Kryptonians: Man of Steel

Chapter 1574 Hundred Ghosts Night Parade
Inside the command center, the air seemed to freeze.

Fear still engulfed everyone like a cold tide, but under that all-pervasive, seductive, and bewitching voice, a poisonous fire called "greed" had already quietly ignited and spread in the eyes of some people.

The sound of a racing heartbeat could be clearly heard in the deathly silence.

"So…"

Tamamo-no-Mae's voice trailed off, like the most elegant yet deadly hunter casting a deadly baited hook laden with honey.

"...Go and search! Go and fight! Use your wisdom, your schemes, your blood and souls... to fight to your heart's content! I... await the 'victor' among you."

The sound faded away, as if it had never existed.

But that declaration, full of temptation and extreme malice, is like the most vicious curse rune, deeply imprinted on the bottom of everyone's consciousness, constantly echoing.

On the screen, the golden dots representing the nine clones had long since disappeared at the edge of the detection range, leaving only the cold coordinate vanishing points and a screen full of warning signs.

A deathly silence once again enveloped the command center, but beneath this silence lay countless minds being torn apart by fear, immense cognitive confusion, and the deadly desire for "power" that had just been ignited.

The Nine-Tails splits, and fragments of the Killing Stone appear in the world.

Instead of hiding this beacon containing destructive power, Tamamo-no-Mae actively scattered it among the people like a seed... What exactly is her intention?

Is it the cold mockery of a god looking down upon the struggles of ants? Is it to ignite the chaotic fires of human infighting and the collapse of civilization? Or... is it simply an indispensable sacrifice and step in some grand and evil ritual of hers?
No one knows the answer.

But everyone clearly recognized that Tamamo-no-Mae's enchanting smile was not the end, but rather a door that opened to the abyss.

"A fragment of the Killing Stone..."

Prime Minister Jun Kishida snapped back to reality, his voice hoarse from lingering fear.

"Was it... that Sesshoseki that just exploded in Nasuno?"

"Your Excellency the Prime Minister!"

A high-ranking official from the Ministry of Defense, dressed in uniform with shoulder insignia indicating an extremely high rank, immediately stepped forward, interrupting his inquiry with a hurried voice and an undeniable sense of urgency.

"The most crucial thing now is to immediately confirm the trajectory of the scattered fragments and activate the highest level of emergency response plan! We must mobilize all forces—the Self-Defense Forces, the National Police Agency, the Special Disaster Countermeasures Headquarters, and even request assistance from the U.S. Forces stationed in Japan—to recover all the scattered fragments of the Sessho-seki at all costs!"

His sharp gaze swept across the vanishing coordinates on the screen, which resembled the epicenter of a plague, and his voice trembled slightly, barely concealed:

“We have absolutely no way of assessing the destructive energy level contained in those fragments! Nor can we fathom the ultimate purpose behind Tamamo-no-Mae’s deliberate sowing of them! Each fragment could be a ‘seed of calamity’ capable of triggering regional or even global disasters! Allowing them to circulate among the people would have unimaginable consequences!”

However, the situation developed far more rapidly and out of control than even the most pessimistic predictions in the command center.

This world is no longer a purely mundane world.

The shadows of demons, monsters, and evil spirits have never gone away; their very existence is a continuous threat to human survival.

Tamamo-no-Mae's declaration and the appearance of the Sesshoseki fragments were like a spark, instantly igniting the long-buried anxiety about survival and the extreme desire for power within the entire nation.

"Hahaha!!!"

A classroom at an ordinary high school in Tokyo was in chaos due to an emergency evacuation announcement.

A usually quiet boy stared at the explosive news that popped up on his phone and the blurry speculative images of the debris falling to the ground, his eyes blazing with an unprecedented fervor.

He abruptly shoved his phone away, shoved aside the tables and chairs, and strode towards the door. "Tamamo-no-Mae! The Sesshoseki shard! My chance has come—!"

"Yamada! What are you doing?! This is an emergency evacuation!"

On the podium, the elderly teacher rebuked the teacher with a mixture of shock and anger.

The boy, rushing to the door, didn't stop, shouting without turning his head, "Take refuge? Hiding here is just waiting to die! I'm going to find the Killing Stone fragments! The chance to change my fate is right in front of me!"

"?"

This roar was like a thunderclap, cleaving through the chaos and confusion in the classroom.

Yup!

An extraordinary event has arrived, and a colossal wave of change is upon us! What's the point of reading a book that's repetitive and offers no glimpse into the future?!

"Oh!"

"Wait for me!"

"I am coming too!"

"Count me in!"

After a brief silence, there was a loud crash as tables and chairs were roughly pushed aside and books were scattered all over the floor.

Many boys, either blinded by the promise of "extraordinary opportunity" or already disillusioned with their studies, rushed out of the classroom, their faces flushed and breathing heavily, joining the larger vortex of people outside the campus.

They rushed towards areas near the debris landing sites speculated in the news.

Humans have never lacked a spirit of adventure, especially in this island nation with a long tradition of "betting the nation's fate." The terror of extraordinary existence is real, but the allure of the power it might bring—enough to elevate one to the top in an instant—is equally deadly.

Some lucky (or extremely unlucky) people who came into contact with the scattered fragments first, driven by immense temptation and panic, did not have time to think about the consequences and made the most primitive and crazy choice—to stuff the crystal containing the eerie energy into their mouths and swallow it.

Then, the shards of the Sesshoseki showed them the cruel nature of "inhuman power."

"Ugh... Ahh ...

A down-on-his-luck worker, having found the shards near the Yokohama docks, swallowed them driven by greed. In an instant, his muscles began to convulse, swell, and tear uncontrollably!
Large patches of charred, necrotic skin peeled off, replaced by countless, needle-like, pale white hairs that grew wildly, piercing through flesh.

His head deformed and elongated amidst painful howls, his fangs piercing his lips. In just a few seconds, a nearly three-meter-tall white giant dog (化け犬) exuding a sulfurous stench replaced the human, emitting a soul-shaking roar.

Similar tragedies are unfolding simultaneously across the island nation:

Beside an ancient temple in Kyoto: A woman who attempted suicide due to a failed relationship swallowed fragments, and her body rapidly decayed and weathered away amidst extreme resentment, eventually turning into a skeleton (Bone Woman).

She wept, trying to peel off the skin of a passing young woman and drape it over herself, just to find the blurry figure of her lover whom she had long forgotten.

Tokyo Shibuya Hair Salon: A hairdresser apprentice obsessed with collecting other people's hair. After the fragments are ingested, his hair spreads and multiplies wildly like a living black tide.

Finally, a "humanoid" (hair-eating demon) was born, its head and back completely covered by thick black hair, with only a sliver of scarlet light shining through the gaps in the hair. It wandered the streets in the dead of night, its hair coiling around and tightening around every living thing it encountered like a venomous snake.

(End of this chapter)