The whole nation: You're put to survive on a desolate planet, you'll be running an alien b

The corridor lights were a cold, white light. The interrogation room door closed behind him, shutting out the damp, bloody smell. Li Haotian didn't go far, stopping in front of the second isolation door outside the safe house. He pressed his ear close to the metal and could hear a very faint "thump-thump" sound inside, like a heartbeat, or like some kind of patient knocking.

The silver cocoon trembled gently inside.

He gripped the token tightly, his knuckles turning white. The token wasn't warm, but it felt like a nail driven into his palm, a reminder: this wasn't a dream, nor was it an ordinary containment incident.

"Captain Li," Liu Hu caught up from behind, his voice low, "Qin Yue has arrived. She says she has something she must show you in person."

Li Haotian withdrew his hand, his eyes darkening: "Underground conference room."

The conference room in the villa's basement was originally used for disaster prevention command; it had thickened walls, signal isolation, and an independent ventilation system. When the lights came on, the entire room seemed to be stripped away from the world, leaving only the calm light and the calm air.

Qin Yue was already seated at one side of the long table, her coat still on, a thin data box between her fingers. She looked like she hadn't rested much on the way; there were faint dark circles under her eyes, but her face was hard as if she was suppressing her emotions.

"The file you requested." She pushed the data box towards me. "Dragon Shield classified information; I shouldn't have brought it out."

Li Haotian didn't answer immediately, but looked at her first: "What's the price?"

Qin Yue's lips twitched, a smile that wasn't quite a smile: "The price is that from today onwards, I'll be completely under surveillance in the bureau. And—you all have to be faster than me."

He then picked up the data box and inserted it into the interface on the side of the table. The holographic projection unfolded with a "hum," and a blue and white light surface filled half of the conference room. The first line of text that popped up was "Summary of Anomalies Related to Evil Marks (Internal)."

The first page shattered all his previous guesses and then pieced them back together.

[Conclusion: The evil mark is not a tattoo, nor a single curse. Its essence is an "anchor," possessing projection and positioning functions, capable of projecting a "partial representation/conceptual slice" of a higher-dimensional existence onto reality.]

Li Haotian stared at the words "anchor point," his Adam's apple bobbing. Qin Yue's voice sounded beside him, steady yet carrying a suppressed coldness: "Dragon Shield has tracked several similar cases over the past three years. Initially, we thought it was mind control by religious organizations. Later, we discovered that regardless of the believer's background, as long as the evil seal is activated, similar phenomena will occur—a drop in spatial temperature, image distortion, local light being swallowed up… and finally, a 'conceptual entity' appears."

"Conceptual entity?" Liu Hu frowned, having never heard this term before.

Qin Yue clicked on the next page. Several blurry surveillance frames appeared on the hologram: street gatherings, underground warehouses, abandoned cinemas... Crowds formed circles, their faces not filled with fanaticism, but with fear. Fear spread across the screen like a tide, then black cracks that defied physics appeared at the edges of the image, as if someone had scraped reality open with their fingernails.

"They're not summoning 'ghosts,'" Qin Yue said. "They're giving something a foothold. The evil seal is like a nail, nailing it into a person's spirit, memory, and identity, and then—hanging that thing down."

Li Haotian's heart sank: "The New God Cult?"

Qin Yue turned to the section labeled "Experimental Field": "The files clearly state that the New God Cult is just one branch, and it may even have been deliberately propped up. The purpose is not to spread its doctrines, but to conduct 'controlled experiments.' Provided with sufficient conditions, the stability, shape, and controllability of the projection are observed."

Another holographic map appeared on the projection, marked with more than a dozen red dots distributed across different cities. Next to each red dot was a brief record: time, location, size of the gathering, and final result.

[City A: Rally—Outbreak of Fear—'Faceless Ones' Take Form, lasting seven minutes.]

[H City: Rally—Outbreak of Fear—Spread of the "Drowning Concept," resulting in 17 deaths by suffocation; no water source at the scene.]

[Northern Suburbs: Gathering—Outbreak of Fear—Shadow-like Creatures Converge, Later Consumed by the Unknown.]

The last "Unknown Devouring" was circled in yellow.

Qin Yue's gaze fell on Li Haotian's face: "This record belongs to your side."

Li Haotian did not deny it. He thought of the unusual quietness when Xiao Hei swallowed the shadow monster, and the "digestive overload" that the silver cocoon subsequently experienced—it had not simply eaten a monster, but swallowed a part that it should not have swallowed.

He zoomed in on the map, and a faint outline appeared between the red dots, like a pre-designed path connecting these events. The center of the link wasn't in any city, but rather towards a blank area—the boundary between mountains and wilderness, marked "No Entry/Not Public" on the map.

Liu Hu felt a chill run down his spine: "This... looks like a magic array."

"It doesn't seem like it," Su Wan's voice came from the doorway.

She came in at some unknown time, holding a stack of handwritten notes, her hair casually tied back, her eyes clearer than the lamplight. She walked to the projector, her fingertips hovering over the red dots in the air, as if she were manipulating an abacus.

"It's like accumulating," she said. "It's not about moving power from one place to another, but about storing up certain resources one by one. Look at the most frequent words in the records: fear outbreak, collective collapse, emotional resonance... These are not side effects, they are fuel."

Qin Yue looked at her: "You are...?"

"Su Wan." She gave her name, her tone devoid of any extra emotion. "I'm in charge of the seal research at the imperial mausoleum."

Qin Yue's eyes flickered slightly, as if she had finally placed two lines on the same table: "Perfect. The file also mentioned a term—'faith/fear resources.' They discovered that simple worship is not stable enough; fear is purer, faster, and more likely to form a common direction."

She turned to the final summary page. An internal analysis appeared on the projector:

[Speculation: The goal is "deification." Fueled by massive emotional resonance, anchored by an evil mark, and fed by events in multiple locations, the ultimate aim is to achieve a stable projection/descendance of a higher-dimensional being somewhere.]

The meeting room was quiet for a few seconds, with only the low hum of the ventilation system.

"Creating a god..." Liu Hu swallowed hard. "They really dare to do that."

Li Haotian stared at the words "creating a god," but his mind was on something else: if the evil seal was the nail, then what was that shadow monster? The nail was driven in here, and the thing was hanging down. It wasn't just the nail that needed to be there; part of the "hanger" also needed to be there first to make the projection more stable.

He spoke, his voice not loud, yet it sounded like a sharp knife pressing down on the table: "The shadow monster that Little Black swallowed might not be a finished product. It might be a component. A 'part' of the projection, or rather—a local organ."

Qin Yue frowned: "Your containment object... swallowed it?"

"We didn't let it swallow it." Li Haotian's eyes darkened. "But it did, and then the silver cocoon started acting strangely. It overloaded its digestive system. Like a snake swallowing prey bigger than itself, only to find out afterward that the thing had thorns."

Su Wan opened her notebook, revealing a page filled with densely drawn diagrams of the seal's structure: "The seal on the imperial tomb has recently loosened, and I haven't been able to find the reason. Logically speaking, that seal wouldn't weaken for no reason unless there's something 'at the same frequency' pulling on it from the outside."

She looked up at the "restricted" area in the center of the holographic map: "The center of your link is not public, but I know there is an ancient sealed zone underground nearby, of unknown age and material. The 'pulse' of the imperial tomb's seal may be connected to that area. The other side is creating a god, pulling at the entire sealed network."

Qin Yue tapped her fingers lightly on the table: "If they share the same origin, then it means—they didn't just start now. They may have already considered these seals as part of the structure, or even used the seals themselves as a 'skeleton'."

"Using the seal as the framework, fear as the fuel, and the evil seal as the nails," Li Haotian said, word by word, "to finally fix the projection of a certain higher-dimensional being into reality."

Liu Hu couldn't help but ask, "Then what do we do? Smash all those gatherings?"

Qin Yue shook her head: "If you wipe out one, the next one will be even more covert. The most troublesome thing in the files is that it doesn't need a fixed cult. It only needs a propagation model. A few people take the lead, create fear, activate the evil seal, and the emotional resonance forms a direction, and the conceptual entity can take shape. The more people are afraid, the faster it will happen."

Su Wan added, "And the fear isn't limited to those present. Live streams, secretly filmed videos, the spread of rumors... all amplify it. If you try to stop the event, you might actually spread the fear to a wider audience."

A brief silence fell over the conference room once again. The red dots on the holographic map flickered, like tiny wounds scattered across the city's skin.

Li Haotian suddenly stood up, walked to the projector, and stretched the start and end points of the link to their maximum. The red line, like a taut bowstring, pointed towards the blank space in the center.

"They're choosing their spots," he said. "Every rally is a test, every outbreak of fear is a measurement. The last one—will be the largest, the most terrifying, the most stable anchor."

Qin Yue looked at him: "You suspect they'll come here next?"

"It's not a doubt." Li Haotian turned around, his gaze passing over the conference room door, as if piercing through the concrete above to see the safe house. "We've reached a critical point here. The silver cocoon is smiling, not because it's happy, but because it smells the scent of its own kind."

Su Wan frowned: "If the silver cocoon really swallowed the component—"

"Then it could become a substitute for the anchor point," Li Haotian continued, his voice even colder. "The other party might not need to inscribe the evil mark on more people. A sufficiently strong carrier can shorten the link, or even directly pull the projection down."

Liu Hu felt a chill run down his spine: "That silver cocoon needs to be moved immediately, or—"

"Relocation won't help either," Qin Yue interrupted, her eyes darkening. "There's a sentence in the file: Once an anchor point is marked by a higher dimension, migration is just dragging a nail. Wherever you run, it follows. The only difference is—where you'll bring the disaster."

Li Haotian remained silent for a moment, then reached out and folded the holographic map back to the center of the table. The red dot was still flashing, like a reminder, or perhaps a mockery.

"Don't run yet," he said slowly. "We should turn the tables and take advantage of their network."

Qin Yue stared at him: "How can we use it?"

"They need fear, so we won't give them ready-made fear," Li Haotian said. "Block information, control its spread, cut off the peripheral nodes first. Then lure out the 'Nameless Cult' and find their organizers. Finally—go to the center."

Su Wan whispered, "The center might be connected to the sealed-off area. Moving there would make the imperial tombs even more dangerous."

"So we need to be quick." Li Haotian pointed to the center of the map. "While they're still accumulating data, while the projection isn't stable, either pull out the nails or dismantle the framework."

Qin Yue stared at him for a long time, as if assessing whether he truly understood what this meant. Finally, she closed the data box again and pushed it back in front of him: "There's still a part of the file that wasn't brought out, involving 'high-dimensional projection naming' and 'failure samples.' I need time."

Li Haotian put away the data box, his voice as calm as a blade being held down: "You have time, but Silver Cocoon doesn't."

As if in response to his words, a very faint muffled sound came from above the conference room—not an explosion, but more like something huge slowly turning over in the next room.

The airflow from the vent cooled instantly, and the light flickered almost imperceptibly.

Liu Hu's expression changed: "The safe house?"

Li Haotian had already started walking out, his steps steady, yet conveying a sense of urgency. "Su Wan, contact your people and get me all the recent fluctuation data from the Imperial Mausoleum Seal. Qin Yue, continue investigating the upstream of the 'Nameless Cult' and find the person who can manipulate the gatherings in multiple locations. Liu Hu, put the entire villa area on high alert tonight; no one is allowed to act alone."

The moment he pushed open the conference room door, the chill became even more pronounced, as if someone had cast a damp, cold shadow down the corridor.

In the direction of the safe house, the indicator light on the alloy door was still on, but it had changed from a steady green to intermittent flashing.

Li Haotian stopped, raised his hand and pressed it against the door, feeling a slight vibration in his palm.

Inside, the silver cocoon tapped slowly and rhythmically.

a bit.

Another one.

It's as if they're practicing for the coming of a distant time, in sync with some distant rhythm.