Chapter 24: Hunger

The rift was so dazzling that the instant Yang Yi saw it, she was utterly captivated.

It radiated a hair-raising pull, as if beyond the rift lay her destination, her true homeland, the place her whole life had been seeking; this world was so loathsome, so disappointing, so tediously empty, this world was not worth lingering over—go back, go back behind the rift, only there could you find true peace, only there could you find true tranquility, only there could your ever-anxious, drifting heart attain eternal fulfillment…

The rift was calling her, and she could not help but slowly walk toward it.

An invisible suction radiated from the rift's outer edge, making her skin tingle.

She smelled a surge of vibrant life, she tasted invisible power flooding her body, skin, bones, sinew; she heard a faint chanting enter her eardrums, that chanting so fervent, yet so orderly, they were singing some unknown hymn, some sacred song; someone was presenting her with a carefully prepared gift, waiting only for her to open it, to taste it, to admire it…

Just as she was about to step into the rift, a voice that had long been absent from her mind suddenly said: "So, you've decided?"

Yang Yi suddenly came to her senses and found that one of her feet was already raised, and the rift was right before her nose; invisible force warped the space, her vision blurred, and she could not see what lay within the rift.

With great effort she cast aside that fierce pull, and slowly drew her foot back.

Only now did she feel the unevenness beneath her feet; looking down, it was the hand of a boy of five or six, kneeling on the ground, both hands stretched forward, an age-inappropriate serene smile on his face, as if being permitted to kneel here were already an immense honor.

Yang Yi's heart lurched; she could not help but step back, her back almost leaning against the rift.

She raised her head and looked around; several hundred corpses knelt on the ground with her as the center, as if worshipping her.

A faint voice kept repeating, kept praying: Revel in the end of days, we shall at last welcome the descent of the Lord, the gates of hell swing open, chaos and evil and slaughter pour forth, the Lord rescues His people from this wicked human world, and in His kingdom we shall gain eternal life…

Her breath stalled for a moment; her whole body went cold.

She sealed her ears with her will, but that prayer was not sound waves—it was invisible spiritual contamination, transmitted straight into her brain.

Even though she clamped her ears tight, countless voices kept confessing at her side: Lord, forgive my sins, forgive Your people…

The voices grew louder and louder, swelling to a roar, as if countless people were praying to her; every human desire, pain, fear, arrogance, envy, rage, greed, cruelty, lust—every negative emotion a person could feel—formed a torrent that scoured her mind.

Her brain was like a block of tofu tossed into a blender, smashed to pieces in an instant. Yang Yi clutched her head in agony and doubled over.

Stop praying! Stop confessing!

She wanted to scream it out, but her brain was battered, in utter chaos, unable to form rational thought.

Before her consciousness shattered completely, a groundless impulse drove her to speak; she murmured, "Yes, I forgive you!"

Every voice stopped in an instant.

Yang Yi slowly rose to her feet and looked again at the several hundred kneeling corpses on the ground, nothing left in her heart but blankness and cold.

Her lips moved a few times; her hands trembled as she clenched them tight.

"Why?" she asked.

No one answered; only the lingering grey-white mist gathered again, gradually covering the gruesome scene on the ground.

The mist clustered around her, trapping her before the rift; she could no longer see the vast carpet of corpses beneath her feet, but this gave her no peace—she felt countless hands reaching out for her in the air.

That withered little hand at her toes should have been tender, should have been clutching a toy or a snack, not shriveled to skin wrapped around bone.

She drew a deep breath, turned around, and without hesitation stepped into the rift.

She made full preparations, wrapping her entire body in her will, even cutting off the air, ready to meet any attack and any horror.

But the scene before her still struck her heart with a tremendous shock, followed by boundless fury.

Everything beyond the rift was dark and gloomy; in the distance stood black, rotting trees, their branches stretching in despair toward a grey sky, and beneath them the withered dead earth gave off an ill-omened air.

Upon a stretch of jagged dead ground stood a circular altar.

Around the altar lay heaps upon heaps of human corpses.

If the several hundred corpses outside were already horrifying enough, then the shock and dread of several thousand corpses were enough to give rise to a vast terror, bewilderment, and absurdity in the heart.

The people were piled on the ground like sacrificial cattle and sheep; if the deaths outside could still be called orderly, then the deaths here were mad, intoxicated, steeped in an absurd frenzy.

Every corpse wore the expression of someone who had seen the thing they desired most in life, the happiest sight, the greatest dream, the most devoted faith; their bodies sprawled and jostled, arms outstretched, necks craned, eyes wide, expressions frenzied, still crawling forward with all their might at the very moment of death.

Their faces were aged, their hair withered, their bodies shriveled like mummies dried in the desert, as if every ounce of life had been drained away by some being; and yet they all wore smiles of satisfaction, as if being able to sacrifice themselves to some being were the greatest glory of life.

Shoulder to shoulder, body to body, several thousand pressed together, several thousand pairs of arms outstretched, like the forest of tombstones on a pauper's grave.

The stench of death was so thick it struck Yang Yi's heart like a bullet; her heart constricted, her blood ran cold.

What could make people lose their lives and still rush toward it in madness was a circular altar.

The altar had clearly been cleaned, yet it still carried a stale air. It did not look large, but it gave the feeling of being incomparably grand; there was no statue upon it, only a heavy, high-backed stone chair with armrests on either side.

The stone chair was carved all over with strange patterns and bizarre characters; one had only to stare at it for a while before feeling dizzy and bleary, and upon trying to recall it carefully, one could remember none of the patterns or symbols.

In a daze, Yang Yi seemed to see an invisible deity seated upon the stone chair, high above, looking down upon the human world, able to see through to the deepest depths of people's hearts—loneliness, rage, helplessness, self-loathing, envy, and every base desire.

Anyone before Him was as if stripped naked, as bare as a newborn infant. At first they might feel embarrassed, ashamed, remorseful, but then an ecstatic joy would well up unbidden, a happiness and fulfillment rising from the heart, as if they had been forgiven, as if they had earned the right to enter heaven.

All of people's emotions, even their life force, transformed into wisps of invisible energy that flowed into the stone chair, making it seem all the more mysterious and grand.

Yang Yi's expression slowly changed, from fury to serenity, then to joy, gradually revealing a trace of crazed longing; she walked forward uncontrollably, past the piled corpses, and arrived before the altar.

She saw it—suspended above the stone chair was a clump of energy, refined to the utmost, composed of the purest vitality in the world. The moment she saw that clump of energy, an extreme hunger surged up within her; the hunger came on suddenly, her legs buckled, and she was nearly felled by the intensity of the sensation.

This was not the hunger of an empty stomach, but an extreme lack of the soul, of the spirit.

Almost the instant she fell into hunger, the clump of refined energy upon the stone chair seemed to sense something, and began to give off an even more alluring fragrance; the scent stole soul and spirit, impossible to name, yet enough to rob Yang Yi of reason in an instant.

Eat it! Eat it! Eat it!

Eat it, and this soul-deep hunger will vanish!

She wanted to cast aside reason and, like a beast pouncing on a lamb, savagely lunge at that clump of energy.

The last sliver of reason was on the verge of being overrun; one foot hesitated, wanting to retreat, the other stubbornly pressed forward, her body twisted into a strange posture.

She could not help but reach out both hands to touch the altar, to touch that clump of refined energy that could free her from hunger, to touch what her heart truly desired…

"Yang Yi, don't touch the altar…"

A faint call reached her eardrums and jolted Yang Yi awake.

She wrested out a thread of reason and turned her head; at the farthest edge from the altar she saw five people sprawled on the ground. Unlike all the other corpses, whose heads pointed toward the altar, these five were the opposite—heads toward the rift, struggling desperately to get farther away.

But they seemed drained of all strength, wriggling on the ground, inching forward step by tiny step. From time to time one of them would fall into a strange frenzy and turn back toward the altar, only to be brutally slapped awake by a companion beside him.

The one calling out to her now was a familiar face; Yang Yi had read his file before coming—Daniel Davis, Class-B Electricity Awakener of Aka Nation.

Yang Yi looked at the others; their faces matched the files one by one—Helen Beck, Class-C Temperature Awakener of Aka Nation; Hamid Ansari, Class-B Earth Awakener of Yin Nation; Jane York, Class-B Psychic Awakener of Jia Nation; and Gabe Silva, who had vanished without a trace after being part of the first group to enter the Mist Town.

"Don't get near the altar; it can drain a person's life force. Just getting close will suck you dry into a mummy..." Daniel Davis shouted.

He looked utterly exhausted. Seeing Gabe Silva beside him once again wearing an expression of entranced delight, he didn't hesitate to slap him hard across his already massively swollen face, knocking him back to his senses.

Yang Yi mustered the greatest willpower of her life to temporarily suppress the hunger, painfully turned around to stop looking at the energy orb on the stone chair, and instead walked over toward them.

The five watched her approach step by step, her gait steady. Shock appeared on their faces, and even that entranced look had diminished considerably.

Only when Yang Yi reached them did Helen Baker dare to speak: "You're actually unaffected by the altar?"

"No, I'm enduring it." Yang Yi's tone was flat; no one noticed the intense craving she was forcibly holding back inside.

Looking at the five who were utterly drained, Yang Yi asked, "What exactly happened here?"

"Take us away quickly; this place is dangerous!" Daniel Davis grabbed Yang Yi's arm.

"Clap, clap, clap, clap—" Several crisp clapping sounds rang out in this silent alien space, raising goosebumps on everyone's skin out of nowhere.

Footsteps echoed from the dim black forest in the distance, and the five looked over as if facing a great enemy.

Accompanying the clapping, a person slowly emerged from the black forest, a sincere smile on his face: "I truly admire everyone's courage and ability to endure for so long before the Lord's altar."

Wade Davis.

He looked at Yang Yi, his smile on the lips gentlemanly and polite: "Miss Yang, it's been some time since we parted at the United Nations last time. I have been thinking of Miss Yang all along!"

Yang Yi said nothing. With a mere thought, an invisible force surged violently toward him.