around, revealing the other side, where a child's face was carved into the bark.
"Grandpa!"
Rustle, rustle, rustle!
More and more trees began joining in.
Across the mountains, cries of "Grandpa" rose and fell in a thunderous roar.
Trees, flowers, grass, rats, snakes, rabbits...
Thousands upon thousands of living things stared fixedly at every member of the Ninth Squad. They neither moved nor attacked, only called out for Grandpa again and again.
The sight made even Meng Chengfei's expression change, despite all he had seen, let alone the ordinary team members.
Those eerie voices were like streams gradually converging, surging toward them until they seemed to blot out the sky and drown everyone's thoughts.
"Grandpa!"
"Grandpa!"
"Grandpa!"
It was like a grand chorus, rising and falling, swelling and fading, full of melody and vivid imagery. Bleak and dreamlike, it told of a grandson's longing for his grandfather.
Just then, a wildly out-of-place voice cut into the choir.
"Night after night... night after night, I remember Mother's words, glistening tears, lupine flowers..."
While everyone listened to the cries of "Grandpa," Xu Ye picked up on the sound of the word and loudly began singing a heart-rending song from his previous life.
"Ah~ ah~ ah~!!!"
His voice was undeniably hoarse, like a cracked gong, and not a single note was in tune.
It was impossible to imagine how a human being could produce such an awful sound.
Back when he was in school, a classmate had recorded Xu Ye singing and used it as a wake-up alarm. The neighbors in the entire building had filed complaints.
Against such a perfectly synchronized "chorus," Xu Ye's voice sounded especially grating, like a fart in a room filled with perfume.
???
The twisted creatures, rats and trees alike, visibly froze, utterly bewildered for a moment.
"Grandpa! Grandpa! Grandpa!"
The next instant, the cries of Grandpa seemed to grow louder, trying to drown out Xu Ye's noise.
"The night's so beautiful, however dangerous it may be, someone always stays awake with dark circles under their eyes~!!!" Xu Ye gave the performance his all, switching to another song. He craned his neck and sang with such passion that his voice alone dragged the enemy's thousands-strong force off-key with him.
Creak!
Everything fell silent.
The first rat to appear could bear it no longer. Standing on the rock, it unleashed a torrent of abuse. "Can you fucking stop singing, you dumbass!"
Xu Ye snorted, crossed his hands over his chest, and shouted, "Back at you!"
The rat was dumbstruck!
Its face twitched.
Weren't you supposed to be a fucking Awakened?
Are you an elementary school kid?
Even elementary school kids aren't as childish as you.
Crack, crack, crack!
A few seconds after the chorus stopped, the scene before Xu Ye began collapsing like shattered glass, peeling away piece by piece.
"This is... an illusion?"
Meng Chengfei abruptly snapped back to his senses. He stared at everything before him in shock, his expression shifting as he immediately activated his Second Personality's ability.
[Demon Eye]
His pupils turned uncanny, like two balls of ghostly fire.
His expression also abruptly turned cold.
"Even I fell under the illusion before I realized anything was wrong. If Xu Ye hadn't disrupted their rhythm with his singing, we probably would've been wiped out."
A wave of lingering fear washed through him.
By then, everyone had regained their senses, staring blankly at the shattering space.
All they remembered was their minds growing hazy, followed by a horrifically awful sound plunging into their bodies like a dagger.
They had jolted awake.
"Phew..."
Xu Ye breathed a sigh of relief.
He cleared his throat.
Thinking back to everything the Heart Simulation had shown earlier, when the captain led the team here only for them all to die, he suspected these voices were responsible.
Once they achieved resonance, everyone would be trapped in an illusion.
Then the Aberrant behind it all could easily kill every member of the Ninth Squad.
If he hadn't possessed the Divine Sequence [Soul-Seizing], which granted immunity to certain illusions, things would probably have gone terribly wrong.
"Huh? Alice, why are you lying on the ground?"
Alice lay twitching on the ground, foaming at the mouth. It gave Xu Ye a resentful look. "Xu Ye, promise me you'll never sing again unless it's a matter of life and death."
"..."
"Xu Ye, thanks. Otherwise, I would've fucking died here." Zheng Chengdong gave Xu Ye a grateful look, his weathered face flushing slightly.
They had only just met, and a junior had already saved his life. It really was...
"Captain Zheng, you're too kind. It's what I should do." Xu Ye scratched his head sheepishly, then pointed ahead.
At the foot of the mountain, all the strange phenomena had vanished. Only a wooden cabin beside a pool remained, standing quietly before them.
"If I'm not mistaken, the Pollution Source should be in there."
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