There were four visitors in total, and the one leading the pack was draped in a black robe, looking for all the world like an evil “wizard” straight out of a medieval Western fantasy game. He gave off this deeply “mystical” vibe that was hard to miss.
“Captain Fang, so you are here.” The man walked up to Fang Mingyue and stopped, greeting her with a smile plastered on his face.
Fang Mingyue cast a cold, indifferent glance at him, her eyes brimming with impatience and disdain—as if she were looking at something utterly repulsive. “He Jingwen, this is the Exploration Corps’ dormitory. Your New God Cult has no right to be here. Take your mutts and get the hell out.”
The man called He Jingwen didn’t let his smile falter for even a second. He shook his head and said, “Captain Fang, I think you’ve misunderstood. First of all, I’m here on the orders of our Cult Leader. And the New God Cult received special approval from the Council half a year ago—during emergencies or special incidents, we’re permitted to move freely through any area of the shelter.”
“Secondly, I used to be a member of the Exploration Corps myself, and I still hold the title of captain—it’s never been revoked. So it’s only natural that I’d want to revisit old haunts, don’t you think?”
“Lastly…”
He Jingwen didn’t get to finish before Fang Mingyue cut him off impatiently. “Enough with the nonsense. Just tell me why you’re here, and don’t you dare try to peddle that pathetic excuse for a doctrine of yours.”
Before He Jingwen could respond, one of the young devotees behind him stepped forward and snapped, “I suggest you show some respect to the New God Cult! Even if you are a captain, if you keep running your mouth about us, we have plenty of ways to make you pay—ah!”
Before the devotee could finish, a sharp smack rang out. He Jingwen had whipped around and delivered a crisp slap across the young man’s face.
“Get lost. Who gave you the right to speak here?” He Jingwen’s expression darkened. The devotee, clutching his cheek, slunk away to the very back of the group.
He Jingwen’s scowl vanished as quickly as it had appeared, replaced once more by a genial smile as he turned back to Fang Mingyue. “Actually, our purpose here is quite simple. We’ve come for the ‘newcomer.'”
With that, he shifted his gaze toward Shen Ge, who had been standing by the door, watching the whole scene unfold like a spectator.
“?”
Shen Ge was new to this place and didn’t know a soul. He’d been quietly observing the exchange between Fang Mingyue and He Jingwen, hoping to pick up more intel about the shelter. He hadn’t expected the spotlight to suddenly swing his way.
Before Shen Ge could react, Fang Mingyue let out a cold snort. “He Jingwen, you’ve got quite the nose on you, don’t you? I just brought back a new recruit, and you come sniffing around like a bloodhound? The New God Cult may be useless at a lot of things, but I have to hand it to you—you sure know how to raise dogs. Too bad you’re too late. He’s already joined the Exploration Corps, so he won’t be going to your pathetic excuse for a cult.”
“Oh? Joined the Exploration Corps?” He Jingwen sized Shen Ge up with a scrutinizing gaze, and Shen Ge could clearly see the malicious intent flickering behind his eyes.
Fang Mingyue’s voice turned icy. “You can leave now.”
He Jingwen’s smile instantly evaporated—his mood shifting faster than flipping a page—and his face darkened. “Fang Mingyue, do you have any idea what the penalty is for bringing a Strange One into the shelter?”
“A Strange One? Ha! He Jingwen, is your New God Cult running out of tricks? Now you’re slinging mud just to poach new members?” Fang Mingyue had spent decades dealing with anomalies and Strange Ones, and she knew their traits inside and out. There was no way she believed that Shen Ge—someone she could tell with a single glance was human—could be a Strange One.
He Jingwen sneered and pulled out a brick-sized device that resembled a phone. He turned it on and played a video for Shen Ge to see. It showed him single-handedly prying open a metal door weighing several hundred pounds, and later, in the middle of a fight with a fifth-tier Strange One, stepping on empty air and launching himself skyward.
“This!” Fang Mingyue stared at Shen Ge’s superhuman feats on the screen, completely struck dumb.
Then, a voice rang out from right between her and He Jingwen: “Hey, not bad camera work—multiple angles too. Was that from a hidden camera or a stealthy scout?”
?
??
!!!
No one had seen Shen Ge move to stand between them. At that terrifying speed, if he’d wanted to kill them, he could have done so in an instant!
He Jingwen furrowed his brow and instinctively stepped back. The threats he’d prepared were swallowed by the sheer shock of Shen Ge’s speed, and he quickly forced a smile back onto his face. “We’ve stationed people around the shelter to make it easier for survivors to find us. Your abilities are extraordinary, sir—even if you’ve tapped into the power of Strange Ones, you’re still in full control of yourself. That’s exactly what the New God Cult strives for. Our Cult Leader is very interested in you. I’d kindly ask you to visit our headquarters—I can’t promise much, but I guarantee our living conditions are far superior to these dorms.”
“Excuse me, but were you a Sichuan opera performer in your past life? That face-changing act is pretty slick. Sorry, though—I’m not interested in New Gods or Old Gods. I follow a different path. The ballistic path.” Shen Ge said all this with a pleasant smile, but the biting sarcasm in his tone was impossible to miss.
“…”
He Jingwen hadn’t expected Shen Ge to be so blunt. But then again, he was an outsider who didn’t know the New God Cult’s influence, and his combat prowess was undeniable—even the captain of the Hunt Squad, with the most advanced gear in the entire Hunter Corps, couldn’t pull off the same aerial feats as Shen Ge. He Jingwen wasn’t about to burn bridges openly.
He was racking his brain for a plausible excuse to lure Shen Ge in when two more groups appeared at the stairwell: a full squad of City Defense troops and a handful of heavily armed members from the Hunter Corps.
Fang Mingyue glanced at the arrivals and instinctively moved closer to Shen Ge. She couldn’t explain why—even though He Jingwen had just presented evidence that Shen Ge was anything but ordinary—she still felt, deep down, that he was a good person. She had no idea where this strange intuition came from.
“Heh, what wind blew you here? Deputy Commander Tu of the Hunter Corps? Don’t tell me you’re here to recruit too?” He Jingwen’s tone dripped with sarcasm.
Shen Ge caught sight of the man leading the armed Hunter Corps unit and froze for a second, then blurted out, “Potato skin?”
“?”
The moment those words left his mouth, everyone on the scene fell silent in bewilderment. The Hunter Corps deputy commander in particular looked mildly surprised as he stared at Shen Ge. “You know me?”
After Fang Mingyue, Deng Yuqi, and Liu Jiayi, here was yet another familiar face—Tu Doupi. Shen Ge hadn’t expected to run into so many old acquaintances, and he couldn’t help but think to himself, Small world.
Shen Ge ventured tentatively, “Do you have someone here named Yang Yuxin? Or Lin Yin, Luo Chenguang, Li Xiang?”
“You know Lin Yin?” Fang Mingyue asked in surprise.
“And you know Luo Chenguang too?” He Jingwen’s expression froze for the first time, and that phony smile and sullen look both vanished.
The video footage He Jingwen had brought was extremely damaging to Shen Ge—after all, while humanity was still stuck in its ordinary phase, this “superman” who could scale walls and walk on air practically screamed “Strange One.” In a shelter built to fight against the apocalypse and anomalies, that was a massive red flag.
So Shen Ge decided to take a gamble—a big one. He’d make waves using the New God Cult as his angle, and see if he could help out his old friends before he left.
Truth be told, Shen Ge wasn’t at all surprised that a “New God Cult” had emerged during the apocalypse. Throughout history, whenever humanity faced doomsday, people needed this kind of “spiritual sustenance” to keep them going.
Unfortunately, most of these organizations started out with good intentions. But as their power grew, their leaders gradually lost themselves in it, consumed by greed and desire until they transformed into something more like “evil gods.”
But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that Shen Ge planned to use the cult as a vehicle. Best-case scenario, he’d replace it. Worst-case, he’d destroy it before leaving and lighten the load for his old acquaintances.
And “replacing” the New God Cult wouldn’t be hard. The simplest approach was to be even more persuasive and even more “mystical” than they were.
Shen Ge couldn’t guarantee much, but when it came to a cult that “worshipped” a seventh-tier anomaly, he knew at least a dozen ways to dethrone their leader.
After all, he was a bona fide Primordial Anomaly—even if only “half” of one—and he carried real Primordial Anomaly cells!
Shen Ge swept his gaze across the room and smiled faintly. “I know a lot of things, but… heaven’s secrets must not be revealed. How about you all call a meeting first, decide what to do with me, and then we’ll talk?”
At that, the young devotee who’d been slapped earlier suddenly jumped in and shouted, “He’s a Strange One! He’s never been to the shelter before, yet he knows all these names—he must be a Strange One who’s been lying in wait for a long time!”
“Do you people just accuse anyone of being a Strange One without any evidence? Don’t you have any detection equipment?” Shen Ge asked calmly as he looked at the others, clearly unfazed by the devotee’s outburst.
Tu Doupi stepped forward and said, “That’s actually why we’re here. The New God Cult reported to the Council that the Exploration Corps had taken in a Strange One, and we rushed over as soon as we got the word. Sir, I don’t know how you know our former captain’s name, but I need you to cooperate with us for an examination. Otherwise… I’ll have no choice but to take coercive measures. Bring the device over—let’s get him tested.”
The moment he finished speaking, the team behind Tu Doupi, along with the City Defense troops, wheeled over a strange-looking machine and gestured for Shen Ge to step onto it.
Shen Ge had expected something more futuristic—like a way to identify anomalies and Strange Ones, or at least a test for aberrant energy. But instead, they pulled out the oldest model of aberrant-energy detector.
Not that it mattered. His condition wouldn’t register on the thing anyway. In fact, he almost hoped they’d detect something abnormal so he could better leverage his identity as an anomaly.
Clearly, no one had expected Shen Ge to be so cooperative. And what truly floored them was that every single test result confirmed that Shen Ge was just an “ordinary human.”
An ordinary human who could casually wrench open a half-ton steel door?
Who could step on thin air and fly?
Even in martial arts novels, the lightest of light-footwork at least required kicking off one foot against the other—but this guy practically walked on air itself, making everyone question for the first time what “ordinary” even meant.
Tu Doupi had watched Shen Ge’s video before coming. He’d braced himself for a tough fight—hence the full gear and the highest combat power currently in the shelter. But now, the results left him utterly baffled.
“If you’re not a Strange One, then how did you—” Tu Doupi couldn’t even bring himself to finish the words “scale walls and walk on air.”
He Jingwen, on the other hand, saw an opportunity. If Shen Ge were a Strange One, the New God Cult would have to do some heavy PR work to spin it. But now that he was just an “ordinary person,” it actually made him easier to exploit—though clearly, Shen Ge wasn’t going to be an easy mark. That left He Jingwen in a bit of a bind.
Fang Mingyue was about to say something when suddenly, red warning lights flashed across the shelter. There was no siren, but the lights made it clear that an emergency was unfolding.
“Oh no, something’s happened at Defense Line 3!” Fang Mingyue exclaimed.
The shelter was meticulously divided into zones for easy management and evacuation during crises. And to avoid drawing attention from outside anomalies and Strange Ones with noise, they used warning lights instead of alarms. Fang Mingyue and the others knew immediately what was going on.
He Jingwen’s expression shifted. Defense Line 3 was the closest to the New God Cult’s headquarters. Without another word, he turned and led his people away.
“City Defense, follow me!” Tu Doupi reacted just as swiftly, rallying his troops and the Hunter Corps as they headed toward Defense Line 3.
Fang Mingyue turned to Shen Ge and said, “Defense Line 3 is the area we searched today. I suspect the anomaly that devoured the Strange One has entered a new phase of mutation. During this stage, anomalies usually become extremely aggressive and highly destructive. We need to find a way to lure it away.”
“How can I help?” Shen Ge asked directly.
Fang Mingyue didn’t tell him to stay put in the dorms. Instead, she laid out the situation—clearly recognizing his strength and hoping he’d lend a hand.
Setting aside the question of unity in a crisis, the best way to figure out whether Shen Ge was an ally or a spy was to see how much effort he put into fighting the anomaly. This was the perfect chance.
“Let’s regroup with the captain first. Even though Defense Line 3 is under the New God Cult’s jurisdiction, the Exploration Corps is usually in charge of evacuating civilians during emergencies.” With that, Fang Mingyue headed for the stairwell.
Shen Ge followed her up a few floors until they reached the hidden passage with the water filtration system. They crossed through another secret corridor and emerged into an underground residential area.
As Fang Mingyue had said, while this zone belonged to the New God Cult, the Exploration Corps was still the one responsible for protection and evacuation in times of crisis.
And though Defense Line 3 was still nearly a kilometer away from the cult’s district, if the line fell, that kilometer would feel like mere meters to a colossal anomaly. To evacuate safely, preparations had to begin early.
At that moment, inside the New God Cult’s residential quarters, Deng Yuqi was directing Exploration Corps soldiers to help cult members move supplies to Sector 2.
“Captain.” Fang Mingyue hurried over to help.
Deng Yuqi looked up and was somewhat surprised to see Shen Ge with her. She hadn’t watched his video yet and had no idea about his “superhuman” abilities. To her, he was just another rookie—and rookies weren’t usually brought along in situations like this.
But Deng Yuqi trusted Fang Mingyue’s judgment. After all, she was a veteran of the corps.
“Defense Line 3 isn’t looking good. That aberrant rat mutated so fast after devouring the Strange One that our original plan to lure it away became useless. Its current path isn’t heading straight for the shelter, but the signs of mutation have awakened other anomalies nearby. We had no choice but to start making preparations ahead of time.”
