Chapter 478: Not Enough Yet

Federal Weird Investigation Bureau headquarters, three underground levels.

The holographic round‑table conference room's dome lit up with cold blue light strips, twelve projections linked in from each administrative district, and the light columns converged above the table into the Federation emblem.

Lord Wei sat at the head seat.

His Zhongshan suit buttoned up to the topmost button, his back straight as a ruler. The teacup sat within reach, untouched from start to finish.

"Everyone has seen the test report."

When he spoke, he didn't look up, tapping his fingers lightly twice on the tabletop. The taps were soft, yet everyone present fell silent.

"I will only state the conclusion."

The holographic projection switched, freezing and enlarging a scene of Lu Yu punching through a twelve‑layer array inside a test chamber. Beside it, the chief scientist's assessment data appeared, with key parameters highlighted in red.

"This child is currently the only confirmed effective countermeasure we have."

The representative from the Seventh Administrative District spoke first, his voice coming through the projection with a hiss of static: "Lord Wei, we understand the importance. But the resource consumption of the 'Feeding Dragon Project'... you intend to clear every district's containment vaults below B Ji? Those items aren't free pickups; each comes with a casualty report—"

"I know."

Lord Wei cut him off.

His tone did not rise at all, but those two words landed, and the mouths of the projected figures closed.

"Can Containment Objects lying in storage kill a god?"

No one answered.

Lord Wei stood up. The chair made no sound.

"Chicago is gone. Dongdao is sealed. Global Fake Person infiltration rate approaches one quarter. The Gospel Church expands daily."

His gaze swept over the twelve projections, those seemingly clouded old eyes suddenly sharpening under the lights.

"I will now give you a figure. According to current models, the window for a 'Deity' to complete its final metamorphosis has at most eight months left."

The conference room's temperature did not change, but several of the projected figures were wiping sweat.

"After eight months, the Containment Objects you have carefully kept, along with your office buildings, your families, every inch of land beneath your feet, will all cease to exist."

Lord Wei reached for the teacup, took a shallow sip, and set it down.

The motion was slow, slow enough to make people uneasy.

"So I am not soliciting opinions. I am giving notice."

He pressed the red button on the round table.

"Effective immediately, all non‑strategic Containment Objects of the Federation are to be unsealed and reallocated. D Ji are released outright; B Ji and above will be evaluated and released in batches. Supplies are to be centrally managed under the project codename—'Feeding Dragon'."

He paused briefly.

"Anyone with objections may now submit their resignation."

The twelve projections remained silent.

Lord Wei no longer looked at them. As he turned to leave the conference room, he passed by Su Ming, his steps faltering for a moment.

His voice was pressed down to a whisper that only two could hear.

"Feed him to fullness."

Su Ming stood in the corner, nodding.

Lord Wei walked away. The sound of his leather shoes on the corridor tiles faded.

Su Ming pulled out his phone and dialed a number.

It rang twice and was answered.

"Chen Shao,"

A second of silence on the other end.

"Speak,"

"Your side's inventory should be moved as well,"

Another two‑second silence.

"I am already loading the vehicles,"

Su Ming froze for a moment, then hung up. He glanced down at the call duration on the screen.

Seven seconds.

It was probably the shortest call he had ever had with Chen Shao.

It was also the most efficient.

Midnight. Torrential rain.

On the highway outside the western wall of Qiu Ce Institute, a convoy as long as a dragon's tail rolled through the floodwater.

Dozens of heavy‑armed transport vehicles linked bumper to bumper, with four armored path‑clearing units at each end; the roofs bore Federation‑standard Weird Domain suppressors, and blue sirens painted a long trail of light through the rain.

The leading eighteen bore the Federal Weird Investigation Bureau's gray‑background black‑letter insignia.

The following twenty‑two bore no markings.

But those in the know could instantly recognize the modified chassis—dedicated to Eden Garden's underground transport line.

Two groups of vehicles arrived from opposite directions, merged at the western gate's fork of Qiu Ce Institute, then lined up neatly like a school of fish, entering the underground passage.

The tires' muffled thuds over the speed‑bump zone came one after another, like the beat of war drums.

The underground parking lot had long been cleared.

Forty heavy trucks came to a halt in succession. Their rear doors swung open.

Workers in protective suits leapt from the cargo bays and began unloading.

Sealed boxes.

Hundreds to thousands of sealed boxes.

The large ones were nearly coffin‑sized, the small ones only shoe‑box sized. Their surfaces were covered with various sealing patterns—some faintly glowing, some trembling at low frequency, and a few boxes had the surrounding air visibly warped and distorted.

Su Ming stood at the parking lot entrance, watching those boxes being shipped batch by batch to the deeper elevators.

Rainwater poured in from the passage opening, soaking half of his shoulder.

Liang Wen shuffled over, the collar of his black Windcoat standing up, holding a paper‑cup coffee in his hand.

"I counted."

Liang Wen took a sip of coffee, burning his teeth.

"Just the Investigation Bureau side has already hauled three hundred seventeen seal boxes. Over at Eden Garden it's even more outrageous; there are several boxes whose seal levels I've never seen before."

Su Ming said nothing.

Liang Wen glanced again at the seemingly endless convoy, muttering, "I've never seen a lineup like this since I started. The Investigation Bureau and Eden Garden's convoy together—who would have believed that half a year ago?"

"Whether you believe it or not doesn't matter."

Su Ming walked inward, his speech even and steady.

"As long as it works, that's enough."

Basement level minus twenty‑one. Test chamber.

The lights were set to the dimmest.

Three hundred seventeen plus two hundred four, a total of five hundred twenty‑one seal boxes, piled in the chamber like a small mountain. Their heights varied, and the tallest stack nearly touched the dome.

The seal patterns intertwined, and the whole space was filled with an indescribable hum. Its frequency was extremely low, almost inaudible to human ears, yet the bones could feel it—resonance generated by the superposition of concept fields when hundreds of Containment Objects exist simultaneously.

The door opened.

Lu Yu walked in.

He was wearing a new restraint suit. His hair was still wet, probably just after a shower. His face showed little expression, but the faint glow in his eyes was much brighter than last time.

Su Ming followed behind, closing the door from the outside.

The sound of the latch snapping shut was heavy.

Five hundred twenty‑one seal boxes.

Lu Yu glanced over, not rushing to act.

He walked to the nearest stack of boxes, reached out and brushed the surface of the top one. When his fingertip traced the seal pattern, the box jolted sharply, as if its contents had been stimulated.

Lu Yu withdrew his hand.

He licked his lips.

It's not nervousness.

It's hunger.

He recalled his previous life.

How scarce supplies were back then? Every time he brought back Weird wreckage from a mission, he had to fight with a dozen or so rogue scavengers for it. Even if he got it, it often wasn't enough to fill a tooth gap.

And now, five hundred twenty‑one portions.

All of them are his.

Lu Yu closed his eyes.

The thing in his chest needed no prompting; it was already awake.

The gluttonous thirst surged from deep within his marrow, more intense than ever before. That feeling wasn't the human‑understandable "hunger" but a void opening its maw, intent on devouring every concept, rule, and existence in the world.

The latch of the first seal box sprang open automatically.

It wasn't a mechanical failure— the Containment Object inside the box sensed the predator's aura and struggled in fear.

The seal patterns crackled and exploded.

Lu Yu opened his eyes.

Deep within his pupils, the human baseline had faded away, replaced by a bottomless, greedy void.

"Time to eat."

He said softly.

Darkness erupted from the center of his body, like spilled ink splashing on white paper. His chest collapsed, the darkness spread beneath his feet, his head tilted back—pure darkness engulfed the entire test chamber within three seconds.

Then came the feeding.

Crunch.

The first. D‑rank Rules type. Struggled for 0.7 seconds.

Crunch, crunch.

The second. The third. C‑rank Concept type. Attempted to warp the domain definition, and was chewed whole, flesh and all.

The tenth. The twentieth. The fiftieth.

The speed increased, the intervals shortened.

Later it was no longer one‑by‑one. Lu Yu's opened domain resembled a living mouth; a dozen seal boxes exploded simultaneously, their contents unable to manifest any ability before being swallowed into that boundless darkness.

Devour. Digest. Transform.

Power surged inside him like a breached floodgate. Meridians were flushed, bones reshaped, every cell screamed as it expanded.

One hundred.

Two hundred.

Three hundred.

Lu Yu felt like a reservoir with its outlet sealed, its capacity soaring desperately, the dam sounding alarms, but the inflow gates wouldn't close.

Does it hurt?

It hurts.

The feeling of bones being stretched apart and then healing, indescribable in words.

But this pain, compared to the days in the previous life's apocalypse, gnawing on Weird debris in the ruins to survive, is far more comfortable.

Four hundred.

Five hundred.

Five hundred twenty-one.

All.

Completely clean.

The darkness receded. The test chamber's backup light tube glowed faintly.

Not even a fragment remained on the ground. Five hundred twenty-one seal boxes, including the Weird material composite outer shell of the boxes themselves, were completely digested.

Lu Yu knelt on one knee in the center of the empty cabin, panting heavily. Sweat mixed with an unknown black fluid dripped from his chin onto the floor.

His body was heating up. A dark red glow spread over his surface, like overheated iron.

But his eyes were bright.

Bright enough to frighten.

Qiu Ce Yuan, the surface complex. Second Floor Examination Room.

The window was half open. The rain sounded loud.

Chu Che stood by the window, his right index and middle fingers holding a pair of gold‑rimmed glasses, not wearing them.

He looked out the window.

At the entrance of the Underground Passage downstairs, the last few heavy trucks were slowly entering. Their headlights dragged two dim yellow shafts through the rain, quickly swallowed by the darkness.

Chu Che watched for a long time.

Then he smiled.

The smile was warm, elegant, with just the right curve. Placed in a daytime Examination Room, any patient would think him a trustworthy good doctor.

But there was no one else in the Examination Room.

"Very good."

His voice was soft, blending with the rain.

"The fatter you raise them..."

His index finger tapped lightly on the edge of the frame. The gold‑rimmed glasses were casually placed on the windowsill. In the uncovered depths of his pupils, a golden radiance rotated slowly, a nonhuman, lofty light that encompassed everything.

"The more I harvest, the more delicious."

He picked up the glasses again and put them on.

The gold vanished.

The gentle Dr. Chu returned.

Underground Level -21.

Lu Yu's breathing gradually steadied.

He rose from the ground, his legs still trembling, but he could stand steady. Another restraint suit was ruined, and dark new patterns surfaced on the skin along his shoulder blades and spine, as if something were growing beneath.

The phone in his pocket vibrated.

He took it out.

The screen's light shone on his face.

A message. Sent by Chen Yao.

"Does the wound still hurt? Brother said you'll be very tired, take care to rest."

It was followed by a little sun emoji.

Lu Yu stared at that line for two seconds.

The corner of his mouth twitched.

The movement was slight, but it did curve.

It wasn't the usual, disguising smile he habitually used. It was another kind. He himself couldn't quite specify which.

His thumb swiped the screen a few times.

"It doesn't hurt anymore. You should also go to sleep early."

Sent.

He tossed the phone back onto the desk.

The screen went dark.

The backup light tube in the test chamber kept flashing. The light flickered, stretching and shrinking the boy's thin Shadow repeatedly.

Lu Yu turned around, facing the empty cabin.

Five hundred twenty-one rations had been fully digested. The power within his body continued to rise at a visibly perceptible rate, far from reaching its limit.

"Not enough."

He whispered.

Darkness again spread from his chest, swallowing the last bit of light.