Gathering Storm, Citywide Manhunt!

Pale moonlight shone upon the words on the title page. Gauzelike moonlight gathered thicker and thicker around the book, as if being slowly absorbed by the ceremonial, glyph-like characters. In a daze, Bai Zhou saw a thick, ominous black mist. And shrouded within that black mist was a blurred, shattered, bizarre world. As far as the eye could see, there was a vast ocean of gray sludge, dotted with black specks that, upon closer inspection, proved to be living human heads bobbing with the waves. The eyes of those heads held unspeakable agony, each submerged face weeping in grief. A broken, curved blood moon hung high above this ocean. Yet that blood moon was no blood moon at all; in his trance, it resembled the shifting profile of a human face, ever-changing. That was... —Thousands of distinct, agonizing faces of men, women, humans, and beasts! A stabbing pain shot through Bai Zhou's brain, and wild, manic singing reverberated in his ears—shrill, raspy female voices mingling with rich male tenors, a discordant din of demonic sound piercing his eardrums. Extremely foul, evil echoes polluted Bai Zhou's mind, sending his sanity plummeting rapidly. What did... one plus one equal? Why do I have... five fingers? Where is the boundary... between dreams... and wakefulness? Am I a man, a woman... or something else? A blood vessel on Bai Zhou's right hand bulged outward on its own, turning into a squirming, slimy viper. It twisted, slowly rearing its head as its body swelled. —*Not good!* Crying out inwardly amidst countless mad echoes, the dizzy, reeling Bai Zhou shakily raised his left hand to fumble in his pocket. He pulled out a lollipop. Then, without hesitation, he popped it into his mouth. —The Alpen-despicable lollipop! ["Sanity is the most precious treasure of sentient beings; thus God bestowed the gold-lacquered apple as a blessing of wisdom."] The lollipop melted instantly in his mouth. As a crisp, tart green apple aroma burst across his tongue, an immense wave of incomparable coolness rushed straight to his brain. The voices ringing in his ears vanished at once, and his vertigo disappeared without a trace. His sanity climbed back. All emotion and stray thoughts in his heart were suppressed, leaving not the slightest opening to be provoked or stirred. In his ears lay absolute silence, and his heart grew as cold as Crow's crystal orb. With a soft thud— Deprived of mad emotions to feed upon, the squirming viper ceased growing, snapped free of Bai Zhou, and fell to the ground. Bai Zhou raised his short rod and brought it down hard on its head. *Bang!* With just one strike, the viper writhed on the ground a few times before shriveling rapidly like a punctured balloon. In the end, it turned into several dry, blackened little stones of a hard, peculiar material, marked with sinister patterns. —Evidently, they were the physical manifestations of the "distortion," "madness," and "loss of control" that Bai Zhou had just severed. Now that he had cast them to the ground and beaten them to death with his own hands— for a moment, he actually felt his mind grow a few degrees clearer and calmer. *Those sounds just now were...* Those evil, foul hymns had come from who-knew-where, terrifyingly piercing. They seemed to echo eternally in some bizarre realm, only heard by him by accident, yet at other times Bai Zhou felt as if they had come specifically to corrupt him. Bai Zhou recalled the knowledge he had learned in special training. Those were likely the corruption and curses carried by the knowledge within the Dead Sea Secret Scrolls itself. High-tier extraordinary knowledge often came with similar dangers and eerie horrors. —Similar to the "taboo" of that half ancient character inside him, though weakened many times over. And after stripping away all influence of madness, leaving only cold composure in his brain... the fragments hidden within the crazed ravings were organized and rearranged in order by Bai Zhou to be read. Then, he finally understood what message the line of characters on the title page was trying to convey— The knowledge in the Dead Sea Secret Scrolls was hidden within the book, but not recorded in the ordinary sense of written words. It was a forbidden tome. And a vessel. The knowledge and legacy resided within. Yet it was not meant to be read or studied; rather, it instilled its contents directly into those who were qualified and met its conditions. In the end, whoever received the full transmission of its knowledge would become the forbidden tome's new master, earning even the right to author new chapters within it. "A forbidden tome..." Just as Bai Zhou had expected, the Dead Sea Secret Scrolls was indeed a "Scroll-grade" forbidden tome. This was not Bai Zhou's first encounter with a forbidden tome. The handy Holy Oath Slash was merely... a single remnant page of a Scroll-grade forbidden tome. —And now, Bai Zhou had obtained a complete one! The treasure that the Special Control Bureau and the Blood Worship Cult had fought tooth and nail over now lay quietly in Bai Zhou's hands under the moonlight. However... Unlocking the Dead Sea Secret Scrolls would be no easy feat. Even for the first chapter, the conditions to unlock the transmission of its knowledge were extraordinarily harsh. —It required absorbing a massive amount of undead death qi. As for how massive, it didn't specify. —Yet just like how "whatever" was often the hardest preference to satisfy, an unspecified requirement was high enough to breed true despair. No wonder its previous owner had buried the Dead Sea Secret Scrolls underground right outside the entrance of a funeral parlor crematorium. Indeed, few places saw a fresher daily inflow of undead death qi than this. "An undead thief, huh..." Bai Zhou murmured as he scrutinized the silent forbidden tome in his hands. Perhaps the previous owner had even carried it to numerous mass graves and public cemeteries. Yet even so, the progress of the Dead Sea Secret Scrolls in absorbing undead death qi was only... One percent! Not even that, perhaps. There was no visible hope of meeting the unlock conditions at all. In this era of peace, Tinghai City had no battlefields, let alone massive casualties. Even if one risked entering the Reflected Ruin Realm, according to Crow, one would rarely encounter active undead. —Undead? Cemeteries? In the Reflected Ruin Realm, those were living resources that people fought over! This "massive amount," whether in terms of quality or quantity, was likely... a figure that would drive any Extraordinary to despair. One couldn't help but suspect that whoever had last successfully unlocked the first chapter must have been some infamous warlord or wicked butcher in history. However— Bai Zhou blinked. Undead death qi? He knew a place that wasn't lacking it. Not in the slightest. He had seen with his own eyes at least a thousand skeleton frames. Along with a mad skeleton who styled himself a general. And even more across the battlefield. —Both in quantity and quality, it was extraordinarily impressive! *Do I have to make another trip into the Ruin Realm's deeper layer?* Yet the thought of that lunatic skeleton's bizarre duel made Bai Zhou shudder inside. Unless... Feeling the strange texture of the Dead Sea Secret Scrolls in his hands, Bai Zhou fell deep into thought. *Dead Sea, undead death qi...* *How exactly does this book absorb undead death qi?* *Could there be a possibility...* *...that the Dead Sea Secret Scrolls actually counters and suppresses skeletal undead?* —It was worth a shot. Even if it didn't, it wouldn't matter. As long as he found a way to bypass the Undead General, absorbing the other skeletons alone should be enough to nearly unlock the first chapter... "Phew..." Bai Zhou relaxed and took the lollipop out of his mouth. Emotion returned to his eyes, clear and vibrant with youthful vigor once more. Looking at the lollipop, now less than half-melted, his heart ached. Perhaps the Alpen-despicable lollipop was even more useful than he had imagined. —Especially in this mysterious world full of "distortion," "madness," and "loss of control"! Bai Zhou quickly wrapped it in a tissue and put it away carefully. It was fine; he had used it for the Dead Sea Secret Scrolls, but he could keep using it next time. Although he had less than two lollipops left, if he budgeted them carefully, one could do the work of three! "And these..." There was another thing he couldn't forget. Bai Zhou looked down at the strange gravel the viper had turned into, and adhering to the principle of not wasting anything, picked them all up. The moment he touched the stones, Bai Zhou felt an onset of irritation and restlessness again. Negative emotions surged in his chest, and familiar sensations gradually returned... until Bai Zhou stowed them away completely. Perhaps they could serve as special materials for certain rituals. Though he had never seen Crow use any special materials in her rituals. Her style was all about ease of setup and cost-effectiveness. Bai Zhou pondered. Or perhaps they could be fashioned into special "bullets"... *Whoosh—* The shadow of a bird swept over Bai Zhou's head. *Clack.* Footsteps approached from afar, faint and intermittent. Three in the morning. At the far end of the long street shrouded in pale white mist, a hazy figure appeared, walking forward unhurriedly. Bai Zhou tensed instinctively at first, tightening his grip on the pitch-black short rod. Once he clearly saw who it was, he relaxed. The blade-wielding girl had arrived as promised. It was Crow. Then that bird he hadn't clearly seen earlier must have been Crow's raven... ... However... As Crow approached, the expression on her face was exceedingly strange. God only knew how much effort it had taken her to find Dongxing Road. Although she had a map in hand, just like Bai Zhou, she couldn't tell north, south, east, or west in the real world either. Fortunately, the raven in the sky provided her with an aerial view. After searching for ages, she finally reached this remote stretch of Dongxing Road, but she didn't find Bai Zhou at the intersection. Thinking something had gone wrong with Bai Zhou, she turned around, only to spot him standing in front of a shop. *Oh, so he came to eat... Did the shop just close?* Just as Crow thought that, the quiet moonlight shone upon the shop's signboard, and Crow saw what it read. —Naturally, it was the one reading: "Enjoy ultimate eternal peace; we customize the final page of your life." And Bai Zhou was clutching a book, standing beneath that sign looking inexplicably well-behaved. At Bai Zhou's feet was a dirt pit he had clearly just excavated, fresh mud encircling his feet. A funeral parlor, a dirt pit, and a waiting youth. —To emphasize once more: It was three in the morning. Crow: "?" She wondered if she was seeing a ghost. *What on earth happened?* In the deep night, her iridescent eyes quivered slightly. They had parted for such a brief moment; how had the boy who had just been brimming with courage and curiosity toward a new world... ...suddenly become suicidal? And... What was that book Bai Zhou was cradling, which looked remarkably like a massive brick? When they parted earlier... did Bai Zhou have that in his hands? A hint of bewilderment flickered in Crow's eyes. ... Back at the base. *Click—* The tightly shut dormitory door was pushed open. "This is Bai Zhou's dorm room." The nervous dorm supervisor led the Major and the other "big figures" inside. The sight of an empty room and walls covered with colorful, gaudy posters left everyone stunned. "Where's the desk? Where are the stools?" an officer asked in confusion. The supervisor stammered for a long while, unable to answer. "..." Wearing dark sunglasses, the Major looked around and raised his head toward the posters on the wall. First, he silently locked eyes with the sunglass-wearing "Terminator" cyborg on one poster for a moment. Then, he issued a cold order: "Tear all these posters down!" *Riiiiip—* A sharp tearing sound echoed in everyone's ears. The posters on the wall were ripped down one by one. The mottled, weathered marks on the walls came into view. "This is..." Everyone's expression changed to varying degrees. No stains, no graffiti, no blank spaces. Dense, overlapping blade scars, shallow and deep, covered the entire wall without leaving a single gap. A complete wreck. They were not entirely chaotic; a closer look revealed an uncanny trajectory that inexplicably brought to mind the footage they had just seen through the Black Box "Fragment Echo." —That strike of holy light, concentrated into a single point before erupting in an instant. And between these crisscrossing blade cuts, dried blood of unknown origin had seeped into the plaster, speckling here and there, connecting in patch after patch. In addition, there were scorch marks and corrosive scars of unknown provenance. ...Pitted with holes and gouges everywhere, the dorm room was such an utter ruin that it was almost unbearable to look at. —Yet strangely, no one could utter a word. There was only a dead silence. In a daze, they seemed to see countless resolute slashes, thrusts, and parries carved into the walls. Faintly, they could envision a figure training relentlessly, struggling, burning, and tempering himself here deep into every night. The psychological profiler examined the marks, muttering under his breath as his face grew increasingly solemn, beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead. "At the start, he probably wasn't as strong as he is now." To see the marks more clearly, the Major slowly took off his sunglasses, his already icy expression turning even more chilling. "Perhaps he grew up secretly right under our noses." "—Did no one hear anything abnormal?!" Facing the Major's interrogation, the officers turned their gazes in unison toward the dorm supervisor. "T-This..." The supervisor trembled violently. An officer waved his hand. Immediately, two soldiers stepped forward and dragged the supervisor away. "Interesting." Caressing the grooves in the wall, the Major slowly narrowed his eyes. Then, under the gaze of everyone who dared not breathe a word, the Major slowly turned around. "Bai Zhou, Blood Worship Cult spy, gathered intelligence, assisted the Blood Worship Cult's invasion, murdered a Special Control Bureau officer, triggered a Black Box riot, and fled with a Black Box. His crimes are heinous, and he is extremely dangerous! "In the name of the Black Box Special Control Department, issue a wanted warrant, place Tinghai under martial law, and hunt down Bai Zhou! "In my personal name, contact our sister official departments to request their assistance in monitoring intelligence on him. "In the name of Zijing Company, issue a massive black-market bounty on his head—dead or alive. "Furthermore, in the official capacity of our office, order the constabulary to aid the search. If spotted, do not alert him; report immediately!" Having issued command after command, the Major finally looked toward the solemn officers. At this moment, his expression was extraordinarily calm, yet his words came one by one, each carrying the weight of a thousand tons: "Five days." "I give you five days to find him." "—And then, kill him." His voice was cool. "If you cannot accomplish this, I will take action myself." "And that will mean..." "I will have no further need of you in the future." The faces of the officers turned pale in an instant. "—Yes, sir!" With that, Branch 36 of the Special Control Bureau disturbed numerous official departments late this night. All of Tinghai sprang into motion. Because this was a citywide manhunt. For a youth who had turned eighteen just days ago.