Chapter 246: A Grand and Beautiful Pilgrimage of Life

Sudden mutation erupted.

No explosion, no deafening roar.

The entire United Nations General Assembly Hall, without warning, was enveloped by a Bai Guang as starry as starlight.

That light seemed to seep out from the air and from beneath the marble floor, holy, carrying a trance-inducing tranquility.

Within the light, countless runes, difficult for the naked eye to catch, seemed to flow and combine.

At the same time, an ancient chant, as if directly from the depths of the soul, rose faintly within everyone's consciousness, imprinted directly into their minds:

"Revel in the apocalypse... We shall eventually welcome the Lord's descent...

The gates of hell stand open, chaos, evil, and slaughter surge forth from within...

The Lord shall save His people from this world that hates evil...

In His heaven, we shall... obtain eternal life..."

The chant was ethereal and solemn, carrying compassion and holiness.

Beneath the holy light, more than two-thirds of the ordinary people in the hall—those delegates, staff, and reporters—their expressions of fear, anger, and doubt, like stains washed away by warm water, rapidly faded from their faces.

Their eyes became empty and dazed, a serene and satisfied smile floated upon their lips, as if they had seen the most blissful and beautiful sight in the world, immersed in it and unable to extricate themselves.

However, their bodies were undergoing a terrifying change that was the exact opposite.

After specks of starlight fell upon them, their skin, that originally vibrant epidermis, lost its luster and elasticity at a speed visible to the naked eye, becoming dry, wrinkled, and dim, like leather instantly drained of moisture.

Full cheeks sank in, fresh lip color faded to gray-white, and bright eyes were covered by a murky shadow.

Their bodies were as if a fast-forward button had been pressed a thousand times—a fresh flower bloomed and withered in an instant under the lens, a tender apple shriveled and rotted at breakneck speed before their eyes. Life was violently yet gently stripped from them.

As the flesh withered rapidly, wisps of misty airflow carrying a faint glow slowly drifted out from the tops of their heads, their hearts, and even every pore of their bodies. That was the most primordial energy of life, gathering into trickling streams, dreamlike and illusory under the reflection of the holy light.

Those who temporarily remained clear-headed—some Awakened ones and a few ordinary people with exceptionally strong wills—were stunned by this scene. They watched helplessly as colleagues, friends, and strangers rapidly "weathered" before their eyes, watching those beautiful yet deadly light mists escape from human bodies.

They scrambled backward, screams stuck in their throats, turning into suppressed suffocation.

All the drifting light mists, after hovering briefly in the air, as if responding to a supreme summons, traced clear and unmistakable paths, merging into a nebula torrent that grew increasingly mighty, surging toward the sole target in the center of the hall—

Yang Yi.

The globally broadcast cameras faithfully captured this scene of destruction: holy light, chanting, smiling withering crowds, drifting light mists gathering into a river, surging toward Yang Yi on the platform like an isolated island.

This image bore how much resemblance to the altar incident in the British sky before, and to the "Otherworld Extraction Video" that had spread across the globe!

Similarly extracting life sources, life weathering, light mists returning and flowing.

"No—!!!"

Yang Yi's pupils shrank to needle points.

Overwhelming horror and instinctive repulsion instantly suppressed the "hunger pangs" within her body; she almost purely by instinct, with a surge of mental power, sought to tear open space and leave this carefully laid trap immediately.

However, the suppressor on her chest suddenly erupted with red light and alarms; internal components operated at overload, generating a binding force field, which, cooperating with the suppression field that had quietly strengthened to its limit, acted like the most resilient spiderweb, forcibly hindering her impending spatial jump for a single instant.

That was the only instant of delay.

The torrent of life source, pure to the extreme and tempting to the extreme, gathered from the life essence of hundreds of people, had already washed over her.

"Ugh—!"

An indescribable sensation exploded.

Like a desert that had been drought-stricken for billions of years suddenly encountering sweet rain, like a traveler about to freeze to death plunging into a hot spring, like the most hungry and hollow part deep within her soul being suddenly filled... That stemmed from the long-standing scarcity within her body, that was the craving for life energy, a "hunger" that no poison in the world could compare to even one hundred-millionth of—completely triggered by this "feast" so close at hand!

Her precarious sanity sounded alarms frantically: No! Reject it! This is poison! This is corruption! This is life!

Yet the more primal instincts deep within her body and soul roared: Accept it! Devour it! This is nourishment! This is sublimation!

Her expression instantly twisted.

Reason and morality burned into pain, while instinct and power became intoxicated, like two mad giant pythons fighting within her body.

She gripped the railing before her with both hands, her fingernails crushing the bulletproof glass; pain made her involuntarily bend over, her eyes sometimes struggling in agony, sometimes becoming vacant and empty.

"Crack!"

The suppressor on her chest could not withstand the collision of the two energies inside and outside her body; it emitted black smoke, the metal casing cracked, and after a burst of short electric sparks, it exploded completely into fragments.

Immediately after, the suppression fields hidden throughout the hall also overloaded in succession, emitting muffled explosion sounds.

The bindings vanished, and the power that had been suppressed for so long, like a flood breaching a dam, erupted violently from within Yang Yi!

Behind her, space began to distort and collapse; a pitch-black vortex slowly appeared, constantly rotating and expanding.

The edges of the vortex devoured light, making the surrounding scenery become blurred, emitting an aura of void and hunger that made the soul tremble.

"She is draining our lives!!"

"Evil God! She truly is an Evil God!!"

"Run—!!"

The brief dead silence was broken; the hall plunged into hysterical panic.

Screams, cries, shoving, trampling... People ran toward the exits like headless flies, trying to escape this death zone woven with Bai Guang and black vortices.

Amidst the chaos, however, a figure ran against the fleeing crowd, desperately rushing toward the center of the hall, charging toward Yang Yi, who was wrapped in the torrent of light mist and the dark vortex.

Feng Liancheng's face was filled with anxiety.

"Yang Yi!!" He shouted with almost all his strength, his voice weak yet stubborn amidst the noise, "We believe in you, wake up! Control yourself! Do not let it devour you—!!"

His shout, like a thin yet resilient thread, pierced through the roaring of the energy wash, faintly reaching Yang Yi's nearly collapsing consciousness.

Several Awakened ones secretly observing in the crowd exchanged glances.

Stirred by Feng Liancheng's shout, Yang Yi's body swayed; she struggled hard to lift her head, looking toward the direction the sound came from.

A blinding flash of lightning erupted from the hand of an Awakened one, rushing straight at Feng Liancheng who was struggling to approach!

Yang Yi's vacant eyes suddenly focused!

She had no time to think; two surges of mental power burst forth instantly; one threw Feng Liancheng and Director Zhou and the others out of the assembly hall, while the other directly counterattacked!

Until this very moment, even at the critical instant, she still restrained most of her power, wanting to inflict heavy injury rather than kill.

"Pfft!"

The electric-system Awakened one, as if struck by a heavy blow, had his chest caved in, spewed blood wildly, flew backward crashing down a row of seats, twitched twice, and lay still.

Yet, this seemed to be a signal.

Beneath the hall floor, a small altar formed of green-black sacrificial stones and holy bones was slowly emitting holy light, continuously drawing life from the United Nations building.

Colin Payne, the Vice President of the Divine Punishment Organization, seeing the command on his communicator, spoke quietly: "Begin!"

Twenty telepathic Awakened ones, whose abilities had been enhanced by Vede, simultaneously activated their power—Mind Storm.

This ability did not resemble an attack; rather, like gentle water, it slowly wrapped around Yang Yi.

Resisting the Hunger and rejecting the Life Source occupied most of her strength; her mind already sunk into drowsiness, she did not even notice this power.

At the very beginning, it was only fragments of memories:

A cold woodshed, a simple swaying wooden bed, a quilt exposing broken cotton wadding, crickets in the corner...

A frozen reservoir in winter, dirty clothes covered in ice chips, fingers covered in frostbites oozing yellow pus...

Being grabbed by the hair and slammed against a wall, fresh blood on the forehead blurring her eyes...

In the dead of night, hands touching her legs, those excited and filthy eyes, fresh blood on the sheets...

In the sky of Mist City, a body polluted by the Colonizing Race, twisting, deforming...

In Diego City, a parade of hatred, the word "Demon" on the banners...

Diego saying "I love all your forms," the Mirror Project...

The back view of Director Zhou turning and leaving...

The United Nations' cold questioning and accusations...

On withered, weathered faces, serene smiles...

Countless noisy whispers, curses, fears, and abuses from behind screens across the globe...

All memory fragments spun in her mind, like a breached black tide, smashing the already crumbling mental defenses.

The surrounding screams, flight, and chaos were like a silent farce.

Vede's low whisper, carrying pity and mockery, echoed deep in her mind: "Look at them... is it worth it?"

All the struggle, all the persistence, all the sacrifice, all the... meaning...

Like the climax of an absurd play, everything was collapsing, everything was spinning, everything was losing color and sound.

She heard a voice asking; it was the voice of "It," and also her own voice; she asked this desolation the final question:

What is the meaning of all this...?

She tried hard to grasp an answer, to climb out of the swamp formed by memory fragments, Hunger, and the light mist, but could grasp nothing to leverage.

No answer.

Or rather, the answer lay within that endless hunger and void.

Crack—

It was the sound of something breaking.

Too tired, too tired...

Let it be, let me sink...

She finally closed her eyes, stopped struggling, and let herself fall endlessly...

The Hunger, which she had bitterly suppressed, lost its final restraints.

The nebula-like Life Source light mist, now unobstructed, surged into her body at a speed a hundred times more violent than before, merging into her limbs and bones.

Power rose; emptiness was filled.

Something that was "Yang Yi" was rapidly dimming.

The last faint light in her eyes belonging to "Yang Yi," that glow condensed from ideals, hope, emotions, and principles, that fragile and warm firefly, extinguished.

What remained was an abyss of darkness.

She no longer looked at the chaotic crowd, nor at any specific thing.

She simply, slowly, raised her right hand.

Facing the Awakened ones who had activated their abilities against her, her five fingers gently clenched.

The movement was casual, even carrying a hint of... excitement.

Hum—

There was no earth-shattering sound; only an invisible, formless power, like an unseen barrier, instantly covered that area.

Time seemed to freeze for a single frame.

The next second.

In that area, all sounds, all movements, all signs of life... vanished.

There was no gruesome scene of flesh and blood flying; only a space as if erased by an eraser.

Seats, human bodies, equipment... all tangible things, under the crushing of that telekinetic force, turned into fine powder mixed with dark red, swirling up like dust swept by a broom.

At the same time, those Life Sources that had just scattered, along with the life energy forcibly drawn by the altar from farther away, as if finally finding a home, emitted a joyful hum, transforming into a nebula piercing heaven and earth, and in a posture of destroying everything, wildly poured into Yang Yi's body.

Those anchors, which Vede had long ago set up covering human gathering areas worldwide, were activated simultaneously.

In the midnight Yangtze River Delta city cluster, tens of millions of people were simultaneously awakened by the starlight holy light seeping from the sky and underground.

The holy light, gentle as a mother's hand, stroked every sleeping or awake person.

A baby-like serene smile appeared on their faces, as if returning to the original peace of life.

Their bodies withered and shriveled at a speed visible to the naked eye within the holy light.

Mengmai, India.

On the tin roofs of the Dharavi slums, Grandma Perna was praying for her feverish grandson when suddenly she was enveloped by a soft holy light.

Not far away, a billionaire on the top floor of a five-star hotel had just finished a deal.

The holy light spread indiscriminately, crossing over distinctions of high and low.

Simultaneously, the old woman and the billionaire wore expressions of release; their wrinkles smoothed out and their furrowed brows relaxed.

From the withered, curled-up bodies of the poor and the rich alike, equally pure light mist drifted out.

France, Paris.

Holy light, like starlight, rose from the flowing river water.

On the Art Bridge by the Seine, kissing lovers stopped, gazed at each other and smiled, their eyes filled with dreamlike satisfaction.

Their golden hair turned withered and white, and their tightly clasped hands quickly became covered in wrinkles.

From them, from the boats on the river, from beneath the glass pyramid of the Louvre, from every corner of Paris, a magnificent mist of life rose up, like the hazy brushstrokes of Impressionism, outlining the passing of life.

As the light mist gathered, the Eiffel Tower resembled a candle melting in the brilliance.

Across the globe, countless streams of light mist broke through space, drawing arcs in the sky that defied physical trajectories; from all directions, from above every continent and every ocean, they moved toward the United Nations, toward that storm's center, in a grand and beautiful pilgrimage of life.

Yang Yi stood at the center where the Life-Source Hurricane and the Dark Vortex intertwined; beneath her feet lay death and ruins, her long hair danced wildly without wind, and her sleeves fluttered.

On her face, not a trace of pain, struggle, or anger remained; instead, a hint of intoxication and abandon appeared.

Under the erosion of these two forces, the dome of the United Nations General Assembly Hall developed spiderweb-like cracks.

She slowly opened her eyes, glanced around, and suddenly smiled.

The live global broadcast froze on the smile at the corner of her lips, and the signal cut off completely.