The system is four years ahead of schedule, but Weird is still a cub.

Long Zhenguo felt a chill run down his spine. He turned around abruptly, his sharp eyes, which had seen through countless people and were incredibly perceptive, scanning every "colleague" present.

Those familiar faces: the deputy commander who had slammed his fist on the table with him in meetings, the department head who was always cautious when reporting to him, and even the young orderly who had been with him for more than ten years and remembered the exact temperature of the tea he drank...

At this moment, these people all became utterly unfamiliar to Long Zhenguo.

Their faces all wore the same shock and panic, but this panic was not because there was a "contaminant" among their colleagues, but because they were suspected by Long Zhenguo.

Suspicion, centered around the two infected individuals who had been identified, spread rapidly throughout the enclosed meeting room. It was as if countless invisible eyes were watching each other in the air, every subtle movement, every fleeting glance, could be interpreted as a signal of betrayal.

Trust, the cornerstone that sustains the operation of the Dajing headquarters, has cracked before Shen Ge's small "strange energy detector".

"...Kill them on the spot!" Long Zhenguo forced out the order through gritted teeth, his voice dry and hoarse. He was trying to use an iron fist to sever this chain of suspicion and restore order.

"Don't rush to silence them." Shen Ge raised his hand, the movement small, yet it seemed to exert an invisible force, causing the guards who had already drawn their weapons to freeze in their tracks.

“Dead ‘samples’ are not as valuable as living ones. And…”

His gaze swept over everyone present, including Long Zhenguo: "If they can plant spies by your side, don't you want to follow the trail and find out who's behind it all?"

This word sent a chill down the spines of all the high-ranking officials present.

They finally understood that what Shen Ge wanted was never resources or power; what he wanted was to personally insert himself into the already terminally ill "heart" of the Dajing headquarters.

And they have no right to refuse.

"..." Long Zhenguo closed his eyes and remained silent for a while before finally agreeing to Shen Ge's "plan".

……

That afternoon, the core area of ​​the Dajing Special Policy Department, specifically the 3rd Department managed by Long Zhenguo, was placed under the highest level of lockdown.

Shen Ge's unit, composed of "useless" individuals, has now become the only "law enforcers" in this center of power who can move freely.

Clad in the cold, black "Qilin Type I" eerie power armor, they walked silently down the empty corridor in groups of three, each holding an "eerie energy detector" that shimmered with a ghostly blue light.

Wherever they passed, the high-ranking officials of the three ministries who used to be arrogant and powerful, as well as the department heads who held great power, had to stand against the wall like prisoners awaiting trial, heads bowed, and be scanned one by one by the instrument.

At the entrance to the highest command center in Area A, a senior deputy director of the operations department, known for his fiery temper, attempted to force his way through the blockade due to his dissatisfaction with this "insulting" inspection.

"While I was fighting the monsters, you guys were probably playing in the mud somewhere! What right do you have to investigate me?" he roared.

His response was Yu Tiexiong's iron fist, as big as a clay pot.

Faced with overwhelming power, the deputy minister, along with his light armor, was blasted away like a sack of potatoes, embedded in the alloy wall opposite him, and lost consciousness.

Yu Tiexiong didn't even glance at him, but calmly reported to the detector in his deep voice: "Target is agitated, no abnormal reaction. Next."

Inside the precision laboratory of the weapons research and development department in Area C, everyone was stunned when the red light of the detector locked onto a chief engineer who looked refined and usually stern.

"Impossible! Engineer Wang... he's one of the core developers of the 'Nuwa Type I' AI system!"

However, amidst the questioning gazes of the crowd, an extremely strange and incongruous smile suddenly appeared on Engineer Wang's face.

Immediately afterwards, his body melted like a wax figure, with countless black blood vessels surging beneath his skin, and he made a strange and unique "swallowing sound" coming from his mouth.

The next second, Yoona's figure flashed by like a ghost, and the cold, monstrous blade instantly sliced ​​through his throat, stopping him from uttering the monstrous erosion he was about to say.

Even so, the two researchers closest to him still screamed in pain, clutching their heads and kneeling on the ground. Similar veins to those of Engineer Wang had begun to appear in their eyes.

This is the terrifying aspect of the "Corruptors"—even their dying murmurs emit a sinister energy that can become a deadly plague.

The arrests and the strange changes peeled away the shiny exterior of the Third Special Operations Division of Dajing, revealing the festering, rotten flesh beneath.

Panic, like a tidal wave, engulfed this towering structure of power.

That night, the night was deep and all was quiet.

In the thirteenth warehouse area, in the commander's office that had been temporarily converted, Shen Ge was quietly wiping his "pig-slaughtering knife".

Outside the door, the sound of a guard announcing his arrival rang out.

An elderly man, tall and straight, with three stars on his shoulders and a face etched with the marks of time and determination, secretly visited alone under the cover of night.

He is Zhao Xinhong, the supreme commander of the "First Pair of Deceptive Groups" of the Beijing Military Region, a "hawk" figure known within headquarters for his toughness, pragmatism, and extreme aversion to political struggle.

Unlike Long Zhenguo, he was neither insincere nor polite.

Upon entering the office, he simply gave Shen Ge a standard military salute, then got straight to the point, placing a key containing his personal authority—enough to shake up the entire logistics system of Dajing—heavily on Shen Ge's desk.

"Captain Shen," his voice was steady and powerful, like two giant rocks rubbing against each other.

"I don't care about the power struggles between you and Long Zhenguo, nor do I care about those office politics. I only have one request—"

He raised his head, his cloudy yet still sharp eyes fixed on Shen Ge.

"Prioritize ensuring the 'purity' of every soldier in my 'First Anti-Monster Army.' They are the last trump card of the Great Jing, the last flesh and blood bulwark against the monster legion. They... cannot rot from within!"

There was not a trace of transactional intent in his words. Only the unwavering, absolute sense of responsibility of a pure soldier to his comrades and the front line beneath his feet.

Shen Ge put down his knife and looked up at the old general before him, who exuded an aura of iron will. This was the first person since he arrived in Dajing who had earned his respect.

He reached out and picked up the key that would drive Long Zhenguo mad with envy. He slowly nodded and smiled.

"Thank you for your trust. I will do my utmost to complete this task." Shen Ge's tone was calm, yet carried an undeniable promise.

Shen Ge was well aware that the first wedge for splitting and controlling the Special Operations Department had been firmly driven in, accompanied by genuine respect and consensus. While the Third Department of the Special Operations Department in Dajing was embroiled in violent turmoil and a power struggle was brewing due to a "great purge," an interrogation of a "bishop-level" contaminant officially began in a secret interrogation room beneath Warehouse District Thirteen.

The captured "Bishop"-level polluter was imprisoned in a restraint chair made of special alloy, with countless bizarre energy suppressors engraved inside.

He appeared listless, but his deep eyes gleamed with a fanatical and twisted light, almost like that of a martyr.

Conventional physical torture or mental coercion is meaningless to someone who has already sacrificed himself to "Whispers".

Shen Ge walked into the interrogation room alone, without any instruments or assistants.

He did not rush to invade with his magical abilities, but stood quietly in front of the "bishop," scrutinizing him with an extremely calm gaze.

This calm was more oppressive than any torture.

After a long silence, Shen Ge finally spoke slowly. His voice was soft and his tone was calm: "Tsk tsk, the New God Cult always comes up with new tricks. I'm very curious about what your so-called 'gospel' is this time, but I guess you won't tell me on your own initiative."

"But that's okay."

"I will soon find your lair."

The "bishop's" pupils suddenly contracted. He could sense that Shen Ge was not bluffing, because the church had not lowered its guard against him because of his disappearance over the past three years. He was still the New God Church's greatest enemy!

Indeed, this was the case. Shen Ge's purge of the Third Division of the Dajing Special Operations Department led him to the "Holy Nest" on the outskirts of the city.

Calling it the suburbs is inaccurate, because it's almost 200 kilometers outside of Beijing, beneath an old experimental base that has long been erased by the authorities.

That place is the "Holy Palace" where all the "preachers" of the "New God Cult" active in the Great Celestial Empire are "incubated" and "bestowed with the Gospel".

"Divine Descent Ritual".

A conspiracy far more outrageous than previously imagined has surfaced.

The core of "Hall of Horrors" is not a simple, monstrous heart, but an "aggregate" of brains forcibly pieced together from tens of thousands of missing persons, resembling a giant living tumor.

They plan to perform monthly routine maintenance on the Dajing Ghost Energy Shield, at the moment when the Ghost Energy flow has a gap of one ten-thousandth of a second.

Using this "aggregate" as a sacrifice, a terrifying "living sacrifice" is carried out, instantly transforming it into a vast and bizarre energy capable of tearing apart the dimensions of reality.

In the heart of Dajing City, open a "polluted door" leading directly to an unknown dimension, and welcome the "whispering" holy procession!

When Shen Ge discovered this plan in the "nest," he immediately connected it with the "teleportation device" that the monster organization had once researched.

Whether it's the New God Cult or a strange organization, the person who orchestrated all of this in Dajing wanted to open a passage to the "Fragment World".

Shen Ge suspected that although only a few people in the Special Affairs Department knew about his opening of a passage to other fragmented worlds in the underground of the Rong City Special Affairs Department, this "secret" had been known to Da Jing, or rather, to strange organizations such as the New God Cult, and they wanted to use this method to open a passage as well.

Of course, another possibility is that "Shen Lin" hiding behind the scenes did not actually die. He is the provider of anti-trick technology behind the monster organization, and perhaps this plan was laid a long time ago. Otherwise, the monster organization would not have been able to develop a teleportation device.

Whatever the purpose of the New God Cult and the Monster Organization in opening the path to the Fragment World, the only thing Shen Ge can do now is try to stop this sacrificial ritual.

Although he had already reached the strength of an eighth-tier Ghost King, no one knew whether the "whispering" coming from the other side after the passage was opened would be an even more terrifying existence!

such as--

"Omnisiah".

However, the current problem is that the biggest obstacle to finding the center of this sacrifice and destroying "Holy Nest" by following the clues left in the "Nest" is the inability to pinpoint its exact location.

They had to act before the New God Church could complete its plan, and both sides were racing against time. That's why Shen Ge thought of working on the "bishop".

He deliberately created the illusion that he had already ruined the New God Cult's plan, and continuously released evil energy to erode the "bishop's" mental state.

Finally, after three hours of "interrogation," the "bishop" broke down and revealed a strange map.

Shen Ge sent the map back to the Rong City Special Operations Department, where Li Xiang and his team worked through the night and, with the help of "Fake Xiao Qi," finally deciphered it.

They conducted billions of cross-comparisons and modelings between the "map" data and the heat map, population density distribution map, historical building archives, and hydrological monitoring data of the underground pipe network of Dajing City over the past 24 hours. Those abstract "mysterious symbols" were analyzed, anchored, and transformed into physical coordinates in reality through massive computing power and ingenious logical reasoning.

A high-precision 3D map of three alternate locations marked "Holy Nest" was clearly displayed on the tactical tablet in front of Shen Ge.

An abandoned theater, a memorial hall disguised as a modern art museum, and a subway maintenance tunnel that leads directly to the city's main artery.

……

three days later.

The National Centre for the Performing Arts, a magnificent building that once carried countless artistic dreams, has been abandoned for many years and is now dilapidated. It's so bad that it wouldn't even need a set to be used for filming ghost movies.

However, beneath it lies an underground parking lot large enough to hold tens of thousands of people, which has long been transformed into a terrifying, enormous altar.

The air was thick with the stench of blood. Countless thick, black tentacles, writhing slightly, hung down from the walls and ceiling, injecting streams of dark red, viscous, eerie energy into the center of the altar.

On the altar, hundreds of "preachers" dressed in gray robes and dozens of "bishops" with even stronger auras were chanting fervently around the "aggregate" composed of tens of thousands of brains that was constantly emitting low, mournful cries.

It was not human language, but a bizarre language composed of fragmented syllables and high-frequency resonances deciphered from countless eerie "swallowing sounds".

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn…"

All their supernatural abilities continuously flowed into the central "aggregate".

The concentration of eerie energy in the sky directly above the Grand Theater has risen to a critical point, making the dimension of reality more fragile than paper.

The passage to the fragmented world seems poised to open at any moment! (End of Chapter)