Chapter 152 – Operation Records

Chapter 152 – Operation Records

The moment he heard Baili Qing’s account, Yu Sheng knew the failure of that operation all those years ago had been an inevitable outcome — they had made an enormous mistake, one so egregious it bordered on absurd.

And yet, the misjudgment was nearly impossible to avoid.

The bizarre characteristics of Fairy Tale were beyond anything a first-time encounter could possibly anticipate. Its slowness during initial outbreaks, its weak effects, and its exclusive targeting of children were all profoundly deceptive. More importantly, it possessed a unique “structure” of “main body and subsets.” The true core of Fairy Tale was hidden behind the dream stages it wove, and the Special Operations Bureau of several decades ago… could not possibly have known any of this.

Yu Sheng opened the file, his gaze slowly sweeping across the operation record codenamed “Coming of Age.” At the beginning of the document was an additional set of materials that had been appended, containing fairly detailed records of Fairy Tale Otherworld’s appearance history and its early-stage impact events. The vast majority of the contents aligned with what Little Red Riding Hood had revealed to him in the orphanage.

Fairy Tale’s initial outbreak point was located inside an orphanage called “Sunbeam Care Home.” The orphanage was affiliated with a charitable organization under the Council’s jurisdiction. In the roughly two weeks before the first outbreak, there had been several incidents of children waking from nightmares and wandering about, or fainting during the daytime. At night, patrol personnel reported hearing strange sounds coming from the dormitory area — sounds resembling wolf howls, gusting wind, or soldiers marching in formation.

According to the records, these incidents had not gone unnoticed by the authorities. In fact, the very day after the night patrol staff reported the anomalies, a Special Operations Bureau investigation team entered the orphanage and conducted a thorough investigation. Accompanying them was an Aberration Doctor who performed physical examinations on the children who had experienced nightmares and fainting spells. By “standard procedure” standards, the Special Operations Bureau and the Council at the time had done an excellent job, with no major oversights.

Yet these investigations failed to uncover any trace of Fairy Tale’s existence — perhaps because the technological means of the era were insufficient, or perhaps because Fairy Tale truly was still very weak at that point, still in its early dormant phase, such that even the Aberration Doctor with their extraordinary skills couldn’t find any clues from those children’s nightmares.

Not long after this initial investigation concluded, Fairy Tale finally bared its fangs “ever so slightly” in the Real World for the first time.

A wildly proliferating thicket of roses, centered on the orphanage’s dormitory area, spread across the entire compound overnight. The roses receded at dawn, and one girl along with two night-shift security guards went missing from that point on.

“We later confirmed that the first story to go out of control was ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ but initially, the Special Operations Bureau’s assessment of this incident was simply an ‘overflow’ phenomenon from some unknown Otherworld, which they believed was parasitizing that orphanage,” Baili Qing’s voice sounded from beside him. “The Council organized an evacuation of all personnel from the orphanage and temporarily housed the children in other facilities. Afterward, an elite Special Operations Bureau action team composed of seasoned investigators entered the orphanage and conducted an extremely thorough search…

“The result is easy to imagine — they found no clues related to any Otherworld inside the orphanage. And just as the investigation had reached a dead end, a second loss of control occurred — a child who had been temporarily relocated suddenly fainted and transformed into a rampaging giant wolf.

“Fortunately, when we transferred those children, we had considered the possibility that the personnel had already been contaminated, so the new ‘containment facility’ had a higher security rating. The rampaging giant wolf was quickly subdued. Though we ultimately couldn’t save that child, the damage didn’t spread further. Moreover, thanks to our timely intervention, we finally managed to capture certain clues about Fairy Tale… We confirmed the existence of the Dark Forest — it was the first ‘subset’ to be identified and named.”

As she spoke, the Bureau Chief extended a hand and pointed at the file in front of Yu Sheng.

“After that came Operation ‘Coming of Age.'”

Yu Sheng continued reading through the subsequent contents without looking up. “You initially believed the Dark Forest was the entirety of this ‘unknown Otherworld’?”

“Yes. At that time, we hadn’t yet confirmed the existence of other ‘subsets,'” Baili Qing nodded. “Mapping out Fairy Tale’s ‘structure’ came much later.”

Yu Sheng gave a soft hum and continued reading downward.

He saw that the Special Operations Bureau at the time had used technical means to lock onto the Dark Forest’s “entry window” and conducted a “deep dive.” The core of the entire so-called “Coming of Age” operation was this deep dive.

Upon seeing the words “deep dive” mentioned in the materials, the first person Yu Sheng thought of was Xu Jiali — that powerhouse was a veteran Deep-Dive Agent. Based on what he had previously gleaned from her and Li Lin, Yu Sheng knew that so-called “Deep-Dive Agents” were a type of “special forces operative” far more powerful, more versatile, and more elite than ordinary Special Operations Bureau agents. Not only were they skilled at executing extreme missions in all manner of dangerous zones, they could also use specialized equipment and technical means to enter “battlefields” beyond ordinary imagination, confronting things that lay beyond the bounds of reason and common sense.

“This ‘deep dive’ mentioned here… what exactly is the process?” Yu Sheng asked curiously.

“You can think of it as a controlled, targeted technique for ‘descending’ into a specific Otherworld,” Baili Qing answered without concealment, as if this weren’t classified information. “Through the injection of an induction agent and neural signal overlay, we can artificially guide an operative’s consciousness to the edge of the rational world. Then, using specialized equipment, these ‘hypnotized’ operatives can be sent into the Otherworld and awakened on the other side. This technique doesn’t always work, but it’s effective for most Otherworlds, at least.”

Eileen muttered from the side: “…That sounds awfully complicated, and it feels really dangerous.”

“Yes, complicated and dangerous,” Baili Qing nodded, her gaze falling on Yu Sheng. “Especially compared to your ‘door.’ But the advantage is that the process is controllable, reproducible, and scalable — it can be used on more people. To combat the vast number of Otherworlds and entities, we need an equally vast number of personnel.”

Yu Sheng said nothing and simply turned to the next page. But what first caught his eye was a long list of names.

The instant he saw that list, his expression shifted subtly.

He heard Baili Qing’s voice reach his ears, still calm, yet carrying an inexplicable weight and gravity:

“In the operation codenamed ‘Coming of Age,’ a total of twelve Deep-Dive Agents, thirteen Special Operations Bureau agents, and seven logistics and support personnel were killed or went missing. In addition, four children died on the spot due to Otherworld destabilization, and six perimeter surveillance personnel were affected by the shockwave — over the following years, they successively descended into madness and ultimately died well before their time.”

This time, even Eileen, who was usually all smiles and giggles, stopped smiling at once. Little Doll froze for a moment, gazing at the documents with a complicated expression, and didn’t speak for a long while.

Yu Sheng flipped through the pages with a grave expression, skipping past the overly technical sections or content he already knew, his eyes scanning line after line of the operation records —

The Deep-Dive Agents had conducted three “descents” in total. The first attempt failed — the induction agent put the participating operatives into a period of unconsciousness, but in the muddled “border of consciousness,” they found only a wall of chaos and failed to enter any Otherworld interior.

During the second attempt, some of the operatives briefly entered a space that was “vast, dim, and entangled with massive amounts of bizarre web-like structures,” and heard the space filled with “wailing, cry-like noise” — it didn’t seem to be any of Fairy Tale’s subsets.

And on the third attempt, catastrophic casualties erupted.

Nearly all of the Deep-Dive Agents who entered the “alien space” were instantly lost. Only two survived and “returned,” but they lived for only a few dozen minutes before rapidly weakening and dying of unknown causes. Then contamination broke out — some unknown “thing” entered the Real World and began rapidly killing every adult at the scene.

At the critical moment, safety protocols activated. The facility was swiftly sealed and the contamination was contained within the laboratory, but the cost was those Special Operations Bureau agents and other staff members who couldn’t evacuate in time — along with four children.

Yu Sheng’s brow furrowed incrementally as he read the observational records from the second descent and the loss-of-control account from the third. Something felt off.

Soon, he realized where the sense of wrongness was coming from.

“…Did they actually enter the Dark Forest?”

He looked up at Baili Qing’s eyes, then quickly added: “I’ve been inside the Dark Forest. There are certainly dangerous things in there — wolves, shadows, and some lethal rules — but based on my personal experience, as long as you’re cautious after entering, you won’t die in the short term at the very least. Even if adults face targeted hostility in there, it shouldn’t be anything like what’s described in this report…”

He shook his head, leaving the rest unsaid.

— Those professionally trained Deep-Dive Agents with rich combat experience, even if they were ultimately wiped out after entering Fairy Tale, shouldn’t have fallen this quickly.

Because the Dark Forest didn’t have a “mechanism” for instantly devouring intruders, nor was it some space filled with “wailing, cry-like noise” that was “vast, dim, and entangled with massive amounts of bizarre web-like structures.”

“Correct — that’s exactly the crux of the issue,” Baili Qing said, nodding lightly in response to Yu Sheng’s question, just as he expected. “Based on the direct observational data left from that time, the place they entered… was actually not the Dark Forest.”

Yu Sheng’s eyes went wide. “Then where was it?!”

“It could have been a ‘subset’ that only opens to adults, or it could have been the ‘void zone’ between subsets, or it might even have been the Fairy Tale main body at a deeper level. There are too many possibilities,” Baili Qing said with a soft sigh. “You can look at the two records appended at the back. One is a post-event recollection by an external surveillance operative, and the other was recorded by a member of the on-site team who documented it in their final moments before death.”

(End of Chapter)