Chapter 115

Chapter 115: The Indescribable Intruder

To be honest, even before he heard those three words, Yu Sheng’s heart was already in chaos. Ever since he’d learned that Dark Angels could appear in the real world—and ever since he’d heard Song Cheng mention “another planet”—he’d realized those twisted beings called “angels” might be far stranger and far stronger than he’d ever imagined.

What he hadn’t expected was this: they might be intruders from outside the world.

He’d always assumed it was like the entity in Otherworld—some bizarre phenomenon that belonged to this world, at worst a more dangerous “super entity.”

“No wonder Little Red Riding Hood told me to stay away from Dark Angels as much as possible,” Yu Sheng muttered.

Song Cheng heard him but didn’t respond. He only placed more documents on the coffee table. “I brought a few more files, but not all of them. Some Dark Angels have a trait where knowing their name causes a ‘leak,’ so they can only be mentioned and studied inside the Special Operations Bureau’s safe house. Others are taboo for different reasons, and even I don’t have clearance. But you can look at these. Just reading them isn’t dangerous.”

Yu Sheng didn’t reach for the documents right away like before. Instead, he tossed out a question, curious. “Why are you putting so much effort into me?”

He glanced at Song Cheng. “I’m guessing you don’t pull out files at this level for other spirit realm detectives—even if they’ve already run into Dark Angels.”

Song Cheng thought for a moment. “Because we suspect you have the ability to drive away an ‘angel.’”

Yu Sheng had sensed that might be part of the reason, but not all of it. He didn’t press. He only said seriously, “Back then in Nightfall Valley, that Big Eyes wasn’t driven off by me. It left on its own.”

“But it left after it saw you,” Song Cheng said, sounding a little helpless. “There were other people there, but you were the most unusual one.”

He paused, then added, “I know that isn’t very convincing. But the truth is, we’re completely stuck when it comes to Dark Angels.”

“No one can sum up their weaknesses or patterns. No one can communicate with them. Even now, across the entire world—inside or outside the Borderland—there are only a handful of cases where a descended ‘angel’ was successfully driven out, and none of them explain the others.”

“Every time an ‘angel’ leaves, it feels like it just got bored and walked away. So all we can do is gamble. Maybe that eye leaving had nothing to do with you, but… what if it did?”

Song Cheng paused again, then said, “That’s also Director Bai Li Qing’s judgment. Without her approval, I couldn’t have brought you these documents.”

“Bai Li Qing?” Yu Sheng raised an eyebrow, and his gaze finally fell on the new files.

He didn’t read carefully. He just skimmed.

“It really is… all kinds of weird,” Yu Sheng said with a sigh as he looked at the bizarre images—so strange they were almost abstract chaos—and the notes beneath them. “Shadowspawn, a ball of fire, a huge silent cube flying through the night sky… and what’s with this one? A sphere?”

“It’s about four thousand kilometers in diameter.”

Yu Sheng went blank. “…What?”

“You heard me. ‘Heka Star.’ Named after its first discoverer—and the casualty.” Song Cheng’s voice was steady. “About four thousand kilometers across. It’s the largest Dark Angel we’ve confirmed in physical size so far.”

“Its surface is neatly covered in countless hexagonal honeycomb structures, like a lattice. There are intense signs of life inside it. It suddenly barges into star systems where life exists and keeps broadcasting strange radio signals from a safe distance.”

“There’s no direct proof, but we believe the broadcasts from Heka Star can gradually drive intelligent beings into madness. A lot of infamous wars and terrifying coups may have been connected to Heka Star drawing near.”

Yu Sheng set the file down and stared at Song Cheng. “You want me to fight that thing? Are you serious?”

“No, no, of course not,” Song Cheng said quickly, waving his hands. “Something on that scale isn’t something you can ‘fight.’ We just hope you can learn more about Dark Angels—in case you need it someday. That’s all.”

Yu Sheng curled his lip and moved on. “Fine. Tell me something else. Do you know anything more about these ‘angels’?”

“About their influence,” Song Cheng said solemnly. “Dark Angels come in every shape and form, and their traits differ. But almost all of them share one thing in common: their connection to Otherworld, and the impact they have on it.”

“Like I said, Dark Angels can appear in the real world, but relatively speaking, they descend more often in Otherworld. Under their influence, an Otherworld that’s been ‘parasitized’ becomes activated. Entities grow more dangerous and violent. Even the operating rules of the entire Otherworld change—its depth can shift.”

“You remember what happened in Nightfall Valley, right?”

“How could I forget?” Yu Sheng spread his hands. “A hunger entity that was supposed to generate only one at a time suddenly turned into mountains of them. And in the end, the entire valley became a huge ‘entity.’ Lucky for us, we had decent luck.”

“Most people who fall into Otherworld don’t have that luck,” Song Cheng said grimly. “So very few people who encounter Dark Angels survive. Even if the ‘angel’ itself doesn’t attack them, they can still die from the catastrophic environmental changes caused by a descent—killed by entities or by Otherworld’s rules.”

“We’ve been studying patterns. As for why they appear in Otherworld far more often than in the real world, some scholars speculate it’s because something in Otherworld is attracting them, or…”

“Or?” Yu Sheng pressed.

“Or because Otherworld itself is a kind of weak structure in space-time within our world,” Song Cheng said, voice low. “In Otherworld, the force of order is faint. That gives these ‘angels’ a chance to slip in.”

“I said earlier that Dark Angels are intruders from outside the world. They drill holes into our world. And to them, Otherworld may be a kind of… natural hole.”

Irene, who’d been quiet for a long time, finally spoke up. “Then talk about those angel cultists.”

“Why would a bunch of lunatics willingly follow these creepy ‘angels’? They can’t communicate. They shouldn’t even respond to a believer’s prayers, right?”

“We’ve caught many angel cultists,” Song Cheng said, his expression darkening. “You might not believe it, but they’re spread far more widely than you think. Not just in the Borderland—basically anywhere Dark Angels have descended, you’ll find these frenzied people influenced by them.”

“Some of them fell step by step because they were obsessed with power and occult knowledge. But the most core, most fanatical group insists they were ‘guided.’”

“Guided?” Yu Sheng lifted a hand and pointed at the files. “By who? By these abstract angels? Aren’t they impossible to communicate with?”

“They’re impossible to communicate with,” Song Cheng agreed. “But the cultists insist they can truly hear the Dark Angel’s voice—and not as meaningless, frantic noise, but as real ‘guidance’ and ‘teaching.’”

“I interrogated some of the hardliners. Most of them described the voice like this: gentle, tolerant, full of love and compassion.”

“Those voices showed them the end of everything in the universe, yet firmly encouraged them—telling them how to search for a way out, and how to stand with an ‘angel’ and work side by side to seek salvation.”

Song Cheng paused, choosing his words. “By analyzing their mental states and using hypnotic suggestion, we can roughly reconstruct how Dark Angels influence them. This ‘guidance’ seems extremely immersive.”

“Vast, continuous hallucinations drag the mind into a nonhuman perspective. The person lives through long ages from that point of view. An ordinary mind can’t withstand it. When it ends, they’re completely transformed. They still look human, but their mind has long since become something nonhuman.”

“That’s what confuses scholars the most,” Song Cheng continued. “Dark Angels are wildly different—abilities, appearance, everything. They don’t look like the same species at all. Yet those cultists, no matter which Dark Angel they follow, hear guidance that seems almost the same.”

“It always includes a dim apocalypse and a path to salvation, and many details are highly consistent. That forces us to reexamine two questions: Do Dark Angels have intelligence? And are Dark Angels actually one unified kind?”

“Sounds like that kind of research is pretty dangerous,” Yu Sheng said.

“Yes,” Song Cheng replied. “Dangerous.”

“The hardest part is that you can’t study Dark Angels too deeply. If you only understand them on the surface, you can’t solve their secrets. But if you learn too much, you’ll be influenced without realizing it.”

“Even when interacting with cultists, you might accidentally ‘see’ the guidance inside their minds.”

He exhaled. “A lot of scholars who once fought against an angel were quietly transformed into new angel cultists that way.”