Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation  Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Inside one of the warehouses in the Herrank Warehouse District.

“I found it!”

A heavily armed special unit officer wearing tactical goggles suddenly raised his right hand signaling for his team to stop while looking ahead at a corner filled with debris.

The other two officers, upon seeing the signal, followed the line of sight of the leading officer and aimed at the corner ahead of them. They identified a slightly old statue silently placed by the corner.

The sculpting of the statue was extremely delicate and intricate as it was almost lifelike and gave off an ancient aura. It seemed as if this statue was left in the warehouse for so long that its existence had been forgotten by the sands of time.

They had received mission notes from their superior that these statues only took on these aged and textured forms to help them blend into their surroundings.

“Leader, are you sure this is it?”

One of the special force officers was uncertain. “No matter how you look at it, it's just an ordinary statue…”

“This is orders from above, we just have to follow the orders given.”

The leading special force officer spoke calmly, “The instructions given to us are that the three of us have to keep our eyes on this thing no matter what. Don't look away and if you want to blink, inform the others, got it?”

“Yes!”

The other two officers nodded and gave their word as they fixed their eyes at the statue without blinking.

The special force leading officer took out the walkie-talkie to report to his superiors, “Reporting to headquarters, this is twenty-third Hound, we've located the target in section six. We're keeping our eyes on the target, requesting additional forces to contain the target, over!”

1

There was an immediate response from the walkie-talkie after his report. “Roger that, twenty-third Hound. We've received your request, please confirm the number of statues at your position.”

“We've only identified one so far.”

“Alright, the containment squad are on the way to your position, over.”

After the brisk report, the three of them did not sense anything peculiar. They were merely executing the orders given to them and waited for the containment team to arrive.

They made small talk while waiting. It was clear that this was a light and casual mission for them.

“Leader, you say that these things can snap people's necks?”

One of the officers raised a question, “If they say that it will attack us the moment we take our eyes off them, what happens if only one person looks at it and alternates the blinking of both eyes separately? Will it still be held in place?”

“I don't know.”

The special force leader shrugged. “Alright, I'll blink in two seconds, you two keep an eye on it.”

After giving the notice, he lowered his head to ma.s.sage his eyes before looking up at the statue again. “But I won't recommend you guys to try that. I know that many don't believe that these statues can move, but what if it's true? I don't want any of us to end up like the victims in those pictures they showed us, with necks twisted like timber…”

While the three of them were talking, they suddenly heard clattering from a short distance behind them that seemed to come from the warehouse entrance. It sounded as if something came in from outside and knocked something over on the way.

“Is it the containment team? This is the Hound team, one of our targets is just ahead, please contain it immediately!”

The leader called out immediately but did not receive any form of answer that he was expecting. Instead, he heard a brisk “snap” as if something was broken in half…

The leader held his breath the moment he heard this distinct sound. Before he could turn around to investigate, he heard the horrified scream of one of his members, “Charles, Charles is dead!”

“What happened?”

Despite wanting to turn around to look at what happened, the special force leader remembered the order given to him by his superior and managed to suppress his instincts. He called out in a loud voice to enquire what happened.

“It's another statue…”

The voice that sounded composed just a second ago had broken down into hysterics at this point. “It snapped Charles's neck before I could even realize what's going on.”

The leader felt his heart tightening. He asked amid the wailing of the other officer, “Hold on, you mean you're looking at another statue now?”

“Yes, I'm looking at the statue that killed Charles. It's making a pose with its arms stretched out. Leader, I don't want to die.”

“Hey, you're not going to die here. Just remember, don't blink no matter what, got it?”

The leader was not prepared to receive such terrible news out of nowhere. He felt as if his soul was about to vacate his body. Shortly after, he heard a deep and subtle wheezing sound. It was produced from the air escaping the lungs of the deceased Charles with his neck crushed just moments ago.

Even with this, he refused to turn around to steal a look. To make matters worse, he had to keep his comrade calm. Sweat was uncontrollably pouring down his forehead!

“But I can't hold it any longer…”

“Shut up, you've got to hang in there. The containment team will arrive before you know it, you just have to hang in there…”

In the middle of his sentence, he heard a desperate wail coming from his comrade that made him tense up. Before he could finish his sentence, the familiar “snap” rang in his ears once again!

“Could it be…”

The special force leader could not bear it anymore. He took his gun out and fired at the statue in front of him. After carving several holes into the statue in front of him, he immediately turned to fire at the other statue. The very next second, he felt a jolt sent across his body followed by a swift “snap” that rang across his ears!

Only this time, the sound came from his neck…

“Thump!”

The special force leader thumped onto the ground with all his weight. His body twitched uncontrollably as his vision slowly turned into a blur. He saw two angels standing in front of him with their arms outstretched as if they were trying to redeem his soul…

“Hnghh… Hnghh…”

The lips of the special force leader were trembling. He made his best attempt at mouthing the words “G.o.d save me”, but the words refused to escape his lips. Several minutes later, he lost consciousness forever…

Several minutes later, a large pickup truck drove down the road. The windows of the truck were reinforced with a lot of steel. Positioned in the compartment behind the truck was a large steel cast cabinet with a width of one meter and two meters long.

There were many visible welding marks and iron bolts punched into the cabinet. Not much effort was put into refining its appearance and it was s.h.i.+pped out as soon as it was forged.

There were four heavily armed special police officers inside the truck. This was the containment team formed at a moment's notice by the Los Angeles police. Their task was to bring the statue into the steel cabinet for effective containment.

By the time they arrived at the scene with the steel cabinet, the only thing they found was the three cold bodies of the dead Hound team members.

The two statues had vanished without a trace…

When the first wipe of dawn appeared on the sky above, a dark shadow rapidly descended to the ground before finally landing on the rooftop of a building not far away from the Herrank Warehouse District.

The camera panned closer. The figure that descended from above was Chen Chen who had just returned from the rocky mountains.

At the moment, Chen Chen did not appear to be in good condition. His complexion was unnaturally pale and he was wheezing for air.

It seemed that flying at supersonic speeds continuously across thousands of kilometers did prove to be more than he could handle.

“I haven't exhausted my Field reserve this much in a long time…”

Chen Chen took a deep breath. He still wobbled a little as he looked at the columns of warehouses that stretched into the horizon. “X, what's the situation in the Herrank Warehouse District now?”

“Severe casualties.”

Little X noted. “The containment efforts aren't as effective as in the Quantum Deity Laboratory. Although there are more angel statues in the Quantum Deity Laboratory, the containment progressed smoothly since you kept them all locked up in the laboratory.

“However, the sheer size of the Herrank Warehouse District made the operation difficult. They've lost more than twenty special force officers and only managed to capture two statues. The remaining two haven't been found yet.”

“I suppose this is to be expected.”

Chen Chen shrugged and appeared to be relieved at the news. “It's fine as long as the two statues don't make it out of the area. If they snuck into Los Angeles, the consequences will be catastrophic.”

“Sir G.o.dfather, there's one more thing I'd like to report.”

Little X added. “Currently, we have four Black Knights hunting down the man called Keith, but the situation isn't looking ideal…”

“How so?”

Chen Chen raised an eyebrow.

“As an artificial intelligence ent.i.ty, I understand that it's not appropriate for me to use an arbitrary unit such as 'luck' to describe this but the concrete fact is that this man called Keith has unbelievably good luck…”

Little X sounded a little troubled as she said, “I've already raised the combat parameters of the Black Knights and split them into two groups. I had one team pursuing the target while the other group waited in front of the target to flank him but no matter what the Black Knights did, they could not capture the target, even with the use of our weapons.

“In addition, two of the Black Knights sustained significant injuries during the chase. One of them was flung away from above the target's car and rammed by an oncoming truck that decapitated its body in half.

“Meanwhile, while another Black Knight was chasing down the target in an alley, the target fired a shot that got its way into the back of the Black Knight's neck, instantly destroying the G.o.d chip. The remaining Black Knights had to suspend the pursuit so they can deal with the corpse of the Black Knight.”

Little X seemed to go on endlessly. “The target never had to stop at any point of the pursuit and was constantly aided by external forces. One time, when one of the Black Knights managed to grab the target by his neck, a chandelier on the ceiling that was loosened by a stray bullet fell on top of the Black Knight before it could kill the target…

“Point is, it appears as if our Black Knights were cursed while the target almost seems destined to survive everything that came his way. He managed to emerge from every situation no matter how dire they were and continue his advance. The target might arrive in Los Angeles by tonight.”

1

Chen Chen was not surprised when he heard the stream of complaints voiced by Little X. After all, everything that Little X had described was in line with the events portrayed in the movie Deadly Crisis: A Shocking Scheme which was shot three years ago.

From what Chen Chen could remember, everything Little X described was a mirror of what had happened in the movie as well. The part about the Black Knight being severed in half by an oncoming truck happened during one of the high-speed chase scenes in the movie.

Furthermore, Chen Chen's original plan to dispatch dozens of Black Knights was hindered due to the incident with the unstable memetic effect in Los Angeles. In the end, Chen Chen had to settle with only dispatching four Black Knights.

Even the number of the villains lined up perfectly as shown in the movie…

“It's a shame that I'm a little preoccupied at the moment, I'd have liked to take a look for myself.”

Chen Chen expressed mildly before changing the topic, “This isn't the time to be occupied with this thought. Tell me, X, did you find the cause for the appearance of these angels?”

“You mean…”

Little X stuttered for a moment.

“You mean why more than twenty angel statues appeared in the Quantum Deity Laboratory?”

Chen Chen followed up with another question. “Did the statues appear after people watched the video created by 'Adam'?”

“This speculation can pretty much be confirmed at this point!”

Little X answered promptly, “There are a total of twenty-three representatives from each continent in the Quantum Deity Laboratory, also known as the 's.h.i.+eld bearers'. This also happens to match the number of statues that you discovered. Since the 's.h.i.+eld bearers' are the ones with the highest level of authorization in the Quantum Deity Laboratory, they should be the first ones with access to whatever information Adam compiles, therefore they must've watched the video.”

“I see, so it should be safe to say that whoever watches the video will be infected with the Angel meme and turn into angel statue, is that it?”

Chen Chen was shaken by this revelation and further enquired, “Are the effects of the memetic pattern replicated when only looking at the statues themselves?”

“So far, that doesn't seem to be the case.”

Little X responded, “So far, there haven't been any signs of the memetic infection in the police and military force members tasked with the containment operation who made direct eye contact with the angel statues. The same observation applies to the officers in the Quantum Deity Laboratory and the Herrank Warehouse District.”

“Excellent.”

Chen Chen nodded. He was under the impression that since the video created by Adam had an infectious quality, it should imply that the statues themselves possessed the same quality as well. This was why he avoided direct eye contact with them.

It now appeared to him that these statues were not as dangerous as he originally had presumed.

In that case, the situation should be resolved without further hiccups. Despite the major losses the Los Angeles police department had sustained, their higher-ups were still dedicating their efforts to posting officers to the Herrank Warehouse District and searching for the remaining statues.

All that was left was to deal with the protagonist Keith. Then, Chen Chen should be able to expose his hand to the world after.

Just as Chen Chen thought that the dust was settling, Little X's voice suddenly became frantic. She reported urgently, “Sir G.o.dfather, I just received news of some unexpected development in the Los Angeles City Hall.”

Chen Chen frowned against his will the moment he heard this. He turned toward the direction of Downton Los Angeles and asked with concern in his voice, “Don't tell me that the memetic effects are reported in the city hall…”

“Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened!”

Little X replied promptly, “I've extracted the footage from the city hall network. The angel statues have appeared inside the city hall without warning. What's worse, there's more than one of them!”