Chapter 114

Chapter 114: First Angel

Yu Sheng had always known there would be compensation. Providing intelligence, assisting operations, directly contracting certain projects, turning in supernatural items—the Special Operations Bureau paid Spirit Realm Detectives and Investigators by set rates. It was also one of the main and most stable income sources for civilian anomalous individuals like Little Red Riding Hood.

He just hadn’t expected the bureau to deliver the money in person like this, and the payment was even higher than he’d expected.

Clearly, the extra amount was tied to the danger level of angel cultists.

Yu Sheng remembered Little Red Riding Hood’s warning when they’d parted, and he understood more deeply just how special those “angel cultists” were in the bureau’s eyes.

After Yu Sheng accepted the envelope, Song Cheng nodded and spoke more casually. “Normally, payment goes directly to your account through the Border Comms platform, but since this is our first cooperation, I thought a bit of ceremony would be better. More importantly, I want to use this chance to talk with you about dark angels and angel cults. It’s rare for a Spirit Realm Detective and Investigator to run into angel cultists on their first mission.”

Yu Sheng adjusted his posture, expression turning serious. “I’ve seen an ‘angel’ in the Night Curtain Valley before. Honestly, it was pretty far from what I imagined an angel would be.”

Song Cheng’s voice lowered. “But you could feel its immense presence. That sense of being looked down on—as if from a higher dimension—and the… holiness behind its bizarre form. Right?”

“Holiness…” Yu Sheng recalled what it had felt like to face that giant eye in the sky. He understood what Song Cheng meant, in a way. “If you mean that cold, detached atmosphere beyond reason, then yeah. That thing was terrifying, but when it hung high in the sky, it did give off a twisted kind of divinity.”

“That’s where the word ‘angel’ came from,” Song Cheng said, nodding. “The first investigator to come into contact with a dark angel wrote an eyewitness report before he fell into madness. In terror on the edge of insanity, he described it like this…”

Song Cheng’s tone slowed, turning measured as he recited from memory.

“It looked down, as if from a higher, detached place. Mad thoughts flooded my mind… It was a messenger, representing a greater and more magnificent power. I could almost hear it speaking to me—sentences I couldn’t understand—conveying a will beyond human comprehension. In the purest, most extreme thought, I saw a dark future. In the extinction of all things, it rose into the sky…”

He fell silent, then reached into the briefcase and pulled out a thick stack of documents. He selected one sheet and placed it in front of Yu Sheng.

“This is the investigator who left that report. We call him Contact Zero. This is what he looks like now.”

Yu Sheng took the photo with wary curiosity.

It showed a strange, twisted “tree” standing alone in a pure white hall.

The thing had taken root in a huge containment tank. Its roots and branches looked like tangled hair—thick, coiling, knotted. The overall shape faintly suggested the outline of a hunched human figure, struggling against itself. From the dark canopy hung strands of what looked like vines.

Yu Sheng stared for a long moment before he realized they weren’t vines at all.

They were swollen, grotesque blood vessels.

“He’s currently contained in a high-security warehouse,” Song Cheng said quietly. “We have to trim new branches from his canopy once every three days to prevent him from suddenly going out of control. He didn’t become like this overnight. The transformation lasted ten years. It was… a terrifying process.”

Song Cheng’s voice stayed steady, but the words themselves carried weight. “During those ten years, Contact Zero would occasionally regain clarity in his madness, then fall back into frenzy under overwhelming fear.”

Irene leaned in to glance at the photo. Hearing Song Cheng describe it, she shrank back instinctively. “That looks worse than being dead… If it were me, I’d give him a clean end. This is torture.”

“Yes,” Song Cheng said calmly. “And that’s why we did. After Contact Zero’s last awakening, when he begged his handlers, we carried out an execution.”

Yu Sheng’s eyes narrowed.

“We were certain we killed him,” Song Cheng continued. “At least, we killed the suffering soul inside him. But the body still survived even after severe damage. After careful discussion, the bureau decided to keep it as an important sample for studying angel influence.”

Yu Sheng’s brow tightened. After a long pause, he finally asked, “So just looking at it turns you into that? Then we saw that giant eye too. Why don’t we seem to have any aftereffects?”

“First, a brief sighting won’t leave irreversible influence,” Song Cheng said slowly. “Contact Zero was trapped beside the first angel for too long. Second, each dark angel has different traits. Some have powerful mental contamination. Some show direct destructiveness. Some… don’t seem to be aggressively harmful, at least not through direct attack behavior.”

He paused. “The Big Eye you saw most likely belongs to an inert type with weaker aggression.”

“There are many dark angels?” Yu Sheng asked, looking up.

“Confirmed cases have already reached double digits,” Song Cheng said, sliding over another file. “This is the first angel. It’s what Contact Zero saw, and it’s recognized as the first dark angel to invade our world.”

This time even Foxy, who’d been grooming her tail with full concentration, leaned in to look with Yu Sheng and Irene.

“The first angel is also called Tree Angel, or the Inverted Tree,” Song Cheng said. “When it descends, it appears as a massive plant hanging upside down in the sky—canopy nearly a kilometer wide, height also close to a kilometer. It grows out of a vortex structure suspended in the air. That vortex forms twenty-four to seventy-two hours before descent. It’s one of our most important early-warning signs.”

Yu Sheng stared at the image: an enormous inverted tree above a city skyline.

Below it, the report continued.

“It does not move or attack proactively, but it continuously releases intense mental interference. Witnesses uncontrollably lift their heads to gaze at its canopy and hear vast, chaotic voices until their minds are completely occupied. Some begin to believe they themselves are also trees.”

“In some contact reports, surviving witnesses described seeing a forest, and they nestled around the mother tree as saplings.”

“At present, there is no effective way to resist the urge to stare. Even the strongest minds cannot control themselves to look away after Tree Angel descends. This influence is similar to that of Beauty God and Silent Sun.”

“The currently known most effective protective measures are self-blinding, deep hypnosis, and drinking Desert Court’s serpent venom wine in advance. The main idea is to forcibly block vision or suppress mental activity.”

“Tree Angel first appeared above the otherworld Silent City,” Song Cheng said. “It caused the entire otherworld to activate. Several investigation teams and scholar teams operating inside were almost completely wiped out. Only Contact Zero survived.”

He flipped another page. “Its last appearance was three years ago, above a distant alien planet—directly invading the real world. It stayed in the sky for only tens of minutes, but the consequences were terrifying. That planet was remote and underdeveloped, with no experience or ability to resist dark angels. Later statistics showed more than a hundred thousand people were affected, direct casualties exceeded ten thousand, and the rest still suffer to this day.”

Yu Sheng felt cold shock settle into his bones. When he’d faced the One-Eye in the valley, he hadn’t truly grasped what he was looking at. Now he did.

“That thing… can appear in the real world?!” Yu Sheng asked, disbelief slipping into his voice.

“Generally speaking, dark angels descend more often in otherworlds,” Song Cheng said, “but they can appear anywhere in reality. They aren’t limited by space-time dimensions. Their appearances and departures follow no pattern. They’re true free wanderers.”

Yu Sheng didn’t speak for a long time.

Beside him, Irene whispered, stunned, “…Holy crap.”

After a moment, Yu Sheng forced the question out. “Where do those things even come from?”

“No one knows,” Song Cheng sighed. “But one fairly accepted view now is that all dark angels come from beyond our world—that they’re intruders, attacking our universe.”