Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation  Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The clock wound back to the previous day.

It was midnight and Chen Chen was walking by himself on a deserted road.

The route he took was off the beaten path. The road was in poor condition as it was covered in potholes and the occasional mud pit.

Along both sides of the road were fields of disarrayed weeds almost half a regular person's height. The field was eerily silent. The usual sound of chirping cicadas was absent and the weeds did not rustle either since there was no wind blowing in any direction.

This was an unnatural state for what was a common midsummer night.

The entire road was almost pitch-black save for the tiny glimmer of moonlight shone from above that was just enough to save Chen Chen from tripping.

“Thwack!”

Chen Chen suddenly felt a faint jolt in his shoulder when something b.u.mped into him. It was only then when he noticed a large figure had just pa.s.sed by and that their shoulders had made contact with each other.

Chen Chen rubbed his shoulder in confusion. He found it odd that although the road was without any streetlights and was completely dark, there was still an unfathomable amount of people pa.s.sing through it. With every few steps he took, he would see another dark figure coming toward his direction.

Chen Chen saw dozens of figures as he traveled along the road. Now and then, he would b.u.mp into one accidentally.

For some reason, the thought of why he was even here in the first place did not cross his mind. The only thing that occupied his thoughts was that all of these people seemed to be mumbling something.

However, he could not make out what these people were saying.

“Thump!”

While Chen Chen was lost in his thoughts, he felt another throbbing sensation in his nose. While he was letting his mind wander, he b.u.mped into yet another dark figure!

Chen Chen finally managed to make out what these people were saying:

“Fuse with us, fuse with us… For all of us are lonely…”

“Come, fuse with us, let us be one…”

This occult chanting immediately evoked a sense of danger in Chen Chen. He felt he did not have enough time to get up so he kicked his feet against the ground to put as much distance between himself and the figure as possible. It was at that moment when he saw several other figures approaching the figure that knocked him to the ground. He watched in horror as this group of figures started to fuse!

“Gurgle gurgle…”

Chen Chen heard the sound of gnas.h.i.+ng bones and flesh as these figures somehow fused together. Their bodies and limbs became deformed and elongated like bubble gums as if mas.h.i.+ng b.a.l.l.s of dough together. Meanwhile, more figures were pouring into the mix!

In the end, a lovecraftian monster that was a ma.s.s of limbs and heads slowly rose in front of Chen Chen. Countless heads attached to the body of this monstrosity turned to Chen Chen in unison:

“Fuse with us, fuse with us. We're all alone, it's only by fusing, only by fusing…”

Countless voices echoed in Chen Chen's ears. His heart drummed violently against his chest. Just as he was about to make one last vain effort to get away, his eyes snapped open!

“Huff!”

Chen Chen shot up from the bed and he was drenched in sweat.

Chen Chen found himself in the dormitory in the Spire Experimental Base. Due to limited s.p.a.ce in the Spire Experimental Base and the prioritization for s.p.a.ce for conducting research, even Chen Chen only lived in a single-bed dormitory.

This dormitory was fully furnished with a personal bathroom and Blacklight's fully automated medical platform as well as the holographic environment simulator. However, it was still a regular-sized dormitory just like the ones of the common faculty members, no exceptions were made.

“This is the second time.”

Chen Chen felt the beads of sweat dripping down his cheeks and frowned irritatedly.

These days, his body had been enhanced to a degree where he did not require much sleep anymore as he only needed roughly three hours of rest each day. Occurrences like nightmares were nearly foreign to him at this point since it had been years since he last had one. His mental fort.i.tude was tough as t.i.tanium steel.

Yet, in only a little over a day since his return from Mars, he had two nightmares…

Chen Chen knitted his brows together with this in mind as he carried himself to the fully automated medical platform and ordered, “Conduct full body scan.”

The fully automated medical platform immediately began operation and performed an examination from head to toe.

Nothing notable was discovered.

“There's nothing wrong with my body…”

Chen Chen rose from the platform and looked at his palms. His mind was deep in thought, ‘Could it be just a common nightmare? Am I overthinking it?'

While his mind was occupied, he suddenly heard gentle footsteps following along the corridor outside. He heard it hurrying toward his room until it stopped outside the door.

“Knock, knock, knock…”

The sound of knocking on the door.

“Come in.”

Chen Chen already had an idea who it was just by listening to the footsteps. Besides, he was in the Spire Experimental Base. Currently, there was only one person who could visit him here and it was Little X.

Little X could easily connect to the communication system in the room to speak to Chen Chen. Still, whenever Chen Chen was resting and nothing urgent was going on, she had a fancy for using regular human methods such as these.

Unsurprisingly, it was Little X's head that poked through the door. She bit her lip slightly and asked with a tone of concern, “Sir G.o.dfather, another nightmare?”

“Yes, but it's no big deal.”

Chen Chen waved his hands. “Did anything happen?”

“I just found some mysterious reports on the Internet and I figured you might be interested.”

Little X remarked as she invited herself into the room.

“Since you're putting it this way, I'll a.s.sume it's something fascinating.”

Chen Chen remarked with a nod as he poured himself a cup of water at the drinking fountain. “Go ahead.”

“Here's how it goes.”

Little X started with a serious tone. “Twenty hours after the meteors descended on the earth, that is, while you were sleeping, several strange incidents occurred. These events were scattered across Europe, India, the North Sea, and Central Continents. Reports are that corpses of unidentifiable death were discovered.”

Chen Chen put down the water cup and nodded, motioning for Little X to continue.

“There's a distinct similarity between these corpses, which is that they are formed by the fusion of at least two corpses, sometimes even up to three or four corpses.”

Little X noted gravely. “At present, there have been eight cases in these continents combined. There are three cases in the Central Continent, two cases in Europe, two cases in the North Sea Continent, and one in India…”

As Little X said this, images extracted from various country's databases appeared in front of Chen Chen. Chen Chen saw the pictures of bizarre, twisted dead bodies all congealed together like a ma.s.s of dough. Most of these corpses were discovered in houses except for one outlier which was a reported case in a cinema in the Central Continent.

Chen Chen took another look at the image and saw the two victims were male and female respectively. Their heads and bodies had melded into the gap between the seats in the cinema, twisting and entangling around each other. What was even more uncanny was that there was not a trace of suffering in their expression. On the contrary, their lips formed delicate, unnatural smiles.

It seemed as if the two victims took great pleasure in this process moments before their deaths…

Chen Chen felt his heart sink as he witnessed this. His first thought went to the nightmares he had over the last two days. Inside his nightmares, he remembered the figures fusing like this as well…

“Fuse with us, fuse with us, for we're all alone…”

The occult chanting rang in Chen Chen's ears again.

“It's the meteor.”

Chen Chen suddenly noted surely. “It has something to do with the meteors.”

“I think so too.”

Little X nodded. “These events began occurring right after the meteors. .h.i.t. Sir G.o.dfather, what should we do?”

“Contact the supervisors of the Blacklight Foundation, I want to conduct a Lilith a.s.sembly.”

Chen Chen went to the bathroom and washed up quickly before heading outside. “Tell them they have one hour. I want to see the four supervisors at the a.s.sembly in one hour. Also, tell Hannibal to come to meet me immediately!”

After that, Chen Chen left his single-bed dormitory.

Half an hour later, when Chen Chen was standing by himself outside the dormitory building. He saw the pale-faced Hannibal approaching him from the laboratory's direction.

Chen Chen frowned almost instinctively the moment he saw Hannibal approaching.

The moment he saw Hannibal, a strange mixture of emotions suddenly arose in his heart. It was madness, paranoia, avarice… The chanting in his dream started again…

“Fuse with us, fuse with us, for we're all alone…”

Hannibal was similarly perturbed when he saw Chen Chen. He stopped for a moment and hesitated before dragging his feet toward Chen Chen again.

“That's enough, don't come any closer.”

Chen Chen immediately gestured for Hannibal to stop. Two Black Knights quickly stepped forward and held Hannibal in place.

“Put him in quarantine. Make sure he's well-fed and accommodated and keep him updated on the ongoings of the outside world.”

Chen Chen instructed before leaving without turning back for another glance…

Meteor…

There was still a lingering doubt before Chen Chen met Hannibal, but now he was completely convinced that it had something to do with the meteor.

When he saw Hannibal just now, he heard a voice inside his mind urging for him to fuse with Hannibal.

Hannibal froze for a moment when they made eye contact. He must have heard the same voice as well.

Going by the timeline, Chen Chen and Hannibal should be the first ones to come into contact with the meteor. After the meteorite landed on Earth was when it came into contact with more people.

So far, he had two nights with nightmares and the takeaway from these nightmares was the word “fuse”.

Meanwhile, a similar method of death was seen in the real world. Chen Chen would be a fool to not draw the connection between the two.

Meteorite…

Fuse…

These two factors combined indicated that whoever came into contact with the meteor would experience an unearthly death caused by fusing. Although the relations.h.i.+p between the deceased and the meteorite had not yet been determined, Chen Chen had arrived at this conclusion.

Currently, Chen Chen had two hypotheses:

The first one was that the meteorites operated in a manner that humans had never seen before. Under certain conditions, whoever came in contact with the meteorite would inflict its effect that was similar to a memetic effect.

The second was that the meteorite contained some form of biological fluid. Perhaps fluid could a.s.similate human beings into a corresponding sentient life form with its own instincts. Whenever two life forms met, the two automatically initiated this process of fusing.

However, both hypotheses had their flaws. Memes could not exist in established life forms. Even the “Weeping Angel” that was closest to a sentient life form was by strict definition, not an established life form but merely a set of rules.

Besides, if the meteorites did contain memetic characteristics, there was no chance that Little X that was familiar with memetic objects would not notice it.

For the second hypothesis, if this fluid substance could a.s.similate humans, then it should trigger a response from the fully automated medical platform. When Chen Chen used the device, it did not report any abnormal signs in his body.

Besides, Chen Chen was also certain that both he nor Hannibal came into skin contact with the meteor at the time. When he collected the cooled crystals, he was wearing protective clothing.

The fact that both of these theories were flawed made things even more complicated.

This meant that Chen Chen was forced to confront his enemies before he could figure out their nature.

While Chen Chen was examining these factors in his mind, he had arrived at the meeting room purposed for the Lilith a.s.sembly.

By the time Little X turned on the holographic projection, Chen Chen was already seated in his seat with a plate labeled “05” in front of him.

After a brief moment of waiting, a figure appeared at the seat label “04”. The figure quickly nodded at Chen Chen's direction and proceeded to wait silently.

By the one-hour mark, the designated members of the three remaining seats had arrived as well. The meeting of the Blacklight Foundation finally commenced.

“05.”

02 started without waiting for a prompt. “All of us here are important people with many things to attend to. Unless necessary, I'd prefer to keep these meetings to a minimal.”

“I wouldn't dare take up any of your time unless there was a specific reason to.”

Chen Chen knew that it was detrimental to delay these matters and cut straight to the point. “Due to the extremely urgent nature of this matter, I had to gather everyone immediately as this concerns the very fate of mankind… Have any of you received reports of the fusion death happening in your regions?”

“Fusion death? What's that?”

01 asked immediately.

Chen Chen turned to the remaining three members, their figures were completely dark and there was no way to tell what expression they had.

“I haven't received reports of what you described.”

“Me neither…”

02 and 03 remarked.

“It does seem like you all have a lot more on your plate.”

Chen Chen nodded. It was not surprising that they had not heard the news of it yet. After all, just because they were the designated supervisors of the Blacklight Foundation did not necessarily imply that they were the leaders of the continent. Perhaps some of them were not the president, but the president was undoubtedly monitoring their position as well.

It did not strike Chen Chen as odd that they had not heard a word of these mysterious deaths yet.

With a swift gesture, Chen Chen summoned panels of images with deformed, bizarre corpses in front of the a.s.sembly. “Take a look. These are the fusion deaths that occurred in the Central Continent, Europe, India, and other continents. They are labeled as fusions involving multiple people…”