Chapter 116 – The Fight Against “Them”

Chapter 116 – The Fight Against “Them”

Invaders from beyond the world — Twilight Angels.

Fanatical cultists who had converted after receiving the Twilight Angels’ “guidance,” their essential nature having completely deviated from humanity.

Modes of existence that defied common sense, endlessly bizarre forms and properties, widespread contamination, power that could not be countered with existing technology — research itself carried the risk of falling into corruption, yet without any knowledge at all, there was no way to fight back against these invaders.

Yu Sheng was gradually refining his mental image of the Twilight Angels and the Angel Cult followers, sketching out their outlines, speculating about their true nature.

Song Cheng had stopped talking, not interrupting Yu Sheng’s contemplation. It was quite a while before Yu Sheng finally broke the silence himself: “So what you’re saying is, up to now, you’ve never successfully killed a single Twilight Angel?”

Song Cheng sighed and spread his hands helplessly. Beside him, Xu Jiali nodded and spoke in a muffled tone: “We’ve tried every method, and every faction has made their best efforts, but the way Twilight Angels exist is very… strange. They don’t seem to be entirely present at the location where they’re observed. Any attack veers off course as it gets close to them, and even on the rare occasion something lands a hit, it’s extremely difficult to damage their surface. Not to mention that some Twilight Angels simply aren’t in a normal material form to begin with — how exactly are you supposed to kill a mass of shadow or a mass of light?”

The two-meter-tall burly man clicked his tongue at this point, clearly quite displeased, then continued: “To date, the closest anyone has come to success was Operation Angel Fall, which took place ten years ago in the Algreide border region.

“They prepared for a long time and were extremely fortunate to detect the pre-arrival signal of the angel known as ‘The Beauty.’ A military force that had been pre-injected with Rationality-Blockers and equipped with heavy protective gear assembled on the great plains, carpet-bombing the entire area of the angel’s descent and deploying a gravity bomb, hoping to counteract the ‘deflection’ phenomenon that occurs around the angels.

“According to signals relayed back by monitoring equipment set up at the scene, the gravity bomb worked. A massive amount of firepower was indeed delivered onto ‘The Beauty’ and ‘The Beauty’s’ throne. That was also the first time anyone collected data on an angel’s ‘structural integrity’ — it withstood nearly all attacks in the initial phase, but after sustained bombardment over a period of time, its main body began to crack and dissipate… But that was as far as it went.

“Once the damage reached a certain threshold, ‘The Beauty’ vanished from the plains. The traps and containment measures set up in advance served no purpose whatsoever. And when the angel reappeared several years later, it had fully recovered.”

Yu Sheng listened to all of this with a look of astonishment, unable to find words for a long time.

The scene Xu Jiali described had clearly gone beyond the scope of a typical Special Operations Bureau operation — that had been a war. A war between an entire civilization called “Algreide” and a single descending entity. And yet the seemingly one-sided, overwhelming bombardment had only amounted to a successful “banishment”…

“That is the upper limit of the damage humanity has managed to inflict on a Twilight Angel so far — critically wound it, then exile it. And considering that in most cases we don’t even have the chance to pinpoint an angel’s descent location in advance, even this kind of ‘banishment’ comes down entirely to luck,” Song Cheng broke the silence from beside them. “Additionally, according to post-operation statistics, even with extensive protective measures in place, nearly a thousand soldiers in Operation Angel Fall were still affected. Several hundred were converted into admirers of The Beauty during the battle and had to undergo lifelong psychological treatment.”

Eileen blinked as she listened, then suddenly let out a sigh: “…This feels completely unwinnable.”

“No,” Xu Jiali immediately shook her head. “Although Operation Angel Fall didn’t achieve the expected results, it still gave everyone a boost of morale — because those things really can be hurt. They don’t necessarily bleed, but at least we’ve confirmed that they are not the ‘Lord’ the Angel Cult followers claim. Human firepower can wound them, can drive them away. So someday, we’ll develop the technology to kill an angel. In fact, we may already have enough firepower. All we need now is to figure out the mechanism behind a Twilight Angel’s descent, find a way to predict their arrival and trap them, and we’ll definitely be able to take them down.”

Listening to Xu Jiali’s earnest and resolute rebuttal, Eileen opened her mouth, and after a long pause managed: “…You humans’ optimism and resilience really are admirable.”

“The good news is that Twilight Angels descend into the Real World very rarely, and they don’t actively launch any kind of ‘offensive’ — they won’t deliberately target densely populated areas,” Song Cheng said from the side. “More often, Twilight Angels that descend into the Real World simply appear at random locations in the civilized world — sometimes in desolate border regions, sometimes even farther out. In those cases, the damage they cause is quite limited.

“Comparatively, the damage caused by their descent into Otherworlds is actually greater — an Otherworld that has been parasitized by an angel will see its danger level increase by at least one tier. Some originally stable and harmless Otherworlds become dangerous ‘traps’ in the Real World. There have even been cases where an angel altered an Otherworld’s restriction rules, causing certain entities to briefly cross over into the Real World… For organizations like the Special Operations Bureau, that’s an even greater catastrophe.”

Yu Sheng’s gaze involuntarily swept over the materials on the desk again.

After a moment, he steered the conversation back to the events in Boundary City.

“So, what exactly were those two Angel Cult followers in the museum trying to do?”

“Summon their ‘Lord’ here,” Song Cheng said gravely.

Eileen: “…Are they insane?!”

“Well, yeah — mentally stable people don’t become Angel Cult followers,” Xu Jiali shook her head. “They’re obsessed with this kind of thing — performing their mystical ‘sacrifices’ inside Otherworlds. Since Twilight Angels descend more easily into Otherworlds, they believe that using special rituals to contaminate an Otherworld can attract their ‘Lord’ to come.”

“Does that method actually work?” Yu Sheng couldn’t help but ask curiously.

“In most cases it’s completely futile and only adds to the body count, since Twilight Angels don’t actually respond to those followers’ prayers,” Song Cheng waved his hand dismissively. “But the fear is in the low-probability events — they carry out all manner of evil and chaotic sacrifices, essentially trying to attract an angel’s ‘attention.’ Once the number of attempts adds up, one of them might actually succeed. There are documented records of ‘summoned descents’ in history, and more than just one or two.

“So, promptly eliminating Angel Cult followers as they surface has become a very important and effective measure in the fight against Twilight Angels — we may have great difficulty killing an ‘angel,’ but by snuffing out their sacrificial activities, we can drastically reduce the probability of a Twilight Angel’s descent. And on the other hand, wiping out Angel Cult followers also serves to contain the spread of Twilight Angel information contamination.”

Song Cheng paused for a moment after saying this, organized his thoughts, then continued: “Our people will enter the ‘museum’ tonight to deal with the remnants of the sacrificial site and confirm the identities of the victims. We’ll also conduct a thorough inspection of the entire museum along with the ‘Theater’ outside to see whether those Angel Cult followers left behind any other hidden dangers.”

“They infiltrated the Otherworld by bypassing the node monitoring,” Yu Sheng reminded. “Have you figured out how they did that?”

“We’re investigating, but it’s not going to be quick,” Song Cheng shook his head. “The Node Network monitoring system has been running normally the whole time. Given the capabilities of Angel Cult followers, it would be impossible for them to sabotage the Node Network in a place like the Borderland without being detected — setting everything else aside, there’s no way they could have escaped our Bureau Chief’s ‘eyes.’ Currently, we suspect they may have found another ‘entrance’ — one that wasn’t registered in the database, that no one had ever discovered, leading to the museum.”

Yu Sheng looked surprised: “There could be other entrances?”

“The probability is low, but not zero,” Song Cheng nodded. “At the end of the day, an ‘Otherworld’ is a special information structure governed by rules that produces a ‘limited overlap’ with the Real World. In other words, as long as its entry conditions are met, any location can become an entrance to an Otherworld. It’s just that under normal circumstances, aside from a few anomalous types, the entry conditions of regular Otherworlds are tightly bound to specific locations in the Real World — and in the Borderland, all those locations are under the Special Operations Bureau’s surveillance. But as they say, nothing in this world is ever one hundred percent accident-proof.”

Yu Sheng rubbed his chin and muttered: “So that’s how it is… ‘Accidents’ really are impossible to fully guard against.”

Li Lin, who had been silent throughout, finally couldn’t hold back any longer. He looked up at Yu Sheng: “When you used Door Opening, you were that ‘accident’ as far as we were concerned.”

Yu Sheng instantly shifted into a more serious sitting posture, as if that last remark hadn’t come from him at all.

“What we mainly came here to tell you today is all of this,” Song Cheng cleared his throat, as if he hadn’t heard the exchange between Yu Sheng and Li Lin. “Regarding the ‘Twilight Angels’ — you’ve already had dealings with them, which means that going forward, your chances of encountering them again will be far higher than an ordinary person’s. Building up some knowledge in this area ahead of time might prove useful someday.

“Beyond that, if there’s anything you need the Special Operations Bureau’s help with — whether it’s in your work as a Spirit Detective, or in dealing with troubles caused by Otherworlds and entities — if you run into difficulties, you can always reach out to us. The Special Operations Bureau has always placed great importance on its ‘partners.'”

Hearing this, Yu Sheng actually gave it some serious thought, and then, just before Song Cheng stood up to say goodbye, he suddenly remembered something.

“Oh right, there actually is something — I’m not sure if you can help with it.”

Song Cheng was taken aback: “Oh… go ahead.”

Yu Sheng thought about it and felt rather embarrassed: “Is there anything you can do about the fact that delivery and courier services can’t get to No. 66 Wutong Road?”

Song Cheng: “…Huh?”

(End of Chapter)