Chapter 114: First Angel

Yu Sheng, of course, knew there would be compensation—whether providing intelligence, assisting operations, or directly "contracting" certain projects and handing over supernatural items, the Special Bureau would provide remuneration to Spirit World Detectives and Investigators according to a set quota, and this was also one of the main and most stable income sources for "civilian supernaturals" like Little Red Riding Hood.

He just hadn't expected the Special Bureau to hand the money over directly like this, and the reward was even higher than he had imagined.

Obviously, this extra amount of compensation was linked to the danger level of the "Angel Cultists."

Yu Sheng recalled Little Red Riding Hood's reminder before parting, and at the same time more deeply realized the special nature of those so-called "Angel Cultists" in the eyes of the Special Bureau.

Song Cheng nodded slightly after Yu Sheng took the envelope, and said casually, "Under normal circumstances, the reward would be transferred directly to your account through the 'Border Communication' platform, but given that this is our first cooperation, I think a bit of ceremony would be better—of course, more importantly, I want to take this opportunity to talk to you about the 'Dark Angel' and the 'Angel Sect', after all, very few Spirit World Detectives and Investigators get involved with those crazy Angel Cultists during their first operation."

Yu Sheng adjusted his sitting posture, showing a serious attitude: "I have seen that 'Angel' in the Night Valley before; to be honest, it differs greatly from the 'Angel' I imagined..."

Song Cheng's voice was low: "But you could feel its massive presence, that 'overlooking' as if from a higher dimension, and the... 'holiness' behind its bizarre form, right?"

"'Holiness'..." Yu Sheng recalled the feeling he had when he first saw that giant eye in the sky, and seemed to vaguely understand what Song Cheng meant, "If you are talking about that irrational, cold atmosphere, then yes, it does have a bit of that; that weird thing is scary, but when it hung high in the sky, it occasionally gave people a sinister sense of 'divinity'."

"'Angel' is how these two words came about," Song Cheng nodded. "The first investigator to come into contact with the Dark Angel wrote the first eyewitness report on them before falling into madness; in the fear of impending insanity, the recorder described his feelings like this—"

"'It looked down, as if from a higher, transcendent place; crazy thoughts filled my head... It was a messenger, a messenger representing some greater, more majestic power; I seemed to hear it speaking to me, incomprehensible sentences conveying a will beyond human understanding... In the most extreme and pure thought, I saw a dark future; in the silence of all things, they rose to the sky...'"

Song Cheng spoke these words in a low and slow tone, then took a thick stack of documents from a briefcase nearby, pulled one out, and placed it in front of Yu Sheng.

"This is the investigator who left this eyewitness report; we call him 'Contact Zero'; this is what he looks like now."

Yu Sheng curiously took the picture and glanced at it, but only saw a strange and twisted... "tree" standing alone in a vast, pure white hall.

That tree was rooted in a huge cultivation pool; all its roots and branches presented a clumped, coiled, and entangled appearance as if they were hair; the whole thing vaguely revealed the outline of a human struggling and hunching over; from the dark-colored canopy hung down strands of suspicious-colored "vines"; Yu Sheng carefully distinguished them for a long time before realizing that the vines hanging down from the canopy were actually strange, swollen blood vessels.

"He is now contained in a high-security 'warehouse' of the Special Bureau; we need to trim the new branches growing from the canopy every three days to prevent him from suddenly losing control," Song Cheng's voice reached Yu Sheng's ears. "He didn't turn into this all at once; in fact, the entire transformation process lasted ten years; that was... a very terrible process; during those ten years, Contact Zero would occasionally wake up from his madness, and then fall back into frenzy in great terror."

Erin poked her head over to take a look at the documents in Yu Sheng's hand; listening to Song Cheng's description, she couldn't help but shrink her neck, muttering, "This looks worse than being dead... If I were you, I would just give the poor guy a quick death; isn't this torturing people?"

"Yes, so we have done just that," Song Cheng said calmly. "After Contact Zero woke up for the last time and pleaded with the warden, we carried out his 'execution'; we are certain we killed him, or at least killed his suffering soul, but his body survived after the severe injury... After careful discussion, the Special Bureau decided to preserve this body as an important sample for studying the influence of Angels."

Yu Sheng frowned tightly and only spoke after a long while: "Just one look and you turn into this? We saw that giant eye back then too, so why do we seem to have no aftereffects?"

"First, merely a short sighting will not leave irreversible effects, and 'Contact Zero' was trapped beside the First Angel at the time; he had contact with that thing for too long," Song Cheng said slowly. "Second, the 'characteristics' of each Dark Angel are different; some possess powerful mental pollution, some manifest as direct destructiveness, and some... even seem to have no harm, at least their main bodies have never shown any direct aggression. The giant eye you saw should belong to the inert type with relatively weak 'offensiveness'."

"There are many Dark Angels?" Yu Sheng looked up curiously.

"Those currently confirmed have already reached double digits," Song Cheng said, handing over another document. "This is the 'First Angel'; what Contact Zero witnessed was it; it is also the first Dark Angel to invade our world, currently recognized as such."

This time, even the fox that had been seriously combing its tail on the side couldn't help but come over and look at the content on the documents together with Yu Sheng and Erin.

"The First Angel is also called the 'Tree Angel' or the 'Hanging Tree'," Song Cheng spoke leisurely on the side. "Its form upon 'descent' was a huge plant hanging upside down in the sky; the width of its canopy reached nearly a thousand meters, and its height was also nearly a thousand meters; it grew out of a vortex structure hanging high in the sky—this vortex would form twenty-four to seventy-two hours before the 'descent', which is also an important reference for identifying the 'Tree Angel' and issuing early warnings."

Yu Sheng stared fixedly at the huge upside-down tree shown in the document picture, as well as the large city buildings in the background; and below the picture, he saw a further description of this "Dark Angel":

"... It will not move or attack actively, but will continuously release strong mental interference; witnesses will uncontrollably look up at its canopy and hear huge, chaotic voices until their minds are completely occupied, even believing they are also 'trees'. In some contact reports, surviving witnesses described seeing a 'forest', and they were nestled around the 'Mother Tree' in the form of saplings..."

"Currently, there are no effective means to resist this 'urge to gaze'; even people with the strongest minds cannot control themselves to shift their gaze after the Tree Angel descends; this influence is similar to that of the 'Goddess of Beauty' and the 'Silent Sun'... The currently known most effective protective measures are voluntary blinding, deep hypnosis, and drinking the 'Snake Venom Wine' of the Desert Court in advance; the main idea is to forcibly block vision or suppress mental activity..."

"The Tree Angel first appeared in the sky above the Otherworld 'City of Silence'," Song Cheng said on the side. "It caused the activation of the entire Otherworld; at that time, several investigation teams and scholar teams operating in that Otherworld almost all perished; only 'Contact Zero' survived. Its last appearance was three years ago, above a distant alien planet, directly invading the real world—although it only stayed in the sky for a few dozen minutes that time, it caused extremely terrible consequences, because that was a remote and backward planet; the locals had no experience or ability to fight Dark Angels; according to post-event statistics, more than a hundred thousand people were affected, with direct casualties exceeding ten thousand, and the rest are still suffering to this day."

Yu Sheng felt a strong... shock.

When he saw that huge single eye in that valley, he didn't have this sense of reality, but now, he finally understood from real cases just how dangerous a thing "Dark Angels" are.

"This thing... can appear in the real world?!" He looked up, looking at Song Cheng with an incredulous gaze.

"Generally speaking, Dark Angels will 'descend' more often in Otherworlds, but in fact they can appear anywhere," Song Cheng nodded. "They are not restricted by space-time dimensions; their appearance and departure follow no rules; they are true 'free wanderers'."

Yu Sheng didn't speak for a long time; on the side, Erin, after a brief moment of shock, couldn't help but mutter, "... Holy shit."

"Where exactly do these things come from?" After a moment of thought, Yu Sheng asked.

"No one knows," Song Cheng sighed. "But currently, a more accepted theory is that all 'Dark Angels' come from outside our world—they are a group of 'invaders' attacking our universe."

(End of Chapter)