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

A convoy of black SUVs, like several silent deep-sea sharks, sliced ​​through the torrential rain of the night, silently gliding towards the west of the city. The windshield wipers swung tirelessly at their highest frequency, yet still couldn't completely illuminate the world before the windshield. The city's neon lights were left far behind, replaced by a deathly grayness—the infamous unfinished building area in the west of the city, known locally as the city's "appendix."

Here lie more than a dozen buildings, abandoned for years, their exposed steel bars resembling withered bones piercing the sky. Lacking oversight and untouched by human hands, this place has become a haven for stray dogs and homeless people, and a breeding ground for various urban legends. Tonight, this ruin is shrouded in an eerie, thick fog. Unlike the crispness of natural moisture, the fog is viscous and stagnant, as if some living thing lies prostrate on the ground, greedily devouring the beams of light from car headlights.

"Air quality sensor activated." In the passenger seat, Qin Yue's fingers flew across the tactical tablet, the blue light of the screen illuminating her calm face. "PM2.5 levels are off the charts, and high concentrations of unknown organic compounds have been detected. Simply put, the air here... is toxic."

Li Haotian, sitting in the back seat, didn't say anything, but simply rolled down the car window a crack.

In an instant, a nauseating odor wafted in. It was a mixture of the pungent sulfurous smell of burning cheap incense sticks and the fermenting odor of algae and rotting flesh in a damp, cold environment. The smell wasn't strong, but it felt like a cold finger probing directly into my stomach, triggering a physiological nausea.

"Is this what 'He' smells like?" Liu Hu, sitting on the other side, frowned and couldn't help but curse, "It's fucking pungent. Don't these cult members have any environmental awareness?"

Li Haotian rolled up the car window again, shutting out the stench, his eyes appearing exceptionally deep in the dim light. He gently stroked the tactical cane on his knee, his voice flat and emotionless: "The incense is to mask the stench of corpses, or something else... Looks like the 'incense' here is quite strong."

The convoy stopped fifty meters in front of a half-finished commercial building. Originally planned as a luxury shopping mall, the building was now just a huge concrete shell, its dark windows like countless open mouths, silently roaring into the endless night.

"Drone number two is in position, thermal imaging is being transmitted synchronously." Qin Yue's voice broke the silence.

On the central screen, the previously black screen instantly lit up. The drone's perspective, looking down from above, pierced through the broken exterior walls and penetrated deep into the building's interior. The image was unstable, accompanied by bursts of electromagnetic interference noise, but it still clearly outlined the scene inside the building—

In what should have been the courtyard, dozens of figures were densely packed together.

They were dressed in rags, wrapped in tattered cotton wadding or burlap sacks, their hair disheveled and tangled, looking like zombies who had just crawled out of a garbage dump. These people were not still; they were kneeling on the ground in a circle, their bodies in a strange spasm, as if enduring immense pain, or perhaps enjoying some kind of extreme pleasure.

In the center of the circle they formed stood a chilling "statue".

It wasn't the image of any deity, nor even a sculpture. It was pieced together from discarded materials from a construction site—twisted steel bars formed the skeleton, moldy planks filled with flesh, and broken concrete blocks polished into some kind of blurry facial features, covered with unknown brown stains. This "statue" had no head, only a large hole in its chest, from which dark red smoke continuously billowed.

"These people..." Liu Hu's eyes widened as he stared at the absurd and terrifying scene on the screen. His Adam's apple bobbed. "Have they all been kicked in the head by a donkey? Kowtowing to this pile of junk?"

"This is 'creating a god'," Li Haotian said coldly, tapping his finger on the bizarre statue on the screen. "When people have nowhere to vent their inner fears and desires, they instinctively seek solace in something else. These people are marginalized, abandoned by society, and they are the perfect breeding ground. As long as someone sows a seed in their hearts, even a pile of garbage, it can grow into a 'god' in their hearts."

"Are those the cult's regular troops?" Qin Yue asked without looking up, as she was calibrating the external audio receiver.

"It doesn't seem like it." Li Haotian shook his head, a scrutinizing glint in his eyes. "While the cult's followers are fanatical, they are disciplined and well-equipped. But these people... look at their movements."

On the screen, several figures kneeling on the outermost circle appeared somewhat exhausted from hunger. One of them nearly collapsed while kowtowing, but was forcibly pulled up by the person next to him to continue. They wore no uniforms, carried no standard weapons, and didn't even have any decent ritual implements; they only held a few broken candles for lighting or offerings.

"This is a brainwashed, spontaneously formed group," Li Haotian concluded. "They are fanatical believers seduced by the rhetoric of 'deification,' or rather, 'expendable resources' abandoned by the cult. Unbeknownst to them, they are using their spiritual energy to support something."

After speaking, Li Haotian glanced at the data stream in the corner of the screen: "The energy reaction under that statue is unstable, fluctuating wildly, indicating that there is no professional 'priest' present to guide it. This is just a group of desperate people engaging in a self-destructive frenzy."

"Since they're not regular troops, what are we waiting for?" Liu Hu's eyes flashed with ferocity as he reached for the car door's safety lock. "I'll just lead my men in and we can dismantle this pile of junk in two minutes, and while we're at it, we'll scatter that cobbled-together piece of junk."

He cracked his knuckles, making a crisp snapping sound, clearly unable to contain himself any longer. For a mercenary who had faced countless life-or-death situations, this kind of mission, involving only ordinary civilians and low-level cultists, was as easy as weeding his own backyard.

"stop."

Li Haotian's voice wasn't loud, but it was like an invisible hand that instantly calmed Liu Hu's restless body.

Liu Hu froze, turning to look at Li Haotian: "Brother Hao, do you think this rabble can cause any trouble? Besides, things might change if we wait too long..."

"This is an inspection, not a demolition." Li Haotian leaned back in his chair, his gaze still fixed on the bizarre statue, a playful smile curving his lips. "Since the employer sent the order here, it means this place is more than just a shelter for homeless people. What we need to do is not kill, but test."

"test?"

"Let's test how much of a deal this so-called 'god' really has. And by the way..." Li Haotian paused, his eyes sharpening like knives, "see if we can capture him alive and ask if there are any higher-ups contacting him over there."

Liu Hu pursed his lips, reluctantly released the car door handle, and slammed the long knife in his hand heavily onto his thigh: "Then what do you suggest? I can't exactly kowtow to those lunatics too, can I?"

Li Haotian ignored his complaints and turned around to look at the shadows at the rear of the car. There, a specially made metal cage sat quietly, its door unlocked, and the inside was pitch black, like an entrance to another world.

"Xiao Hei," Li Haotian gently tapped the metal wall of the cage, his voice low and gentle, "Time to get to work."

Inside the cage, two eerie green lights suddenly lit up.

Immediately afterward, a low, guttural roar rolled from the depths of its throat, like bellows straining in the depths of hell. A massive, dark shadow slowly flowed out of the cage, making no sound, filling the trunk instantly like liquid night. It had jet-black fur, and the lines of its muscles were faintly visible in the dim light inside the car, exuding explosive power. Most chilling of all was its face—a face that was not befitting any earthly creature, its mouth split open to its ears, filled with crisscrossing, dagger-like fangs.

This is a beast of prey, bred through a combination of genetic modification and psionic corruption, codenamed "Little Black".

It lay prone on the ground, its emotionless vertical pupils fixed on the unfinished building a few hundred meters ahead. The slurred liquid dripping from its mouth instantly corroded the floor of the carriage, making a sizzling sound.

"Go ahead." Li Haotian opened the trunk and pointed to the building shrouded in thick fog. "Don't kill them all. Leave a few alive. I want to know who gave them the audacity to deify me on my turf."

The rear door slid open slowly, and torrential rain poured in instantly, but it couldn't wet the dark figure at all.

Little Black let out an excited tremor, and in a flash, it disappeared into the vast rainy night. Like a black lightning bolt, it trudged through the mud and puddles, silently merging into the desolate ruins, leaving only a fleeting afterimage.

Qin Yue raised an eyebrow as she watched the high-energy heat source reaction flash across the screen: "Xiao Hei's speed is 3% faster than last time. It seems that the biological reagent last time was very effective."

That was the calm before the predator's hunt, the moment when the storm was brewing to its zenith. Li Haotian straightened his collar and looked through the rain-soaked car window at the unfinished building trembling in the wind and rain.

"The countdown begins," he said calmly.

At that moment, the kneeling believers inside the building were unaware that a pair of eyes in the darkness had already drawn a bloody end to their already absurd fate.