Just as she was about to signal the other passengers to move into the cockpit, she looked through the open door. What she saw inside froze her in place: the pilot seats were empty, with only clothing fused into the “white wax” remaining.
The cockpit was filled with even more “white wax” than first class. It was everywhere—on the seats, the control panels—covered in a thick layer over a foot deep!
The pilots had been killed by the parasitic anomaly at some unknown time. If the flight path hadn’t been pre-programmed, the plane would have crashed long ago.
“How could this…” The calm female passenger stared at the scene in the cockpit, terror flooding her heart, leaving her momentarily flustered.
The others, seeing the horrifying sight in the cockpit, also turned deathly pale, unsure what to do next.
Their original plan had been to enter the cockpit, use its reinforced door to block the parasitic anomalies, and demand the pilot make an emergency landing to escape the plane.
Now, with both the pilot and co-pilot dead, even if they didn’t perish at the hands of the parasitic anomalies, they seemed doomed to the plane’s eventual crash.
A wave of despair washed over them. Two passengers and a flight attendant felt their legs give way, collapsing onto their seats.
By now, the “white wax” in first class had spread to under the seat cushions. One passenger accidentally touched a bit of the “wax.” Instantly, wriggling white worms burrowed into their body. The parasitic anomaly’s energy writhed within them, causing excruciating pain. Their screams attracted more worms, which quickly consumed them entirely.
Witnessing this, those who had been crying quickly shut their mouths. Though despairing, when faced with immediate death versus a slightly delayed death, they would unhesitatingly choose the latter.
Outside, the gunfire was getting closer. As a member of Japan’s Anomaly Response Forces, Kaede Hananako had experienced dozens of anomalous events, big and small. She spent every year either responding to incidents or on the way to one. Therefore, a small cabin outbreak of the parasitized wasn’t beyond her ability to manage with the sky marshals to evacuate survivors.
Of course, the biggest “credit” for evacuating one-third of the economy cabin passengers into business class still went to Shen Ge. Without his bag of anti-anomaly firearms, Kaede Hananako and the sky marshals couldn’t have held back the parasitized.
Business class, spacious for a few, was now overcrowded with dozens of people, making movement nearly impossible.
The business class passengers had also noticed the gunfire and even seen the first-class door shut, with occasional screams coming from within. But before they could ask the flight attendants what was happening, economy class passengers surged in, instantly packing business class to the brim.
Economy passengers were still squeezing in, leading to trampling and casualties. But faced with the mutated parasitized in economy, they preferred being trampled to becoming anomaly “nutrients.”
Kaede Hananako remained relatively calm, directing the four remaining sky marshals to guard the two aisles, blocking the advancing parasitized. The bodies of the deceased and the killed parasitized, piled together, formed a makeshift defensive wall, barely slowing the monsters.
Just as their ammunition was about to run out, the last parasitized was finally killed. Kaede Hananako, Li Jianjun, and the others breathed a sigh of relief. With the monsters dealt with, the next task was calming the panicked passengers to prevent further casualties in business class.
“Quiet!” Kaede Hananako fired a shot into a corpse at her feet with her pistol.
“If you keep crowding like this, you’ll die from trampling even if the monsters don’t get you!” Li Jianjun shouted.
Under the combination of verbal reassurance and the threat of weapons, the passengers gradually quieted down. Kaede Hananako had them help move the bodies in the cabin, piling them all up in front of the blackened area at the rear.
Several of the peculiar individuals who had originally been there to watch Shen Ge were the first to step forward and help. They had also been crucial in fighting the parasitized earlier.
As Shen Ge had suspected, there were at least a dozen peculiar individuals on the plane, likely from different peculiar organizations or anti-anomaly groups. Their target was Shen Ge, though whether they were friend or foe remained unknown.
Including the peculiar individuals and sky marshals, there were now less than thirty survivors in business and economy class. The sudden incident had caused over fifty to sixty casualties.
But less than a third were willing to help now. First, due to fear of anomalies; second, worried that contact with the parasite-infected victims might turn them into monsters too.
Fortunately, space on the plane was limited, so they didn’t need everyone’s help. Kaede Hananako made a mental note of those who helped. If danger struck again, she would prioritize evacuating them.
Under Li Jianjun and Kaede Hananako’s direction, a defensive line was successfully established using corpses in front of the blackened space at the rear.
But they soon discovered the business-class-to-first-class door was locked. Just as Kaede Hananako was figuring out how to open it, Li Jianjun noticed a passenger in the last row of business class looked off. From the side profile, it appeared to be a middle-aged man in his forties or fifties. He sat with his head bowed, hands on the armrests, as if asleep.
The spaces around his seat, front, back, and sides, were packed with people. A few were arguing heatedly about what to do in the current situation.
Leaving aside whether arguing might provoke the “sleeping” man, the fact that anyone could sleep in such a tense, terrifying environment was clearly problematic.
As one arguing passenger moved forward to speak with a flight attendant about contacting the pilot for an emergency landing, Li Jianjun got a clear view of the middle-aged man’s hands on the armrests.
A white, viscous substance was dripping from his fingertips. Looking closer, it seemed as if his hands were melting.
Li Jianjun didn’t know what had happened in first class. This was his first time seeing someone beginning to “waxify,” but he quickly sensed something was wrong.
“Everyone, get away from there!” Li Jianjun shouted, pointing at the seat.
Passengers near the middle-aged man reacted. Some immediately squeezed away; others curiously looked back.
The passenger closest to the middle-aged man was jostled by someone moving aside, stumbled, and fell right onto him.
Immediately, this person felt something wrong. A chilling sensation spread from their back where it contacted the middle-aged man’s body.
Instinctively, they reached back and felt something sticky. Bringing their hand to their face, they saw it was covered in a “white wax” substance.
Before they could examine it, a piercing pain shot through their palm. As red blood welled up, something seemed to wriggle within the “wax,” instantly burrowing into their body.
“Ah—!”
“Help me! Help me! Something’s inside me!” the person screamed in terror.
But that eerie “burrowing” sensation had already traveled from their palm to their arm, then to their abdomen, as if dozens, hundreds of worms were wriggling inside them.
“Guh—”
They had only screamed twice when they felt a foreign object in their throat, a sickening feeling like being unable to vomit after a hangover.
Those around retreated in horror. Some, disregarding the numerous parasitized corpses still in economy class, just wanted to escape business class.
Because right before their eyes, a “living person” turned into a melting “wax figure” in the blink of an eye. Even more terrifying, as the white wax on the floor multiplied, more and more people were affected, turning to wax.
But even greater despair awaited them. At least the parasitized in economy could be killed with firearms. But this “white wax” clung to the floor, seats, cabin walls. Though many worms wriggled within, a volley of bullets had no effect.
This despair was greater than the earlier anomaly attack in economy. Seeing the situation spiraling out of control, Kaede Hananako smashed open the first-class door with her gun. But as it opened, they weren’t greeted by a spacious cabin, but one covered in half a meter of “white wax,” with passengers and flight attendants trembling on top of seatbacks.
Seeing this, Kaede Hananako immediately shouted to Li Jianjun and the others, “Don’t touch the ‘white wax’! There are parasitic anomalies inside!”
Everyone scrambled to climb onto high points like seatbacks, but space was clearly insufficient. Many were pushed to the floor and instantly engulfed by the “white wax.”
At that moment, Kaede Hananako noticed the blackened space in economy class seemed to be receding. Faintly, crack-like patterns, similar to shattered glass, appeared in the air.
Was the anomaly space collapsing?
Had that person… found the anomaly’s weakness?
“Hold on, everyone! The Anomaly Investigator is about to succeed. Once he destroys the anomaly space, we can evacuate to the rear section!” Kaede Hananako shouted.
But few were listening now, all scrambling for space and position. Only Li Jianjun and others who knew of Shen Ge’s presence found some small comfort.
And Shen Ge had indeed found a way to deal with the anomaly space—the most common and effective method: eliminate the anomaly sustaining the space.
When he descended to the lower cargo hold, Shen Ge realized he had thought of this incident too “simply.” He initially thought it was a peculiar organization keeping tabs on him, then had the “misfortune” of encountering the peculiar individuals pursued by Liu Jiayi, accidentally leading to this disaster.
But that wasn’t the case. This appeared to be a long-planned conspiracy. The batch of anomaly octopuses transported by Du Mingwu’s company wasn’t meant to create an anomaly event but to serve as “nutrients.”
As for whose “nutrients,” Shen Ge only understood after using “Collapse” to reach the lowest level of the cargo hold, arriving in this area reminiscent of a monster’s belly.
Because the “environment” before him was all too familiar. Since Liu Zongrui became a peculiar individual and, using an anomaly’s “Fusion Anomaly Energy,” merged with a villa to form an anomalous space, Shen Ge had seen similar “anomaly space” areas in Japan and Korea.
In other words, the mastermind behind this incident was a peculiar individual who had “fused” with the plane. At this moment, Shen Ge and all the passengers were inside its “belly.”
The lower level was now the most severely “mutated” area. The machinery controlling the plane had completely transformed into “internal organs.”
What he initially thought would be solved by killing a specific anomaly or peculiar individual had now become much more complicated.
Destroying the anomaly meant destroying the plane. Besides Shen Ge, everyone else would inevitably perish.
But they couldn’t delay either. Shen Ge didn’t know if the peculiar organization’s plan for this anomalous plane was to turn it into an anomaly and have it crash in the capital, triggering another anomaly disaster, or simply to find a way to eliminate Shen Ge.
Whatever the reason, allowing the anomalous plane to continue mutating was not a wise choice.
Shen Ge immediately connected to Deng Yuqi via satellite phone, quickly reporting his findings. “The peculiar organization has gone all out this time. This anomalous plane likely involves fusion with at least a Tier 4, possibly Tier 5, peculiar individual. They also used abilities to evade anomaly energy detection, which is why Little Seven couldn’t detect the plane’s anomaly energy before I boarded.”
“Right now, no matter how I deal with the anomaly, the passengers on this plane are lost. And if the plane crashes in the capital, it could trigger a full-blown anomaly disaster.”
“The peculiar organization has set up such an elaborate stage, even using moles hidden at headquarters to get this flight directly to the capital under a plausible pretext. Killing me alone probably isn’t their sole goal.”
“Creating a second major anomaly disaster in the capital is likely their ultimate objective!”
Shen Ge’s reasoning was simple: the entire mutated anomalous plane, the pervasive parasitic anomalies, the parasitized passengers…
Put simply, this flight was like a Flight of the Living Dead scenario. If it crashed in a city, the parasitic anomalies would scatter, causing city-wide mutation!
“Phew.”
Deng Yuqi let out a long breath over the comms. She understood the immense pressure Shen Ge was under. This was clearly a trap set by the peculiar organization.
“Proceed in the way you deem most appropriate. Whatever decision you make, I will take full responsibility as if it were my order,” Deng Yuqi said solemnly.
“Understood.” That was the reassurance Shen Ge needed. But he had another suspicion he hadn’t shared with Deng Yuqi.
This plan by the peculiar organization was too “meticulous,” to the point of orchestrating multiple coincidences to cause this disaster.
Most importantly, the timing coincided perfectly with his return from the dream world, his discovery of the Peculiar Association’s existence, and his decision to investigate headquarters…
Did this mean his every move was under the “Peculiar Association’s” surveillance? Could someone very close to him be their informant?
“Could it be… they want to use a capital anomaly disaster to destroy something?” Shen Ge thought of the first major capital anomaly disaster. Perhaps the peculiar organization’s goal wasn’t to steal something from headquarters but to destroy something there that might expose their identities?
But during that first disaster, they clearly hadn’t anticipated Shen Ge’s ability to ignore terrain, allowing him to retrieve things like the Primordial Anomaly from such an environment!
His recent “exposure” in the dream world, leading to his decision to go to headquarters, might have alerted the lurking “Peculiar Association” members to the danger, prompting them to risk triggering a second disaster?
Regardless, Shen Ge could not let the anomalous plane crash in the capital. With this thought, he immediately expanded his “Non-Ignition Anomaly Domain,” beginning to destroy the anomalous plane’s “internal organs.”
