Chapter 114

Chapter 114: The First Angel

Yu Sheng knew there would be payment: whether he provided intelligence, helped with an operation, took on a project directly, or turned in an extraordinary item, the Special Affairs Bureau would pay Spirit Realm Detectives and Investigators according to a set scale, and that was one of the main and most reliable income sources for folk specialists like Little Red Riding Hood.

He just hadn’t expected the Special Affairs Bureau to send the money in person, and the fee was higher than he thought it would be. [He hadn’t expected them to bring cash straight to him.]

Clearly, the extra amount was tied to how dangerous the Angel Cultists were.

He remembered Little Red Riding Hood’s warning before she left, and he understood more deeply how the Special Affairs Bureau viewed those so called Angel Cultists.

After Yu Sheng took the envelope, Song Cheng gave a small nod and said casually: “Normally, your fee would be transferred to your account through the Border Communications platform, but since this is our first time working together, I thought a bit of ceremony would be better, and more importantly, I want to use this chance to talk with you about Dark Angels and the Angel Cult. Very few Spirit Realm Detectives and Investigators end up dealing with those crazed Angel Cultists on their very first action.”

Yu Sheng adjusted his posture and showed he was taking this seriously, saying: “I’ve seen the Angel in Night Valley before. To be honest, it was pretty different from what I imagined an Angel would be.”

In a low voice, Song Cheng said: “But you could feel how vast it was, like it was looking down from a higher plane, and you could sense the ‘holiness’ behind its bizarre shape, right?”

“Holiness…” Yu Sheng thought back to the giant eye in the sky. “If you mean that cold feeling beyond reason, then yes, a bit. That creepy thing was terrifying, but when it hung over the sky, it sometimes gave off a twisted kind of ‘sacred’ feeling.”

“‘Angel’ comes from that,” said Song Cheng with a nod. “The first Investigators to encounter Dark Angels wrote the first sighting report before they went mad. On the edge of delirium, the recorder described it like this:

‘It looked down, as if from a higher, detached place. Wild thoughts flooded my mind… it was a messenger, a herald of some greater, more towering power. I seemed to hear it speaking to me, sentences I could not understand, carrying a will beyond human comprehension… in the most extreme and pure thoughts, I saw a dim future; as all things fell silent, they rose into the sky…’”

Speaking in a slow, low tone, Song Cheng took a thick stack of documents from his briefcase, pulled out one page, and set 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.”

Curious, Yu Sheng picked up the photo and glanced at it. All he saw was a pure white hall, and in it stood a solitary, twisted “tree.”

The tree had taken root in a huge cultivation pool. All its roots and branches grew like hair, clumped, coiling and tangling. As a whole, it faintly formed the outline of a struggling, hunched human. From the dark crown hung strips of suspicious looking “vines.” After staring for a long time, Yu Sheng finally realized the hanging vines were grotesquely swollen blood vessels.

“He’s contained now in a high security ‘warehouse’ of the Special Affairs Bureau. We have to trim the new shoots from his crown every three days to prevent a sudden loss of control,” came Song Cheng’s voice. “He didn’t become like this all at once. The whole transformation took ten years. It was a truly terrifying process. During those ten years, Contact Zero sometimes woke from madness, then fell into frenzy again in overwhelming fear.”

Irene leaned in to look at the page in Yu Sheng’s hand. Hearing Song Cheng’s description, she shrank her neck and muttered: “This looks worse than death. If I were you, I’d just give him a clean end. This is torture.”

“Yes, so we did,” said Song Cheng calmly. “After Contact Zero woke for the last time and begged his wardens, we executed him. We’re certain we killed him, at least we freed his soul from pain, but his body survived even after severe damage. After careful discussion, the Special Affairs Bureau decided to keep the body as an important sample for studying an Angel’s influence.”

Frowning, Yu Sheng took a long moment before asking: “You turn into this just from one look? We also saw that giant eye back then. Why do we seem fine?”

“First, a short glimpse won’t leave irreversible effects, and Contact Zero was trapped right beside the First Angel. He was exposed for too long,” said Song Cheng slowly. “Second, each Dark Angel has its own ‘traits.’ Some cause powerful mental pollution, some show direct destructive force, and some even look harmless, at least their main bodies haven’t shown direct aggression. The giant eye you saw should be an inert type with weak offense.”

“There are a lot of Dark Angels?” Yu Sheng looked up.

“The number confirmed so far is already in the double digits,” said Song Cheng as he handed over another document. “This is the ‘First Angel.’ It’s the one Contact Zero witnessed, and it’s widely recognized as the first Dark Angel to invade our world.”

Even the Fox, who had been carefully grooming its tail to the side, edged closer to look at the materials with Yu Sheng and Irene.

“The First Angel is also called the ‘Tree Angel,’ or the ‘Inverted Hanging Tree,’” said Song Cheng, unhurried. “When it descends, it looks like a huge plant hanging upside down in the sky. Its crown is nearly a thousand meters across, and its height is about the same. It grows out of a vortex high in the sky. That vortex forms twenty four to seventy two hours before the Descent. This early sign is a key reference for identifying the Tree Angel and issuing warnings ahead of time.”

Yu Sheng stared at the photo of the vast inverted tree with a cityscape in the background. Below the image, he read a further description of this Dark Angel:

“…It does not move or attack on its own, but it continually releases strong mental interference. Witnesses will be unable to stop themselves from tilting their heads to gaze at its crown and will hear vast, chaotic voices until their minds are fully overtaken, even believing they themselves are ‘trees.’ In some contact reports, survivors said they saw a ‘forest,’ and that they huddled near a ‘mother tree’ like saplings…

There is currently no effective way to resist this ‘gaze impulse.’ Even the strongest minds cannot shift their eyes once the Tree Angel has descended. This influence is similar to that of the ‘Goddess of Beauty’ and the ‘Silent Sun’… The most effective protections now known are deliberate blinding, deep hypnosis, and drinking the Desert Court’s Serpent Venom Wine in advance. The main idea is to forcefully block vision or suppress mental activity…”

“The Tree Angel first appeared over the Otherworld’s Silent City,” said Song Cheng. “It activated the entire Otherworld site. Several investigation teams and scholar groups working inside were almost all wiped out. Only Contact Zero survived. Its last appearance was three years ago, above a distant alien planet, a direct invasion of the real world. Although it stayed in the sky only for dozens of minutes, the result was horrific. The planet was remote and underdeveloped, with no experience or ability to fight Dark Angels. Later counts showed over one hundred thousand people were affected, with more than ten thousand casualties. The rest are still suffering today.”

Yu Sheng felt a wave of shock. [Only now did it truly hit him how dangerous Dark Angels were.]

When he saw the giant single eye in that valley, he hadn’t felt it this strongly, but now, through real cases, he finally understood how dangerous Dark Angels were.

“These things… can show up in the real world?!” He looked up at Song Cheng with disbelief.

“In general, Dark Angels descend in the Otherworld more often, but in fact they can appear anywhere,” said Song Cheng with a nod. “They aren’t limited by space or time. Their arrivals and departures have no pattern. They are true free wanderers.”

Yu Sheng said nothing for a while. After a brief stunned pause, Irene couldn’t help murmuring: “…wow.”

“Where do they come from?” After thinking for a moment, Yu Sheng asked.

“No one knows,” sighed Song Cheng. “But a widely accepted idea now is that all Dark Angels come from outside our world. They’re invaders attacking our universe.”