Morrigan

In the core experimental area, the five of them ran for their lives.

At the far end of their field of vision, a pure-white laboratory stood silently. The [GOD] sign at its top was especially striking.

Its doors stood slightly open, light shining from within like hope in the darkness.

Yet as He Zheng looked at the doors not far ahead, his face was bloodless, and even his arms were trembling.

The reason was simple: mutants had suddenly appeared on both sides, pouring in from every direction like a tide.

They could have reached the entrance in just thirty seconds, but they were pinned down.

"Ye Lin! How much time do we have left?"

"Thirty-five!"

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Ye Lin raised his rifle and burst a small mutant apart in midair, calling out the remaining time without looking back.

Then he swiftly swung the muzzle around and slid toward a dark shape lunging from the right.

Facing its gaping maw, he advanced instead of retreating, using his rifle like a shotgun as he rammed it straight into the monster's mouth.

Boom!!

He pulled the trigger.

A muffled blast erupted inside the mutant's mouth. At such close range, the bullet instantly shredded its oral cavity.

Like a watermelon split open, the mutant's shriek cut off abruptly. The shot blew apart the left side of its face, leaving only a strip of flesh dangling and swaying against its neck.

"Thirty-five!? Then we're almost out of time!"

He Zheng's heart filled with anxiety.

He fired his pistol repeatedly, but several bullets only brought the nearest mutant down screaming. He had not even killed it.

It was not that he had lost his nerve. There were simply too many mutants on the left!

Even with Zhang Tie helping with his axe, more than a dozen mutants were charging from that side. With wave after wave coming at him, he did not even have time to aim!

Thud!!

Zhang Tie roared and knocked a mutant lunging at He Zheng's back flying.

Without any technique to speak of, he could only rely on brute strength to take as much pressure off He Zheng as possible.

Behind them, Hu Jia and Lin Ya clamped their hands over their mouths, not daring to make a sound. Unable to help at all, they could only pray that He Zheng held out.

Seeing their encirclement tightening, He Zheng could not help shouting urgently.

"Ye Lin! Aren't you going to use the anesthetic yet!?"

"If you wait any longer, it'll be too late!"

The pressure was simply too great.

These monsters seemed to realize that they absolutely could not allow them into the laboratory behind them.

Looking at the nearby [God] sign, He Zheng felt as though those final three hundred meters were an impassable chasm.

Yet despite He Zheng's urging, Ye Lin said nothing. He merely fired calm, controlled shots as he moved closer to the others.

Not yet.

It was not that he did not want to break through. He only had three tubes of anesthetic left, and he had to make the most of them.

The white mist covered too small an area. After being caught in it several times, these mutants had already learned to circle around its sides.

A few short seconds felt as long as a century.

With a cry of pain from He Zheng, a mutant took advantage of his reload to swipe a claw at his head.

Half his ear was torn away, and blood covered his face as he could not help calling to Ye Lin again.

"Go!"

He waited no longer. Seeing the encirclement squeezed almost to its limit, Ye Lin stopped hesitating and hurled all three tubes of anesthetic into the horde.

Now!

Crack!

White mist rose. The mutants that inhaled it instantly stiffened, as though their nerves had been severed, and fell to the ground in swathes.

Ye Lin lowered his rifle and sprinted.

Seeing this, the others also ran toward the laboratory with every ounce of strength they had.

As long as they made it through, there was still hope!

Two hundred meters! One hundred meters! Fifty meters!

They had never run so desperately. Their hearts and lungs felt as though they would burst.

Half a minute later, hearing the shrieks of the mutants behind them as they recovered and resumed pursuit, He Zheng plunged through the doorway.

"Close the doors! Hurry!"

He Zheng shouted, excitement filling his heart as he took in the twelve metal pillars inside the laboratory.

The pillars were cylindrical from top to bottom, each about six meters tall.

Behind translucent glass like that of a Hibernation Pod, thick clouds of white, cold vapor billowed upward.

He could not make out what the things lying inside actually looked like.

But when he noticed the control consoles beneath the pillars, he could guess that what lay inside was probably the "God" mentioned in the clue!

He Zheng took a deep breath and approached on trembling legs.

Before he could take more than a few steps, however, Zhang Tie suddenly shouted in alarm.

"He Zheng! The doors won't close!"

"What!?"

He Zheng abruptly turned. The doors, which should have slid together and locked, seemed to be jammed. No matter how hard the others tried, they would not budge.

The gap was a full half meter wide, enough for a mutant to squeeze through.

He Zheng's expression changed drastically, and his heart sank.

Damn it!

He did not know how long waking these gods would take, but even a single minute would be enough for the mutants to charge in and devour them!

"Ye Lin!?"

He Zheng instinctively turned toward Ye Lin, only to see that he had already run straight back and aimed his rifle outside.

"We'll hold them here! Let the others do it!"

He Zheng's heart jolted at those words. His first instinct was to refuse, but after a brief internal struggle, he could only steel himself and rush back.

Apart from him and Ye Lin, none of the others could use a gun. They could not possibly stop the mutants.

Seeing Hu Jia still standing there in a bewildered daze, He Zheng roared at him:

"What are you standing around for!? Get moving!"

The labels on the Hibernation Pods were in English. With Ye Lin unable to leave his post, this kid was their only hope!

"Me!?"

Hu Jia froze, never having expected He Zheng to send him.

Although he was confident he could find the correct Hibernation Pod, his calves began trembling under the enormous pressure.

Opening a pod was dangerous. According to his theory, if he chose the wrong god, he would very likely be killed by that god!

"Forty seconds!"

Ye Lin suddenly turned and pointed his rifle straight at him.

"Either I cripple you, or you go right now!"

Seeing the muzzle aimed directly at him, Hu Jia turned deathly pale. He could feel that Ye Lin's killing intent was not remotely feigned!

"I'll go! I'm going right now!!"

"[Almighty Christ]... [Enlightened Buddha]..."

"Hu Jia! Which one are we looking for!? I don't... I don't recognize any of them!"

Following behind Hu Jia, Lin Ya sounded close to tears.

Looking at the twelve enormous Hibernation Pods before her, she felt a piercing chill seep into her bones.

Fear, uncertainty, and no idea what beings lay inside-it was as though she stood before the gates of hell. One wrong choice, and she would fall into endless darkness.

White mist swirled upward. Through the translucent glass, she could barely make out anything.

Inside the Hibernation Pod nearest her, she could faintly see an enormous, thick hand adorned with round beads.

"Morrigan! Look for Morrigan!!"

Hu Jia ran, then stopped, rapidly checking the names at the tops of the Hibernation Pods.

"Morrigan? Who's that? Why are we looking for her?"

Lin Ya asked instinctively, somewhat at a loss.

"Because although all those murals showed gods, only those two had enemies in them!!"

Hu Jia panted heavily. After seeing that the name on the sixth Hibernation Pod was wrong too, he had no choice but to keep running.

"Enemies? You mean...?"

Lin Ya froze, and the images instantly surfaced in her mind.

One showed Vishnu burning demons to ashes; the other showed a black-winged angel. Realizing that Hu Jia was using the presence of enemies to determine which god they needed, Lin Ya felt a jolt and immediately understood.

That was right. Of those eleven murals, only those two depicted enemies, and the creatures beneath the black-winged angel's feet were mutants.

But...?

"Then shouldn't we be looking for Angel!?"

"Wait! Hu Jia, I think we passed it!"

Remembering that one of the Hibernation Pods they had just passed was labeled Angel, Lin Ya hurriedly reminded him. Her grades were not very good, but she still recognized that word.

"Not Angel! The second mural wasn't an angel! That was a trap!"

"Morrigan and Angel are two different gods!"

Unable to spare time for a lengthy explanation, Hu Jia raised his head and strained to decipher the frost-covered names.

No one knew how excited he had been when he saw that utterly brutal mural in the office area. He believed he was the only one who had understood what it truly meant.

The figure in that mural looked like a black-winged angel, but she was actually Morrigan, the Celtic goddess of war!

Of all the mythological traditions featuring descriptions of both angels and fish monsters, Celtic mythology was the closest match.

And in Celtic mythology, Morrigan, the goddess of war, often took the form of a black raven to roam a land of bones.

The fish-headed monster that represented death was called Ged!

"God...! Ged!"

With such a coincidence, Hu Jia had long suspected that the so-called god-creation area actually referred to Ged, the fish monster!

"Found her!"

As he ran past the third-to-last Hibernation Pod, Hu Jia's heart jolted. His eyes filled with delight as he looked at Morrigan's name at the top.

Just as he had guessed, Morrigan, the goddess of war, was indeed among the twelve Hibernation Pods.

"Hu Jia! How much longer do you need!!"

Suddenly, He Zheng's furious shout rang out from a distance.

Noticing that a mutant was already roaring as it squeezed its body through the doorway, Hu Jia's delight instantly vanished. He frantically pressed the button marked [Thaw].

With a beep, a slender steel needle shot out from the control panel and pierced his wrist. Code scrolled across the panel as it began verifying his identity.

[Native human genome confirmed. Thaw protocol activated!]

"Native human genome confirmed. Activating thaw protocol!"

A mechanical voice sounded, and the countdown began ticking down.

Watching the Hibernation Pod rapidly vent white gas with a hiss, Hu Jia's heart raced, and his entire body trembled uncontrollably.

It worked!

He did not know whether he was trembling with excitement or fear of the unknown.

All he knew was that in twenty seconds, this legendary being known as a god would awaken!

"Twenty seconds! Twenty seconds left!!"

"Twenty!?"

Thump! Thump! Thump-thump!

Hundreds of mutants slammed into the doors one after another like a barrage of cannon shells.

As they desperately squeezed inside, their heads were crushed out of shape like mangled fish heads, their two enormous eyeballs forced right out of their sockets.

They reached in and clawed, their sharp claws scraping the metal doors with a piercing screech.

Inside the jammed alloy doors, He Zheng braced himself against them, struggling to dodge the mutants' claws while firing his pistol against their heads.

Bang! Bang!

Gunfire lit the darkness. The mutants whose heads were blown apart at point-blank range burst like watermelons, spraying brains and blood.

The good news was that the mutants were so frenzied that, in their mad scramble to squeeze through, their bodies had become wedged against one another.

The bad news was that there were simply too many of them. They had killed fifteen in less than half a minute, yet the number outside had not diminished at all.

With half his face clawed to shreds, He Zheng looked almost absurd.

He resembled a rag doll soaked in blood, and half the palm of his only remaining hand had been bitten off by a mutant.

"Ye Lin, I don't think... I can hold on..."

Blood spilled from his mouth as he coughed. After losing so much blood, He Zheng felt his awareness growing increasingly hazy.

The fighting was brutal. Even Zhang Tie's Fire Axe had long since become useless, its edge completely rolled. He could only use it as a hammer, smashing it into the mutants again and again.

"Hold on."

"Seventeen seconds left!"

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Without another wasted word, Ye Lin crouched low and tilted his head to avoid a mutant leaping down from above the doorway. He rolled behind it, pressed his muzzle to its head, and blasted it apart.

Under the strain of such intense concentration, his own awareness was growing hazy too. Blood covered his face, tinting the world before his eyes red.

After holding out this long, they did not even have the strength to run.

They could only gamble with their lives, betting that the "God" about to awaken would be powerful enough.

"Fifteen seconds left!"

Hu Jia shouted out the time. Watching He Zheng barely manage to stay on his feet, he was frantic. All he could do was hope the three of them could hold out a little longer!

But when he saw the Species that had already forced its way through the doorway, making Ye Lin swing his gun around, he feared they would not even last another ten seconds!

Before he could shout anything to rally them, however, violent tremors suddenly came racing toward them from the distance.

Thud! Thud! Thud-thud-thud!!

He Zheng instinctively lifted his head and peered through the doorway with blurred vision.

The next second, his expression changed dramatically. The sight jolted him into mustering his last breath to roar a warning.

That was...!?

"Ye Lin! Watch out!"

Less than fifty meters beyond the doorway, a massive creature had appeared without anyone noticing and was charging toward them at terrifying speed.

The ground shook. Gazing at the horrifying, crablike monstrosity, a full six meters tall, He Zheng sank into utter despair.

The charging giant crab resembled a fortress rotted to the core. Its shell was deathly white, and yellow-green pus constantly seeped from the gaps between its plates.

Where a crab's compound eyes should have been, two hollow pits were packed with dozens of eyeballs of varying sizes.

Like an emotionless war machine, it stabbed its enormous claws into the ground again and again. Violent tremors rolled outward like waves, knocking all three men to the floor.

Realizing this was the monster that had battered the door earlier, He Zheng instinctively tried to shout for them to get away from the entrance.

But it was already too late. The Rotten Crab suddenly leaped at an incomprehensible speed, and in the next instant, it slammed into them like a warship!

BOOM!!!

The tremendous impact instantly smashed the door open, and its remaining force sent all three men flying into the air.

The metal door, once sturdy enough to withstand artillery fire, was now buckled and twisted, utterly ruined.

Thrown to the floor, Ye Lin coughed up mouthfuls of blood. One shoulder hung limp, leaving him unable to hold his gun.

Had the door not absorbed most of the impact, he had no doubt he would have been reduced to a heap of pulp the instant it struck.

On the floor, He Zheng could no longer even raise his head. Watching the giant crab charge toward him without allowing a moment's respite, he gave a bitter laugh, the last hope in his heart extinguished.

Too late. It was all too late.

Although only a few seconds remained in the awakening sequence, the moment this monster brought down its pointed claw, it would pierce his heart.

"Fuck..."

"I... never thought... I'd still end up dying... here..."

"If you... make it back... remember..."

Choking on blood, He Zheng turned toward Ye Lin with a bitter smile, about to leave him a final message.

Suddenly, a high-frequency buzz beyond the limits of human hearing rang out behind Hu Jia.

Bzzzz.

The six-meter-tall Hibernation Pod slowly opened, and a woman whose internal organs had been hollowed out abruptly opened her eyes.